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Does visual perceptual testing correlate with caregiver and teacher reported functional visual skill difficulties in school-aged children? Considerations for practice
|
[
"Visual perception",
"Standardised testing",
"Children’s occupational therapy"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Occupational therapists recognise themselves as having unique skills in the area of visual perceptual assessment and intervention with children (Howard, 2002). It is therefore important that therapists practise from a sound theoretical base and use assessment tools that are fit for purpose (Rodger et al., 2005). To this end, therapists need to understand the entire visual system in relation to function, as well as the role of visual perception within this system, to be able to effectively address visual perceptual difficulties in children (Schneck, 2010, p. 349). Furthermore, occupational therapists need to be equipped to conduct a thorough assessment, so that they can link the child's occupational performance deficits to the correct foundational factors.\nLiterature review: For the purposes of this paper, the entire visual system refers to the eye, the neural pathways to the brain and the visual cortex of the brain. Scheiman (2011) outlines three key components related to the visual system:\nMethod: The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between standardised visual perceptual assessment results and the reported functional difficulties being experienced by children referred for occupational therapy using an occupational performance perspective. For the purpose of this study, reported functional difficulties refers to difficulties with the mastery of daily life activities that are typically associated with visual and visual perceptual skills (Lambert, 2011; Schneck, 2005). This research asked the following questions:\nResults: Difference in the results of the Children's Visual Behaviour Checklist between the typically developing sample and the clinical sample\nDiscussion: The results of the above study confirm what was identified in other studies: that there is very little evidence of a link between functional performance and the results of the TVPS (Brown et al., 2003; Richmond and Holland, 2010). When analysing the relationship between the CVBC and the TVPS-3, there was a tenuous relationship at best between the results of the TVPS-3 and the functional difficulties being experienced by the children referred to CPOT. Over half of the clinical sample who had been identified by the CVBC as having significant difficulty with functional visual skills was not identified by the TVPS-3 as having a significant degree of difficulty with visual perception. When test validity is taken into consideration, therapists would expect to use tools such as the TVPS-3 to identify which children in a clinical sample are more likely to have poor functional visual perception, and then relate this information to providing guidance or planning support. However, as test validity has been shown to be the most criticised aspect of the TVPS (Brown and Gabury, 2006; Chan and Chow, 2005; Cote, 2011), therapists need to be cautious when interpreting the results. Although the CVBC is not purported to be a replacement for tests such as the TVPS, it has the potential to be valuable as part of a holistic assessment process to gain important insight into the nature and extent of the functional visual skill difficulties being experienced by children. Further development of the checklist to improve its reliability and validity is required; however, the preliminary findings, particularly how effective the checklist is at discriminating between the typically developing population and the clinical group are promising.\nImplications: Visual perception has been identified as an area that does impact on function (Klein et al., 2011; Schneck, 2010), and one that occupational therapists identify with as a unique area of practice (Howard, 2002). However, information from the literature suggests that a significant change in practice is necessary. This is in line with the general trend in occupational therapy towards a more occupation focused approach (Case-Smith, 2015, p. 22; Diamantis, 2006). Indeed the emphasis on addressing occupational performance skills is now highlighted in both standardised and non-standardised assessments (Diamantis, 2006; Payne, 2002). Occupational therapists need an improved understanding of visual perception and the entire visual system in the context of developmental and acquisitional theories (Schneck, 2010, p. 352). The assessment process for visual perception has to be married into the entire assessment process for the child, where the use of any specific standardised assessments is used with caution as advised in the literature. Consideration must also be given to the time it takes and the associated cost of delivering the TVPS or similar assessments as part of the assessment process. As with any area of assessment, thorough information gathering and triangulation of information from multiple sources are essential, and with further development, the CVBC could be a useful occupation focused tool in this regard. Careful clinical observations of the child carrying out relevant activities of daily living have been highlighted as essential in the assessment process (Schneck, 2005, p. 429). The importance of and reasons for the use of standardised assessments have been highlighted earlier in this paper. If occupational therapists are compelled to use standardised measures for the reasons stated, there are several alternatives that may be more fit for purpose and more in line with occupational therapy models of practice than the traditionally used visual perceptual assessments. Guided by frameworks such as the International Classification of Functioning (World Health Organisation, 2002), functional tools such as the School AMPS (Fisher et al., 2007), the Miller Function and Participation Scale (M-Fun) (Miller, 2006) and the Goal-Oriented Assessment of Lifeskills (GOAL) (Miller et al., 2013) could be considered. Both the M-Fun and GOAL assessment manuals highlight the importance of the visual system for function and discuss the neurological foundations of visual perception and visual motor integration with reference to the test items, and much information can be gleaned from the qualitative observations carried out during their administration. Therapists need to be able to answer the 'what' question pertaining to the functional difficulties and the 'why' question pertaining to the foundational factors to plan successful interventions.\nLimitations: Limitations of this study include the fact that the convenience sample recruited was limited to one local area known to the researcher and was drawn from a predominantly rural population. The results may therefore not be generalisable to the wider population. Also, there is an assumption that the CVBC is measuring predominantly visual skills, and although every effort was made to ensure this, there may be other reasons for any of the observed difficulties. Another potential limitation is the possibility of dual bias in the CVBC, where the respondents for the clinical sample may over-report because of a heightened awareness of their child's difficulties, and the respondents for the typically developing sample may under-report. A further limitation of this study is that the sample size may have been too small to detect an effect, and that future research should replicate this study with a larger sample size.\nConclusion: This paper highlights that there is a weak, if any, meaningful relationship between the overall results of the TVPS and difficulties in functional daily living skills, as demonstrated in the literature reviewed and by the results of this study. There is also a lack of evidence to support that the TVPS measures seven discrete areas of visual perception that relate to functional difficulties, and results remain inconclusive on the contribution of the subtests in analysing actual functional visual perceptual difficulties. A lack of consistency between assessment tools used and theory and practice models referred to in occupational therapy is therefore worthy of note.\n",
"role": "user"
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"content": "Purpose: As occupational therapists embrace evidence-informed and occupation-centred practice, the use of standardised visual perceptual tests remains a strong feature of typical paediatric practice. Yet, the research evidence for the use of such tools is inconclusive at best. This study compared the results of the Test of Visual Perceptual Skills (TVPS) with a checklist of reported functional difficulties in 30 children attending occupational therapy. The purpose of this paper was to determine the usefulness of visual perceptual testing in relation to occupation-centred practice.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A descriptive correlational study design was used. Participants were 30 primary school-age children who were on a paediatric occupational therapy caseload. An additional 30 typically developing children participated in the development of the checklist.\nFindings: Correlations were found between reported functional visual skill difficulties and two subtests of the TVPS (visual memory and visual discrimination). No correlation was found between the reported functional difficulties and any of the other five subtests of the TVPS or the total score.\nOriginality/value: Results highlight the weak relationship that existed in this study between standardised measures of visual perception, as measured by the TVPS, and functional difficulties. Therapists are cautioned to explore both the evidence base for continued use of standardised visual perceptual measures to inform occupation-centred practice and the need to embrace a more comprehensive person-centred approach to visual perceptual assessment.\n",
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Traces of equality policy and diversity management in Finnish work organizations
|
[
"Diversity management",
"Diversity",
"Equality",
"Equality policy",
"Inequality regimes"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Finland has practiced an active equality policy for decades. Until recently, Finnish equality policy has focused on gender equality, especially in the working life. However, after the so-called \"turn to diversity\" in 2000 (Siim, 2013, p. 624) previous gender-only policy regimes have been extended throughout EU countries, including Finland. Since this turn, diversity has gained a foothold (although not a very firm one) in Finnish equality policy as well as in Finnish work organizations (Borchorst et al., 2012; Ylostalo, 2012).\nEquality policy and diversity management: Although Finland takes pride in being one of the most gender-equal countries in the world (European Institute for Gender Equality, 2015; World Economic Forum, 2013), its gender equality policy has been rather more reactive than proactive and international pressure has been pivotal to Finnish equality policy and legislation (Borchorst et al., 2012). The Act on Equality between Women and Men (609/1986) was enacted in 1987, as a result of the ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). No grounds other than gender had explicit legal protection before the EU directives were transposed after 2000. Since then, Finland and other EU states have increasingly attempted to engage at conceptual and policy level with the fact that gender discrimination and inequality are shaped in fundamental ways by different inequality axes: by race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, disability, and others (Krizsan et al., 2012, pp. 2-4). In Finland, the Non-discrimination Act (1325/2014) was enacted in 2004. It outlaws discrimination on the basis of age, ethnic or national origin, nationality, language, religion, belief, opinion, health, disability, sexual orientation, or other personal characteristics.\nData and method: studying gender, race, and class inequalities in organizations: All organizations are permeated by gender, race, and class. They are embedded in social structures and organizational practices; in hierarchical structures, jobs, divisions of labor, processes such as hiring and wage setting, in images of workers and managers, in interactions in the workplace, in work/family interconnections, and in individual constructions of identity. \"Embeddedness\" implies that processes of constructing organizations and jobs are shaped by gendered and racialized logic that is hidden behind neutral discourse. Organizational hierarchies and processes that recreate gender and race in organizations are also integral elements in class systems (Acker, 2011, pp. 67-70). These practices and structures are in constant flux, and they tend to vary across organizations and societies (Tienari et al., 2002).\nEquality and diversity in the department store: The corporation has strong values that all its stores live up to. The values emphasize, for example, democracy, social responsibility, and open-mindedness. The DS in Finland have done well in the Great Place to Work(r) ranking, and the interviewees found it to be a relaxed work environment where hierarchies were low and employees were treated fairly. Equality and diversity seemed to be important to the corporate image. However, at the time of the interview, the DS did not have a gender equality plan, although the Equality Act obligates the employers to do one. Therefore, it seemed that it was rather the corporate values than the equality policy that guided the DS.\nConclusion: are diversity management and equality policy enemies or allies?: The aim of this paper has been to explore how equality and diversity are experienced in everyday work within Finnish work organizations equality and how equality policy and diversity management participate in maintaining the inequality regimes of the organizations. Patrizia Zanoni et al. (2010) have identified promising directions for critical diversity research. In line with them, further aim of this paper has been to participate in discussion about diversity in organizational settings, as well as to shed light on how diversity is made sense of and experienced by a diverse workforce itself. Searching for new, emancipating forms of organizing has, however, been left to other researchers and/or research papers.\n",
"role": "user"
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"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to discuss how equality and diversity are experienced in everyday work within Finnish work organizations and how equality policy and diversity management participate in maintaining the inequality regimes of the organizations.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The empirical findings are based on 31 interviews, which were collected in two private sector work organizations. Inequality regimes, the interlocked practices, and processes that result in continuing inequalities in all work organizations, are used as an analytic tool.\nFindings: There is an individualizing tendency of equality in Finnish work organizations, which is also the premise of diversity management. Accordingly, the organizations cannot address structural and historical discrimination based on gender, race, and class. Also, when diversity is intrinsic to the corporate image, the members of the organization downplay and legitimize inequalities in their organization.\nOriginality/value: The paper analyzes inequality regimes in a context that should be ideal for equality and diversity: Finland, where gender equality policies are relatively progressive, and organizations that strive for equality and diversity. This gives new insight on why inequalities are difficult to change.\n",
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Bank and product selection - an Australian student perspective
|
[
"Australia",
"Students",
"Factor analysis",
"Bank products and services",
"Bank selection criteria",
"Mean scores"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Against the background of financial insecurity, stemming from the global financial crisis and advances in banking technology, bank customers have become more cautious (KHaitbaeva et al., 2015) in selecting their bank and in the products and services they use. Retail banks need to monitor all customer segments, especially students, to maintain trust, offer relevant and competitive products and services, and limit customer defection. Failure to do so could result in fewer customers, reduced market share, and lower profitability. Still pertinent today are the thoughts of Haron et al. (1994, p. 33) who wrote over a decade ago that forward-thinking banks \"[...] must also know the degree to which various product or service characteristics are important and how these factors influence customers' choice of their banker\". Understanding and satisfying customer needs is critical to the success and survival of a bank (Haron et al., 1994). Accordingly, retail banks in Australia need to be constantly reshaping their marketing strategies to target, attract and retain student customers.\n2. Literature review: Bank selection studies\n3. Purpose of study: The broad objective of this study is to provide a snapshot of the banking behaviour of students in Australia. Specifically, this study has two objectives. First, identify and comment of the various determinants used by Australian students to select their bank, based on mean scores and the use of factor analysis. Second, identify and comment on the various bank products and services used by students. To achieve these objectives an online questionnaire was developed with the responses analysed statistically. The motivation for this study is that it fills the gap in the literature by focusing on the banking behaviour of students in Australia, which can assist banks to better target their products. Literature on how Australian students select their bank and the products and services used is very scarce. This study adds to the body of knowledge and provides a basis for further Australian research.\n4. Methodology: Research design\n5. Results: This section reveals the results from analysing how students select their bank and then the bank products and services they use. However, first, a profile of the students is provided.\n6. Concluding remarks: The aim of this study has been to provide an insight into student banking in Australia, a location where empirical studies are virtually non-existent. This study is important because it provides a comprehensive snapshot of student banking behaviour in Australia by combining three aspects, using a mixed-methods approach to investigate bank selection criteria and the products and services utilised. Bank selection and the products and services utilised are often related. That is, the characteristics of a particular bank product or service could be the key determinant considered by a student when selecting a bank. Better understanding the student segment can assist banks and other financial institutions to develop effective strategies to maintain and develop this segment. This is important given the competitive nature of banking in Australia and the potential threat to profitability and market share.\n",
"role": "user"
},
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"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate and comment on the factors used by Australian students to select their bank and the products and services they utilise, based on responses to an online questionnaire.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A mixed-methods approach, incorporating both qualitative and quantitative methods, was used to investigate this research issue. Convenience sampling resulted in 276 completed online responses. Mean ranking and factor analysis methods were employed to identify the key factors used in selecting a bank and frequency analysis used to examine the products and services utilised by students.\nFindings: The key factors used by students to select a bank in Australia were bank competence, recommendations and outside influences, bank costs, returns and services, and finally location. The main bank products and services used by students were automated teller machines (ATMs), savings accounts, internet and telephone banking, and debit cards.\nResearch limitations/implications: The use of an online survey which limits the pool of respondents to internet users and, the sample size limits generalisability of the findings.\nPractical implications: Banks can better target and understand the key determinants used by students in selecting a bank and the products and services this group values. This will allow Australian banks to develop programs to better attract and retain student customers.\nOriginality/value: Provides insight to and understanding of the determinants used by students to select their bank and the products and services they utilise. Furthermore, this study fills a gap in the literature by focusing on the banking behaviour of Australian students, an important segment of bank customers previously under-researched.\n",
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Diversity management through a neuro-scientific lens: ... and how the way we view and appreciate each other could be revolutionized
|
[
"Equal opportunities",
"Organizational development",
"Neuroscience"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Fixed Graphic\nBrain-based approach to diversity management: A brain-based approach to diversity management would involve moving beyond the dominant discourse of unit to \"multiple dimensionality\" (Tapia, 2010). In a review of a variety of literature and organizational policies from around the world, all appear to think about diversity from an equal-opportunities perspective dominated by what is perceived as \"homogenous group differences, most of which are rooted in some form of oppression\". The European Union diversity charter, supported by the majority of EU members, seeks to encourage and measure how well countries promote \"diversity and equal opportunities in the workplace, regardless of race or ethnic origin, sexual orientation, gender, age, disability and religion\". It should be noted that only France forbids measuring racial background and that the word race has a pejorative and racist overtone in the French language (EU, 2014).\nImportant role for new technology: New technology will have an important role to play in this. Today, \"new communication technologies - especially the Internet - allow huge numbers of people all over the planet to work together in new ways\" (MIT, 2015). If organizations can find a way to connect people, places and ideas in a way that generates a deeper appreciation of the value proposition inherent in human diversity the business case will make itself.\nRevolution in the way we view and appreciate each other: This paper ends without any conclusions but with the Maritz Institute's (2011) vision of a potential future state for organizational learning that can applied to diversity management (Table I). It recognizes the need for a collective intelligence that has the \"potential to liberate us from the social and political hierarchies that have stood in the way of mankind's advancement\" (Levy, 1997). This new science of learning has the potential to create a \"revelation\" (Ng and Boden, 2015) of personal constructs in a way that leads to a safe revolution in the way we view and appreciate each other.\n",
"role": "user"
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"content": "Purpose: Introduces the emerging evidence from the neurosciences and provides an account of how it is causing a learning and development practitioner to re-evaluate understanding of human diversity and therefore diversity management within organizations.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Defines neuroplasticity and identifies four of the key findings before moving on to consider what this suggests about human diversity.\nFindings: Shows an application of this new knowledge to diversity management as a way of exploring how the concept of collective intelligence could lead to a transformation of this new knowledge into organizational development practices that meet the needs of all people.\nPractical implications: Advances the view that if organizations can find a way to connect people, places and ideas in a way that generates a deeper appreciation of the value proposition inherent in human diversity, the business case will make itself.\nSocial implications: Recognizes the need for a collective intelligence that has the \"potential to liberate us from the social and political hierarchies that have stood in the way of mankind's advancement\".\nOriginality/value: Claims that this new science of learning has the potential to create a revelation of personal constructs in a way that leads to a safe revolution in the way we view and appreciate each other.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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The work values of Chinese project managers
|
[
"Work ethic",
"Management attitudes",
"Project management",
"Competences",
"China"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The authors propose the concept of work values and discussed its relationship to project managers' competence and the possible impact on project managers' behaviour. The concept of value and its impact to work is reviewed. A category of Chinese work values is developed and tested using data gathered using a questionnaire survey on Chinese project managers. It appears that work values have the potential for application in research into human aspects of project management. As an example, the disparity of project success and project manager's personal career success has been found by using the Chinese work values category.Definition of values\nResearch method: Populations and sampling\nResults: For hypothesis 1, using the Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney test (Siegel and Castellan, 1988), regarding personal career success, for the value of Justice - Business profit orientation, p-value = 0.028 < a = 0.05, for the value of Guanxi and relationship - Formal business procedures, p-value = 0.025 < a = 0.05, the authors rejected H0 and accepted H1 for these two cases. For the other values regarding personal career success and project success, p-value > a = 0.05, the authors accepted H0 and rejected H1. In other words, the statistical tests indicates that project managers had agreement on nine work values regarding project success and personal careers success. For the other two work values, namely Justice - Business profit orientation and Guanxi and relationship - Formal business procedures, the statistical tests support the hypothesis that project managers had agreement on these two values regarding project success while rejecting that project managers had agreement on these two values regarding personal careers success. Project managers with less experience are inclined to believe that Business profit orientation is slightly more important than Justice to personal career success while more experienced project managers believe Justice is more important than Business profit orientation (Table III). Project managers with less experience are inclined to believe that Guanxi and relationship are more important than Formal business procedures to personal career success whilst more experienced project managers believe Formal business procedures are slightly more important than Guanxi and relationships (Table III).For hypothesis 2, the Friedman two-way analysis of variance by ranks was chosen (Siegel and Castellan, 1988). From calculation, Fr = 2.167, when df = k - 1 = 2, p-value = 0.338 > a = 0.05, we will accept H0 and reject H1. The test suggests that project management knowledge, project manager's personal attitudes, and project manager's working value are of no difference in importance to project management practice.For hypothesis 3, Spearman's Rho correlation coefficient (r) is used as a test for the hypothesis (Siegel and Castellan, 1988; Conover, 1999). For a two-tailed test with a = 0.05, N = 11, p-value = 0.958. H1 is rejected and H0 is accepted. That is, project manager's scores on work values regarding personal career success and project success are independent.For hypothesis 4 the Wilcoxon Signed Ranks test was used to see if the second random variable in the pair had the same mean as the first (Siegel and Castellan, 1988). From the test, there was no difference between project manager's values of Loyal to superiors - Insisting own opinion and Guanxi, relationship - Formal business procedure on personal career success and those on project success; the others are different.In Figures 1-4 respondents' scores relating to personal carreer success and project success are indicated. The respondents' scores for values relating to personal career success are shown in Figure 1 and Figure 3. The respondents' scores of values relating to project success are illustrated in Figure 2 and Figure 4. From the Wilcoxon Signed Ranks test, there is no difference between project managers' values of Loyalty to superiors - Insisting on own opinion and Guanxi, relationships - Formal business procedures on personal career success from project success, the others are different.It can be found from Figure 1 and Figure 2, for the construct of Loyalty to superiors - Insisting on own opinion, the distribution of scores is similar, the means are close to the median. This implies, for personal career success and project success, respondents are choosing to stay in the middle of the two poles. They are compromising these two poles. From Figure 3 and Figure 4, for the construct Guanxi, relationship - Formal business procedures, the distribution of scores is similar as well. The means are slightly smaller than the median, which implies that the respondent are inclined to Guanxi and relationships rather than Formal business procedures for both personal career success and project success.For the work value: Public career world - Private home and self, project managers are more inclined to Public career world regarding project success than personal career success.For the work value: Keeping stable - Open to change, project managers are inclined to be Open to change regarding personal career success whilst inclined to Keeping stable regarding project success.For the work value: Place in the hierarchy - Able to relate to others and not status conscious, project managers are inclined to be Able to relate to others and not status conscious regarding personal career success whilst Place in the hierarchy regarding project success.For the work value: Kindness to others, willing to help others - Help others as the task dictates, project managers are inclined to Kindness to others, willing to help others regarding personal career success whilst Help others as the task dictates regarding project success.For the work value: Justice - Business profit orientation, project managers are inclined to Justice regarding personal career success whilst Business profit orientation regarding project success.For the work value: Protecting face - Selflessness, project managers are inclined to Selflessness regarding personal career success while Protecting face regarding project success.For the work value: Coaching others - Personal growth, project managers are inclined to Personal growth regarding personal career success whilst Coaching others regarding project success.For the work value: Avoid confrontation - Willing to challenge, project managers are inclined to be Willing to challenge regarding personal career success whilst Avoid confrontation regarding project success.For the work value: Group orientation - Individual orientation, project managers are inclined to Individual orientation regarding personal career success while Group orientation regarding project success.\nConclusions: The first hypothesis was related to whether or not work values form a consistent pattern in Chinese project managers with different work experiences. From this research, statistical tests supported the notion that project managers had agreement on nine out of eleven work values regarding project success and personal careers success. For the other two work values, namely Justice - Business profit orientation and Guanxi, relationships - Formal business procedures, statistical tests suggest that project managers had agreement on these two regarding project success whilst rejecting project managers had agreement on these two regarding personal careers success.The second hypothesis related to work values and its relationship with other indicators of project manager's competence. The test support the idea that project management knowledge, project manager's personal attitudes, and project manager's work values are of no different importance to project management practice.The third hypothesis used work value as indicator to test whether project success and project manager's personal career success is dependent or not. The test supported project managers' scores on work values regarding personal career success and project success are independent.The fourth hypothesis used work value as indicator to test whether project success and project manager's personal career success is different or not. The test supported project success and project manager's personal career success is different except for values of Loyal to superiors - Insisting own opinion and Guanxi, relationship - Formal business procedure.It seems that work values are quite consistent in project managers from hypothesis 1. Regarding the relative importance of work values, knowledge, and personal attitude, there is no evidence to support the notion that they have different importance. Spencer and Spencer (1993) define competence as an underlying characteristic of an individual that is causally related to and/or superior performance in a job or situation, and identify five types of competence characteristics: Motives, Traits, Self-concept, Knowledge, and Skill (Figure 5).Surface knowledge and skill competencies are relatively easy to develop; training is the most cost-effective way to achieve their development. Core motive and trait competencies are at the base of the personality iceberg and more difficult to assess and develop. It is most cost-effective to select for these characteristics. Self-concept competencies lie somewhere in between. Attitudes and values such as self-confidence can be changed by training, psychotherapy, and/or positive development experiences, albeit over a longer period of time and with difficulty (Spencer, 1993).Referring to Spencer and Spencer's competence model (1993) (Figure 5), the International Project Management Association's (IPMA) International Competence Baseline (ICB) (Caupin et al., 1999) only includes the most easily developed part of competence. Some aspects of competence, like self-concept and value, are not included in the ICB. Crawford (2004) argues that neither the listing of attitudes and behaviours in the ICB, nor the Personal Competence in the Project Management Institute's Project Manager Development Framework (PMI, 2002) have a strong foundation in research. \"The Personal Competencies in the Project Manager Development Framework\" are based on general competencies presented in the work of Spencer and Spencer (1993). The authors recommended work values to be considered to model project managers' competence and be included in competence-based management development programmes (Figure 6).The literature on project management success factors has largely ignored the impact of project managers on project success (Turner and Muller, 2005). The authors' research findings suggested that project managers consider personal career success and project success independent and different. Although these findings provide a new angel with which to look at the relationship between project managers and projects, they cannot answer the question as to whether project managers are a key success factor for projects.When business situations are uncertain and difficult to quantify, project managers tend to rely heavily on their value systems to make decisions (Davis and Rasool, 1988). From the findings of this research, the authors argue that work values are an important dimension in modelling project manager's competence. Work values provide a dimension and an instrument to facilitate investigation into individual project manager's competence. In this research, a category of Chinese project manager's work values has been identified from the literature. The authors argue that project managers may have similar work values in other countries. Project managers' work values should have common characteristics in different countries but not necessarily be the same, since values must be viewed individually and not as a bundled entity (Ralston et al., 1993).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of the research is to investigate project managers' work values and the relationship between the work values of project managers and their competence.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This research project is based on a category of work-related values generated from the literature. The authors conducted a web-based questionnaire survey on Chinese project managers in The People's Republic of China.\nFindings: - From this research it was found that both experienced and novice Chinese project managers share most work values. However, novice and experienced project managers' differ on work values regarding personal career success and project success. Project management knowledge, project manager's personal attitudes and project manager's work values are all important with respect to project management practice.\nPractical implications: - The authors recommend that work values are an important dimension in relation to project managers' competence. The understanding of project managers' work values has potential application in the context to competence-based management development.\nOriginality/value: - This paper furthers understanding on project manager's competence.\n",
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The determinants of brain drain in developing countries
|
[
"Brain drain",
"Human capital",
"Skilled workers",
"Migrant workers",
"Developing countries"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: For the past five decades, international migration has significantly amplified where the number of migrants has increased from 75 million in 1960 to approximately 215.8 million in 2010. This increasing trend is expected to continue in the future due to the growing gap in wages, living standard and demographic features between developed and developing countries and prevalence of poverty, unemployment and political instability in many fragile and least developing countries (Migration and Remittances Factbook, 2011).According to the UN Economic Organization for Migration, an estimated 27,000 skilled Africans left the continent for industrialized countries between 1960 and 1975. During the period of 1975-1984, the figure rose to 40,000. Subsequently, Africa has lost 60,000 professionals including doctors, university lecturers and engineers between 1985 and 1990. Since then, at least 20,000 qualified people are estimated to have left the continent every year (UNESCO, 2007). Besides African countries, human capital flight is also affecting Latin America and the Caribbean where almost 80 percent of college graduates from Haiti, Belize, Grenada and Guyana are currently living in the USA. Moreover, approximately 30 percent of the labour force from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama works in the USA (Ozden, 2006). Since the last 30 years, Asia has also been facing a huge brain drain of professionals, executives, technicians, and other highly skilled personnel to well-paid jobs in developed countries. Such brain drain has presented a major obstacle to development in many parts of these continents where the source countries' labour needs of local expertise are not fulfilled.Several factors are believed to have caused this exodus of highly skilled labour from their home countries. On the supply-side, severe socio-economic condition at home and opportunities arising from world globalization have motivated skilled workers to accumulate where jobs are abundant. Meanwhile, on the demand-side, favourable \"quality selective\" immigration policies and better economic prospects such as in most OECD countries have motivated highly skilled migrants from less-developing countries to move abroad (ILO, 2006). These factors have collectively led to dramatic surge in migration among highly skilled labour particularly from developing to developed countries.Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to examine some potential factors that influence international migration of highly skilled labour from developing to developed countries. The rest of the paper is organized as follows: Section 2 provides some stylized facts on skilled migration, while Section 3 presents review of the literature. The empirical methodology employed in the study is outlined in Section 4 and estimation and empirical results in Section 5. Concluding remarks are giving in the final section of the paper.\n2 Stylized facts: The rise in the number of skilled personnel and professionals migrating is very crucial for many developing countries, for they are losing their well-trained citizens to richer countries. The recent data compiled by the World Bank (2008) on international skilled migration showed that in 2000 more than 36,653 physicians and 53,298 nurses left the Sub-Saharan Africa. These figures represent 28 and 11 percent of physicians and nurses, respectively, trained in the region. However, in South Asia and East Asia and Pacific, emigration of physicians was estimated to reach 27,508 (4.1 percent) and 19,071 (0.8 percent) of physicians educated in the regions, respectively, over the same period. Figure 1, shows the graphical presentation of top emigration countries of tertiary educated (as percentage of total tertiary educated in the country).Similarly, from Latin America and the Caribbean stock of physicians who eluded the region was put at 21,208 or 2.4 percent of physicians trained also in the region. Although this represents small proportion of the highly skilled workers who migrate, the figures are alarming considering the plight of health services in most developing countries which have been seriously compromised. Figures 2 and 3 show the graphical presentation of top emigration countries of physicians in 2000.\n3 Literature review: Over the last four decades, developing countries continue to lose a significant number of professionals despite several reforms of immigration policies enforced in developed countries to reduce the inflow of migrants and policy measures taken by the developing countries to control exodus of their trained workers. It is believed that among the many reasons, these migrants decide to work and live abroad are for higher income and better standard of living. According to literature, the use of the word \"brain\" in the semantics of the term \"brain drain\", relates to any talent, know-how, competency or attribute that is a potential asset. While the use of word \"drain\" conveys a strong implication of serious loss which suggests that this rate of migration is at a greater level than what might be preferred. Therefore, linking the two words together implies the departure of the most skilful experts at noticeable and alarming rates (Johnson, 1965).Brain drain is used as identical to human capital flight, where the movement of highly educated and skilled expertise is heavily in one direction. It also suggests the loss of substantial human capital resources without compensation, which results from permanent unidirectional flow of skilled labour from less developed countries to developed countries (Salt, 1997). Similarly, brain drain is also used to refer to the migration of a fraction of relatively highly educated people as compared to the average population (Beine et al., 2001). According to the World Migration (2003) report, brain drain describes the cross-border movement of highly skilled persons who stay abroad for a long time where highly skilled persons are defined as \"having studied or currently studying for a university degree or possessing equivalent experience in a given academic field\". Literature on economic growth perceives brain drain as the departure of skilled labor which accelerates the depreciation of capital and thus reduces the steady state growth rate of the economy (Hall, 2005).Most of the existing literatures recognize that the decision to migrate is the result of the interaction between several identified factors, both from home and abroad. These factors are often categorized as \"push factors\": that drive migrants to leave their countries of origin and \"pull factors\": that attract skilled migrants into their preferred destinations. The principal push factors that encourage professionals to migrate and their order of importance vary from one developing country to another. However, most of these factors are often closely related to the characteristics of underdevelopment. Among the identified \"push\" factors are poor condition of services, low wages or salary, misplacement of talent, human rights abuse, underemployment, political instability, lack of research facilities, inefficient institutions, disregard for local talent, discrimination in appointment and promotion, corruption, limited access to quality education, and desire for a better urban life (World Migration, 2003).On the other hand, attractive \"pull\" factors which encourage migration are factors virtually absent in developing countries but readily available and obtainable in destination countries. Some of the most important and frequently mentioned pull factors are better economic prospects, higher salary and income, better career expectations, better research facilities, modern educational system and better opportunity from higher qualification, prestige of foreign training, intellectual freedom, better working condition and better employment opportunities, relative political stability, presence of a rich scientific and cultural tradition, availability of experienced and supporting staff, technological gaps, and allocation of substantial fund for research (Kainth, 2009).Empirical studies on determinants of brain drain have placed particular emphasis on different factors. For example, Kangasniemi et al. (2007) showed that advancing career and financial advantages are the most important incentives as opposed to lack of facilities at home country. Meanwhile, Hall (2005) argued that problems of access to research and weak institutional support structures are additional key factors besides higher income that motivate researchers and scientists to move abroad. Whereas difference in country size and the proximity between source country to destination countries significantly influence brain drain in Central America, the Pacific and the Caribbean. In Africa, factors such as low level of development, high domestic political instability and religious or ethnic fractionalization, jobs opportunities at destination countries, selective immigration policies, wage gaps, geographical distance, former colonial links and linguistic proximity between countries of origin and destination are the main factors driving highly skilled migration (Docquier et al., 2007; Marfouk, 2007). Most recently, a survey conducted by Gibson and McKenzie (2011) in three pacific countries shows that economic incentives for migration or income gains play a weaker role in determining highly skilled migration as compared to career opportunities and enabling environment for research (Table I).\n4 Empirical methodology: We used cross-sectional data from 102 developing countries to examine the determinants of skilled workers' migration rates (brain drain) from developing countries to developed countries.The model is specified as follows: Equation 1 where, lnmigi is the skilled migration rates. lnwdffi is the wage differentials between migrants' source and destination country (GDP1990OR/GDP1990G7 in percentage). lnwdffsqi is the wage differentials squared. However, lnpopi and lnepubi represent population in millions and public expenditure in education (as percentage of GNP1990) in the migrants' source country, respectively. lnpoli measures political stability while lngovi is a measure of government effectiveness in migrants' source country. Finally, lndisti measures migrants' country distance to the destination country (the USA) and ei is the error term. All the variables are expressed in logarithm.4.1 Definition of variables\n5 Estimation and empirical result: The coefficient estimates for the regression equation are obtained from cross-sectional model using data for 1990. The authors initially conducted hetroskedasticity test on the estimates from the original data. Hetroskedasticity occurs when the error variance differs across the observation (Koop, 2008). Both Breusch-Pagan-Godfrey and Harvey tests rejects the null hypothesis of hemoskedasticity. We therefore considered first transforming the data into logarithm to unify the scale in the data. Using the transformed data we retest for hetroskedasticity and the result fail to reject the null hypothesis of hemoskedasticity. Below we present the descriptive statistics of the data (Table II).Table III presents the estimation results for the determinants of skilled migration in some selected developing countries. First, as argued by the theoretical literature that higher return to skills abroad attract skilled migration from developing countries, wage differentials with the destination countries (lnwdff) is positively significant at 1 percent significance level, implying that wage disparities between migrant's and destination country affects skilled migration. Similarly, as earlier explained, we squared the wage differentials with destination countries (lnwdffsq) to capture the effects of improved level of income in the migrants' country of origin which is argued to negate skilled migration as wages/salary improve. Wage differentials squared is also negatively significant at 5 percent significance level. This highlight that though low wages, encourage skilled migration, improve level of income and home preference might counteract the effect in the migrants' source country. Observing these effects jointly implies an inverted U-shaped relationship between skilled migration rates and wage differentials, suggesting that higher level of wages in destination countries stimulate skilled migration from developing countries. But as income level in developing countries increases, and wage gaps with the destination countries become relatively low the incentive to emigrate diminishes, and skilled migration falls. This result is consistent with suggestions made by Rotte and Vogler (2000) and results found in Groizard and Llull (2007) and Beine et al. (2008).As predicted, population at source countries (lnpop) is negatively significant at 1 percent significance level. Implying that the higher the population size at migrants' country of origin the lower is skilled migration rates due to binding immigration policies or the quota system employed by destination countries. In addition, political stability at origin (lnpol) is negatively related to skilled migration rates at 5 percent significance level, indicating that political instability at migrants' source country serves as a push factor of skilled migration. The coefficient of distance to destination countries (lndistous) is also found to be negatively significant at 5 percent significance level, implying that the migration rates are lower for countries that are farther apart. However, contrary to our hypothesis that government effectiveness (lngov) in labour-sending countries will impact negatively on skilled migration, the variable turns out to be positively significantly which is contrary to intuition. Our analysis also does not find any evidence of statistical significance for the effect of public expenditure in education (lnepub) on skilled migration which indicates a negative relationship with skilled migration rates. This might have occurred due to the small size of the data considered, heterogeneity among countries in the sample and other relevant variables not included in the regression equation. For example, factors such as unemployment and lack of research facilities might affect skilled migration but for lack of data for some countries in the sample they were dropped in the analysis. Considering the small size of our sample, the result is instructive, as the value of R2 which measure the proportion of variability of skilled migration rate is (0.34) and the value of F-statistics (6.97) is large enough to support our findings.\n6 Conclusion: In this paper, we used cross-sectional data for a sample of 102 developing countries to examine some determinants of skilled migration rates in labor-sending countries. Our results show that higher wages in developed countries attract skilled migration from developing countries. However, we found an inverted U-shaped relationship between skilled migration rates and wage differentials. This implies that as the income gap between developed and developing countries narrows, the incentive to migrate reduce and skilled migration falls. Finally, we found population size in migrants' source countries and distance to destination countries to have a negative impact on skilled migration whereas political instability at origin has a positive influence.Finally, like other studies in the migration literature, this paper attempted to provide both conceptual and analytical methods of examining push and full factors of skilled migration. Although, the migration of skilled workers may partly be an attribute of globalized labour market, this study has shown that among many factors that causes skilled migration from developing countries are structural factors both at national and international level. Even though the decision to migrate is basically a personal one and therefore prone to varying personal circumstances, emigration policies to retain local professionals particularly in developing countries will work effectively if they are designed toward improving local structures. Improvement in factors such as relative wage disparities, political instability and lack of research facilities, etc. in migrants' source country will effectively discourage skilled migration and attract locally trained experts from abroad.\n",
"role": "user"
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"content": "Purpose: - Skilled migrant workers move relatively in unidirectional form (from developing to developed countries) in response to many factors. The purpose of this paper is to examine some factors that influence skilled migration to such preferred locations among skilled workers.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Both conceptual discussion and analytical approach are used.\nFindings: - The authors' econometric model identified an inverted U-shaped relationship between skilled migration rates, wage differentials and income convergence with destination countries. Other factors found to be significantly related to brain drain are population size, domestic political instability and distance to destination countries.\nOriginality/value: - This paper presents insights on factors influencing migration decisions among skilled migrants and why skilled workers' migration from developing countries remains on the increase over the years, despite the urgent need for highly skilled personnel in most of these countries.\n",
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Quality management (QM) leads to healthier small businesses
|
[
"Quality",
"TQM",
"SME",
"Small business",
"Qualitative",
"Quality management",
"Small enterprise"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Over the past few decades, more and more small and medium businesses (SMEs) have realized the benefits of quality management (QM). The involvement of small businesses in QM, accompanied by recognition that small businesses are not the same as large businesses, has led to adaptations of various QM award programs. For instance, of the six eligibility categories for the world renowned Baldrige Performance Excellence Program, one is a category for small business applications. This category includes businesses with \"500 or fewer paid employees, are engaged in manufacturing and/or the provision of services, and are discrete, independent entities\" (Baldrige Performance Excellence Program, 2015). Baldrige, once believed too complex for small businesses to pursue, let alone attain, has proven to be a platform providing excellent performance results for small businesses. In fact, Hendricks and Singhal (1999) found that small business category winners of Baldrige outperform benchmark companies by an average of 63 percent, while large organization winners outperform their benchmarks by only 22 percent.\nBackground and research questions: Many quality programs (TQM, Six-Sigma, Business Excellence Models such as EFQM and Baldrige, Balanced Scorecard, among others) were originally developed with large firms in mind (McAdam, 2000). Some, such as ISO 9000, were so complex that they seemed \"inappropriate to the needs of small-scale operations\" (Chittenden et al., 1998, p. 74). Even so, small businesses have found that involvement in QM platforms helps small businesses improve their \"competitive position, as well as attaining high goods or service quality\" (Ghobadian and Gallear, 1997). Of eight performance indicators, Beheshti and Lollar (2003) further report that manufacturing SMEs with QM realize the greatest impacts on the critical metrics of profitability and market share.\nMethod: A case study method was used for this research for several reasons. As Chetty (1996) relates, \"it is suitable when 'how' and 'why' questions are asked\" about events. Further, despite being time consuming and requiring expert interviewing skills, with care taken regarding generalizing high impact can result since the limits of questionnaires are avoided (Voss et al., 2002). Finally, \"deep and rich understanding\" is possible through inductive research methods (Leonard and McAdam, 2001).\nFindings and discussion: While reading the transcriptions, we identified themes that were repeated in most interviews. Particular words/terms came up numerous times, particularly the benefits of QM such as making life easier (19 mentions), QM providing systems and making things more systematic (18 mentions), QM being a reason for improved profits (13 mentions), reduced need for firefighting (five mentions), and less chaos (four mentions). Below, we present the findings associated with each of the six questions. We do this while following the advice of Simon et al. (1996); by combining analysis and description we let the small business owners \"speak for themselves,\" resulting in rich insights and more practitioner input to our accompanying interpretations.\nDiscussion and implications: Since the early days of QM when Deming used his 14 points to bring a new guiding philosophy to management (Walton, 1986), QM has been heralded as a \"crucial hinge for business success\" (Feigenbaum, 1997), and \"the key to an organization's success and survival\" (Madu and Kuei, 1994). While often believed to be easier to apply in large businesses than in small businesses, this has proven to be a misconception; in just the past 25 years there have been at least 55 research articles supportive of QM's application in, and positive effects for, SMEs (Murphy, 2016).\n",
"role": "user"
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"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to add to the current knowledge of how and why small businesses should engage in quality management (QM) by providing insights from small business owners who are committed advocates of QM. By so doing, to encourage small business owners to see that QM is right - and possible - for any small business wanting to improve performance.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Using an inductive method, semi-structured interviews followed a template of six open-ended questions. Study participants were ten owners of small family-owned business winners of a National Quality Award (National Housing Quality Award (NHQA)), making them industry leaders in applying QM. Data from these QM advocates are presented and discussed.\nFindings: The cases reveal consistent encouragement for small businesses to engage in QM, with every owner certain that positive outcomes follow. Despite recognizing barriers to engagement, interviewees strongly feel the barriers are small relative to gains realized through QM. These QM advocates advise getting started by choosing one or a few QM tools and/or customizing tools rather than becoming overwhelmed by prospects of the complexity of doing QM to the exacting standards of various quality programs. Finally, they encourage small businesses to stay the course once started on QM.\nResearch limitations/implications: Limitations are that the paper relies on just ten case studies and these were taken from just one industry. While these limitations cannot be disputed, the rich data, interpretations, and opportunities for future research emerging from the inductive approach seem likely to resonate well beyond the particular industry involved here.\nPractical implications: This paper speaks directly to small business owners by including many quotes from owners and summarizing themes from multiple interviews. The advice provided can be acted upon by any small business, with the opportunity of realizing improved business performance.\nOriginality/value: Few articles provide insights on the merits of QM for small businesses directly from interviews with small business owners. Here, the authors learn about the rationale for small businesses engaging in QM, are given thoughtful comments on how to get started, and told about the realities - including difficulties - of small business QM.\n",
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Value co-creation through knowledge exchange in franchising
|
[
"Absorptive capacity",
"Knowledge as operant resource",
"Value creation in franchise network"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: An executive summary for managers and executive readers can be found at the end of this issue.Franchising is a well-established retail format in developed markets. It accounts for about 41 percent of the retailing sector in the USA (3,000 franchise systems worth about US$2.1 trillion, employing 18 million), 53 percent in Australia and 32 percent in Germany (Dant et al., 2011). Franchising is also making strong inroads into emerging economies. For example, it accounts for around 16 percent of the retail sector in Brazil, 3 percent in China and 1.6 percent in India (Aliouche and Schlentrich, 2011; Dant et al., 2011; Sashi and Karuppur, 2002). Not surprisingly, franchising has received significant attention by scholars in the fields of marketing, management, entrepreneurship, finance, and economics. Researchers have studied franchising from several perspectives including ownership, control, governance, single versus plural forms, single versus multi-unit franchising, legal imperative, and global franchising (Dant et al., 2011). However, the extant franchising literature, while rich and varied, has been predominantly franchisor centric. There is limited research that actively brings the franchisees and the customers into the research conversation. Few recent examples of studies with a focus of franchisees and value creation include Grace and Weaven (2011), Grace et al. (2013)\nFranchising: extant literature: Scholars have used a variety of theoretical perspectives to understand and explain franchising. For example, the resource constraint perspective (Arnould, 2008; Hunt and Morgan, 1995, 1996; Pfeffer and Salancik, 1978) has been adopted by Oxenfeldt and Kelly (1968). Other researchers have adopted a transactional cost perspective (Williamson, 1991); a property rights perspective (Demsetz, 1966; Hart and Moore, 1990; Hart, 1995; Maness, 1996); agency theory (Fama and Jensen, 1983a, b); and signaling theory (Beggs, 1992; Gallini and Lutz, 1992; Gallini and Wright, 1990). This has resulted in a rich and multidisciplinary literature stream on franchising. However, much of this investigation has adopted a \"franchisor\" perspective while paying scant attention to the role of the franchisees, and the customers. In reality, the role of these three players is intimately intertwined. Dant et al. (2011) highlight these relationships in terms of mixed motives, power asymmetry, dependence, conflict, relational norms, and divergent governance structure. Recently, researchers have begun to address value creation from a franchisees' perspective (e.g. Grace and Weaven, 2011; Grace et al., 2013; Grunhagen and Dorsch, 2003; Harmon and Griffiths, 2008; Weaven et al., 2009). However, virtually no study has addressed it from the customer's perspective. Thus, the extant franchising literature has been very franchisor centric, wherein franchisees and end customers are seen as passive operand resource, i.e. resources that are manipulated by the franchisor to create value. However, in a franchising network, like any other network, value is co-created by key actors in the network, and each actor brings specific operant resource to bear on the co-creation process.\nKnowledge based view of franchising: The rich stream of KBV research positions knowledge as a strategic organizational resource with the potential to create competitive advantage (Conner, 1991; Conner and Prahalad, 1996; Grant, 1996; Hunt and Morgan, 1995, 1996; Kogut and Zander, 1992, 1996; Nonaka, 2007, 1994; Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995; Serenko and Bontis, 2004). Scholars have suggested that the knowledge must unique and rare, valuable, and inimitable for sustainable competitive advantage to be achieved. In addition, Kwok and Gao (2005) and Kearns and Lederer (2003) suggest that to leverage knowledge and gain competitive advantage, it must be shared or exchanged among the key actors in the value creation process.\nKnowledge exchange in franchising network: Franchisors seek franchisees to gain access to capital, human/managerial resources, entrepreneurial spirit, and knowledge of the local market. Often, the franchisees' knowledge is tacit and contextual. Franchisors, on the other hand, provide a tried and tested business model and support services (together forming the franchisor's knowledge base) to run the franchisee business efficiently and effectively. Hence, the franchisor's knowledge may have tacit and explicit components. Thus, a significant portion of the focal operant resource in the network is the knowledge that both these parties bring to the table. In addition, both parties must find ways to communicate and share their disparate parcels of knowledge. Relying on the extant franchising literature (cf. Dant et al., 2011; Edens et al., 1976; Grace et al., 2013; Grace and Weaven, 2011; Grunhagen et al., 2012; Grunhagen and Dorsch, 2003; Harmon and Griffiths, 2008; Hing, 1995; Kaufmann and Stanworth, 1995; Peterson and Dant, 1990; Sashi and Karuppur, 2002) and the discussion so far, a summary of the knowledge offered and required by the franchisors and franchisee is presented in Figure 1.\nDiscussion: This investigation uses a knowledge management perspective (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995; Lindblom and Tikkanen, 2010) to examine value creation within a franchise network. Towards this goal, we also draw on franchising literature (Dant et al., 2011; Dant, 2008), the service dominant logic literature (Lusch et al., 2007; Vargo and Lusch, 2004, 2008), KBV (Nonaka, 2007, 1994; Paswan and Wittmann, 2009; Szulanski and Jensen, 2006) and absorptive capacity literature (e.g. Bruton et al., 2007; Cohen and Levinthal, 1990; Nooteboom et al., 2007) to anchor the development of our knowledge-based value creation framework in a franchise network. Building on theoretical and empirical developments found in the literature, we first discuss the value desired and offered by each of the actors in the franchise network (franchisor, franchisees and customers), and offer a framework that captures the value creation process through knowledge exchange (Figures 1 and 2). At the core of this framework is the notion that the most important operant resource is the knowledge that each member brings to the table. The franchisor offers knowledge about a scalable business model, its associated processes. Franchisees offer knowledge about the local market. Finally, customers offer unique knowledge, manifested in their expertise and the phenomenology of the value experience. Together these three actors co-create value in the franchise network.\nManagerial implications: The proposed framework has important implications for franchise professionals. It suggests that instead of looking at franchisees and customers as operand resource, franchisors should look at them as operant resource integrators. In addition, franchisors should look at the knowledge emanating from all three actors in the franchise network as the operant resources and as the basis for gaining competitive advantage in the market place. While this may seem like a straightforward recommendation, it is actually much more difficult to implement. Franchisors tend to view themselves as the dominant player in the network, and as suggested in prior research, have tended to undervalue the participation and contribution of franchisees and customers in the network. In fact, as Oxley (1997) points out, a fear of appropriation hazard can fuel reluctance on the part of the franchisor to leverage the potential contributions of the franchisees and the customers. Hence, making the switch could be difficult for the franchisor. We believe that this situation affords an opportunity for scholars to provide the franchisor with theoretical and empirical evidence that supports the judiciously leveraging of knowledge-based contributions to the network by the franchisees and the customers.\nResearch implications: Our framework offers several implications for future researchers. A logical first step in the development would be the investigation of potential contributions by each one of the key actors in the franchise network. The notion of measuring value co-creation by involved actors including customers is an interesting and challenging task. We suggest a multi-method approach where qualitative research, along with existing literature review is used first to develop reliable measures for the focal constructs. Here, researchers could rely on some of the existing literature on knowledge as an operant resource and absorptive capacity (Cohen and Levinthal, 1990; Lane et al., 2006; Lichtenthaler, 2009; Lusch et al., 2007; Todorova and Durisin, 2007). Next, researchers should investigate the role of knowledge as operant resource in value creation process. This can be done using a descriptive research approach to test the hypotheses associated with the proposed framework.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper proposes a knowledge-exchange framework for value co-creation in franchise network.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This conceptual study integrates literature on franchising, knowledge based view of the firm, absorptive capacity, and service dominant logic to propose a theoretical framework for value co-creation in franchising using knowledge as an operant resource.\nFindings: The proposed framework suggests that in a franchise network value is co-created by three key actors - franchisor, franchisees, and the customers; the operant resource these key actors bring to the value creation process is knowledge; and the absorptive capacity of principal actors and the appropriation hazard affect the flow and sharing of knowledge.\nResearch limitations/implications: The authors hope that the proposed knowledge exchange framework for value co-creation in franchise networks provides an impetus for future research in this critical aspect of franchising - i.e. viewing knowledge as an operant resource and viewing the three actors as resource integrators and co-creators of value.\nPractical implications: The proposed framework suggests that managers in franchise industry should stop looking at consumers and franchisees as passive operand resources, but look at them as operant resource. They should also alter their perspective about the source of competitive advantage, with the focus shifting to knowledge as the operant resource.\nOriginality/value: The study takes a new approach to value creation in a franchising network by introducing the concept of knowledge as an operant source.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Benchmarking of TQM practices in the Jordanian pharmaceutical industry (a comparative study)
|
[
"Benchmarking",
"Total quality management (TQM)",
"Jordanian pharmaceutical industry",
"Total quality index (TQI)"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Benchmarking is an effective management tool used by many companies worldwide to identify and apply best practices for filling in gaps and accomplishing continuous process improvement to increase competitiveness (Rohlfer, 2004). As Jochem and Landgraf (2010) noted, \"Benchmarking means orienting a company in the best market position, aiming to be the best of the best in the business field\" (p. 690). It is a tool that improves organizational performance by identifying competitive advantages and learning about products, services, own operations, by comparison with the best (Ionescu and Bigio, 2016).\nLiterature review: The benchmarking concept has been examined intensively in a great deal of research. Many scholars (e.g. Bisp et al., 1998) define benchmarking as a continuous process of determining the best practices to learn and improve ways of manufacturing, distributing and marketing products. Comparing a company with its competitors with respect to key success factors is considered a reasonable way to establish measures for which goals to achieve. As Carpinetti and de Melo (2002, p. 1) noted:\"Benchmarking has gained acceptance worldwide as an instrument of continuous improvement in the context of total quality management and as a means of enhancing competitiveness\".\nMethodology: Population and sample\nThe TQI benchmarking tool: To achieve the aims of this study, the TQI benchmarking tool was applied according to the model proposed by Tavana et al. (2003). This model was used to measure both actual and ideal quality management along the eight TQM practices. Since previous research has shown that external benchmarking can be achieved using a direct comparison questionnaire (Iacobucci and Nordhielm, 2000), this research used a questionnaire tool for its data collection. The chosen structured questionnaire was developed by Saraph et al. (1989) (presented in the Appendix) to evaluate quality management in either manufacturing or service organizations. The content validity of this instrument has been supported by previous research (Kumar et al., 2006). As Tavana et al. (2003) further noted, \"an inherent advantage of the Saraph's questionnaire is that it minimizes the time and cost of developing the concepts and operational measures essential for the benchmarking approach to TQM\"(p. 510).\nData analysis and results: The statistical procedures used to test the hypotheses were an analysis of variance test (t-test). Table I shows the ideal and actual perception means for the eight TQM practices for Company 1 and Company 2, and Table II shows the ideal and actual perception means for the eight TQM practices for Company 1 and Company 3.\nConclusion: The study highlights the importance of the generic and competitive benchmarking processes as effective tools for identifying organizational gaps and weaknesses in order to improve quality management systems within Jordanian pharmaceutical companies (both manufacturing and service companies). The regulatory quality requirements for the pharmaceutical industry are changing constantly, prompting a need for the continuous application of benchmarking tools to examine potential gaps between current practice and best practice, to increase the rate of organizational learning, and to facilitate experience sharing to achieve superior, high-quality performance.\nResearch implications: This case study provides a guide for pharmaceutical company managers and policy makers in ways to apply benchmarking techniques using the TQI tool in their organizations. This study will emphasize the importance of external (generic and competitive) benchmarking processes as tools for developing quality management systems within pharmaceutical manufacturing and pharmaceutical service companies and illustrate the importance of applying benchmarking to achieve continuous improvement. Furthermore, quality management systems are considered an essential part of pharmaceutical organizations, and the use of benchmarking to improve the implementation of these systems is gaining importance because of its effectiveness in improving companies' performance and enhancing competitiveness.\nStudy limitations: This study faced several limitations. First, this case study was limited by samples in terms of companies (three) and countries (one: Jordan). Since the sample was limited to these three companies' respondents, the results therefore cannot be generalized. However, this is not a problem, especially the generalization is not one of the study's goals. Second, the respondents may have favoured their own companies' success, thus creating a bias. This is especially relevant because all information was collected solely through a questionnaire instrument. These study limitations identify avenues for future research on this subject.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to establish practical guidelines for benchmarking eight total quality management (TQM) practices vital to pharmaceutical companies' performance. The paper also proposes the use of an analytic total quality index (TQI) as a benchmarking tool and illustrates the importance and effectiveness of this benchmarking methodology by applying it in two comparative studies of three Jordanian pharmaceutical companies.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In order to achieve the above-mentioned purpose, the data were gathered through a questionnaire that was used to evaluate the gap between the ideal and current status of the quality management system and distributed to the quality units from three companies: pharmaceutical manufacturing company, a pharmaceutical manufacturing company working in the same field and a pharmaceutical service providing research services to a pharmaceutical manufacturing companies. And the mean differences between the current and ideal states for the eight critical TQM practices were compared for these two comparative studies using the t-test.\nFindings: Each of the two comparisons reveals statistically significant differences regarding the perceptions of actual and ideal scores for manufacturing and service companies on five out of eight critical factors and, on two out of eight critical factors for manufacturing and manufacturing companies.\nPractical implications: The pharmaceutical companies, regardless of whether they are manufacturing or service company, can adopt benchmarking techniques which were applied in this case study to improve their performance and their product/service quality.\nOriginality/value: The consequences of this research can support organization managers and policy makers in effectively benchmarking the identified TQM practices in their organizations using the proposed TQI benchmarking tool.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Improving patient and staff outcomes using practice development
|
[
"Service delivery",
"Older person",
"Rehabilitation nursing",
"Transformational practice development",
"Essentials of Care",
"Workplace culture"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Practice development programs have been widely used and accepted throughout the healthcare system to transform practice and work culture. The benefits of practice development strategies are not confined to person-centered care as there is evidence to suggest that practice development strategies have wider implications for transforming workplace culture, improving staff satisfaction and enabling more appropriate service delivery. Practice development has been evolving and adapting since the late 1970s (McCormack et al., 2013) with the goal of transforming practice to one that is more patient focused with emphasis on improvement of care and workplace culture (Dewing, 2008). McCormack and McCance (2010) and Manley et al. (2014) have designed frameworks based on the essential components of practice development. Practice development framework strategies have assisted to improve the older person's experience of healthcare and enhance staff's capabilities for inquiry into practice (McCormack et al., 2009a; Walsh et al., 2012; Dewing et al., 2014; Manley et al., 2014). Practice development strategies can transform workplace cultures, result in a greater emphasis on person-centered care and improve service delivery (McCormack et al., 2013).\nData and methods: A descriptive exploratory study design was used to explore the impact of an EOC program. A multi-method approach was used and included patient stories, surveys, hospital databases and observations. Review of workplace culture is complex and requires different approaches to examine the many elements hence a multi-method approach chosen (NSW Ministry of Health, 2014). The multi-method approach sought to measure work culture change, service delivery and staff satisfaction utilizing both qualitative and quantitative methods (Greenfield et al., 2012). Therefore, study outcome measures included patient perspectives of ward care, staff satisfaction, adverse events, embedded workplace culture, practice activities, and workforce data.\nResults: To begin the EOC program, baseline ward data of patient stories, audits, observations, workforce and IIMS were critically analyzed. Patient stories were obtained to have a baseline of and for the ward experience from the older person's perspective. The patient stories identified positive comments with no negative comments elicited. For example \"the ward is nice and quiet and the staff are friendly\" and \"the nurses are all caring. I try not to worry them too much - but they are ok.\" The IIMS data were reviewed and identified 38 medication errors over 12 months. The medication errors involved incorrect route of administration, prescribing, time of administration, not given and incorrect dosage.\nDiscussion: The impact of the EOC program provided evidence of improved staff satisfaction, workplace culture change, person-centered care and service delivery. On comparing the core data gathered at the beginning and at the end of the cycle, it was evident that the EOC program brought about significant changes in medication and continence care practices, staff retention and sick leave rates, financial efficiencies, equipment storage and ward communication practices (written and verbal). The EOC program facilitated staff engagement in critical reflection and dialogue that resulted in service delivery improvements, workplace culture change and increased staff satisfaction, as outlined in the aims of the study.\nConclusion: The EOC program, based on practice development methodology, brought about significant workplace cultural transformation that improved care practices, reduced costs and enhanced staff satisfaction. EOC, which is embedded in a person-centered care framework, facilitated greater healthcare team cohesion and integration in a way not previously experienced on the ward. Clearly, practice development frameworks can champion improvement in service quality, consistency and delivery of care for older persons experiencing an acute health episode.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of a practice development program, \"Essentials of Care\" (EOC), on patient and staff outcomes, workplace culture and service delivery.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A descriptive study design was used to explore the impact of EOC in a district hospital rehabilitation ward. EOC focuses on embedding a person-centered culture within clinical areas and is structured from practice development methodologies. EOC was implemented in a metropolitan district hospital rehabilitation, older person 20-bed, ward.\nFindings: Two projects were implemented during EOC. These projects led to nine significant patient and staff outcomes for medication and continence care practices. Outcomes included a reduction in older person complaints by 80 percent, pressure injuries by 62 percent, ward multi resistant staphylococcus aureus infection rates by 50 percent, clinical incidents by 22 percent, older person falls by 14 percent (per 1,000 bed days) and nursing sick leave by 10 percent. There was also a 13 percent improvement in the post nursing workplace satisfaction survey.\nResearch limitations/implications: This is a single site study and findings may not be suitable for generalizing across ward settings and broader population groups.\nOriginality/value: The EOC program led to significant improvements for and in clinical practices, staff satisfaction and ward culture. Specifically, the EOC program also identified significant cost savings and brought together the healthcare team in a cohesive and integrated way not previously experienced by staff. Practice development strategies can champion service quality improvement, optimal patient outcomes and consistency within healthcare.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Online customer relationship marketing tactics through social media and perceived customer retention orientation of the green retailer
|
[
"Social media",
"Customer relationship management",
"Social CRM",
"Customer retention orientation",
"Green consciousness"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Sustainability exemplifies an essential consumer need, and becomes an intrinsic aspect of product quality (Ottman, 2011). With concern for environmental welfare increasing among consumers, brands are integrating sustainable practices into their primary business activities to gain a competitive edge (Borin et al., 2013). Green brands[1] implement environmental conservation and sustainable business practices, and provide products and services that minimize their environmental impacts during their whole life-cycle (Albino et al., 2009; Chen, 2010). In particular, a growing number of fashion retailers (e.g. Gap, American Apparel, Eileen Fisher, H&M, and Levi Strauss) have modified their product development and sourcing strategies using environmentally friendly materials such as recycled polyester, hemp, organic cotton, linen, and Tencel (Nasser, 2013; Yan et al., 2012). They aim to improve the environmentally friendly qualities of their green products (Lipson, 2008).\nConceptual background: CRM provides a useful platform for the acquisition of new customers as well as attaining customer satisfaction and loyalty (Kracklauer et al., 2001). Traditional CRM facilitates the work of data warehouses and data mining; it assists suppliers in becoming more responsive to customer needs in order to bring in higher profits (Gummesson, 2004). Traditional CRM concentrates on management solutions for coping with customers across channels including corporate e-stores, call centres, and brick-and-mortar stores (Baird and Parasnis, 2011). Internet and other IT tools facilitate relationship marketing (Eggert and Fassot, 2001). The rise of huge social media platforms transforms traditional CRM into social CRM (Malthouse et al., 2013). Social CRM depends on the customers' use of social media platforms, where customers interact with one another (Malthouse et al., 2013). Social CRM capabilities depend on a firm's ability to generate, integrate, and respond to information gained from customer interactions that take place via social media technologies (Trainor et al., 2014). As an effective medium for developing communication channels and green brand equity, social media makes the CRM approach more efficient in green marketing practices.\nHypotheses development: CRO of the green retailer\nMethod: Sample and data collection\nResults: Participant characteristics\nDiscussion and managerial implications: The empirical results of this study provide evidence for the influence of the customer perception of a green retailer's CRO on patronage intention towards the green fashion retailer (H1). This result is in agreement with that of previous research in the non-green market context which found that consumer perception of a retailer's CRO ultimately affected consumers' buying behaviour (Odekerken-Schroder et al., 2003). Consumers who perceive that a green retailer cares for customer loyalty may respond equitably by adjusting their patronage and buying behaviours towards the green retailer. According to Nyilasy and Gangadharbatla (2016), green consumers use all types of digital media vehicles more recurrently than non-green consumers. Social media (e.g. Facebook, YouTube, Google+) was found to be one of the most prevalent internet vehicles among green consumers as well as the best platform to reach the active green consumers (Nyilasy and Gangadharbatla, 2016). Thus, the finding of this study suggests that green retailers need to make various efforts to improve their ties with regular customers and to increase regular customers' loyalty through a variety of social media. Green retailers could provide their regular customers with diverse green loyalty programmes with rewards and incentives using digital media vehicles. They should also continuously monitor the green market and competition in order to satisfy green customer needs and offer superior green products and swift solutions.\nLimitations and recommendations for future study: This study focussed on the green market. In order to understand how the findings in the green market context are different from the findings in the non-green market, future study could test the hypothesized model of this study in the non-green market context. As a result, the similarity and differences between the non-green market and green market could be found in terms of social CRM. Furthermore, future research could employ a qualitative longitudinal study to obtain holistic and richly descriptive findings and make comparisons over time in terms of effective green brands' CRM strategies through social media.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Despite the importance of incorporating social media with customer relationship management (CRM), the implementation of social CRM is still in its initial stages for a majority of green brands. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether consumers' perception-based factors of the online CRM tactics through social media (i.e. perceived marketer-dominated information quality, perceived interaction quality, and perceived service content quality in social media) offered by the green brand were related to the perceived customer retention orientation (CRO) of the green fashion retailer, which was related to patronage intention towards the green retailer, and the moderating effect of green consciousness on the link between perceived CRO of the green retailer and patronage intention.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data were collected from social media users (n=631) using a consumer panel via an online survey. Structural equation modelling was employed to test the proposed model and research hypotheses.\nFindings: This study found that the perceived CRO of the green retailer was positively related to patronage intention. The perceived marketer-dominated information quality and perceived service content quality in social media were positively related to the perceived CRO of the green retailer. Green consciousness moderated the link between perceived CRO and patronage intention.\nOriginality/value: First, this study contributes to the further theoretical understanding of the underlying factors that influence customer perception of the CRO of the green retailer and green patronage intention. Second, on a managerial level, this proposed model provides green retailers with beneficial insights into the development of successful social CRM.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Push and pull factors in international franchising
|
[
"Uncertainty",
"Ambidexterity",
"Real options",
"Economic conditions",
"Franchising internationalization",
"Munificence"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Internationalization is a prerequisite for firm growth and competitiveness today (Buckley and Casson, 1976; Czinkota and Ronkainen, 2013). Research on international marketing channels has accelerated in recent years, focused mainly on the macroenvironment in developed countries (Hoppner and Griffith, 2015). Among international marketing channels, collaborative modes of entry have gained in popularity because many internationalizing firms are small and young and because some international environments are higher in risk (Swoboda et al., 2015). Franchising is a unique collaborative mode of entry with lower embedded risk (due to limited needed investment by the franchisor) and high level of contractual control (through a prescribed business format). Franchisors transfer know-how, industrial rights and intellectual property in return for consideration in the form of fees and royalties. Casson (2015) suggested that franchising is the desirable collaborative mode of entry where knowledge is an important component of the business model. As a result, franchising has become a dominant strategy among internationalizing firms across the service sector, particularly in hotels, retailing, and fast-food restaurants (Jell-Ojobor and Windsperger, 2014).\n2. Theory and hypotheses: 2.1 Literature on international franchising\n3. Methods: 3.1 Sample and data\n4. Findings: As Table II shows, the findings for Model 1 with control variables suggest that older firms are less likely to seek international franchise partners (-0.021, p<0.05). Prior internationalization experience is positively related to future international franchising (0.100, p<.01). Model 2 tests the hypothesis about the effect of munificence on internationalization. Results show that munificence is negatively related to internationalization of franchising firms (-20.167, p<0.001) which lends support for H1. The relationship between relative munificence (the USA vs the rest of the world) also has a negative significant influence on international franchising (-10.088, p<0.001), consistent with H2. The third hypothesis predicts that home market uncertainty will push firms to seek international franchising in more stable markets. Model 4 shows that UNCERTAINTY has a positive influence on franchising internationalization, which confirms the predictions of H3 (1.466, p<0.001). The last model (Model 5) indicates that relative uncertainty (the USA vs the rest of the world) is also a significant predictor of international franchising. That is, RELUNCERT is positively related to international franchising (1.494, p<0.001) and firms are more likely to seek international franchising when the US market is more uncertain than the rest of the world which offers support for H4.\n5. Discussion and conclusion: The findings of this study not only corroborate previous studies on market conditions and internationalization of franchising firms (Aydin and Kacker, 1990; Alon et al., 2012), but also add to more than four decades of research on collaborative entry modes by empirically showing that both home and host market economic conditions play a role when firms seek international expansion. This is an important contribution to international marketing literature which looked at host market factors on the choice of market entry mode (Kwon and Konopa, 1993) but rarely considered the timing of internationalization decision. Therefore, unlike previous studies in marketing which sought an answer to the question of \"which mode\" for service firms (Erramilli and Rao, 1993), this study offers an answer to the question of \"when.\"\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Using munificence, real options and ambidexterity theories, the purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how the differential between home and host market environmental conditions affects US international franchising expansion.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors used firm-level panel data for 151 US-based franchising firms, from Bond's Guide for Franchise Opportunities, for the years 1994-2008 plus macroeconomic data on the environment, to explain the probability of franchising.\nFindings: The paper finds that the differential in economic growth and economic uncertainty impacts franchisors' desire to expand abroad on a continual basis.\nResearch limitations/implications: Researchers in international franchising should not only focus on host market environmental variables (pull factors), but also on conditions in the home market (push factors).\nOriginality/value: The paper adds to environmental explanations of international franchising by focusing on the differential in munificence and uncertainty between home and host countries.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Waking up after the war
|
[
"Futures markets",
"World economy",
"Research methods"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: The first step towards building an alternative world has to be a refusal of the world-picture implanted in our minds and all the false promises used everywhere to justify and idealise the delinquent and insatiable need to sell. Another space is vitally necessary (Berger, 2001).\nIntroduction: The aftermath of the Iraq war raised many questions about the present world order. Many are concluding that it's time to bring fresh thinking to the wider problems that face the world. To do so means raising some awkward questions, challenging a number of strongly held beliefs and practices, and also deeply offending some people. Yet the pay-offs could be enormous.The early conclusion of the war brought a temporary sense of relief - the worst fears (of a wider conflagration) were not confirmed. But achieving a credible peace proved more difficult. The operation in Iraq remained unpopular for a number of reasons, one of which is that it highlighted continuing unresolved concerns about the prevailing world order. It is here that this enquiry begins.\n1. Overview: One of the central facts of our time is that underlying drivers of the world economy, the current model of \"wild\" globalisation, the continuing deterioration of the environment and a raft of social issues all undermine hopes for a peaceful future. Moreover, and despite a persistent diet of bad news, humanity has yet to collectively grasp the scale of the challenges facing it. It seems highly likely that new waves of instability will emerge both from unresolved conflicts and injustices, as well as the implementation of successive technological innovations in technically advanced nations. Genomics, nanotechnology and ubiquitous computing power are all advancing rapidly. Each has positive and negative implications. The former are constantly exaggerated in order to stimulate \"demand\". The latter generally emerge though social experience, which includes warfare. With so much at stake this is not a great way to proceed. Does anyone really think that human civilisation can survive the onset of what Lessig (2004), following Bill Joy has called \"insanely destructive devices\" (IDDs)? One has only to consider the military implications of nanotechnology to conclude that it is unlikely.Some years ago Australian politician Barry Jones wrote a book called Sleepers Wake. I once asked him what he would have these erstwhile sleepers do, were they to wake. He said:I'd have them see that there are different ways to do things.The wisdom of that comment has remained with me.We live in a world where depth understanding of the present is not valued and high quality futures work remains all-too rare. It can therefore be said that we remain \"asleep\" to (or simply, unaware of) deep processes of change and to their long term implications. Many people demonstrate some level of understanding of the global predicament. But avoidance and denial are widespread. Thus far, there is precious little installed capacity to respond, particularly in laid-back Australia. The Bali bombing changed nothing in this respect. The collective blinkers are still firmly in place. The social constructions that keep them there remain largely unacknowledged and unchallenged[1].The Australian Commission for the Future attracted many criticisms and few friends. Yet it was a forerunner of what I have called \"institutions of foresight\". The latter are emerging because more people recognise that, in order to deal with the problems and potentials facing us, the first step is to really pay attention - to \"attend in depth\" - to what is happening now. That is one step toward the kind of intelligent and deeply grounded futures enquiry that a world in turmoil desperately needs.If we consider the assumptions that underlie the global system there is little or no evidence of in-depth questioning or re-thinking by the most powerful actors. Growth is still good. Forget the long-term future. You cannot study something that does not exist. Moreover, the market will provide. The sum of all those individual purchasing decisions will add up to collective wisdom in the long term, right? Well, wrong. The so-called \"invisible hand\" of the market is a failed theory that remains firmly in place despite being moronic in conception and unworkable in practice. It remains current for just one simple reason - because it suits the powerful. Market-led economics get more unreal the longer they continue. But the penny has still not dropped that there are many parts of the world that will never accept that model or the values that sustain it[2].It is now widely reported that the value of all annual trade in \"real\" goods and services around the world is equalled each day by the global casino of currency speculation - a game for the rich if ever there was one. Growth - the \"engine of capitalism\" - makes sense for limited periods of time in limited contexts. It does not make sense as a central tenet and primary goal in a world with significant limits. Nor can societies discern viable ways forward through the wide and seductive avenues of commerce. To attempt to do so is not dissimilar to putting the poacher in charge of the game. The compulsive marketing of consumer products and mass recourse to ever more compelling digital fantasies certainly have their appeal but they also operate as expensive distractions - bread, circuses and the Matrix. It is essential to \"clear the fog\" and re-focus our attention on the collective tasks that really matter. Culturally we urgently need to explore what \"waking up\" might mean. That is the underlying purpose of this paper.The Iraq war had its supporters and its detractors. But the main game was not there nor is it on any other military battlefield. Terrorism is a continuing scourge of tragic and growing proportions. Yet it too is not the main issue. It is a symptom of a deeper dysfunction - that of uneven and misdirected development. The human agony thus created every single day is so far beyond the experience of affluent populations that it is easy to ignore. Lasting solutions will challenge everyone. They will necessarily question, and then profoundly change, the current model of international business, finance, development and cultural valuation that consistently hands most of the winning cards to affluent western states. It is not \"anti-American\" or \"anti-European\" to point this out and to require an end to the double standards that maintain global inequities (one thinks here, for example, of the willingness of France to test nuclear devices in the Pacific but not in the Champs Elysee). The single greatest priority must be to support the fulfilment of basic human needs within the multiple contexts that sustain all life, both human and non-human (Wilson, 2003). The failure of current development models means that the seeds of future wars, terrorist incidents, famines and other assorted nasties, continue to be sown.If nations were really interested in \"safeguarding the future\" their citizens would insist that governments worked toward a more balanced and equitable world. They would withdraw their assent from the many interests, organisations and projects that continue to play power games with the rich and create instability and danger for all. They would insist, one by one, that the major players - from Hollywood to the White House, from Wall Street to the IMF - and their equivalents elsewhere - be held to account both for their successes and their failures. They would ensure that what Robert Jungk called \"look-out\" institutions were integrated into the very fabric of our society. Staffed by people with some of the keenest minds around, the latter would show how the clear perception of disastrous futures can provide motivation for changes in the here-and-now. They would also incubate a wide range of social innovations and support the emergence of social foresight.Who can take the necessary steps? There are many answers to this question. One is the World Futures Studies Federation (WFSF) - a small NGO with several hundred members around the world. Numerically you could say that it is insignificant. But in other ways it is not. It supports the development and implementation of futures thinking and policy in many places. It runs futures courses for young people and links courses run in some 50 universities. It provides a context for dissenting views and visions of the future. It encourages the emergence of new voices from many different cultures into the futures conversation. It stands against hegemony - wherever and whenever it is found - and the \"one true way\". Over time these contributions can have catalytic effects. An integral part of that is the need to promote good work and to stand against sloppy work, conventional thinking and the careless uses of power that Ulrich Beck rightly describes as currently \"legal but illegitimate\". There is no way around this. You cannot be sanguine about the current world order and its distorted modus operandi and, at the same time, expect solutions to emerge from dominant institutions. It will not happen. Lasting solutions will emerge wherever people of integrity are clear about what is going on, when they act out of positive shared values and where they refuse the current sugar-coated version of progress now being marketed throughout the world.So here is one answer to the question posed above. \"Waking up\" after the Iraq war implies a clear agenda and commitment: deliberately and patiently critiquing the current world order and moving forward with values, assumptions and strategies that actively seek to break the current gridlock in world affairs.\n2. How can futurists respond?: Understanding the past in-depth\n3. Post-conventional futures studies/foresight: Let me re-cap the argument thus far. Part one linked the notion of \"waking up\" with the need to \"deliberately and patiently critique the current world order.\" Part two extended the metaphor to briefly outline some suggestions for how futures/foresight practitioners can themselves \"move on\" both internally (with respect to their own development) and externally (in terms of post-conventional futures work). It suggested that \"conventional approaches to world issues within FS have barely scraped the surface\". This section provides an overview of work in progress. That is, work that seeks to be both post-conventional and integrally informed.What does post-conventional mean?\nConclusion: At the outset it was suggested that the central issue that should most concern us is that of uneven development. In this paper I have tried to show how more advanced forms of futures enquiry and action are being developed that can help us to engage in depth with the multiple crises that continue to threaten our world and its nascent futures. In part three I briefly explored some aspects of \"integrally informed post-conventional futures work\". To deal with the anticipated criticism that all this is \"merely theoretical\" examples of work completed and work in progress have been provided.During early 2004, when this essay was being written, notice of a conference called by several prominent US futurists arrived. The conference would consider \"the role of technology in creating solutions to the world's problems\". This is yet another example of \"looking for solutions in the wrong place\". Why? Because it is very difficult indeed to see how in our currently divided world further investments in increasingly powerful technologies that provide what Bill Joy called \"enormous transformative power\" can possibly generate real solutions. In the context sketched in above the reverse seems much more likely.Now that terrorists are using mobile phones to set off bombs that massacre innocent civilians, it is all too clear that genomics, nanotech and other innovations now being developed will also be misused. HG Wells saw this many years ago and the questions he raised then have still not yet been answered. Some of them hit very close to home. Where, we should ask, did \"weapons of mass destruction\" come from in the first place, if not from the west which shirked its moral responsibility to ban them from the earth when it could? Where are they currently stored and with whose permission?So the kind of futures work outlined here is not merely theoretical. It is intensely relevant and practical. I have argued that it is necessary to critique the current world order. It is equally necessary to confront the sources of unrestrained power and the mad pursuit of endless material wealth. I believe it was Donella Meadows who said something like \"you only have to spend millions marketing something if its worth is in doubt\". She had the theory, the tools and the moral courage to say what she truly believed. Now, as futurists and foresight practitioners we need to start looking more deeply into ourselves and into our social contexts to find the \"levers of change\" the strategies, the enabling contexts, pathways to social foresight.Post-conventional futures work is not for the faint-hearted but it does suggest a range of constructive responses to a world currently set on the path to oblivion.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The war in Iraq raises questions about the global world order and this article aims to suggest the need for us to awaken to fresh thinking on the problems facing the world.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A brief analysis of the global problematic is presented. Next, the article concentrates on some of the ways in which futurists can respond. The third section takes up the theme of what it means to \"wake up\" at the cultural level. Finally the paper considers some examples of \"post-conventional\" futures work.\nFindings: - The article describes advanced forms of futures enquiry and action that are being developed to help people to engage in-depth with the multiple crises that threaten the world and its nascent futures.\nOriginality/value: - The article provides a basis for futurists and foresight practitioners to find the \"levers of change\", the strategies, the enabling contexts and pathways to social foresight.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The dynamic influence of culture on variation in consumers' attachment of value to a product
|
[
"Dynamic culture",
"Context effect",
"Attributes-benefits-values",
"Cross-cultural"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Typically, cross-cultural marketing research focused on cultural differences presents them as data, rather than as a variable that can be manipulated. Consequently, culture is operationalized as a principal explanatory factor and constructed as an independent and homogeneous block that produces measurable effects (Livian, 2011). This is particularly true in the means-end chain (MEC) analysis. As Gutman's initial contribution in 1982, MEC theory has been developed and standardized by Grunert and Bech-Larsen (2005), Reynolds and Olson (2001) and Valette-Florence et al. (2000). It aims to provide a better understanding of the underlying motivations and decision-making processes of consumers, drawing upon the idea that values play a driving role in shaping an individual's attitudes, judgments and behaviors. In particular, it suggests that the consumer places greater weight on benefits and values that are important to him or her when deciding to purchase a product. The cognitive model seeks to highlight the links between product attributes and consumer benefits, which, in turn, are linked to their values (Peter and Olson, 1999). It, thus, interprets product choice in terms of relationships between the constituent MEC elements, namely, attributes, benefits and values.\nTheoretical background: Self-construal and means-end chain\nMethodology: Preliminary studies\nResults: To verify the validity of MEC relationships with the level of independence and interdependence, our hypotheses were tested using a series of two-factor variance analyzes as follows: two cultures (French vs Korean) x three self-construal priming's (independent vs interdependent vs control) on centrality scores for gustative EB, links between gustative EB and individualistic values (EB-IV links), RB and links between RB and collective values (RB-CV links).\nDiscussion: This article is an in-depth examination of the influence of the self-construal on MEC contents and structures. It draws upon the priming method and sample populations from two countries where the predominant self-construal is culturally different. Our results, obtained by comparative analyzes of hierarchical maps, highlight the effect of self-construal priming that contradicts the culture of origin. Cross-cultural independence and interdependence priming foster convergence between dominant chains of French and Korean participants by considerably reducing the cultural differences that are observed when there is no priming. The main conclusion we draw from this observation is that MEC can be influenced by culture through variation in the self-construal. Moreover, it appears that a consumer's cultural anchoring can be shaped by priming a specific dimension of self-construal, which, in turn, illustrates that cultural influence is a discontinuous process.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Cross-cultural research based on the means-end chain (MEC) theory tends to overestimate the stability of the dominant chains of a cultural group; at the same time, it pays insufficient attention to the influence of the context on an individual's cultural anchorage. This study aims to adopt the dynamic constructivist approach to culture to show that, for the same product, differences in MEC for consumers from different cultures can be voluntarily reduced under certain conditions and to a certain extent.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors adopted an inter-subject experimental design: two cultures (French vs Korean) x three self-construal primings (independent vs interdependent vs control). Participants in the experimental group were randomly assigned to one of the three priming conditions. The no-priming control group made it possible to verify the effect of priming by measuring the difference in responses with respect to the two experimental groups.\nFindings: The results highlight the effect of self-construal priming that contradicts the culture of origin. Cross-cultural independence and interdependence priming foster convergence between dominant chains of French and Korean participants by considerably reducing the cultural differences that are observed when there is no priming. It appears that a consumer's cultural anchoring can be shaped by priming a specific dimension of self-construal, which, in turn, illustrates that cultural influence is a discontinuous process.\nOriginality/value: It is the first attempt to study variation in the dominant chains of a cultural group, rather than adopting the preconceived notion of their permanence or stability in different contexts. The methodological contribution is characterized by the combination of a method to record chains and a priming method applied in different cultural environments.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Investigating the role of firm resources and environmental variables in new product commercialization
|
[
"New product commercialization",
"Technology acquisition intent",
"Dominant design",
"Market heterogeneity",
"Network externalities",
"Firm resources",
"Resource based view of a firm",
"Resources",
"New products"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: High-tech industries are characterized by turbulent environment owing to dynamic customer needs, shorter technology life-cycles, and higher competitive intensity that together makes the existing product offering obsolete at much faster pace (Mohr, 2001; Saji and Jain, 2006). The window of opportunity for products and technologies is typically narrow in these industries, and firms are left with no choice but to rely on technological innovation and their transformation into successful new products for their survival and growth (Atuahene-Gima and Murray, 2007; Christensen et al., 2008; Prahalad and Hamel, 1990). Firms respond to the environmental challenges of high-tech industry by indulging in continuous innovation and commercialization of new products. A typical high-tech firm spends about 10 to 20 per cent of its annual revenue in developing new products (Goyal and Menke, 2006); and the firm's market capitalization is predominantly influenced by the projected commercial success of new technologies (Sood and Tellis, 2009). Hence, technology selection for new product commercialization is termed as an important managerial decision in high tech firms (Krishnan and Bhattacharya, 2002; Morone, 1989; Clark, 1989).Technology selection for pursuing the new product development process varies across firms and markets, and is being considered as an important decision to realize the strategic objectives of the firm (Dussauge et al., 1992; Shehabuddeen et al., 2006; Tushman and Rosenkopf, 1992). However, the emergence of wide array of technological options available today for NPD that a firm can exercise and the shrinking technology life cycles have increased the complexity of technology acquisition for new product development processes (Iansiti and West, 1997; Saji et al., 2005). In case of new high-tech product development (hereafter referred to as NPD) process, complexity of technology selection is further augmented as these products function in conjunction with other complementary products as part of a network system, rather than as stand-alone products (Cohan, 1997). Therefore the network environment, in which a high-tech firm operates, exerts significant influence on managerial decisions like technology acquisition for NPD process.Market side view of technology evolution suggests that demand related factors motivate technological changes and the decision to acquire a new technology depends on customer driven standards, diversity in preferences, and benefits derived from the presence of other customers in the network (Adner and Levinthal, 2001; Cohen and Levinthal, 1990). Surprisingly, there is a dearth of empirical research that could have ascertained the influence of environmental variables on a firm's technology acquisition in the NPD process, which has been the primary motivation behind the present study. In order to address this critical research gap, a focused literature survey has been conducted to explore the relationships among the environmental variables, firm's technology acquisition intent (TAI), and its effect on NPD process. The literature review has lead to a comprehensive theoretical framework, which was then empirically tested by conducting a survey among the 215 high-tech firms. The results highlighted the variables that influence the firm's TAI and its effect on the NPD process.\n2. Research problem and objectives: Canez et al. (2007) has recently reported the lack of extant literature that could address the need to link technology acquisition with the Stage-Gate system of NPD process in a structured manner. Although there are a few studies that have explored the influence of industry standards, network externalities and market structure on innovation, rarely any prior research has examined the strategic role of these extraneous variables on a firm's technology acquisition intent for pursuing the NPD process. Further, the extant organizational theory suggests that a firm's response to extraneous environment varies depending on its own contingencies and resources. Therefore, it has been decided to investigate the environmental variables that could influence a firm's TAI, and how this intent is related to the NPD process outcome in the context of high-tech industry. The specific objectives of the study include:* to explore the possible relationships between extraneous environmental variables and a firm's TAI; and* to understand the effect of TAI on the Stage-Gate system of NPD process.In order to meet the objectives of the study, to start with, a focused literature review has been done that resulted in a theoretical framework, which is then taken for empirical validation through a carefully executed survey.\n3. Theoretical framework and research hypotheses: In high-tech markets, the ability of a firm to develop new technologies and transform them as new differentiated products determines its market capitalization (Goyal and Menke, 2006). Prior researches have reported that the firms having their ability to introduce more new technologies in their new products succeed more than those who fail to do so (Nevens et al., 1990; Saji and Nair, 2010). Typically NPD process necessitates acquisition and commercialization of new know-how through complex learning and relational skills (Eisenhardt and Martin, 2000). Successful firms acquire necessary know-how by optimal utilization of available internal and external resources to their favor (Smith et al., 2005). Choice of the technology for NPD is influenced by organizational as well as environmental factors (Hemmert, 2004; Shehabuddeen et al., 2006). At the beginning of competition, multiple technologies compete with each other and emergence of dominant design is considered as watershed event in high-tech markets (Tushman and Anderson, 1986; Dattee and Weil, 2007). Technologies that are considered as industry standards and more closely aligned to statutory norms are more readily accepted (Schilling, 2002). Prior studies have investigated the variation in demand of products in line with compatibility and availability of complementary products. The benefits derived by a customer from installed base can be an important determinant of technology selection and success of product in the market. In addition, variations in customer preferences have been attributed behind technological evolutions (Adner and Levinthal, 2001). However, according to the Resource Based View of the firm, the variation in firms' actions originates from the differences in their resources. The focused literature survey carried out has enabled us to identify the possible antecedents to a firm's TAI as well as their relationships with TAI and new product commercialization.3.1 Technology acquisition intent (TAI)\n4. Research methodology: 4.1 Sample and data collection\n5. Analysis and results: In this study, unit of analysis fixed is a recent New high-tech product development project. In order to validate the theoretical framework, path analysis and hierarchical regression analysis are perfomed to test the structural model and moderating effect of the firm resources. The results of the analysis and research model are given in Figure 2. Path analysis was performed to examine the relationship between independent variables, mediator variable and dependent variable. The output of path analysis (Table III) showed a good fit of the tested model (GFI=0.99, CFI=0.99, IFI=0.99, RMSEA=0.02, and Dkh2/n=1.08). Examination of individual hypotheses suggest that H7 (b=0.66, t=13.46, p<0.000) i.e. TAI to new product commercialization relationship, H1 (b=0.22, t=3.60, p<0.000) i.e. Dominant design to TAI, H3 (b=0.17, t=3.02, p<0.00) i.e. positive influence of market heterogeneity on firm's TAI, and H5 (b=0.20, t=3.14, p<0.00) i.e. network externalities to TAI are supported by the study results. Also, further examination of indirect effects of the independent variables revealed that effect of dominant design and network externalities on new product commercialization are found to be insignificant, indicating full mediating role of TAI in these relationships. However, market heterogeneity to new product commercialization relationship (b=-0.08, t=-2.27, p<0.05) is also significant, and hence TAI only partially mediates the same relationship.For testing the moderating effects of firm resources on the relationships between dominant deisgn and TAI, market heterogeneity and TAI, and network externalities and TAI, we performed a hierarchical moderated regression analysis. We mean-centered the independent and moderator variables before creating the interaction terms (Aiken and West, 1991). All the variables have VIF close to unity and Durbin-Watson static close to 2 (d=1.85) indicating that multicollinearity is not a problem. The result of hierarchial regression (Table IV) indicates that the addition of the interaction variables adds 3.00 per cent (DF=2.13, p=0.097) to the explained variance in TAI. Examination of individual interaction term reveals that results support H2 (b=-0.11, p=0.094) i.e. dominant design to TAI relationship, and H6 (b=-0.13, p=0.04) i.e. network externalities to TAI relationship, indicating that these relationships are significantly moderated by firm resources. However, H4 (b=-0.02, p=0.696 n.s.) is not supported, i.e. market heterogeneity to TAI relationship is not moderated by firm resources. Interestingly, the sign of regression coefficient is negative in case of firm resources moderating the network externalities to TAI relationship.\n6. Discussion and implications: Conceding the presence of pervasive technological and market turbulence in high-tech markets, prior researches have emphasized the importance of renewal of firm's existing know-how by acquiring new know-hows in order to continuously develop and introduce successful innovative products. However, our literature review highlighted scarcity of empirical research investigating the influece of environmental factors on the firm's TAI and the role of firm resources on these relationships. Addressing this critical research gap was the primary motivation behind the present study; and our focused literature review resulted in a well defined theoretical framework, which we tested empirically to ascertain the relationships of environmental variables on the firm's TAI.Findings emanated out of the present study confirmed the hypothesized mediation of TAI between environment variables (namely, dominant design, market heterogeneity, and network externalities) and new product commercialization. The study results also confirmed that the roles of the three environmental variables (dominant design, market heterogeneity and network externalities) as antecedents to a firm's TAI. It can be infered from here that as dominant standards evolves in the industry, the firm's propensity to acquire the new technology increases. The increased propensity can also be attributed to the shift of technological development from architectural level to component level, and thus increases the chances of new technolgy acquisition as dominant design emerges (Sood and Tellis, 2005). The confirmation of relationship between market heterogeneity and firm's TAI suggest that the presence of diversity in customer demand promotes the acquisition of new technologies that can fulfill customer requirements, which is not possible by existing technologies. Support for the influence of network externalities on TAI suggest that the expected large installed base reduces the unit cost of new technology acquisition and makes acquisition more attractive option to a firm.The moderation by firm resources on dominant design to TAI relationship suggests that the firm with higher resources prefer to wait until clear signal about dominant design emerges. In addition, the negative moderating effect of firm resources on network externalities to TAI relationship confirms that the availability of higher resources decreases the intent to acquire new technologies due to larger installed base. This could be because with large resources, firms possess the adequate strengths to afford higher technological investment that may not be posssible with a resource constraint firm. Further, no influece of firm resources on market herterogeneity to TAI relationship indicates that irrespective of firm resources, firms are compelled to acquire new technologies when heterogeneity in demand exists in the market.\n7. Limitations and future research directions: By resorting to the resource based view of the firm, the present study has only investigated the influence of environmental variables and firm reseources on the firm's TAI. One important limitation of the study, therefore, could be the limited number of antecedent variables that have been considered for the present study, which could certainly be addressed by bringing in more feasible organizational variables as part of an improvised theoretical framework. Further, the sample drawn is generic in nature, and from across different high-tech industry sectors. There could be striking differences among the various high-tech industry sectors (for, e.g. in terms of technology life cycle). Also, the overall sample size used for the present study is bare minimum to perform the structural equation modeling. The future researches could therefore be thought of with specific reference to specific high-tech industry sectors with relatively larger sample size. Another important limitation of this study is the generic limitations associated with survey based methodology viz. internal validity, and the difference in self-reported NPD practices from the actual practices. Future researchers can utilize other research methods such as life cased-based research and experimental design to validate the findings of our study.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to explain the role of firm resources and environmental variables for pursuing new product commercialization in high-tech markets.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The research design employed for the study consisted of both exploratory and descriptive phases. To begin with, a focused literature review was performed to develop a theoretical framework with seven research hypotheses, which was then empirically validated through a carefully executed survey conducted on the products managers of high tech firms.\nFindings: - The study results have supported six research hypotheses, viz. technology acquisition intent (TAI) to new product commercialization relationship, direct influence of dominant design, market heterogeneity, and network externalities on the firm's TAI relationship. The results of hierarchical regression analysis indicated that the \"dominant design to TAI\" and the \"network externalities to TAI\" relationships are significantly moderated by firm resources. However, the \"market heterogeneity to TAI\" relationship is found to be not moderated by firm resources.\nPractical implications: - Findings of the study have significant implications to extant product management theory and practice. The study highlights the most important environmental variables in high-tech markets that act as antecedents to a firm's TAI and the effect of TAI on new product commercialization. Further, the study reveals the differential effects of these antecedent variables across firms owing to the varying levels of resource availability.\nOriginality/value: - The paper reports the significant outcomes of an important study on product management that attempted to establish the linkages across environmental variables, firm resources, and firm's technology strategy in pursuing the new product commercialization.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Why do academics become entrepreneurs? How do their motivations evolve? Results from an empirical study
|
[
"Academic spin-offs",
"Academic entrepreneurship",
"Motivations",
"Identity perspective",
"Microfoundations",
"Italy"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The paradigm of the Triple Helix emphasizes the role of universities in the modern knowledge-based economy (Etzkowitz, 2003). According to this paradigm, universities are moving from their traditional role of research, teaching and knowledge dissemination to an entrepreneurial one (Hayter, 2011; Marzocchi et al., 2019; Passaro et al., 2018; Schillo, 2018; Shane, 2004). The extant literature investigates the contributions of universities to innovation and competitiveness through a wide range of academic entrepreneurship activities, ranging from patenting to the creation of new firms (Culkin, 2016; Kakouris, 2016; Leitch and Harrison, 1999; Phan and Siegel, 2006; Rothaermel et al., 2007; Woolard, 2008).In more detail, academic spin-offs (ASOs) are new firms established to exploit the results of universities' research. There have been several attempts in the literature to define ASOs. Although a universal definition does not exist, according to different scholars (Bigliardi et al., 2013; Galati et al., 2017; Mathisen and Rasmussen, 2019; Miranda et al., 2018; Pattnaik and Pandey, 2014), a number of common features are identifiable. These refer to the founders, the parent institution, their objective and their main activities. Indeed, an ASO is usually set up within the academic context by professors, researchers or Ph.D. students (Ben-Hafaiedh et al., 2018; Kolb and Wagner, 2018; Hayter et al., 2017), who may or may not be currently affiliated with the parent organization, that is a university or other academic institution (Bock et al., 2018; Franzoni and Lissoni, 2009). An ASO exploits knowledge created within a university or other academic institution, with the final aim of developing products or services, commercializing technology and generating profit. Consequently, the transfer of core technology from an academic institution into a new company represents its main activity.There have been many extensive studies about ASOs and their importance for the local socio-economic development. The key areas investigated are the university (Bigliardi et al., 2015), the economic systems (Clarysse et al., 2011) or the ASO itself. As far as the latter is concerned, life cycle process (Helm and Mauroner, 2007; Vanaelst et al., 2006; Vohara et al., 2004) and growth in terms of success or performance (Bigliardi et al., 2013; Francois and Philippart, 2019; Jung and Kim, 2018; Mathisen and Rasmussen, 2019; Vohara et al., 2004) are the most investigated issues.In Italy, the creation of ASOs has increased significantly in recent decades also due to a new dedicated regulatory framework that supports technology transfer (Fini et al., 2009; Meoli and Vismara, 2016). To date, the establishment of ASOs represents a consolidated phenomenon in that country, which has attracted the interests of scholars (Iacobucci and Micozzi, 2015). Meoli and Vismara (2016) stressed that understanding the determinants of such a rapid increase in the rate of establishment of ASOs in the Italian context is of crucial importance. However, despite this interest, previous studies analyzing the Italian scenario focused on the role of environmental and institutional factors, such as the support provided by the government, university and the local context (Fini et al., 2009; Galati et al., 2017; Horta et al., 2016; Meoli and Vismara, 2016; Rizzo, 2015). Their investigations refer to the role of a number of supporting mechanisms, such as: venture capital and direct financial support, initiatives launched by public agencies or local government, local industrial composition and economic cycles and technology transfer offices (TTOs). On this ground, scholars are recently focusing on the investigation of new digital technologies able to develop digital spin-offs, alumni start-ups, patent applications processes, creation of digital platforms supporting entrepreneurial competences as well as to feed up the founders' motivations (Malita, 2012; Rippa and Secundo, 2019). These technologies are expected to expand the impact and the opportunities of academic entrepreneurship in the next years (Barbieri et al., 2018; Elia et al., 2017) by reducing the barriers between invention and new venture creation (Elia et al., 2020). In a nutshell, this means that such digital solutions can motivate students, researchers and professors in launching ASOs (Elia et al., 2020).What is missing in these debates is a deeper understanding of the involvement of a key player, the university scientist (Jain et al., 2009), which represents the main gap identified in the literature dealing with the Italian scenario (and that is also poorly addressed in the international literature). Investigating the microfoundations of academic entrepreneurship could be crucial, because motivations are key to understanding the participation of Italian academic scientists in the technology commercialization process, and such motivations represent the spark and the subsequent engine of the new entrepreneurial venture activity (Lockett et al., 2005). According to Jain et al. (2009), understanding these micro-level issues influences key macro-level entrepreneurial outcomes, such as start-up formation and regional development.Embarking into the world of technology commercialization is often a non-trivial challenge for academics, because this involvement usually requires those individuals to alter their role identity (Jain et al., 2009). This change involves the modification of the set of activities performed by a scientist, imposes the need to face market pressures that are distant from the academic ones and, thus, to reassess the beliefs, priorities, abilities and even the view of the meaning of the academic entrepreneur's work (Pratt et al., 2006). Therefore, an examination of the evolution of motivations of academics under these circumstances, as carried out in the present study, could shed light on the drivers and the nature of these initiatives, thus offering insights to policy-makers involved in designing interactions between different stakeholders within the technology transfer context. Moreover, this issue could be very important when considering that the rapid diffusion of digital technologies that support academic entrepreneurship is likely to have a further impact on the evolution of the motivations of academics. This is because such technologies can enable a further shift of the motivations of academic entrepreneurs, increasing the generation of social value through the involvement of different stakeholders, and thus contributing to the well-being of society by applying research and diffusing technologies outside the university (Fayolle and Redford, 2014; Malita, 2012).Based on these premises, the aim of this study is to investigate the motivational factors that lead an Italian academic to establish a spin-off and to investigate whether, how and why these motivations vary over time. To do this, the study uses a combination of cognitive and psychological theories of entrepreneurship, specifically the role identity and social identity ones proposed by Gruber and MacMillan (2017), as well as the findings of the very few studies that have investigated motivations in academic entrepreneurship and their evolution over time (Hayter, 2015; Jain et al., 2009).The main contribution of the present study, in addition to the provision of empirical knowledge to the scant and anecdotal literature existing to date, lies in the inclusion of such a theoretical perspective (Gruber and MacMillan, 2017) in the academic entrepreneurship debate. The evolutionary perspective on scientists' motivations provided by this study could lead to a better understanding of the success and survival of ASOs.Drawing on existing works, this study first outlines the debate on entrepreneurial behavior based on identity theories, as well as what is currently known about academics' motivations. Then, after describing the objective and the methodology, survey data from a sample of Italian ASOs are presented, which enables the investigation, both at the outset and at the present time, of scientists' motivations for engaging in technology commercialization activities and the degree to which different factors affect the evolution of their motivations. The paper concludes by summarizing and discussing the results in terms of theoretical contribution and implications for future research.\nTheoretical background: Microfoundations' perspectives on academic entrepreneurship\nEvolution of motivations: Changes occurring\nDiscussion and conclusions: The present study focused on entrepreneurial action, self-reported motivations and how motivations evolve over time, topics that had not been addressed previously in the academic literature dealing with the establishment of ASOs in Italy. Starting from the classification of the proposed motivational factors, this research firstly investigated the motivational factors that formed the basis of entrepreneurial intention.Although the respondents valued many motivations as important, the results highlighted that the most important motivations were Funds and resources and Job Enhancement. In other words, at the foundation, Italian academics were mainly motivated to create ASOs by the search for research funding, due to the funding constraints of the academic environment, as well as to create job opportunities, mainly due to the difficulties for young scientists in finding a permanent position within the academic environment. Profit and commercialization were important, but were not the main motivators. Those interviewed were divided into two different groups (Foggy and Improvement), according to the importance assigned to the various motivational factors at the foundation. In general, the founders of Foggy ASOs valued all the motivations higher than did the founders of Improvement ones, the exceptions being the access to resources and access to funds (these were the least important motivations). In particular, the prospects of higher-income played an important role in establishing an ASO, also for the necessity to supplement university salary and to achieve an acceptable quality of life. These ASOs were also established in order to increase employment, by creating jobs for academics and researchers or students. This group of academics paid more attention to the problem of the \"academic bottleneck\" and recognized that ASOs offered opportunities for hiring young researchers even if, to a lesser extent, Foggy ASOs were also seen as a way to contribute to the well-being of society. Conversely, Improvement ASOs were established because of the need to gain access to funds for their research activities, or to access resources that their founders could not find within the university. Indeed, the founders of these ASOs recognized that collaboration with industry may provide benefits to their research activities, by establishing relationships with others external to the university, securing funds for graduate students and allowing access to laboratory equipment.The investigation of if, and how, these motivations changed over time confirmed that motivations evolved over the years. In particular, while the financial aspects became less important, over time academics recognized that other issues were of higher importance. This result appears to be in line with other studies that highlight the shift of the traditional motivations behind academics from pure economic value to social and democratic ones generated through the involvement of further university stakeholders (e.g. PhD students, graduates, researchers etc.) (Fayolle and Redford, 2014; Rippa and Secundo, 2019). Motivations at the foundation were relatively homogeneous (only two groups of ASOs), but over time academics differentiated their motivations. While a group of academics continued to be interested in financial gain (even if it did not represent an end in itself), thus continuing their activity to derive personal pay-offs from the commercialization of their knowledge and technologies, two further groups of ASOs emerged. The Well-being oriented group viewed an ASO as a means of employing students and graduates, of mitigating the challenge of finding an academic job and as a way of contributing to the well-being of society by applying research and diffusing technology outside of the university. Finally, the third group of ASOs emerged, characterized by low financial motivations but highly oriented toward funding and access to resources.The analyses also allowed an understanding of why academic entrepreneurs' motivations changed over time. Time and experience were the most common responses. Over time, academics recognized that they did not have the market knowledge (and to a lesser extent the managerial skills) required to commercialize their inventions and develop their ASO. In contrast with Hayter (2015), this study highlighted that financial gain remained a critical motivation for academics to continue their entrepreneurial activity. The less important reasons for the change of motivations were public service, the ineffectiveness of connections with TTOs in terms of support and the lack of administrative and legal knowledge. In addition, motivations changed according to the characteristics of each group of ASOs. The founders of ASOs that moved towards the Well-being oriented group were mainly led by public service and the lack of support from the parent organization and TTO, while those that moved towards the Community-oriented group were more motivated by the experience acquired and the lack of market and administrative knowledge. Finally, the founders of ASOs that became Market-oriented were mainly influenced by financial gain and the required market knowledge.This research found no significant effect of other variables, that is age, industry and size, in explaining differences between clusters. This may be due to the preliminary nature of the study and the lack of an adequate sample to effectively analyze the role of the industry. However, the results show a quite heterogeneous distribution of ASOs within the clusters with reference to these variables, thereby suggesting a limited correlation of age, industry and size with motivations and their evolution over time. This seems to support the microfoundation perspective on which the study is grounded, thereby reinforcing the idea that the focus of these kinds of analyses should be mainly on the individual academic.Theoretical contribution\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: According to the paradigm of the Triple Helix, universities are moving from their traditional roles of research, teaching and knowledge dissemination to an entrepreneurial role. Specifically, they contribute to innovation and competitiveness by creating academic spin-offs (ASOs). In such a context, the diffusion of digital technologies is impacting both on the development of new forms of academic entrepreneurship and on the motivations of academics in launching ASOs. Grounded on a recent reconceptualization developed on identity theory, this study investigates the motivations that lead an academic to establish a spin-off and if, how and why these motivations vary over time.\nDesign/methodology/approach: An extensive online survey was performed in order to obtain a final database of 151 Italian ASOs. Different statistical techniques were used, such as Cluster analysis and ANOVA, to identify different ASO profiles and to understand how and why these profiles change over time.\nFindings: The results suggest that motivations change over time: while financial aspects become less important, academics give more importance to other issues. Time, experience and financial gain influence the evolution of academic entrepreneurs' motivations over time.\nPractical implications: Insights derived from the study could help policy-makers and administrators in better understanding this phenomenon and the possible evolution of such academic motivations in the context of digitalization, and enable them to act accordingly to foster academic entrepreneurship.\nOriginality/value: The main contributions of the present study are the addition of empirical knowledge to the scant and anecdotal literature existing to date and the inclusion of cognitive and psychological theoretical perspectives in the academic entrepreneurship debate. Moreover, it is believed that no other study has investigated the above topics in the Italian context.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Tracing the future of reporting in the public sector: introducing integrated popular reporting
|
[
"Integrated reporting",
"Citizens",
"Financial reporting",
"Public sector accounting",
"Popular reporting",
"User needs"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Lately, there has been an extensive debate about whether the existing form of reporting in the public sector eventually addresses the needs of the various different user groups (Mack and Ryan, 2007; Arnaboldi and Lapsley, 2009; Walker, 2009). As governmental reports users vary to a great extent in terms of education, expertise, maturity and information requirements, the view that the needs of each distinct group could be satisfied by the existing form of financial reporting, has been widely challenged (Hernandez and Perez, 2004). For example, investors evaluate information in a different way compared to citizens, as they have different information needs. Investors might need to review additional information that might not add value or even confuse citizens. Still, both groups are equally important users of governmental financial reports for different purposes (International Public Sector Accounting Standards Board (IPSASB), 2013).\nComplexity of modern financial reporting: Cash-based accounting is generally considered to be the simplest form of financial reporting as it reports revenues and expenditures that have been received or paid, respectively, during a period. While it may not be the most useful one, at least it is considered to be the simplest (Wynne, 2007; Kober et al., 2010). Recently public sector entities financial reporting evolves toward adopting accrual accounting methodologies either directly or through interim steps such as modified cash basis or modified accrual basis. As a result, the level of complexity arises at a parallel level (Sharp et al., 1998; Paulsson, 2006). Accrual accounting is more complicated compared to cash accounting (Diamond, 2002). Especially when it comes to the public, accrual accounting is more complicated and difficult to understand than cash accounting (Sevic, 2006). Although accrual accounting might be easier to be understood by professionals who are keen on business-like accounting, this does not hold true for the majority of citizens (Sevic, 2006). Today, many countries as well as various international organizations (e.g. OECD, NATO, United Nations) have proceeded in adopting accrual-based IPSAS which are to a significant extent based on International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). Recent studies provide empirical evidence that the transition of private sector firms from national accounting standards to IFRS was not an easy task mainly due to the complexity of IFRS (Haswell, 2006; Hoogendoorn, 2006; Jermakowicz and Gornik-Tomaszewski, 2006). Transferring this complexity to the public sector environment cannot be neglected. According to Parry and Wynne (2009, p. 23), the introduction of business-like financial reporting in the public sector through IPSAS \"led to significant confusion and challenges,\" due to the substantial differences between the two sectors.\nCitizens as users of public sector financial reporting: The primary goal of governmental financial reporting is to satisfy the information needs of numerous different users for decision-making as well as for accountability purposes (Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB), 1987; IPSASB, 2013). Within these different user groups which include politicians, investors and creditors, oversight and governing bodies among others, citizens hold a prominent position. Citizens are identified as the most significant group of governmental financial reporting users in terms of voting power and financial assistance provided through taxes (Daniels and Daniels, 1991). Despite their significance though, they are characterized as being ignorant, not interested and even prone to the incentives of financial reporting preparers and, thus, receivers of fiscal illusion (Chan and Rubin, 1987; Jones, 1992; Mayston, 1992). Various studies have been conducted by both scholars and accounting bodies trying to determine the informative needs of governmental accounting information users (e.g. Drebin et al., 1981; GASB, 1987; Ingram et al., 1991; IPSASB, 2013). Nevertheless, recording the actual users and uses, has been characterized as a \"recurrent ambition\" (Skaerbaek, 2005) and \"somewhat chimerical\" (Hay, 1994).\nDemocracy, accountability and accounting information: Within this new emerging era of complicated modern public sector financial reporting systems, citizens appear to be just spectators of the changing environment. But their importance, especially in democratic polities, cannot be neglected. This would contradict the \"democratic participation\" notion which requires from modern societies to give more voice to the public, and encourage it to participate in collective decision-making (Rothschild and Russell, 1986; Warren, 2002).\nPopular reporting: Popular reporting refers to the preparation of concise, easily read, comprehensive and user-friendly financial reports mainly focussing on citizens' needs. Nevertheless, apart from citizens which constitute the cornerstone target group of popular reports, these reports could be useful for politicians, public sector employees, the media and community groups. Therefore they could address a rather extended audience with common denominator of all these user groups being the lack of expertise in accounting and financial reporting. The basic philosophy of popular reporting is the provision of a simplified view of financial statements, avoiding both detailed analysis and the use of complicated technical terms. The complexity of these reports is therefore driven by the \"maturity\" level of the users (i.e. citizens) and not that of the preparers (Sharp et al., 1998). Of course the information included derives from the formal financial statements and formal financial systems. As a result popular reporting is neutral to the accounting systems implemented. It would be equally applicable when an entity uses IPSAS, EPSAS or any other set of nationally developed accounting standards provided that the summary financial information in the popular reports corresponds to that disclosed in the official audited accounting or budgeting statements. Additionally, popular reports should be timely published, have a clearly defined scope and highlight the existence of the formal set of financial statements for those who would like to have more detailed information (GASB, 1987). Those interested in getting more details or additional information could easily consult the financial reports.\nIntegrated reporting: Nevertheless, the requirements of the modern economic environment ask for information that goes beyond financial reporting. During the last years there has been a trend especially within the private sector firms, to prepare reports that would provide, along with the traditional financial reports, alternative information (e.g. corporate social responsibility reports, sustainability reports, environmental reports). This comes in line with the wider need for firms to meet their accountability and transparency obligations. This need is further expressed with the recent development of integrated reporting which comes as a response to stakeholders' demand for additional, and alternative in nature, decision-useful information (IIRC, 2013). The idea behind integrated reporting is the creation of one report that would operate as a \"simultaneous web of interactions and implications of financial, social, environmental, and governance-related organizational activities for stakeholders\" (Abeysekera, 2013, p. 243). As the profile of modern stakeholders is changing, firms have to adjust their reporting systems to abide to pluralistic information needs.\nA synthesis ...: The presentation of these two forms of reporting reveals the usefulness of providing additional - to the traditional financial - information to users of public sector accounting reports. At the same time it is evident that if this information is not presented in a concise, comprehensive and attractive manner, the reports will fail to capture the average citizen's interest. The new reporting-era in order to be successful and effective should be innovative as well. In other words there is no reason to compromise with the provision of easily understandable but just financial information, or with the provision of numerous-paged rich in non-financial information but complex reports. The answer could be hiding somewhere in the middle of this \"pole of complexity\" (Figure 1).\nConclusion: In this era of rapid changes in the economic and political environment, governmental entities have gone beyond the traditional concepts of governance and management. On the same realm they have gone beyond the traditional barriers of governmental financial reporting. The new relationships developed with their key stakeholders require new communication tools. In this context, it might be the time for citizens to change their role from spectators of changes to influencing players. The vast majority of citizens are not accounting savvy or expert enough in accounting to comprehend technicalities and documents with lots of multifaceted information. They would prefer to get the whole picture of the value creation activities in a public sector entity in a concise, digested and easily understandable way. In this paper, we do not claim that integrated reporting is not suitable for the public sector. On the contrary it might be as suitable for the public as for the private sector. Nevertheless, integrated reporting as it stands comes to mainly satisfy investors' information needs as cited in the IIRC's Discussion Paper (IIRC, 2011).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to debate the future form of reporting in the public sector by examining alternative forms of reporting, and more specifically the frameworks of integrated reporting and popular reporting. Moreover, the paper explores whether and how these reports could be related to each other in order for the needs of a pillar user group, that of the citizens, to be addressed.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors analyze the frameworks of integrated reporting and popular reporting, and by combining their characteristics the authors propose a creative synthesis suitable for the public sector.\nFindings: The analysis leads to the conclusion that governmental entities need to take the next step on reporting in two parallel levels: the first would require the publication of information encountered in integrated reports containing various information elements that are not confronted to the traditional financial ones. The second would result in the provision of this information in a concise and easily comprehensive way. The merger of these two streams will give rise to the publication of \"Integrated Popular Reports - IPR.\"\nOriginality/value: This move would result to useful and meaningful reporting with potential strategic advantages. The integrated reporting dimension of the reports combined to the popular reporting dimension would provide an adequate information matrix for citizens and other user groups (e.g. politicians, public executives), that are interested to understand the \"whole picture\" of public sector entities but at the same time they neither possess advanced accounting knowledge nor they are familiar with technical terminology.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Simplifying humanitarian assistance/disaster relief analytic models using activity-based intelligence: Syrian refugee crisis as a case study
|
[
"Syrian refugees",
"Elicitation",
"Analytic model",
"Humanitarian response",
"Mental model"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Disaster management is a complex and nonlinear phenomenon that involves multiple processes and active coordination and collaboration between different actors and institutions to operationalize policies, strategies, and skills to build capacities during all phases of the disaster management cycle in order to minimize the impacts of hazards, save lives, improve livelihoods, and protect valuable assets and infrastructure (Cheema et al., 2016). A major challenge facing humanitarian assistance/disaster relief (HA/DR) analysts lies in processing voluminous incoming information with the complexity of both sensitive government and nongovernmental organization (NGO) sources and unclassified open source information, such as social media, to anticipate HA/DR mission needs and provide fully integrated actionable intelligence to decision makers in increasingly short timelines.\n2. Background: 2.1 Expert elicitation\n3. Development of an activity-based intelligence (ABI) analytic model: A simplified knowledge elicitation method and representation scheme was developed to convert mental models into analytic models to capture both explicit and tacit knowledge and provide relevant variables and causal connections for successful human-machine interface. It was necessary for the model to have simple criteria, drive standardization, reduce complexity, fit in the current system architectures, and enable future technology. This section describes the choice of a decision analysis methodology, attribute ontology, the criteria used in the model creation, and the fit of the model with existing frameworks.\n4. ABI analytic model evaluation: Syrian refugee and internally displaced persons (IDPs) trend analysis: As of June 2017, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported over 11 million Syrians in need of humanitarian assistance. Five million Syrian refugees were spread across Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, and Egypt, with another six million IDPs in Syria. Reporting from local governments, humanitarian and other NGOs, data from crisis mappers and activists, social media content from locals and refugees themselves, and imagery from handheld sources or commercial satellites can all inform our understanding of the situation and contribute to more accurate forecasting (Lewis et al., 2016). ABI supports situational awareness development and shorter decision-making timelines by improving methods of ingesting, managing, correlating, fusing, visualizing, and exploiting these wide varieties of data sources (Antony, 2016). We selected this critical need environment for our ABI analytic model elicitation and representation scheme evaluation.\n5. Conclusion and future work: This study showed that a simplified ABI analytic model was an effective knowledge elicitation method and representation scheme that empowers HA/DR analysts and experts to create analytic models without the aid of data scientists and methodologists. The ABI analytic modeling approach proved to reduce the complexity of modeling while improving the usability and interoperability of the analytic model.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to propose an effective knowledge elicitation method and representation scheme that empowers humanitarian assistance/disaster relief (HA/DR) analysts and experts to create analytic models without the aid of data scientists and methodologists while addressing the issues of complexity, collaboration, and emerging technology across a diverse global network of HA/DR organizations.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper used a mixed-methods research approach, with qualitative research and analysis to select the model elicitation method, followed by quantitative data collection and evaluation to test the representation scheme. A simplified analytic modeling approach was created based on emerging activity-based intelligence (ABI) analytic methods.\nFindings: Using open source data on the Syrian humanitarian crisis as the reference mission, ABI analytic models were proven capable in modeling HA/DR scenarios of physical systems, nonphysical systems, and thinking.\nPractical implications: As a data-agnostic approach to develop object and network knowledge, ABI aligns with the objectives of modeling within multiple HA/DR organizations.\nOriginality/value: Using an analytic method as the basis for model creation allows for immediate adoption by analysts and removes the need for data scientists and methodologists in the elicitation phase. Applying this highly effective cross-domain ABI data fusion technique should also supplant the accuracy weaknesses created by traditional simplified analytic models.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Crisis leadership: when should the CEO step up?
|
[
"Leadership",
"Chief executives",
"Corporate communications"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: If there was a cardinal rule in crisis communication, it must certainly be the criticality and centrality of crisis leadership. Implicit in the leadership literature is the role of the chief executive officer (CEO) in helping the organization overcome crisis. Besides setting the direction for the organization, the CEO re-establishes confidence among stakeholders. Boin et al. (2005) enumerated five critical tasks the leadership, which includes the CEO, performs: sense-making of the crisis, making decisions to deal with the crisis, framing and making meaning of the crisis to stakeholders, terminating the crisis to restore normalcy to the organization, as well as steering the organization to learn from the crisis.Additionally, one explicit role the CEO should play is to assert leadership by assuming the role of the organization's spokesperson (Englehardt et al., 2004; Littlefield and Quenette, 2007; Mintzberg, 1998; Nadler, 2006; Petersen and Martin, 1996). A visible CEO (for easier referencing in this paper, we shall use the term, CEO, to refer to such persons of authority and power, including president or managing director for corporate entity or non-profit organization or heads of government) would demonstrate the importance the organization places on the crisis and dispel any notion that the organization might renege its responsibility to stakeholders (Ulmer et al., 2007).Wilson and Patterson (1987) argued that organizations should identify one key spokesperson to ensure that the organization speaks with one voice. Assigning multiple spokespersons would make image repair more diffused and ambiguous, argued Barrett (2005). While the credibility of the CEO as an organization's spokesperson is unquestioned, what remains unclear is at what point of the crisis should the CEO assume this role and how does this impact crisis communication. Central to these questions is that, given that the CEO has myriad portfolios to oversee, should the CEO step up to be the organization spokesperson at the hint of a crisis, in every crisis? To do so would arguably be an unwise use of the CEO's time. If so, what types of crises can the responsibililty of being spokesperson be relegated to corporate communications while the CEO leads from within?This study examines the conditions in which the CEO should assume the spokesperson's role through meta-analysis of more than 30 cases that have been empirically tested in studies. These cases are, in turn, tested using image repair theory. Seeger (2002, 2006) argued that understanding the crisis situation is an important step to assess organizational response. Drawing on this insight, this study aims to explore the conditions in which the CEO should step up to be the organization's spokesperson by examining crisis types, using Diers' (2007) taxonomy of crisis types. The key research questions examined include the circumstances in which the CEO become the organization spokesperson, the strategies used, and at what point should the CEO become the organization spokesperson.The significance of this study is threefold. First, by studying the circumstances in which the CEO should step up as organization spokesman, it is hoped that this exploratory study can provide the initial operational framework for CEOs on when they should step up. Second, this framework is concomitantly instructive for corporate communications practitioners in organizations as a secondary objective of the study is to understand the circumstances in which it would be sufficient for practitioners to step up instead of activating the CEO. Last but not least, this study clarifies the roles of CEOs in crisis. For instance, Pang (2006) argued in his conflict positioning conceptualization that if the dominant coalition, including the CEO, was involved in crisis, it may lead to the organization adopting a more accommodative stance if it was not hindered by proscriptive factors, which in turn lead to the adoption of more accommodative strategies. What was not explored in Pang's (2006) conceptualization was when the CEO should be visibly involved. This study sheds light on the degree of involvement and the specific roles and impact the CEO would have in crisis.\nLiterature review: Crises that the CEO will have to deal with\nMethod: This study begins with a meta-analysis of literature on crisis communication. The meta-analysis method is useful to combine different data in various studies of one topic into one comprehensive study (Dahlel, 2003; Neill, 2006; Wimmer and Dominick, 2006). While it may be useful to survey organizations affected by crisis, the authors argue that as an exploratory study, it would begin by exploring existing case studies and identify the various elements in each crisis. Pompper (2007) argued that a review of literature specific to a field, in this case, crisis, would yield a further understanding of its development and identify future areas of research. It is through further detailed examination of these cases that this study seeks to understand the importance of the CEO in crisis communication.Data collection\nFindings and discussion: RQ1 examined what types of crises organizations can face while RQ2a-RQ2c examined the circumstances in which the CEO became the organization spokesperson and what image repair strategies have been used. These would be examined concurrently.This section is distilled into three categories. First, situations which required the CEO to step up; second, situations when the CEO should have stepped up; and three, situations where there the CEO did not and need not step up. Throughout this section, image repair strategies used were italicized to enable easier identification and processing.When the CEO needs to step up\nConclusion: This study has examined when the CEO should step up to be the organization spokesperson, and if so, at what point must he step up.There appears to be two recurring trends in the meta-analysis. First, in instances where organizations have to reverse their initial stance, such as when they have to go back on their word or overturn initial claims, often made by an organization spokesperson, the CEO has to step up to give more credence to the new statement/stance. Second, when a crisis involves the integrity of an organization, the CEO has to step up in order to give the organization a strong, responsible face.As an exploratory study, this study examined and reviewed crises that have happened. Even though attention has been paid to examine every crisis type in Dier's (2007) typology, admittedly, some crises have more prominence, hence, more information are available about them than others. In carrying out a meta-analysis, there are limitations the authors had to accept. First, the authors have not been able to examine other contributing factors in a crisis, such as the impact of the CEO's personality (i.e. whether he is media savvy, introverted, or stern) on crisis communication. Schoenberg (2005) argued for a crisis leadership model that encompasses personal attributes like integrity, intelligence, vision, courage, amongst others, that measure a leader's authenticity and in turn enables the leader to assert influence during crisis. Second, it is also not able to capture the effects of the organization's prior reputation with its publics before the crisis. Lyon and Cameron (2004), for instance, examined the organization's prior relationship with its publics and found the \"halo effect\" in organizations with firm reputations as \"shining stars of social responsibility\" (p. 231) to be usually afforded the benefit of the doubt in times of crises. In that regard, a public apology during or after the crisis would reinforce the publics' affection for the organization. Last but not least, it is not able to examine the level of enlightenment of the CEO because that would determine whether the CEO would want to step up in the first place. The level of enlightenment is one of the key measurements of the characteristics of the dominant coalition in the contingency theory (Cancel et al., 1997), which has emerged to be a dominant theory in crisis and conflict management (Pang, 2006). Further research can be carried out in the future examining these gaps.Nonetheless, the authors have taken the critical first step to set the research in this area in motion. It is hoped that this study provide a basic template that would illuminate practical insights for corporate communications practitioners on when to advise the CEO to front a crisis as spokesperson. To use military parlance, the CEO does not need to appear in every battle as long as the CEO knows how to win the war. The question this study had hoped to answer is how does the CEO know which battle to front in order to get the optimal mileage.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - One explicit leadership role the chief executive officer (CEO) can play during crisis is to assume the role of being the organization's spokesperson. What remains unclear is at what point of the crisis should the CEO step up and how does that impact crisis communication? The purpose of this paper is to examine this question.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The meta-analysis method is used to combine different data in various studies of one topic into one comprehensive study. More than 30 crises are meta-analyzed.\nFindings: - The CEO needs to step up to revise earlier statements or when the integrity of the organization is questioned. Additionally, the CEO should step up at the beginning of the crisis if the crisis pertains to organizational transgression or when the crisis becomes unbearable to organizational reputation. As counter-intuitive as it may, CEOs should refrain from stepping up at the height of the crisis.\nResearch limitations/implications: - It is an exploratory study. Some cases have lesser information to analyze than others.\nPractical implications: - Instructive for both corporate communications practitioners and CEOs as they have a framework to guide them on when the CEOs should step up, and when the presence of corporate communications would suffice.\nOriginality/value: - Little has been studied to clarify the exact nature, role, and impact of the CEO as organization spokesperson in crises. This paper provides the initial template.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Network hospitality in the share economy: Understanding guest experiences and the impact of sharing on lodging
|
[
"Interpretative phenomenological analysis",
"Lodging",
"Experience economy",
"Content analysis",
"Network hospitality",
"Share economy"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: An average guest room and ordinary staff interaction are no longer able to meet the expectations of hotel guests. These new expectations are driven by intangible experiences as MacCannell (2013, p. 33) stated, \"more and more often it is pure experience, which does not leave any material traces that is produced and sold\". Lodging network hospitality organizations are forms of tourism that are experience based and place great importance on reviews. They can impact the local community while providing basic lodging to guests. These organizations use an internet platform for information exchange and booking, same as traditional lodging and other forms of peer-to-peer travel.\nLiterature review: The share economy\nMethods: Study design\nResults: Demographics\nDiscussion: Conclusions\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study was utilize the experience economy to assess the value of the network hospitality experience for the guest and to develop a better understanding of network hospitality as a unique alternative to traditional lodging.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study used a mixed-methods approach, relying on content analysis and interpretive phenomenological analysis to answer the research questions. Guest reviews of hosts for a lodging-specific network hospitality website were used as the data source for this study.\nFindings: The educational dimension of the experience economy was most represented during network hospitality experiences. Additionally, the factors that create value for network hospitality users include verbal communication, a sense of feeling at home, engagement in entertainment, food and beverage and the functional experience while the spirit of network hospitality, reciprocity and desire for continuation through future intention can have a great impact on the travel and tourism industry.\nOriginality/value: This research adds value to the current literature by providing a better understanding of the experience economy at work in network hospitality, primarily education and esthetics. Additionally a better understanding of what factors of the network hospitality experience create value for guests is developed. This work focuses on a fast-growing substitute for traditional lodging and therefore needs to be better understood.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Innovative culture and professional skills: The use of supportive leadership and individual power distance orientation in IT industry
|
[
"Knowledge management",
"Organizational culture",
"Skilled workers",
"Supportive leadership",
"Individual power distance orientation",
"Innovative culture",
"The development of professional skills"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: According to Ross et al. (1996), professional development strengthens the valuable skills of professional workers in information technology (IT) industry. One key situational factor that may have significant impact on the development of professional skills is leadership (Shin and Zhou, 2003). In particular, a supportive leadership that influences the followers work outcomes and learning activities (Jansen et al., 2015) have become important firm financial performance determinants in strategic leadership. The contingency perspective suggests that contingent factors, such as perceived innovative culture, directly influence members' behavior (Martin-Alcazar et al., 2005). Yet, it is still a largely neglected topic in the existing organizational theories of motivation, which provide micro-foundational explanations about why and how perceived innovative culture motivates employees' development of professional skills in the workplace. Meanwhile, while several studies have attempted to demonstrate the substantial relationships, such as between organizational culture and performance, or between leadership and organizational performance, these two links are considered largely anecdotal (e.g. Ogbonna and Harris, 2000).\n2. Theoretical background and hypotheses: Schema theory states that the ways in which people view and think about the situations they encounter, take actions and solve problems, are based on their cognitive schemas, which represent a variety of knowledge structures and organize frameworks for understanding events or social situations and give form and meaning to a domain (Cooper and Shallice, 2006). Schema acts as a cognitive basis for understanding and responding to managerial behavior. With the cognitive maps from these relational schemas, employees make sense of their relationship with others (Weick, 2001). Previous scholars have acknowledged the importance of schema theory as a pervasive and useful framework for organizing clusters of knowledge, explaining leadership and framing examination of cognitive issues in organizations (Harris, 1994), and subordinates use these schemas to encode and interpret incoming information about supervisors' supportive behaviors (Figure 1).\n3. Methods: 3.1 Sample and procedures\n4. Results: 4.1 Measurement model tests\n5. Discussion: The current study provides a better understanding of work motivation by showing that an employee uses schemas to interpret the relationships among perceived innovative culture, individual power distance orientation, supportive leadership, and the development of professional skills. It illustrates how perceived innovative culture can act as a motivator to inspire IT technical engineers' development of professional skills, as well as, how individually held power distance orientation may positively or negatively influence the relationship between perceived innovative culture and supportive leadership. These relationships explain the degree to which engineers identified with and interpreted their supervisors and the extent to which they felt a power distance orientation. A more nuanced relationship among contextual factors, such as perceived innovative culture, supportive leadership, and individual cultural values difference, such as power distance orientation as applied to schema theory phenomena are suggested.\n6. Limitations and extensions: The moderated mediation model implies causal relationships among perceived innovative culture, supportive leadership, individual power distance orientation and IT technical engineers' development of professional skills. However, the current research design does not allow for definitive conclusions that perceived innovative culture leads to higher system knowledge of development of professional skills through supportive leadership when the relationship between perceived innovative culture and supportive leadership is moderated by individual power distance orientation. Future studies should focus on experiments that could better establish the direction of the relationships posited in this model.\n7. Managerial implications: The findings suggest that engineers' development of professional skills with regard to their technical and business knowledge were improved when individuals held a low power distance orientation in a perceived innovative culture working environment. There is, however, not a significant influence on system knowledge under a supportive leadership environment. Practically speaking, if individual power distance orientation goes into determining, in part, how followers react to perceived innovative culture, supportive leaders need to take into account not only the particular working environment they are operating within, but also the varying power distance orientation of their employees. Meanwhile, rather than treating all followers similarly, supportive leaders may need to adopt different sets of behaviors when leading followers with different levels of power distance orientation. Aside from building employee development programs, such as training, mentoring programs, 360-degree feedback, education subsidies or a corporate university, supervisors should remain consistent in their support of their subordinates. Equal attention should be given to the role of supportive leadership when implementing a perceived innovative culture because such processes strengthen the perception of strong motivation and result progressively in the development of professional skills. Managers must be aware of the differences among subordinates and their specific job needs so as to enhance their development of professional skills.\n8. Conclusions: The strong support for schema theory in this study suggests that the development of professional skills can be notably promoted through a moderated mediation model which integrates the link between innovative culture and professional skills through the mediating effect of supportive leadership and the direct effects are mitigated by the moderating effect of individual power distance orientation. It highlights the importance of appropriately matching innovative culture and supportive leadership with the power distance orientation of employees. This universalistic organizational behavior approach has worked effectively in an Asian sample.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The point of divergence for the authors' analysis is the observation that research on the development of professional skills did not provide empirical support to a possible positive relationship between innovative culture and development of professional skills. The author believes that the injection of intervening variables has the potential to do just that. The purpose of this paper is to understand such contingencies through a developed moderated mediation model, which jointly examines supportive leadership as the mediating mechanism and individual power distance orientation as a moderator and to increase the theoretical validity and precision of investigating the development of professional skills.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The survey data were collected from 317 information technology (IT) professional technical engineers and their supervisors from high-tech sectors. The authors tested the hypotheses by hierarchical regression and followed Baron and Kenny (1986) instruction to examine our moderated mediation model. The authors used a series of confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs) to verify the constructs' distinctiveness before testing the hypotheses was performed. Meanwhile, in order to test the mediating effect, the three-equation approach to testing mediation, as recommended by Baron and Kenny (1986), was used.\nFindings: The strong support for schema theory in this study suggests that the development of professional skills can be notably promoted through a moderated mediation model which integrates the link between innovative culture and professional skills through the mediating effect of supportive leadership and the direct effects are mitigated by the moderating effect of individual power distance orientation. It highlights the importance of appropriately matching innovative culture and supportive leadership with the power distance orientation of employees. This universalistic organizational behavior approach has worked effectively in an Asian sample.\nOriginality/value: This study provides a better understanding of work motivation by showing that an employee uses schemas to interpret the relationships among perceived innovative culture, individual power distance orientation, supportive leadership and development of professional skills. This paper also illustrates how perceived innovative culture can act as an positive motivator to inspire IT technical engineers' development of professional skills, and how individually held power distance orientation may positively or negatively influence the relationship between perceived innovative culture and supportive leadership. Hence, this study has extended the schema theory in organizations and informed the literature on supportive leadership.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Improving competitive positioning through complementary organisational resources
|
[
"Resource‐based view",
"Improved competitive positioning",
"Sustainability",
"Complementary resources",
"Resources",
"Competitive strategy",
"Information systems"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: It is widely acknowledged that a considerable amount of time, money, effort and opportunity has been wasted upon IT investments that have either been abandoned, or ultimately failed to deliver any appreciable benefit (Nelson, 2007; Levinson, 2009). There is also an established stream of research to suggest that the root cause of this problem is the failure of project teams to explicitly consider the organisational impacts and implications of a new piece of software and to proactively manage the associated organisational change (Doherty et al., 2012). Unless clearer insights can be provided into how value is fashioned from the complex and multi-faceted interactions between the functionality of a particular technical artefact and the wide range of organisational processes and resources with which it interacts, then project teams are unlikely to change their behaviour.The drive to better understand and document the relationship between IT, organisational resources and value has already attracted much scholarly interest. For example, it has long been recognised that sustainable competitive advantage is unlikely to be leveraged directly from any \"IT asset\" (Nevo and Wade, 2010), as it is relatively easy for firms to understand, and then copy their competitors' systems (Melville et al., 2004). However, it may still be possible to gain a strategic advantage, if the adoption of IT is supported through the deployment of an appropriate portfolio of complementary resources (Powell and Dent-Micallef, 1997). The role of complementary IS/IT resources, in leveraging competitive advantages, has already been extensively explored (Bhatt and Grover, 2005; Liang et al., 2010). By contrast, the alternative research stream addressing the competitive role of complementary \"organisational resources\" (Nevo and Wade, 2010), has attracted far less attention. Consequently, it is to the latter, under-researched body of research, that we wish to make our contribution, by exploring whether sustainable improvements in competitive positioning are most likely when a new technology's impact is mediated, indirectly, through organisational resources.The remainder of the paper proceeds as follows. The next section presents a critical review of the literature, from which the study's specific objectives are derived. We then develop a conceptual framework, before presenting a review of the research methods that were applied to collect data with respect to the model. The framework then provides the basis for a mixed, quantitative and qualitative analysis, which is presented in Section 5, before the study's contributions are critically reviewed, in the final section.\n2 Sustainable improvements in competitive positioning through IT: This section provides a critical overview of the use of the resource-based view (RBV) of the firm, in prior studies of IT for improved competitive positioning, before identifying the gaps the literature and the study's research objective.2.1 The resource-based view\n3 Research framework: We wanted to explore the extent to which an organization's ability to initially leverage, and then sustain, an improved competitive positioning from the introduction of an \"IS initiative\" is directly related to the IT asset's functionality, or whether the impact of the technology is indirectly \"mediated\" (Lee et al., 2008) through organisational resources. A broad overview of this research question, and its constituent constructs, is shown in Figure 1, whilst a more detailed discussion of how each construct was operationalised is presented below:* IS initiative. Informants were asked to identify a specific \"IS initiative\", with which they were familiar, that had resulted in an improvement to their organisation's competitive positioning. The \"IS initiative\" could either be either a completely new IS implementation, or a major enhancement to an existing system. Informants were asked to name, and briefly describe, their chosen \"IS initiative\", but this information did not play any role in the statistical analysis. However, it was envisaged that the simple act of providing an explicit description would ensure that the respondents were clearly focused upon a single strategic initiative before they attempted to answer the remaining questions.* Directness of SICP. The directness of the sustainability of ICP variable was designed to measure the source of competitive positioning across a range of common business processes. To this end, a taxonomy of 11 common processes was developed (Table II), based upon a very common process model (APQC, 2006). For each of the 11 processes, a semantic differential scale was used to determine the extent to which the sustainability of any improvements in competitive positioning were leveraged either directly through the agency of the IT artefact, or indirectly, through the mediating role of organisational resources (Lee et al., 2008).* SICP. This study also sought to break new ground by focusing on the degree of improved competitive positioning, leveraged from an IS initiative, rather than focusing solely on situations in which an outright competitive advantage had been realized. The framework had, therefore, been designed to model the extent to which the competitive positioning of each process had been improved through the introduction of the specified technology. Respondents were also asked state the duration, in years, that this improvement had been sustained. It was therefore possible to create an overall measure of SICP by calculating the product of the degree and duration of ICP. A high number signifies a substantial, long-lasting improvement in competitive positioning, whereas, a small number is indicative of a modest, short-lived impact.It was envisaged that the research framework, as described above, would be used initially to collect some quantitative data, and undertake some provisional statistical analysis, before using it as the mechanism for collecting more detailed, qualitative data.\n4 Research methods: We chose to adopt both quantitative and qualitative data collection approaches, to build a richer and deeper picture of the phenomenon under investigation (Gable, 1994). In so doing, it both increased the validity of findings and helped to explain diverging results. The aim of the remainder of this section is to review how a questionnaire was designed, validated and executed, before describing the methods employed for the follow-up qualitative study.4.1 Quantitative study - design and execution\n5 Research findings: This section presents the research results, first with respect to the preliminary, statistical analysis of the survey data, followed by a far deeper qualitative analysis of the interview data.5.1 Analysis of quantitative data\n6 Discussion and conclusions: As it becomes easier for organisations to quickly replicate their competitors' successful systems, opportunities for IT investments to directly deliver sustainable improvements in competitive positioning are becoming fewer (Hailpern and Tarr, 2006). The hunt is now on, therefore, to find alternative ways in which IT can deliver long-term value. Moreover, it has also been argued that the strategic outcomes of IS/IT investments should be measured at the intermediate process level, as it is only at this level that IT enabled contributions can be reliably assessed (Barua et al., 1995; Ray et al., 2004). This leaves the results of the vast majority of existing competitive value studies, which have been conducted at the enterprise level, open to question. Against this backdrop, our study makes an important contribution by adopting the novel approach of studying the competitive effects of individual IS initiatives at the process level, and by measuring the absolute duration for which these impacts were sustained. Moreover, in providing both quantitative and qualitative evidence, it has been possible to both \"triangulate\" and \"elaborate\" the results of this study (Bryman, 2006).It has been widely argued that the effective leveraging of complementary \"organisational resources\" is critical for the realisation of sustainable improvements in competitive positioning form technology investments (Dehning and Stratopoulos, 2003; Ravichandran and Lertwongsatien, 2005). By their very nature, complementary organisational resources can be difficult to understand and articulate, and consequently, IT-based competitive advantages that have been leveraged through such resources, are extremely difficult to replicate (Nevo and Wade's, 2010). However, by adopting a process-level approach, this study makes an important contribution, by helping to elaborate and qualify this widely held belief. This study does present important new empirical evidence that IT assets are more likely to deliver higher levels of SICP, if their effects are leveraged indirectly through organisational resources, rather than being exerted directly, but only when applied in the context of core \"operational\" processes. By contrast, for the majority of management and support processes, there are less clear relationships between the attainment of sustainable improvements in competitive positioning, and the directness or indirectness of the mechanism through which they were achieved.The process-level results of our qualitative analysis also provide important new insights into why human and organisational resources are needed to leverage IT, when it has been applied to core operational processes. The findings indicate that well designed management information could enhance the performance of personnel, and particularly managers, either directly or indirectly. The direct impacts tended to be in cases in which a new system simply helped to collate many disparate, but existing, sources of information, and whilst such applications facilitated important improvements in the productivity of personnel, there were no other significant sources of added value, to the underlying process. By contrast, the more sustainable, indirect impacts came about when completely new sources of information or knowledge were made available to highly skilled professionals, which allowed them to perform at an even higher level. In these cases, because the competitive advantage is coming predominantly through the leveraging of the skills and capabilities of the organisation's human resources, they are far harder to understand, and ultimately imitate.Although a range of prior studies (Dehning and Stratopoulos, 2003; Ravichandran and Lertwongsatien, 2005) have argued that attaining a competitive advantage from IT is dependent upon the effective deployment of IS/IT resources and capabilities, this study makes a further contribution by providing an initial analysis of the relative importance of organisational resources and IS/IT resources. The qualitative element of our research provides important new insights into the complementary roles played by these two different types of resources. The IS/IT resources are primarily deployed, during the systems planning, development and implementation periods, to help deliver a more effective IT artefact that can provide the functionality and informational outputs that an organisation needs to successfully compete. By contrast, the organisational resources become more important, once the system is operational, to ensure that the system's functionality and informational outputs are being used to good effect, and as our study demonstrated it is these organisational resources that are perceived to be the most important in delivering sustainable improvements in competitive positioning.Our findings offer a number of important insights to managers seeking to realise more value from their investments in IT. For example, in the context of operational systems, the results of this study suggest that success will be more likely if organisations are able to identify how IT can be used to effectively leverage their existing resources and capabilities. To this end, senior managers will need to pay more attention to the explicit integration of their IS/IT and corporate strategies, and the development of capabilities that facilitate IT-organisational integration. The findings also underline the importance of managers critically reviewing the effectiveness of their existing industrial processes, when implementing IT, to identify opportunities for process improvement. As our study has highlighted the critical role of the human resource, in leveraging value from IT initiatives, it is also important that all managers recognise that their investments will only deliver value, if they proactively address the human factor implications.Research within complex organizational settings will invariably contain a number of inherent limitations, as compromises and trade-offs are always necessary. For example, compromises were made with respect to the generalizability of the results, as we had to adopt a \"convenience\" sample, to enable us to engage respondents who would be prepared to both complete a complex questionnaire, and then participate in a lengthy interview. Moreover, as this study only targeted large, private sector organisations, the implications of our results may not be applicable to other types of organisation. Other limitations, of this study, relate to the use of a \"single-informant\", and the use of some \"single item\" measures in the questionnaire. Consequently, although this study provides many interesting and novel insights, there is now a pressing need for follow-up studies, which employ different analytical techniques, target alternative populations, and employ alternative theoretical perspectives, such as \"Agency Theory\".\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - In this paper, the authors seek to draw upon resource-based theory to explore the role of existing, complementary organisational resources, in leveraging sustainable improvements in competitive positioning, resulting from information systems initiatives.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A research model has been derived from the literature, which is then used to guide the conduct of a major, integrated quantitative and qualitative survey of managers.\nFindings: - In this paper, it is shown that improvements in competitive positioning are likely to be more significant and sustainable when a new IS initiative makes an indirect contribution, through the leveraging of complementary organisational resources, rather than stemming directly from the functionality of the IT asset.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The main limitations of this study relate to its use of a \"convenience\" sample and a \"single-informant\". However, both these comprises were viewed as being worthwhile, as it gave the authors the opportunity to conduct a study that was both broad and deep, in terms of the data collected.\nPractical implications: - The authors draw out the implications of their empirical study for the management of IT projects, to improve their ability to deliver sustainable improvements in competitive positioning.\nOriginality/value: - This research makes a significant departure from the aggregated, enterprise-level orientation of prior studies, by focusing upon the process-level impacts of individual IS initiatives.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Resilient cultural heritage: from global to national levels - the case of Bhutan
|
[
"Japan",
"Disaster risk management",
"Cultural heritage",
"Communities",
"Bhutan",
"International organizations"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Contrary to conventional understanding, cultural heritage is not only about monuments and traditions but about the people who identify with the underlying culture. The heritage of every city or country forms the identity of its people and is crucial in post-disaster reconstructions to recover a place's character and integrity. Cultural heritage also plays a fundamental role in the development of risk mitigation and preparedness strategies, helping to engage and involve local communities as well as integrate traditional knowledge from past disasters. In a global context, some cultural heritage assets have universal value and are recognized not only as the identity of a community but also as part of the human history. Likewise, there are global threats to cultural heritage, such as those posed by climate change.\n2. Connecting DRM and cultural heritage at the global level: In recent years, the connection between these two disciplines has been promoted by important international organizations such as UNESCO - through its Emergency Preparedness and Response Unit, the International Scientific Committee for Risk Preparedness (ICOMOS-ICORP), and the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM). Some of the main publications from these organizations include guidelines to understand the basic principles of DRM for cultural heritage (Jigyasu, 2013; ICCROM, 2016), develop DRM plans for World Heritage sites (UNESCO, 2010) and act over movable heritage in case of emergency (Tandon, 2016), among others. Some academic papers and literature reviews, including connection between cultural heritage and climate change (such as O'Brien et al., 2015; Horowitz et al., 2016; Forino et al., 2017; Fatoric and Seekamp, 2017a, b) are also included in the bibliography. There is extensive literature connecting disaster risk with cultural heritage. Partnerships between institutions and academia and their support to national and local agencies in the field are therefore fundamental to protect heritage from disasters worldwide.\n3. Resilient cultural heritage program: Since the end of 2016, the World Bank through the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) has been developing a knowledge program on resilient cultural heritage, using the framework of the Japan-World Bank Program for Mainstreaming Disaster Risk Management in Developing Countries. The program includes technical assistance, pilot projects, thematic initiatives, knowledge mobilization and capacity building, taking advantage of Japanese expertise in risk management of cultural heritage. It specifically connected with the UNESCO Chair Program on Cultural Heritage and Risk Management at Ritsumeikan University (see Jigyasu and Arora, 2013), the Japanese Agency for Cultural Affairs (ACA, 2017) and the prefecture and municipality of Kyoto, among others.\n4. The case of Bhutan: 4.1 Context\n5. Conclusions and way forward: The case of Bhutan illustrates a successful example of collaboration to connect DRM and cultural heritage. The country has been aware of the disaster risk threatening its heritage for a long time and has implemented initiatives to preserve its culture. Other countries, however, are just starting to realize the importance of connecting these two disciplines; this is where international institutions such as the World Bank can provide support by connecting local or national teams with international experts and to share knowledge and experiences from other countries.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Cultural heritage is about people, their history and their identity. Protecting cultural heritage from natural hazards by connecting it with disaster risk management (DRM) directly benefits local communities. Cultural heritage also has a global dimension, and collaboration and support from the international community to protect it is vital. Culture and heritage differ among countries, as do natural hazards, but practitioners face some common challenges, such as the need to create awareness. The paper aims to discuss these issues.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper presents: a brief overview of the current connection between DRM and cultural heritage in the global context; an analysis of how international knowledge-exchange initiatives can help countries improve the resilience of their heritage sites, using Bhutan as an example; and a proposal to keep this topic moving forward in both the international and national agendas for sustainable development and resilience.\nFindings: International knowledge exchanges may help to find solutions, and Bhutan is a good example. This small, hazard-prone country in the Himalayas, has strong traditions and heritage, and is aware of its vulnerabilities and risks. Learning from Japan's extensive experience, Bhutan has been working with international experts to improve the resilience of its cultural heritage sites.\nOriginality/value: The ultimate aim is that this paper serves as an inspiration for other countries, as well as international organizations such as the World Bank, to keep strengthening ties between DRM and cultural heritage.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Assuring materials availability during the production transfer process: Critical characteristics of the materials planning environment
|
[
"Outsourcing",
"Production transfer process",
"Production start-up",
"Materials planning environment",
"Materials availability"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: Over recent decades, conditions for manufacturing industry have changed considerably; it has become increasingly important to establish and manage a company's position in global production networks (Karlsson, 2003). These global production networks can change as a consequence of companies' decisions about how to utilize available production resources. Here, outsourcing has becoming a common strategy, resulting in redesign of and changes to global production network structures.\n2 Theoretical framework: The theoretical framework is structured as follows: first, the MP process before and during PTS is described. Second, we develop the conceptual framework, i.e. a description of the MP environment before and during PTS. The MP environment details the prerequisites for the MP process (Olhager and Wikner, 2000). This description is divided into five categories identifying the characteristics of the MP environment. We identify these characteristics by discussing what in such a context can increase supply chain uncertainty and thereby affect the MP process. Finally, we discuss the relationship of the conceptual frameworks to the MP process.\n3 Methodology: The first step in the research process was to identify literature to include in the conceptual framework. The starting point was existing literature on MP environments. We then analysed differences between these and PTS. Previous descriptions of MP environments have tended to consider static situations, meaning for instance that the production and supply structure do not change. However, the MP environment prior to and during PTS is dynamic, depending on the transfer process as well as the progress of the start-up. Thus, to take account of the dynamics of PTS, we needed to develop the existing descriptions of MP environments further. First, new characteristics were identified from the literature on outsourcing and production start-ups. This was done by searching for combinations of the following keywords: outsourcing, production transfer, global supply chain, and production start-up. We also identified literature by examining the bibliographies of relevant papers and theses.\n4 Case description: The case study focuses on outsourcing of production of base stations from Sweden to China. The base stations are part of mission-critical communication systems that receive information and thereafter generate measures. The studied company is part of a large Swiss corporate group with around 200 employees at the Swedish plant.\n5 Case analysis: We first applied our conceptual framework to the case study. The impact of the MP environment characteristics on materials availability was analysed (the results of this analysis are given in Table II); the importance of each characteristic was also graded. Second, we analysed those MP environment characteristics designated as highly important for materials availability. This was to understand how they were dealt with in the MP process and how they affected the materials availability in the case.\n6 Discussion: Transfer of production is a growing phenomenon (Kumar et al., 2010), both in the form of outsourcing and backsourcing and insourcing. This will increase the number of restructured supply chains, where existing management principles and methods will not work optimally and new ones have to be established (Liao et al., 2011). When discussing new supply chains, it is important to differentiate between ongoing operations as a steady state and transformations as restructuring (Srai and Gregory, 2008). This paper has focused on the actual transformation, from the start of the transfer of production until steady state is achieved at the new site, i.e. the PTS. The purpose of the paper was to describe the impact of the MP environment on the MP process before and during PTS.\n7 Conclusions: The theoretical contribution of this paper is the development of a conceptual framework describing an MP environment before and during PTS. The conceptual framework is based on an extensive literature review and has been evaluated by both researchers and experienced managers. It was applied to a single case, which showed, in contrast to earlier research on static MP environments, that PTS should be viewed as a process. It is important to include the dynamic aspects of the transfer process and progress of the start-up in the description of the MP environment. We therefore developed current descriptions of MP environments to capture these dynamic aspects.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The materials planning (MP) environment sets the prerequisites for the MP process. Before and during production transfer and start-up (PTS) supply chain uncertainty of the MP environment increases, as the company goes from a known to an unknown situation. The purpose of this paper is to describe the impact of the MP environment on the MP process before and during PTS.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A conceptual framework describing the MP environment before and during PTS is developed and applied to one case of outsourcing from Sweden to China. The framework is based on a literature review and further evaluated by both researchers and managers.\nFindings: A conceptual framework describing the dynamic MP environment before and during PTS has been developed compared to previously static MP environments descriptions. In addition, this framework proved to be useful in analysing the importance of various characteristics of the MP environment before and during PTS.\nPractical implications: The study highlights the importance of a proactive approach to materials availability when transferring production. The conceptual framework developed here can be used as a checklist to identify the characteristics of the MP environment that are most important to ensuring materials availability.\nOriginality/value: The paper highlights the PTS when outsourcing, a substantial time frame with a large impact on success. This is an important contribution, given the focus of previous outsourcing research on strategic issues. Further, the paper demonstrates the differences between static and dynamic MP environments.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Sainsbury comes a cropper in Cairo: Did HRM factors contribute to supermarket's failure in Egypt?
|
[
"Retailers",
"International business",
"Empowerment",
"Corporate strategy",
"Egypt"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Customers at the first and largest Sainsbury store to open in Egypt regularly tried to force tips on to the supermarket's staff, particularly those at the meat, cheese and fish counters who were providing a person-to-person service.\nSainsbury blamed difficult trading conditions: Sainsbury paid PS100 million for a 25.1 percent share in the Egyptian supermarket chain Edge. Established by the El-Nasharty group in 1997, Edge had 74 stores at the time of the Sainsbury purchase in 1999. Six months later, Sainsbury raised its stake to 80.1 percent, for a further PS40 million. The first supermarket in Egypt to trade under the Sainsbury banner opened in February 2000, and by November 2000 Sainsbury operated 106 supermarkets and neighborhood stores in the greater Cairo area.Only 14 months after opening the first Sainsbury store in Egypt, however, the company pulled out and sold the subsidiary at a loss to its Egyptian partner. Sainsbury blamed difficult trading conditions such as trading-permit delays, and the deteriorating political situation in the Middle East. Moreover, the Sainsbury Group as a whole had performed badly in 2000 and 2001, and a strategic review had led to the decision to focus on the core UK grocery business. This had led to the sale not only of the Egyptian operation, but also the Homebase chain in the UK.Sainsbury had done many things well in Egypt. In particular, it had greatly improved on the inefficient, wasteful and sometimes unsanitary food-distribution system that prevailed in supplying the small, independent and largely family-owned outlets that dominated the Egyptian grocery market. It had offered a wide choice of food at low prices in what had otherwise been a closed and expensive food-retailing system. Helpful service had also been a key aspect of the Sainsbury offering.However, the vulnerable independent grocers had resorted to using social and moral pressure, in the form of politics and religion, to influence customers and to protect their livelihoods.Competitors had filed a formal complaint to the Egyptian Chamber of Commerce against Sainsbury's price-cutting strategy, describing it as a dishonorable monopoly act. This had forced Sainsbury to negotiate an agreement not to sell below factory prices.Local traders had also capitalized on the September 2000 Palestinian uprising. This had ignited anti-western feeling among some Egyptians and had fuelled a rumor that Sainsbury was Jewish-owned and helped Israel financially. Sainsbury had appeared on an informal list of western brands, distributed throughout Cairo, bearing the slogan, \"Boycotting the enemies is not only a national duty, but also a religious one.\"\nThe treatment of employees: Sainsbury had also done much that was right in the treatment of its employees.First, the company had attempted to lead by example to help its Egyptian staff to gain retail experience, while taking cultural differences into account. For example, Sainsbury took the Islamic scarf into consideration when designing its uniform for female employees.Second, Sainsbury offered higher salaries than the rest of the Egyptian grocery sector. As one Egyptian employee commented:I saw the store as my home, and I was willing to fight for its survival ... It would have been our blessed source of living if the company had decided to stay in the market.This evident pride in the company was also reflected in the fresh-food employees, who informally called themselves \"chefs\" on the shop-floor to differentiate themselves from lower-status mainstream grocery workers, who are traditionally regarded as \"servants\" in Egypt.\nLack of empowerment: Despite these positive sentiments, a number of Sainsbury's Egyptian employees became frustrated at their lack of empowerment.The head fishmonger at one store commented:The English trusted themselves only, even if they were clearly wrong. They denied us a say, despite our good knowledge of the market. We saw clear-cut mistakes but we could not talk - or if we did no one would listen about many serious mistakes that they later paid a heavy price for.An Egyptian butcher at Sainsbury explained:They brought a British butcher to show us some cuts. We said this would not work in Egypt and we were right. They had to come back to our style because his style proved a failure.A cashier said:Managers never discussed anything with us. They wanted things to happen their way, which sometimes was clearly wrong.According to a customer-services manager:They brought a cashier system from the UK that depended too much on honesty by the cashier, and so control over cashiers' actions was poor ... Because of the poverty here in Egypt, people steal when they find insufficient control over them. We warned against this and kept saying this was wrong, but they insisted on it until tremendous losses started to appear. Some cashiers were caught putting money in their socks and things like that. We showed them that we knew this would happen and finally they became convinced that we were right. Imbalances on the tills were dramatically reduced after that.\nMorale fell and corrupt practices grew: The more British managers ignored the willingness and desire of store employees to work with them in order to share local market knowledge, the more employee morale fell and corrupt practices grew.\"We started to reprocess the meat to sell it as fresh, even when it was edging towards its expiry date,\" said a butcher. \"We did this to meet the sales target on which we were strictly judged.\"As the venture's performance began to fall short of expectations, Sainsbury began to ask some of its full-time employees to work part-time instead, and to lay them off entirely if they refused.A delicatessen employee commented:They made a lot of promises to us when we started that they did not keep.Even a British customer-service manager conceded that the shop-floor employees were promised a lot in the employee handbook, much of which was never fulfilled. \"They have the right to be frustrated,\" he said.\nComment: This review is based on \"Sainsbury's in Egypt: the strange case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde?\" by Ayman El-Amir, of the Department of Business Administration, Trent University, Peterborough, Canada, and Steve Burt, of the Department of Marketing, Institute for Retail Studies, University of Stirling, Stirling, UK. The article illustrates an apparent paradox between Sainsbury's technical superiority as a retailer in the Egyptian market, and its social inferiority in its interactions with various stakeholders, primarily customers and employees. The authors use the metaphor of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde to aid in their analysis. The review, in contrast to the full article, concentrates on the lessons human-resource managers can draw from Sainsbury's short-lived expansion into the Egyptian market.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to examine the HRM factors that may have contributed to the failure of UK supermarket group Sainsbury's attempt to enter the Egyptian market.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper draws on participant observations and interactions with stakeholder groups during a three-month study based in a Sainsbury store in Egypt.\nFindings: - The paper reveals that failure to listen to the advice of its Egyptian employees may have been a reason for Sainsbury's failure in Egypt, which occurred despite the supermarket's technical superiority over its rivals.\nPractical implications: - The paper highlights retailers' need for a deep understanding of host countries' cultures if they are to expand successfully abroad.\nOriginality/value: - The paper presents some interesting suppositions on why, only 14 months after opening the first Sainsbury store in Egypt, the company pulled out and sold the subsidiary at a loss to its Egyptian partner.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Minorities as a resource not as a burden: exploring the case of the Bedouins in Israel
|
[
"Israel",
"Ethnic minorities",
"Economic development",
"Public policy"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The Bedouin population constitutes about 2 percent of the population of Israel. This was historically a nomad population, divided into various tribes. Some of the Bedouin are now settled in towns or in villages, but most are still dispersed in various regions, claiming proprietary rights on lands (Gardner and Marx, 2000; Meir and Baskind, 2006). The Bedouin population also faces conflicts regarding identity and tradition (on the one hand, traditional income resources are fewer for this population, while on the other hand the lack of suitable training and education makes integration into the modern economy almost impossible). Such factors often contradict the necessary transition from nomadic to modern life, including the issue of wage earning (Abu-Saad, 1995).In addition to the unique barriers mentioned above, the Bedouin population in the Negev (the southern region of Israel) faces two types of barriers against economic development. The first type includes the barriers that minorities usually face, such as cultural barriers (Meir and Baskind, 2006), low levels of education, and poor infrastructure (Shanel and Sofer, 2006). The cultural gap between the Bedouin minority and the Jewish majority in Israel is significant - the creation of the State of Israel meant a transition from a Middle Eastern Arab culture to that of the Western world (Meir, 1997). This cultural gap creates an identity conflict for the Bedouin. For example, only 6 percent of the Bedouin define their identity as Israeli while 33 percent define themselves as Arab Palestinians (Abu Saad et al., 2000).The second type of barrier relates to the location of the Bedouin population in the Negev region of Israel, which is a peripheral region and thus is situated a considerable distance from the location of the country's major economic activity (Bahat and Czamanski, 1993; Malul and Bar-El, 2009). Combined, these barriers lead to high poverty rates among the Bedouin in the Negev.It is well known that ethnic minorities in different parts of the world often suffer from relatively high levels of poverty, especially those living in rural areas (Baulch et al., 2007; Graham and Peters, 2002; Kendall, 2001; Miller, 1998). One of the most common reasons for high poverty levels is lack of education (Fields, 1980; Tilak, 1989, 2002). The attainment of educational resources by minorities is relatively low among such populations (Ogbu, 1990), which in turn usually leads to high levels of unemployment (Abu-Rabia-Queder, 2006; Blackaby et al., 2002; Holzer et al., 2005; Malveaux, 2004; Mendelson and Battle, 1999; Pessate-Schubert, 2003). It should be acknowledged that lower education is not the only reason for high unemployment rates among minorities; job market discrimination is undoubtedly another factor (Richards, 1995).It has been shown that one way to relieve unemployment in ethnic minority populations is to establish small businesses that might serve as a substitute for jobs in peripheral regions. For the Bedouin population in the Negev, the existence of particular barriers, including lack of accessibility to financial resources and poor infrastructure, makes this option less feasible (Abu-Saad and Lithwick, 2000). Malul et al. (2010) found that, due to a mistrust between minority groups (in this case, the Bedouin) and majority populations (in this case the Jewish population), financial resources for minorities are limited and therefore the feasibility of minorities establishing small businesses is low. For these central reasons, small businesses do not contribute a great deal to poverty relief among minorities (Jakubowska, 2000).Public policy generally plays an important role in reducing unemployment and poverty among ethnic minorities. One of the most important public policy tools is the installation of training programs, which offer individuals the opportunity to improve their productivity, earning power, and, hence, the minority's employment rates (Anderson, 1998).Targeted Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), it has been shown, may increase the income and employment rates of the Bedouin (Offner and Holzer, 2002). Malul and Luski (2009) have shown, however, that because the EITC might lessen the incentive for acquiring education among the younger population in particular, it is primarily the older population that benefits from this mechanism. In addition to the EITC, financial assistance for small businesses established by ethnic minorities is also an important mechanism for decreasing unemployment.The fact that the Bedouin in Israel undergo a significantly poorer standard of living than other populations, that they are located in a peripheral region, and that they have uncommon cultural and demographic attributes, creates an immensely difficult challenge to policy makers.The aim of this paper is to identify a feasible public policy for economic development among the Bedouin in the south of Israel. We will first present a model for economic development that may respond to the unique attributes of minorities living in peripheral regions. We will then analyze the case of the Bedouin population in Israel, beginning with a description of the unique barriers that the Bedouin population faces. And finally, we will identify the role of public policy in the economic development process.\nMethodology: In our paper, we first present a model that describes the options for economic development among minorities living in peripheral regions. The model is based on a model previously developed by Bar-El and Schwartz (2006) which was applied to the case of the State of Ceara (Brazil). We further analyze the role of public policy as a catalyst for economic development in these locations. In the paper's final section, we utilize the case of the Bedouin living in the periphery of Israel as a case study for an illustration of the model and its policy implications.\nThe model: Improving a population's economic conditions is the main goal of economic development. This improvement stems either from local development or through increasing accessibility to external employment possibilities. The distinction between these two sources of improvement is similar to the distinction between the gross domestic product (GDP), which reflects the level of economic development of a geographical area, and the gross national income (GNP), which reflects the level of economic development of a population. According to Israeli statistics, approximately 50 percent of the workers in the economy work outside the city in which they live; most of them in fact work outside the district in which they live. On the basis of these facts, we will present the following three possible patterns for economic development of the minority Bedouin settlements: development of local activities, regional targeted activities, and integration into the existing economy in the Negev.A. First pattern: local growth\nThe case of the Bedouin population in Israel: analysis of the current situation: Analysis of the economic conditions among the Bedouin population in the Negev is a very challenging task by itself, as almost half of the Bedouin live in unrecognized settlements. In response to the great lack of formal data regarding the economic activity of this population, we initiated research by distributing a questionnaire to 70 Bedouin community leaders (committee members of the unrecognized settlements). The leaders are representatives of nine unrecognized Bedouin villages in the south of Israel (about eight representatives from each village). In general, the committee members are representatives of the larger families residing in the villages and are usually familiar with the characteristics of the village population. The committee members participated in a \"Managerial Training for Committee Members of the Unrecognized Village\", which was coordinated by one of the authors of this paper. The questionnaire allowed us to obtain data on the following issues: demographic details, characteristics of business and infrastructure in the village, barriers to employment, and possible policies for improving the population's standard of living. After processing and analyzing the results from the questionnaire, we mapped the current conditions of the Bedouin population and the barriers for economic development.To identify the best solutions for economic development among this population, we invited the committee members (40) to participate in focus groups. They were divided into three groups, each group coordinated by one of this paper's authors. The participants in each group addressed different potential policy tools for stimulating the economic development among the Bedouin. Each group's coordinator presented the general model constructed in the previous section of this paper, focusing on the model's patterns of development (patterns A, B, and C presented in the previous section of the present paper). The participants were asked to discuss specific policy measures in light of three themes:(1) the suitability to the specific needs of the population;(2) the potential contribution to the economy and to employment; and(3) the policies' feasibility.The participants were then asked to choose three policy measures (out of ten listed on the questionnaire) that might increase the positive impact on each group.Finally, after mapping the relevant policies and their chances of success, we interviewed five high-ranking officials from the public sector of Israel from the fields of industry and employment, interior and educational offices. The interviews included references to the feasibility and possible implementation aspects of the suggested policy tools that arose from the focus groups.In the following section we will describe the current economic and education climates among the Bedouin population in the Negev.Current state of the Bedouin population in the Negev\nConclusions: The conditions of the Bedouin population in the Negev are poor, specifically in terms of income and rates of poverty. The roots of the problems are mainly a high dependence ratio, low labor force participation rates (especially among women), high unemployment rates, lack of education, and low income. Part of these major problems stem from the attributes and barriers specific to the Bedouin population, while other barriers are more general, such as lack of infrastructure and low levels of education.While the age distribution of the Bedouin population of the Negev creates a heavy economic burden on the workers, this discrepancy also implies that public policy has great potential to make a long-term difference. Due particularly to the fact that 60 percent of the population is below the age of 18 and still in the formal education system, there is a high prospect of improving their education quality, hence increasing their employability in the long run. While it may be the case that the lack of infrastructure in the settlements creates significant challenges for public policy makers, it is in these primary stages of infrastructure planning that investments would most effectively make these plans a reality. In this paper we analyzed three patterns of economic development for the Bedouin population: local growth, regional growth and national economic integration. These patterns are complementary in that they create opportunities for various groups within the Bedouin population of the Negev (i.e. men and women, young and old, skilled, and non-skilled). In addition, they provide long and short term solutions; while the local and regional growth are targeted mainly for the short and intermediate terms, the national economic integration is a pattern of economic development mainly targeted for the long term. We introduced five dimensions of public policy: the improvement of general abilities (education), professional training, infrastructure, relieving barriers, and igniting the economic process. As emphasized throughout this paper, these policies must be implemented in parallel to one another. Each policy dimension is aimed at the enhancement of at least one of the three patterns of development described above. While all of the policy dimensions generally complement one another in their effort to improve the overall economic conditions among the Bedouin population, the various dimensions are not necessary additives, and hence each effort, if conducted only independently, will not create the desired effect needed to make a sustainable change. The patterns for development suggested by our model were discussed with a focus group, which included local leaders from the Bedouin population; the group included 40 committee members from nine settlements that are in the process of recognition by the Israeli authorities. The tools that we recommended for implementation were discussed and designed together with the focus groups. From these discussions, we adapted the general policy tools that were presented in the theoretical model to the specific economic, demographic and cultural attributes of the Bedouin population.A possible future research might include an in-depth analysis of the specific policy tools presented in this paper, and a follow-up and evaluation of the actual implementation of these tools in practice and in light of our theoretical model. Through such analysis and further cooperation with the Bedouin of the Negev, we can already see the efficiency of the tools presented throughout this paper, as the regional council of the unrecognized village of Abu-Basma has already begun the implementation of some of our policy recommendations, including the promotion of a regional tourism project, and the establishment of professional training programs in collaboration with potential employers.Opens in a new window.Figure 1\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to identify patterns of development that fit the unique attributes of minorities living in peripheral regions and determine the role of public policy in stimulating such patterns.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - First, a theoretical model is developed for development measures to be considered for minorities living in a peripheral area, the case of the Bedouins in Israel is analyzed, using secondary data, questionnaires, and focus groups.\nFindings: - The paper finds that economic development among minorities living in a peripheral region could be achieved through the combination of policies at the local, regional, and national levels: support of local economic activities, development of regional activities, and improvement of access to the labor market at the national level.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The Bedouins in Israel present unique cultural attributes that do not necessarily reflect the situation of other minorities in peripheral areas. Consequently, some of the conclusions of this study may not be relevant to other cases.\nPractical implications: - Public policy should focus on improving education, professional training, infrastructure development, removing barriers, and launching regional economic projects.\nOriginality/value: - This paper suggests an alternative approach to the prevailing policy of social support to retarded regions and populations: using both theory and empirical analysis, it develops an integrative approach at the local, regional, and national level, that would create conditions for healthy and sustainable economic growth.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Investors' response to mutual fund company mergers
|
[
"Investment funds",
"Investors",
"Acquisitions and mergers",
"Australia"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Australian fund management companies were caught up in the consolidation wave that characterised the financial services sector from the mid-1990s to the beginning of the new millennium. Acquisitions of boutique fund management operations and other investment management institutions by large banking and insurance concerns have since experienced problems (see Herald-Sun, 2003, Australian Financial Review, 2003a, b). To illustrate, in 2002 National Australia Bank wrote off $520 million against the value of MLC, an investment management firm it had acquired in April 2000.Given the generally negative prognosis given to mergers, how do investors react to acquisitions of companies running the funds they invest in? Considering this question at the investment company level is important since, in the limited research on the issue to date, Jayaraman et al. (2002) and Khorana et al. (2005) examine US fund mergers between individual funds. In this paper we study fund company mergers that occur during the period 1995-1999 when capital gains taxation rigidities in Australian discouraged the merger of individual investment trusts.We examine the following issues using a matching control sample of funds that were not involved in mergers. First, do cumulative excess money inflows into target funds improve significantly following mergers? Second, do investor account numbers increase significantly? Third, do fund companies change fees around times of mergers? From the perspective of shareholder wealth gains, fund companies are compensated on the basis of funds under management. By considering the post-acquisition revenue performance of firms in our sample, we contribute to the literature that uses operational outcomes rather than share prices to investigate the value of M&As (see, for example, Simon et al., 1996; Brailsford and Knights, 1998; Rhoades, 1998).Our results are consistent with anecdotal evidence of investors who are wary of mergers of fund managers. We find that mergers seem to lead investors to withdraw from acquired funds prior to and after the merger in comparison to a matched sample of funds not involved in mergers. Cross-sectional analyses reveal that managed funds that belong to specialist fund management companies post more gains than declines of assets under management following mergers of their parent companies compared to funds within financial services conglomerates. We also find that increases in new money inflows at funds in direct competition to the target funds are related to downward adjustments of management expense ratios at the target funds.The rest of the paper is arranged as follows. Section 2 provides a background to the consolidation of the managed fund industry and the predictions of merger theories. The data, samples and methodology are discussed in Section 3. Section 4 outlines the findings of this study while Section 5 summarises and concludes.\n2. Background: The acquisition of fund managers commonly results in them joining a larger investment management entity. Should the acquirer decide to continue with the operations of the acquisition on a stand-alone basis, the product range is often expanded by the addition of the acquirer's existing funds into the acquisition's product line. Anecdotal evidence in the Australian financial market shows that investors are generally wary of the ability of big fund management operations to deliver superior return performance. At both the individual fund and fund family levels there seems to be an endemic belief that it is impossible for managers to deliver superior performance once they have attained a certain size. Analysts openly use such terms as \"size and performance are inversely proportionate\" in addressing the issue of growth. It is believed that as a fund's size grows relative to the market, performance gravitates towards that of the market index, minimising the value of employing a fund manager. The scepticism towards fund growth extends to merger activities as aptly captured in the following comment by an investment advisor: \"You put money with a manager but find out that they are merging with another manager - then you don't have what you thought you were investing in. You don't know whether the staff will stay; and how the organization will continue under new management\" (see Business Review Weekly, 1998).The M&As literature comprehensively reviewed by Berger et al. (1999) provides some predictions on the value investors may expect from mergers:* Mergers aid the attainment of significant market power.* Mergers deliver considerable economies of production and scope. However, apart from the expensive information technology that might characterise some fund management firms, most of the infrastructure does not constitute a basis for the production economies argument. Albeit, opportunities exist for the exploitation of non-physical scale and scope economies such as the potential to offer clients the efficiency of shopping for several products under one entity and a more attractive brand.* Merging entities benefit from economies of the scarce factor of the innovativeness of managers. Indeed if this factor is important, fund investors must react positively to mergers of fund entities.* Substantial cost reducing synergies could be associated with mergers. This factor directly impacts the profitability of the fund manager. Its beneficial effects on investors are indirect through reduced fees, potentially attracting new investors.The reasons for the apparent negative reaction of mutual fund investors to the merger of fund managers have not been previously researched. However, there are suggestions in empirical studies that uncontrolled size is bad for fund investors. Grinblatt and Titman (1989) document early evidence that positive abnormal performance exists in growth funds and low net asset value funds. However, expenses wipe out the gains from return performance. This result is also confirmed by Perold and Salomon (1991) who show that the economic value added by fund managers diminishes once a fund's size exceeds a certain optimal level due to diseconomies of scale in research and trading costs. Similarly, Zheng (1999) confirms that it is new money flowing into small funds rather than large ones that earns superior returns.A fund company, in pursuit of the maximisation of its own value as a concern could take actions that foster the rapid growth of assets under its management, and, therefore, fee income, even though such actions are potentially detrimental to investors (Chevalier and Ellison, 1997). Mergers aiming to increase funds under management at the expense of investors could be one such activity. Indro et al. (1999) find that there exists an optimal size that funds should reach to attain returns that cover information gathering and processing costs and that these marginal returns become negative beyond this optimal size.\n3. Data and empirical design: 3.1. Mergers and fund samples\n4. Results: 4.1. Return-size-matched sample\n5. Conclusion: Merger theories generally suggest that mergers are beneficial and as such we should expect rational investors to respond favourably to them. However, sentiments commonly expressed by investors and their advisors seem to defy this logic. In this study we sought to empirically test whether mutual fund investors react positively to the finalisation of merger transactions involving funds to which they have an exposure.To assist us in controlling for factors that are known to affect fund flows such as past performance, fund size and rate of growth in assets under management we utilised two control samples. The return-size-matched-control sample controlled for the persistence of fund inflows chasing past returns while the growth-matched-control sample controlled for prior rates of growth in fund size. The findings of the analyses of excess inflows of money and investor accounts for both samples are that funds involved in mergers do not attract better inflows than control funds.We conclude that if the methodology we adopted successfully controls, as is apparent, for factors that normally influence mutual fund inflows, investors on average do not reward funds for being part of merger transactions. Instead there is some evidence of net money outflows.We further assess whether investors' response to mergers differ among different types of parties to mergers. Using cross-sectional regression analyses we find that managed funds that belong to specialist funds management companies post more gains than declines of assets under management following mergers of their parent companies compared to funds within merging financial services conglomerates. We also find that increases in new money inflows at funds in direct competition to the target funds are related to declines of management expense ratios at the target funds.What are the implications for the market's understanding of the value of mergers? We caution that the study is on a specialised industry and might offer limited prospects for generalisation. We hope, though, that the study bridges the gap in understanding the implications of merging fund management companies and informs the expectations of promoters of future transactions.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to examine mutual fund investors' response to mergers of Australian mutual fund companies.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Two matching-control techniques are employed to analyse the impact of mergers on excess money in and out of open and closed funds involved in the transactions. The paper employs cross-sectional regression analyses to examine the impact of mergers on different types of parties to mergers.\nFindings: - The results suggest that mergers are not accompanied by increased money flows. Instead investors withdraw from the target funds prior to and after the merger. Funds belonging to specialist mutual fund companies record more gains in assets under management than declines following mergers, and that money inflow gains at competing funds induce reductions of management expense ratios at target funds.\nResearch limitations/implications: - This paper studies mergers in only one industry in a single country. Future studies may extend to other industries and economies.\nOriginality/value: - This paper extends prior research on the flow effects of mergers at individual fund level by considering the issue at the corporate level.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Multiple perspectives on customer relationships
|
[
"Financial services",
"Relationship marketing",
"Service marketing",
"Banking industry",
"Buyer-seller relationships",
"Customers"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The financial service industry is increasingly turbulent. In the wake of the crisis, the banking and insurance sectors have transformed, with new regulations as well as developments in information and communication technology. The competition for customers and profits is intense. Financial service providers' customer relationships have become more distant, as interpersonal service encounters have been widely replaced by online interactions. In the western world, most people carry their banks with them in their smartphones; banks figuratively have a branch in almost every pocket. Developing countries are following the same trend. When internet banking is a norm and mobile banking is gaining a foothold, what lies ahead for the financial service industry? In the past, it was enough to offer personal service, availability through widespread branch networks, and a variety of products. Internet banking gave the industry a boost, but, since its emergence some 15 years ago, internet banking has not radically developed or continued the same path of success. What will give companies a competitive edge in the future? These are some of the issues addressed in this paper.\nDiscussion: The eight papers in this special issue indicate that customer relationships in the financial service sector are complex and demanding. The provider perspective of customer relationships involves to a higher extent creating relevant service offerings based on longitudinal customer insight. Also the customer-provider dyad involves new challenges such as monitoring and acknowledging passive and weak customers. The customer context - what customers do and experience in their own lives and businesses beyond service offerings - is a particular challenge since it is beyond the scope of most financial service providers. Whereas some strategies for maintaining customer relationships can be based on adjusting service offerings and internal processes, many aspects of customer relationships are beyond the control of financial service providers. Such uncontrollable elements in customer relationships are mostly a result of customers' idiosyncratic behavior.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to describe and conceptualize customer relationships in the financial service sector, focussing on three aspects of customer-bank relationships: the financial service provider perspective, the customer-provider dyad, and the customer context.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Through a short review of the eight papers included in this special issue, this paper illustrates different aspects of customer relationships. It explores customer value formation in the context of banking services, the dynamics and strength of customer relationships, and strategies for financial service provision and consumer trust.\nFindings: Customer relationships in the financial service sector are increasingly dynamic and unpredictable. This may be due to both activities within the control of financial service providers, such as strategies for service provision, but is more often attributable to factors beyond the control of providers. What empowered customers are doing in their own settings influences their attitudes toward and evaluations of financial services.\nResearch limitations/implications: The paper is conceptual. It challenges the firm-centric approach to customer relationships and compares different perspectives of customer relationships. The significance of the customer-centric perspective is emphasized.\nPractical implications: Awareness of uncontrollable and idiosyncratic aspects of customer relationships will offer financial service providers new opportunities for being present in the customers' lives and business.\nOriginality/value: This paper illustrates the importance of extending the focus from what financial service providers are doing to what customers are doing within their own domains. Financial service providers need to understand more about their customers than their perceptions of service quality, satisfaction, and loyalty in different distribution channels, such as internet and mobile banking. The focus should be instead on how customers integrate their financial activities and experiences in their own life or business.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Governance mechanisms and total relationship value: the interaction effect of information sharing
|
[
"Relationship value",
"Relational governance",
"Information sharing",
"Contractual governance"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: To mitigate any hazard coming from buyer-supplier relationships, transaction cost reasoning (Heide et al., 2014; Williamson, 2010) suggests that business relationship parties will rely on specific governance mechanisms, such as monitoring with formal contracts (Gulati and Singh, 1998; Williamson, 1975) and with relational norms (Vazquez-Casielles et al., 2013; Bercovitz et al., 2006). Formal contracts, which include formal rules, terms, procedures and penalties to stipulate the rights and obligations of both parties, can efficiently reduce risk and uncertainty in business-to-business relationships (Weber and Mayer, 2011; Poppo and Zenger, 2002; Williamson, 1975). In contrast, relational governance using established trust and norms can encourage greater investment from both buyers and suppliers and discourage opportunistic behavior harmful to relationships (Dyer and Singh, 1998; Kumar et al., 1995b). Prior research, however, has found limitations associated with both contractual governance (e.g. high cost and low flexibility) and relational governance (e.g. opportunistic behavior and misplaced trust) (Cavusgil et al., 2004; Lui and Ngo, 2004; Das and Teng, 1998; Williamson, 1979). Considering these limitations, we argue that the effects of contractual and relational governance are not merely linear, but rather lie within a more complex linkage. Although Huang et al.'s (2014) was the first study to find a curvilinear direct effect of contractual governance on the performance of buyer-supplier cooperation, there is still a dearth of studies examining the double-sided effects of contractual and relational governance. What remains unexplored in the governance literature is the double-sided effects of formal and informal governance mechanisms, and the interaction effects of these mechanisms with supplier's relational behaviors, such as information sharing to influence the relationship performance. It is also important to understand how excessive formal and informal governance can abet negative behaviors in buyer-supplier relationships.\n2. Theory and hypotheses: 2.1 The main effects of contractual and relational governance\n3. Method: 3.1 Measure development\n4. Analysis: 4.1 Reliability, validity and descriptive statistics\n5. Discussion: The key finding from this study suggests that an increase in relational and contractual governance can help create relationship value, but if the relationship relies too much on relational and contractual governance, the two types of governance will decrease relationship value creation. Our study lends support to previous research that suggests a positive effect of governance mechanisms on relationship performance (Weber and Mayer, 2011; Poppo and Zenger, 2002; Kumar et al., 1995a). Most previous studies separately examine the bright side and the dark side of each governance mechanisms. However, our study reveals that the dark side of governance mechanisms only reveals itself when relational governance and contractual governance increase to high levels. This finding is consistent with the transaction cost theory as it implies that when buyer and suppliers depend too much on trust (over 4.90 out of 7 in the Likert scale) to govern the relationship, opportunism behavior emerges (Williamson, 1975). Such behavior deteriorates the relationship and total relationship value as perceived by both parties decreases. Following Aiken and West (1991), we conducted slope analysis to illustrate the relationships between relational governance, contractual governance and total relationship value. As Figure 1 shows, the analysis provided further support for H1 and H2.\n6. Implications: 6.1 Theoretical implications\n7. Limitations and conclusion: A longitudinal design could enable researchers to investigate how the performance of governance mechanisms changes over time, and to draw implications for managers about precisely which type of governance mechanisms to use at each phase. In addition, this study is limited to only one country and culture; therefore, further study could expand the sample to various countries to investigate the role of cultural factors in the effects of contractual and relational governance.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purposes of this study are to examine how contractual and relational governance mechanisms influence total value created in a buyer-supplier relationship and to investigate how supplier's information sharing and information sharing asymmetry between two exchange parties differentially moderate these associations.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study is conducted with a sample of 110 buyer-supplier matched dyads in various industries in Vietnam.\nFindings: This study confirms that contractual governance and relational governance have curvilinear effects on total relationship value. Governance mechanisms have distinct interactions with supplier's information sharing and information sharing asymmetry to influence total relationship value.\nResearch limitations/implications: Future study could expand the sample to various countries to investigate the role of cultural factors in the effects of contractual and relational governance.\nPractical implications: This study draws implications for supplying managers about how to govern a relationship with a buying firm with which they are sharing information. It also provides implications about how to use contractual and relational governance to control the effects of supplier's information sharing and information sharing asymmetry, on total relationship value.\nOriginality/value: This study extends the information sharing literature by looking into the effect of supplier's information sharing on both parties' relationship value. It contributes to the governance literature by investigating curvilinear effects of contractual and relational governance on relationship performance.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Measuring the status and alignment of maintenance and manufacturing strategies - the development of a new model and diagnostic tool
|
[
"Conceptual framework",
"Linkage",
"Maintenance strategy",
"Manufacturing strategy"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Manufacturing is important to the UK economy because it contributes 10 per cent to GVA, employs 2.5 million people and produces half of UK exports (EEF, 2012). To be successful in the global economy, UK manufacturing companies have to continue to produce goods and services that customers need, at the right price, so they can compete and survive. The development of operational strategies can serve to improve and tailor the product offering for customers as well as improve the internal efficiency and effectiveness of manufacturing plants. Operational or plant strategies are made up of a mixture of functional strategies of which two key functions are maintenance and manufacturing. For maintenance and manufacturing strategies to be successful they need to be linked to corporate, business and marketing objectives (Skinner, 1969; Hill, 1985; Pinjala et al., 2004). However, in practice few manufacturing companies create maintenance strategies and link them to their manufacturing and business goals (Jonsson, 1997). Furthermore, there is little in the published literature to suggest that there is any common agreement on the process for the formulation and execution of functional strategy. Moreover, there is no comprehensive diagram or model which portrays how these functional strategy processes should be connected together and linked externally. Without knowing the specific components and how they fit together it is challenging for practitioners and researchers to assess the status of operational strategies and solve any problems if and when they arise.\n2. Background: The body of knowledge concerning manufacturing and maintenance strategies is largely based on strategic management and much of the theory has been adopted or adapted from corporate strategy literature. Being successful in business is about delivering the right mix of products and services to enable a firm to profitably compete in a marketplace. The continual search to find ways of achieving this goal has proved a challenge for academics and management practitioners alike. This is evidenced by the plethora of writings on strategic management and a proliferation of models, theories and frameworks concerning corporate strategy (Ackoff, 1981; Porter, 1985; Certo, 1991; Mintzberg and Quinn, 1991; Mintzberg et al., 1998). As a result, a number of strategy schools emerged (Mintzberg et al., 1998) and these embraced a spectrum of opinion ranging from determinism to voluntarism (Genus, 2000). Despite this wide range of views the dominant epistemology amongst corporate strategy literature is the rational planning paradigm (Ackoff, 1981; Ansoff, 1988; Johnson and Scholes, 1993). Here, strategy (or how to compete) is formulated at a corporate level and cascaded through the organisation in the form of plans, goals and objectives (Certo, 1991; Johnson and Scholes, 1993; Ackoff, 1981). This top down approach has pervaded into manufacturing and maintenance strategy literature and is exemplified in the models presented by Skinner (1969), Kim and Arnold (1996), Kelly (1997), Geraerds (1990).\n3. Conceptual model and diagnostic tool: 3.1 Model development\n4. Methodology: The research began with an extensive literature review revealing a gap in the body of knowledge in relation to maintenance and manufacturing strategies. Because there was no suitable model or framework available a new model was developed (Robson, 2010). From this a diagnostic tool was generated. The questionnaire utilised a five-point Likert scale similar to that used by Barnes (2002) and is of a type widely used in social research to measure opinion/attitude (De Vaus, 2001). Each question had the same set of options: strongly agree=5, agree=4, neither agree nor disagree=3, disagree=2, strongly disagree=1. Once the questionnaire was developed the questions and format were further scrutinised by an expert panel and then piloted at a manufacturing site. From the feedback obtained minor changes were made to the questionnaire to make it more usable in the field.\n5. Case study example: The authors have included here a synopsis of the outputs and data generated from one of the four manufacturing plants studied. It is not intended as a full presentation of the results from the empirical research. This will be the subject of another paper.\n6. Conclusions: 6.1 Research contribution\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to outline the development of a new conceptual model and the associated diagnostic tool which can measure the status of maintenance and manufacturing strategies and how well they are linked together.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The new model was developed in two stages. First, a conceptual framework was produced and then a holistic diagram. From this theoretical model a diagnostic tool was generated. This tool was then verified and tested during an empirical research phase which produced four extensive and detailed case studies. A brief overview of one of the case studies is provided in this paper.\nFindings: It was found that the conceptual model provided an accurate representation of the strategic processes and links which should exist in a manufacturing plant. Moreover the diagnostic tool proved a valid and reliable instrument to measure and display this information.\nResearch limitations/implications: The diagnostic tool provides a snapshot of the status of manufacturing and maintenance strategies which then can be used to benchmark improvements over time. When required the individual questions from the questionnaire can be reverse engineered to provide detailed information for senior managers to carry out corrective action.\nPractical implications: The diagnostic tool provides a snapshot of the status of manufacturing and maintenance strategies and furthermore by reverse engineering the individual questions from the questionnaire can provide detailed information for senior managers guiding them towards the key areas where corrective action is needed.\nOriginality/value: This theoretical and empirical research closes a gap in the literature relating to the linkage between maintenance and manufacturing strategies. It does so by providing a unique and holistic representation of the strategic processes and links which should exist within a manufacturing plant. Moreover the diagnostic tool produced from the model is a convenient audit facility which enables companies to move towards functional coherence.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Integrating retired military officers into the civilian labour market: A competence-based approach
|
[
"Competence",
"Retirement"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: History has demonstrated the labour market challenges of demobilising large numbers of military personnel and the difficulties experienced by individuals in finding suitable jobs (Graubard, 1947). Such problems are evident in strong economies like the USA (Burnett-Zeigler et al., 2011), whereas the situation in developing economies exacerbates the difficulties that veterans face in making the transition from military to civilian life (Nubler, 2000). In purely quantitative terms, the volume of retired military officers rarely causes labour market problems because retired military officers are such a small fraction of the total workforce. For example, in the USA in 2015, the total number of retired military personnel represented 1.3 per cent of the total workforce (Statistical Report on the Military Retirement System Fiscal Year 2015, 2016), whereas in Lithuania, each year 450 military officers retire and the total number of reserve accounted from 5,380 in 2005 to 4,903 in 2017 (Ministry of Defence of the Republic of Lithuania, 2018). The re-integration of retired military personnel into the civilian labour market is an important and complex issue from various perspectives. It is related to social integration, professional self-realisation, assuring the right to work and continuing employment, effective deployment of human resources under conditions of contemporary demographic and labour market challenges, among other issues. Skills and competencies are important factors in these processes. Military service facilitates the acquisition of a wide range of experience with associated knowledge, skills and social competencies. Accumulation of this human capital raises the issue of its further application and development after retirement from individual, societal and state perspectives.\nLiterature review: Specificity of military service and implications for competence\nMethodology: The empirical research on which this paper is based used qualitative methods: in-depth, semi-structured face-to face interviews were conducted with 25 retired military officers in Lithuania. Interviewees were identified using a snowball approach and selected via purposeful convenience sampling to ensure the achieved sample was representative of different demographic characteristics, educational and professional background. The average duration of interview was 50 min, and interviews were recorded to permit verbatim transcription. Content analysis was performed on interview transcripts employing categories and subcategories discerned in the statements of interviewees.\nFindings: Specificity of military service and related employment challenges\nDiscussion: The research identified several important features of transition of retired military officers to civilian labour markets and the role of competence in this process. The importance of contacts established during military service for further employment and civilian careers of retired military officers has implications for competence development, especially for developing personal and social competencies. Drawing on their social capital helps former military officers cope with various challenges of employment, ranging from nepotism in the public sector to a lack of understanding of their competencies and qualifications in civilian life. Applying functional (professional) competencies acquired in military service to civilian employment opens limited occupational choice, but success in finding positions that correspond to acquired functional competencies makes retired military officers feel highly competitive in the labour market and useful for society. It is not surprising that employment strategies involving the application of functional competencies acquired in military service are targeted to fields of activities related to the armed forces or national defence system. In some countries (e.g. The Netherlands), military personnel can hold civilian jobs concurrently with military service, which provides better opportunities to develop requisite functional competencies for civil jobs, as well as adapting military functional competencies.\nConclusion: This research has revealed various challenges of comparability and transferability of competencies acquired in military service to civilian careers, which can be regarded only in the context of institutional, socioeconomic and cultural challenges of labour market integration of retired military officers. The responses of retired military officers to these challenges include a wide range of measures, involving not only modifying acquired competencies but also identifying civil labour market niches where \"military\" competencies are demanded (pro-active attitude to employment and application of military competencies). Transferability of specific functional competencies acquired in military service (such as combat related skills or abilities to use weapons) is limited to specific niches of labour market that are functionally related to the armed forces or public safety.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to investigate issues affecting the integration of retired military officers into civilian work using a competence model as an analytical framework.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper combines literature review with empirical study. The primary method of data collection was a series of in-depth, face-to-face interviews with 25 retired army officers in Lithuania.\nFindings: Despite evidence that a career as an officer in the military develops valuable competencies that have obvious potential in the civilian labour market, the integration of retired army officers into the civilian labour market is fraught with difficulties. Apart from the obvious inappropriateness of specific competencies associated with armed combat for civilian occupations, even competencies acquired in military service that align closely with those required in civilian jobs do not necessarily translate because of different contexts and different value systems.\nResearch limitations/implications: The empirical basis is limited to army officers in Lithuania, and the authors urge caution in extrapolating to other military personnel and other countries. To the extent that the approach has generic value, there are clearly implications for demobilisation after major conflicts or return to civilian life of personnel involved in international peace-keeping.\nPractical implications: This exploratory research suggests that a competence framework can identify limits and possibilities of aligning competencies acquired in military service with those required in civilian occupations, provided context and values are incorporated as part of the analysis. The approach piloted in this paper could be useful more widely for facilitating mobility between sectors and occupations arising from the adoption of disruptive technologies.\nOriginality/value: The paper demonstrates the value of a structured approach to comparing competencies in context and the mediating role of values in moving from military to civilian occupations.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Mitigating influence of transcendence on politics perceptions' negative effects
|
[
"Attitudes",
"Self-regulation",
"Sensemaking",
"Emotions",
"Resources",
"Cognition",
"Conflict management",
"Proactivity",
"Organizational politics",
"Politics perceptions",
"Transcendence"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Politics is an inevitable fact of organizational life, persisting as a prime area of interest for both academics and practitioners (Buchanan, 2016). Although recently defined in more balanced terms (Farmer and Van Dyne, 2017), employees' perceptions of organizational politics (POPs) remain distinctly pejorative, evidenced by documented negative associations with attitudes, behaviors, and outcomes. For example, Chang et al.'s (2009) summary \"demonstrated that such perceptions have strong positive relationships with strain and turnover intentions and strong, negative relationships with job satisfaction and affective commitment\" (p. 792).\nTheoretical foundations and hypothesis development: POPs\nRelationships with work outcomes: Job satisfaction\nDesign of the current investigation: A constructive replication research design was developed to test the interactive politics perceptions x transcendence relationship (Hochwarter et al., 2011). Constructive replication, which examines similar questions with related measures in different environments, represents a stronger test of original documentation relative to exact duplication (Van Hulle et al., 2017). Sample 1 consisted of workers across a myriad of job contexts, whereas Sample 2 mainly focused on a single work environment.\nMethod: Establishment of scale items\nResults: Descriptive statistics and correlations\nDiscussion: To date, research affirming the harmful effects of POPs on outcomes has been extensive (Chang et al., 2009). However, antidotes to POPs (Harris and Kacmar, 2005) have received little emphasis, especially those characteristically cognitive (Rosen and Hochwarter, 2014). To build a more informed research base, we drew from the concepts of self-regulation and sensemaking to examine transcendence as a moderator of POPs - work outcomes (i.e. tension, satisfaction, frustration, effort, and emotional exhaustion) relationships. Results corroborated the hypothesized role of transcendence across two samples. Explicitly, the lack of influence of POPs on outcomes at high levels of transcendence was confirmed as theorized in prior cognition research (Kross and Ayduk, 2017).\nConclusion: Our conceptualization and theoretical underpinnings of the transcendence construct show that transcendence is universally adaptable, and its use should not remain confined to the fields of health and philosophy. The findings of our empirical investigation suggest that transcendence improves the lives of employees, and fosters organizational success via the mitigation of the harmful effects of POPs on work outcomes.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine how a cognitive process, transcendence, moderates the relationship between perceptions of organizational politics (POPs) and several work outcomes.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Participants across two studies (Study 1: 187 student-recruited working adults; Study 2: 158 information technology employees) provided a demographically diverse sample for the analyses. Key variables were transcendence, POPs, job satisfaction, job tension, emotional exhaustion, work effort, and frustration.\nFindings: Results corroborated the hypotheses and supported the authors' argument that POPs lacked influence on work outcomes when individuals possessed high levels of transcendence. Specifically, high levels of transcendence attenuated the decreases in job satisfaction and work effort associated with POPs. Additionally, transcendence acted as an antidote to several workplace ills by weakening the increases in job tension, emotional exhaustion, and frustration usually associated with POPs.\nResearch limitations/implications: This study found that transcendence, an individual-level cognitive style, can improve work outcomes for employees in workplaces where POPs exist. Future studies should use longitudinal data to study how changes in POPs over time affect individuals' reported levels of transcendence.\nPractical implications: Although it is impossible to eliminate politics in organizations, antidotes like transcendence can improve individuals' responses to POPs.\nOriginality/value: This study is one of the first to utilize an individual-level cognitive style to examine possible options for attenuating the effects of POPs on individuals' work outcomes.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Property valuation in the UK: market value and net of costs
|
[
"Property valuation",
"Market value",
"Capital value"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Most bases of value represent the estimated exchange price of an asset without regard to the seller's costs of sale or the buyer's costs of purchase and without adjustment for any taxes payable by either party as a direct result of the transaction.(International Valuation Standards (IVS) 210.1)\nIntroduction: All valuation approaches[1] are attempting to estimate market value (MV), the price of the property in the market on the date of the valuation. MV is defined as:The estimated amount for which an asset or liability should exchange on the valuation date between a willing buyer and a willing seller in an arm's length transaction after proper marketing and where the parties had each acted knowledgeably, prudently and without compulsion.(IVS 30, 2017)\nCosts of purchase: In the UK, when an investor purchases an investment property, they incur various costs. These are:\nStamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT): In the UK, an investor must pay SDLT for all properties and/or land purchases over a certain price. The current (November 2018) SDLT threshold is PS125,000 for residential properties and PS150,000 for non-residential land and properties.\nThe deduction of costs: It is interesting that many valuers, with whom I have debated the deduction of costs, argue that as the IVS says that MV is the figure calculated \"without regard to the buyer's costs of purchase and without adjustment for any taxes payable\". They argue that the deduction of cost is therefore contrary to this requirement.\nNet initial yield: This is also consistent with the calculation of net initial yields. The net initial yield is simply the ratio of the initial \"net\" rent over the GROSS capital value (price plus costs); the NIY is an observed yield calculated by looking at comparables.\nConclusion: The goal of this briefing is to comment upon the market practice of deducting costs from the capital value. Most textbooks and most university courses fail to discuss this market heuristic and suggest that value is the capital value. It is important that the simple market practice of deducting (average) costs from the capital values calculated is recognised as the appropriate way to derive MV when using the investment method.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to comment upon the relatively straightforward but often contentious practice of allowing for costs on the capital value derived by the investment model of property valuation.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This education briefing is an explanation of the discounting process to allow for costs used in practice.\nFindings: Although, the deduction of cost is a simple use of algebra, often valuers (and, in particular, students) fail to make the allowance correctly.\nPractical implications: The process of allowing for cost is a simple heuristic based on market averages for various individual costs such as agents' fees and legal fees (including VAT) and property taxation (stamp duty).\nOriginality/value: This is a review of existing models.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Supportive supervisors: the key to employee retention?
|
[
"Social exchange theory",
"Higher education",
"Perceived supervisor support",
"Turnover intention",
"Task performance",
"Self-efficacy"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nHow high levels of staff turnover hurts organizations: High levels of staff turnover can lead to significant financial losses for organizations and have long term implications for their success. For organizations hoping to reduce staff turnover, it's key to understand why people stay and why people leave.\nUsing social learning theory to understand turnover intention: The authors approach turnover intention through the lens of social learning theory to understand how perceived supervisor support directly and indirectly affects turnover intention and task performance. Social learning theory, developed by Albert Bandura in 1977, suggests that people learn through observing and imitating other people. By learning through observations of other people's behavior and the subsequent outcomes within a particular workplace environment, employees develop their own internal framework of behaviors and beliefs. This informs belief in their own ability to complete and perform well during tasks. The belief in our ability to organize and put into action the behaviors necessary to produce a desired level of performance and meet difficult challenges is known within psychology as self-efficacy.\nUsing social exchange theory to understand turnover intention: Social exchange theory proposes that social behaviour occurs as a result of an exchange process, where people weigh the risks and benefits in order to maximize these benefits and minimize costs. Social exchange theory can be used as a framework to understand the relationship between perceived supervisor support and turnover intention. Employees give organizations their time and skills in exchange for economic benefits (salary, financial stability, pensions) and socio-emotional benefits (status, a sense of purpose, appreciation and esteem from others). Employee relationships with supervisors are based on an exchange, where the employee expects to receive benefits and rewards from the supervisor in return for their effort and commitment on the supervisor's behalf. From this perspective, perceived supervisor support refers to how much an employee perceives their work for their supervisor is valuable, and how much their supervisor takes care of the employee's well-being and best interests in return. In return for perceived support from managers, employees feel more motivated and perform tasks at a higher level. In turn, manager's ratings depend on the performance of their employees. When employees receive support from supervisors, they are more likely to engage in behaviour that benefits supervisors. These reciprocal relationships inform the workplace environment, reducing stress and increasing job satisfaction and task performance. This makes employees more likely to stay longer at a particular job, reducing turnover intention.\nThe study: The authors collected their data from teaching staff at private universities in Pakistan through self-administered questionnaires. They collected 304 questionnaires, of which 172 respondents were male (56.6 per cent) and 132 were female (43.4 per cent). The majority of the respondents were in the 29-40 years age group (45.7 per cent).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.\nFindings: The study, based in higher education institutions in Pakistan, finds that perceived supervisor support decreases turnover intention and increases task performance through the mediation of self-efficacy.\nOriginality/value: The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Complexity: an alternative paradigm for teamwork development
|
[
"Team working",
"Teambuilding",
"Complexity theory"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: In the past few years, both the principle and practice of \"teamwork\" has come under increased scrutiny as one of those organizational practices that has not lived up to its expectation for organizational effectiveness, especially that needed by management and executive decision-making teams.\nComplexity is critical: Without all the quantum science accoutrement, complexity theory presents us with a worldview - and understanding of the universe - as fundamentally interdependent - connected. As such, it removes the emphasis from the individual to the dyad, triad, group or an otherwise collective entity. This connection is irreducible. In doing so, it also questions conventional distinctions about roles and role expectations, tasks, leaders, control, and authority, as well as compromises the notions of competition, individual accomplishment and success.There are four principles of complexity thinking that would alter both the pedagogy and practice of teamwork in organizations, and inspire the inventiveness, creativity and innovation we seek of decision-making teams.Nonlinearity\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to suggest an understanding of teamwork from a complexity perspective.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Complexity principles of nonlinearity, emergence, holism, and engagement are applied to conventional teamwork practice.\nFindings: - The complexity principles offer ways of thinking about teamwork that inspire a more genuine collaboration, especially for decision-making teams who must be able to alter conventionally linear, cybernetic thinking patterns.\nOriginality/value: - Thinking in complexity terms is an unfamiliar but necessary practice for decision-making teams, enabling team members to think and act in collaborative ways, see the big picture, resist managing deviations that seems like errors, and develop interpersonal relationships that do so.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Modeling supply chain performance and stability
|
[
"Supply chain management",
"Supply chain performance and stability",
"System dynamics",
"Autoregressive integrated moving average",
"Overall performance index number",
"Manufacturing industries"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: According to Schorr (1998), firms no longer compete against each other individually but do so together with their respective supply chains. Continuously improving in enterprise collaborative and cohesive relationships within the supply chain network, as well as managing all entities throughout the whole supply chain network to achieve a unified business objective, are not only strategic targets that each entity in the supply chain network tries to achieve but also crucial prerequisites for firms to compete and survive in this global competitive environment. In this highly dynamic and competitive environment, customers demand short lead time, low-cost, high-quality, and diversified products. As international product fragmentation has become more popular and important in the supply chain network, firms are increasingly adopting it to satisfy customer needs and achieve business objectives. However, firms tend to have difficulties in managing the geographically dispersed supply chain network and in establishing the communication channels and service links between entities throughout the supply chain network in a seamless, timely, and cost-efficient manner. Also, firms are facing challenges in measuring the full performance of the whole supply chain network's attributes of collaboration, integration, cohesion, and ability to achieve unified business objectives, leading to continuous improvement.With the increasing importance of supply chain management (SCM) in this global competitive marketplace, performance assessment has become a key research area in academia and in industry. Performance measurement is linked to supply chain practices, which enables firms to succeed in their supply chain initiatives (Brewer and Speh, 2000). Other than supply chain performance, supply chain stability is another area of concern in long-term SCM. Stability can enable each entity to perceive the condition of its surroundings and then do its best to optimize the performance of the supply chain to achieve sustainability. The examination of supply chain stability is thus necessary and significant not only for monitoring its overall performance but also for facilitating its optimization; however, it appears to be missing from the extant literature. Current studies using an index approach to measure supply chain performance are extensive (Simatupang and Sridharan, 2005; Faisal et al., 2007), however:* A limited number of studies are found that assess the performance of supply chain networks using the system dynamics (SD) approach.* Studies examining supply chain performance stability are scarce.To contribute to the literature and the body of knowledge as well as to suggest an effective and comprehensive alternative for both performance measurement and stability evaluation of the supply chain, this study therefore aims to provide a novel solution for modeling supply chain performance and stability through a combined SD and autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) approach. It is highlighted by developing an SD model for assessing the overall supply chain performance. This is integrated with a quantitative approach that can study its stability and responsiveness. The reasoning behind using these two applications (SD and ARIMA) for the supply chain performance evaluation will be given in detail in Section 3. By taking advantage of this approach, firms can simply and effectively evaluate the performance of their supply chains, and thus take actions to improve supply chain performance and derive better SCM solutions. In the next section, the literature on SCM and its performance measurement will be discussed. Our approach will involve a key performance index (KPI) for performance quantification, followed by the development of an SD model for supply chain performance measurement and an ARIMA model for evaluating its stability and responsiveness; the latter will be introduced in Section 3. In order to better describe our approach, an illustrative example will be conducted for discussion in Section 4. Finally, the findings of this study will be summarized, and the implications, limitations, and direction for further research discussed in the conclusion section.\n2 SCM and its performance measurement: In recent years, increasing attention has been paid by academics, consultants, and operational managers to the way in which firms are seeking to make the supply chain more competitive and streamlined as a whole, rather than achieving cost reductions or profit improvements at the expense of their supply chain partners (Romano and Vinelli, 2001; Ding and Chen, 2007). Performance measurement systems (PMSs), representing a stage of monitoring as well as a performance assessment tool in a supply chain network (Kittelson and Associates, 2003), are thus becoming the key to discovering any potential problem as well as enrichment in a supply chain. According to Beamon (1999) and Shah and Singh (2001), the development of an appropriate performance measurement tool is definitely important, as it contributes to efficient SCM. Brewer and Speh (2000) indicated that supply chain performance measurement enables firms to succeed in their supply chain initiatives. In addition, other researchers pointed out that a supply chain PMS plays an important role in monitoring performance, enhancing motivation, improving communications, and in diagnosing problems (Beamon, 1996; Brewer and Speh, 2000; Holmberg, 2000; Lau et al., 2001; Morash, 2001; Bullinger et al., 2002; Tan et al., 2002; Otto and Kotzab, 2003; Gunasekaran et al., 2004). Neely et al. (1995) described performance measurement as a process of quantifying both the efficiency and the effectiveness of actions. Performance measurement is even regarded as one of the cornerstones of business excellence (Lim and Lee, 2005). It is obvious that performance measurement in supply chains is indispensable as it drives supply chain excellence and helps the firm to achieve its business goals.A PMS is important to SCM in that it can give a quantitative measurement of the performance of the whole supply chain. This helps entities to understand their supply chain's strengths, weaknesses, current performance, and the size and nature of the gap between strategic intent and current status. This also enables entities to make informed decisions and gain insights, so that they can take appropriate action to improve their overall performance, efficiency, and effectiveness in order to sustain their competitive advantage. A credible PMS is helpful in evaluating the efficacy of a supply chain network in achieving improvement (Beamon, 1996; Shah and Singh, 2001), as well as in managing firms as they evolve towards interoperability (Blanc et al., 2007).Various approaches to performance measurement in the supply chain have been proposed; for example, Ghalayini et al. (1997) proposed an integrated dynamic PMS linking management, the process improvement team and the factory shop floor; Fawcett and Cooper (1998) conducted a longitudinal study of logistics performance measurement; Chan and Qi (2003) and Ohdar and Ray (2004) proposed a performance measurement method for SCM using a fuzzy-based approach; Gunasekaran et al. (2004) and Melnyk et al. (2004) suggested a framework of metrics-related performance measurement; Lyons et al. (2004) demonstrated a supply chain information system to measure supply chain performance; the NEVEM Working Group (1989) and Berrah and Cliville (2007) studied supply chain performance measurement by aggregating all the individual performance measures up to a group; and Wong and Wong (2007) measured internal supply chain performance using data envelopment analysis. However, firms have found it difficult to practice SCM due to the lack of a comprehensive PMS for the supply chain (Beamon, 1999). In fact, current studies focusing on performance measurement have seldom taken the stability of the supply chain into account.To resolve these problems, an innovative PMS that provides a comprehensive overview of supply chain performance and fully expresses the impact of performance on supply chains is needed. This study is hence intended to fill the gap by developing a new measurement instrument for supply chain performance and stability. An SD model with ARIMA will be built which will give a comprehensive picture to enable users better to understand the factors which have an impact on supply chain performance. It will also assist firms simply and effectively to update and manage supply chain performance. This kind of integrated model is actually new to the literature but is effective in measuring supply chain performance and stability. The result of the model would enable firms to conduct a gap analysis, which will enable them to achieve continuous improvement.\n3 The SD and ARIMA analysis: As mentioned, supply chain performance is related to business and supply chain objectives. Aligning the performance measures with such objectives is necessary in the formulation of a new instrument for the measurement of supply chain performance and stability. The proposed integrated model consists of three steps:1. making use of a KPI to quantify and document the performance measurement;2. developing a SD model for simply monitoring, updating, and evaluating supply chain performance in achieving the objective; and3. building a univariate ARIMA model for examining supply chain stability.This approach will be further introduced in the subsequent paragraphs.3.1 The key performance index\n4 An illustrative case study: To illustrate the deployment of the proposed dynamic performance measurement model based on SD and ARIMA, a case study is given below. The case company, named company A in this study, is a major semiconductor equipment supplier to the world crystal industry. Its crystal products are widely used in the automotive, industrial telecommunications, and consumer electronic industries. It has five factories, which are located in Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Fujian, Qingdao, and Zibo. Data used in the case study were collected directly from company A and through interviews with the senior management, including the chief operation manager and logistics manager.4.1 Company background, objectives, and KPIs\n5 Conclusions: This study proposes an approach combining SD for modeling and measuring supply chain performance with ARIMA for analyzing and projecting its stability over time. In essence, the integration of SD and ARIMA connects supply chain performance to its stability. More specifically, the integrated model aids managers in evaluating current SCM practice and improving the supply chain in these ways:* The SD model developed provides firms a supply chain PMS, not only to better understand the inter-relationship of KPIs concerning supply chain performance but also to easily and effectively evaluate their supply chain performance in terms of KPIs and OPINs over time for further analysis.* The ARIMA model provides statistical evidence to ascertain supply chain stability, followed by forecasting that enables firms to take advance actions for improving supply chain performance and preventing it from deteriorating and becoming subject to future fluctuations.* The integrated model is capable of providing managers with useful information, such as whether performance objectives defined are achieved, whether the supply chain performance is satisfactory or unsatisfactory in terms of the KPIs, etc. This would enables managers to design supply chain policies and systems that improving supply chain performance in order to gain a sustainable competitive advantage in the market.* The user-friendly feature of the integrated model also adds value for managers so that they can use it for tracking the performance of the supply chain and make insightful policies in advance so as to be certain of achieving a reliable performance and improving stability.Apart from these practical values, this integrated approach contributes to the body of knowledge in SCM and responds to the demand for a quantitative methodology to:* simply assess the performance of a supply chain as a whole in terms of KPIs for decision making relating to its improvement; and* examine supply chain stability for long-term management.It also makes a contribution to industry in that it creates a practical and easy-to-use model that enables senior and top management, decision makers and operation managers involved in the supply chain to assess, forecast, and take anticipatory action in order to achieve supply chain performance excellence in a timesaving and effective manner.It is found in the case study that the most critical factors influencing supply chain performance cover two KPIs with six corresponding indicators: effectiveness in taking into account PR, EF, and CF; and also efficiency, considering: OTD, PG, and WE. The average OPIN=0.64 obtained from the SD model indicates that the company has plenty of room for improvement in its supply chain performance especially in connection with its weakness in supply chain efficiency. In addition, the ARIMA model proves that supply chain performance of the company is consistent and stable, which also implies that its supply chain is considered unified and its entities work well towards company objectives. Further improvement in its supply chain is suggested with the purpose of achieving continuous improvement in pursuit of maximizing its performance excellence. Improving the performance with great reliability, the company can increase stability in the supply chain with certainty; this improves business results.This approach enables senior and top management, policy makers, decision makers, and operation managers to assess, forecast, and take anticipatory action to improve performance and consistency so as to compete in this dynamic global market and achieve sustainability. This approach is beneficial for companies that wish to evaluate their supply chain performance and stability. Other companies could follow the approach presented in this study to develop the models for the measurement of supply chain performance and stability. However, the SD and ARIMA models developed in the case study may be limited to company A. To broaden the generalisability of the integrated model, it has to be customized and tested in different specific sets of KPIs with corresponding indicators and criteria to serve different businesses with their respective objectives. For the further work in this area of research, all the performance indices and indicators in the entire supply chain network could be included in the SD model, while the interactions of all the factors could be indicated. In addition, equation (1) for the performance measurement could be further refined so that it indicates not only acceptable or unacceptable, but will also accept a range of degrees on a scale with fuzzy values. Different weightings could be assigned to the KPIs and indicators, so that the resulting OPIN could be more precise and accurate with regard to the actual situations encountered.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to propose an integrated approach to modeling and measuring supply chain performance and stability using system dynamics (SD) and the autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA).\nDesign/methodology/approach: - SD and ARIMA models were developed, respectively, for modeling and measuring supply chain performance and for further analyzing and projecting supply chain stability for long-term management. A case study from a typical semiconductor equipment manufacturing company is used to illustrate and validate the proposed method.\nFindings: - Effectiveness and efficiency, with six corresponding indicators (product reliability, employee fulfillment, customer fulfillment, on-time delivery, profit growth, and working efficiency), were found to be the most significant factors in the performance of the supply chain. The results of the combined model provide evidence that supply chain performance of the case company is up to standard (average OPIN=0.64) and is considered stable, but still far from outstanding. Continuous improvement, especially in supply chain efficiency, is suggested in order to maximize performance.\nOriginality/value: - This integrated approach is innovative and creates a new way for other disciplines. This study provides a practical and easy-to-use model that enables senior and top management decision makers and operation managers involved in the supply chain to assess, forecast, and take anticipatory action so that the supply chain can experience improvement in a timesaving and effective manner and achieve excellence in performance.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Upward feedback and its contribution to employees' feeling of self-determination
|
[
"Feedback",
"Workplace learning",
"Germany"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Providing and receiving constructive and critical feedback has been emphasised in research and practical work on the establishment of a learning oriented organisational climate. In these conceptions feedback mainly serves the issue of identifying and closing \"gaps\" in individual or team behaviour, for example improving deficient ways of working or indicating lacks in the state of competences. In such, feedback constitutes an individual as well as an organisational learning process. On the individual level, a person learns about possibilities to improve his or her professional competences. On the organisational level the establishment of an organisation wide feedback programme ensures a continuous evaluation process that identifies possibilities for improvement of the staffs' level of professional competence. Consequently, the importance of constructive and critical feedback often is emphasised in studies on organisational learning, learning culture or learning potential of the workplace. While traditionally, feedback has been conceptualised as a top-down process, recently, the notion of a 360 degree feedback has gained attention (e.g. Edwards and Ewen, 1996). The core of this concept is that a person - may it be a supervisor or a subordinate - receives feedback not only from one but from multiple sources from all \"directions\". This implies that members from all hierarchical levels provide each other critical feedback in both a horizontal and a vertical way. In such, the role of employees providing feedback to their supervisors (upward feedback) is emphasised, and this is the focus of this contribution. For supervisors this implies learning possibilities in matters of their professional competence as well as in their leading qualities; for the subordinates it means an improvement of their possibilities for co-determination at the workplace, if the feedback is an opportunity to express their concerns and to disapprove.This leads to a second, more indirect function of feedback for the integration of work and learning: in motivation research, providing constructive feedback has been identified as an important variable in supervisors' behaviour that supports subordinates' feelings of self-determination (Deci et al., 1989). Self-determination has proven to be a crucial variable as it influences intrinsic motivation, satisfaction, and performance in various settings (Baard et al., 2004). It has been argued, that a work environment that supports subordinates' feelings of self-determination is able to enhance intrinsically motivated, self-directed learning at the workplace (Harteis et al., 2005; Straka et al., 1996) and implicit forms of learning (Bauer et al., in press). Whether the possibility to provide supervisors upward feedback also supports subordinates' feelings of self-determination is, however, still an open issue.Therefore, the central question of this contribution is, whether the possibility to provide upward feedback to supervisors contributes to subordinates' feelings of self-determination. This should only be the case if the subordinates' perceive the possibility to provide feedback as a serious possibility of influence and improvement. If the assumed relationship should prove to be valid, upward feedback programmes could be part of interventions in order to increase self-determined motivation and learning at work.\nTheoretical framework: The following paragraphs provide a short overview of the theoretical background of the study. First, it is discussed why self-determination is a relevant variable in a work setting. Second, assumptions are made concerning under which circumstances upward feedback could be supportive to employees' feelings of self-determination.Self-determination and its correlates at work\nResearch method: It was decided to conduct the study in one specifically selected organisation since it was necessary that the enterprise had implemented an upward feedback system. A second reason was to avoid influences from variations in the companies overall organisational culture. Thus the results are restricted to the investigated field. However, the goal of the study was not representativeness but to show the working of a mechanism. Therefore this field access was adequate. The study was conducted in the logistics department of a high-tech industry enterprise in Germany. The company implemented about ten years ago a routine of mutual feedback using formal discussions between supervisors and subordinates, and questionnaires. It is part of the company's programmatic leadership culture that supervisors ask their subordinates for feedback at regular intervals. So it was ensured that the employees were familiar with the procedure and no effect of novelty would interfere with the measurement. Upward feedback takes place annually in the investigated department and the study was conducted about a month after the last feedback process. The subjects (n=76 employees) were accessed by a representative of the enterprise and participated voluntarily.The assessment was conducted by questionnaire because existing instruments were partly available and a quantification of the assumed relationship on the basis of a larger sample was aimed at. The focus was on the subjective perception, because the research question concerned the feeling of self-determination and both from a constructivist and the SDT point of view individual interpretations are more relevant than the evaluation of an external observer. So a questionnaire was used that measures the perception of the upward feedback's quality as well as the perception of motivational conditions on a seven-point Likert scale. It consists of 32 items in two parts:1. Part one concerns the conditions for self-determination. They are operationalised traditionally by the support of the feelings of autonomy, competence and social relatedness. Three scales were employed that had been used successfully in earlier research in a work setting (Harteis et al., 2005). The scale \"autonomy support\" measures whether employees find degrees of freedom for own decisions and arrangements in their work (five items); the scale \"competence support\" contains eight items that measure possibilities to use and develop one's competences during work; \"social relatedness\" measures the feeling of being part of a group and receiving social support (six items). The assumption is that individuals who rate high on these scales work under conditions that foster their intrinsic needs satisfaction and thus their feelings of self-determination. In the instructions, the subjects were asked to answer the questions in relation to their current situation at work (the items of the scales can be obtained from Appendix 1 to 3).2. Part two concerns the perception of the upward feedback (Appendix 4). This was assessed by one scale including items referring to satisfaction with the form of feedback, whether it is perceived as a possibility to share critical opinions, whether it leads to real changes in the perception of the subordinates, and whether it is acknowledged by the supervisors. In the instructions, the subjects were advised to relate the questions to their perception of the upward feedback process in their company.\nFindings: Exploratory factor analyses (PCA) were conducted both for the self-determination scales and the feedback scale in order to assess their empirical structure. The factor analysis for the motivational scales was first conducted with three factors to be extracted since the SDT claims three basic needs. A KMO coefficient of 0.73 as well as Barlett's test of sphericity (p<0.000) had indicated good conditions for conducting a factor analysis. However, this did not lead to an interpretable result. Neither orthogonal (varimax) nor oblique (oblimin direct; delta=0) rotation resulted in a solution with a simple structure. Thus it was decided to use a two-factor solution as this was indicated by the scree test. The rotation (varimax) yielded a simple structure with only one double loading exceeding 0.3. All items from the scale \"competence support\" and all items from the scale \"autonomy support\" (except A4) loaded on factor one. So this component is a combination of the support for autonomy and competence. This result is interpretable as the SDT claims that the three needs are theoretically not independent from each other. Looking at the items, a possible interpretation of this factor is that it concerns more characteristics of the tasks and activities people perform at the workplace as opposed to the quality of social relationships they find there. In order to keep the information that this factor represents two qualities of the workplace that seem to converge, the scale built from this factor was called \"support of autonomy and competence at work\". Factor two contains all items of the original scale support of social relatedness. One item from the original scale autonomy support loaded negatively on this factor and was excluded from further analysis. The items of this factor indicate perceived qualities of the social relationships at the workplace. The internal consistencies of the two scales built on basis of the factor analysis are satisfying (Table I). The explorative factor analysis of the feedback scale (KMO 0.85; Barlett's test for sphericity p<0.000) showed that the scale was one-dimensional. So the original scale was used for the further analysis (alpha=0.91). The descriptive statistics of the scales can be obtained from Table I.The correlations between the scales can be obtained from Table II. In a first step bivariate correlations were calculated. Since the motivational scales were correlated, partial correlations were calculated for the autonomy and competence scale and the feedback scale while controlling for social relatedness and for the social relatedness scale and the feedback scale while controlling for autonomy and competence. As expected there were positive significant correlations between the motivational scales and the upward feedback scale that also had substantial effect sizes. They decreased but still were substantial in the partial correlations (Table II).\nConclusions: Interpretation of the results\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The paper seeks to show that self-determination is a widely regarded motivational variable in educational research that relates to intrinsically motivated, self-directed learning at work. This study aimed to find out whether the possibility to provide upward feedback to supervisors contributes to employees' feelings of self-determination. This should only be the case if the subordinates perceive the possibility to provide feedback as a serious possibility of influence and improvement.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper finds that in a cross-sectional case study, 76 employees from a high-tech industry enterprise were surveyed for their perception of upward feedback and their feeling of self-determination by questionnaire. Self-determination was measured by the support of the intrinsic needs of autonomy, competence and social relatedness at the workplace.\nFindings: - The paper finds that, as expected, the perceived quality of the upward feedback is related positively to self-determination. Employees who perceive the upward feedback as a chance for improving their working conditions also perceive more support of autonomy, competence and social relatedness at their workplace.\nResearch limitations/implications: - In the paper the correlative design allows no conclusions about the direction of causality between the perceived quality of the upward feedback and self-determination. Further, due to the design the results are limited to the specific field.\nOriginality/value: - The paper delivers a new aspect of the role of feedback for learning in organisations by casting light on beneficial effects for the provider of the feedback, not the receiver. It emphasises the role of empowerment and participation for establishing an organisational climate that fosters motivation and learning, and shows the possible contribution of upward feedback in this process.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
A QFD-, concurrent engineering-, and target costing-based methodology for ODM companies to formulate RFQs
|
[
"Quality function deployment",
"Target costs",
"Manufacturing industries",
"Taiwan"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: 1.1 The ODM business process\n2 Literature review: 2.1 Previous studies on the RFQ processing\n3 Investigation of order capture process of ODM companies: In this section, the operational activities that eight ODM companies implement in ODM projects for their customers will be surveyed. The findings from the eight ODM companies' interviews will be used to help us develop a methodology for ODM companies to formulate accurate and profitable RFQs.3.1 A Survey of the order capture process of ODM companies\n4 The proposed QFD-, CE-, and target costing-based methodology for ODM companies to formulate RFQs: From the review previous of previous studies, one finds that previous studies on RFQ processing mainly focus on general business, and not specifically on RFQ formulation for ODM business. Because of its recent gain in popularity, a study of the effectiveness current ODM business RFQ formulation is warranted. Meanwhile, according to the overall findings of the interviews presented in Section 3.2, an effective and efficient methodology is necessary for ODM companies to formulate accurate, profitable, and competitive RFQs. Therefore, in this section, we will propose a methodology to assist ODM companies in formulating accurate and profitable RFQs. QFD, CE, and target costing are the basis of the proposed RFQ formulation methodology for ODM companies to use in ODM projects. RFQs normally include customer-given product specifications, product material costs, process costs (e.g. the installing of new equipment and the purchasing of new instruments), and manufacturing costs (e.g. labor costs and overhead). Hence, suppliers need to estimate every cost item in the planning and production process. QFD uses four phases to review each aspect of its process in order to systematically formulate an accurate estimation in the product development cycle time. Its nature and orientation makes it an extremely useful technique in formulating RFQs. CE will require ODM companies to set up a dedicated team involving all related departments to attend RFQ discussion meetings and formulate accurate RFQs concurrently. It also allows ODM companies to work concurrently with components' suppliers and the ODM customer in formulating responses to RFQs. Furthermore, although competition for ODM projects is fierce, merely obtaining such products without regard for profit is meaningless. The ultimate goal for ODM companies is to engage in profitable ODM business. As the target costing process places primary emphasis on achieving desired profit margins, it can play a significant role in formulating RFQs that will not only gain the attention of ODM customers, but also offers desired profit margins and necessary target cost for ODM companies to formulate profitable RFQs. With the integrated application of QFD, CE, and target costing, we hope the proposed methodology can help ODM companies:* formulate RFQs systematically, effectively, and efficiently;* send an accurate and detailed RFQ response to the ODM customer; and* design and manufacture cost-effective, quality, and time-to-market products, and thus achieve a profitable ODM project at the mass production stage.To achieve these purposes, the proposed methodology is designed to have the following two necessary characteristics:1. The proposed methodology offers a systematic, step-by-step, and efficient process for ODM companies to formulate the three parts of the RFQs (product specification proposal, product development schedule, and product price quotation).2. All responsible departments in the ODM company, the component suppliers, and the ODM customer need to be involved in the RFQ formulation concurrently in order to provide detailed and accurate estimates for use in the RFQ response.The whole process of the proposed methodology is shown in Figure 4 and is comprised of ten steps. The three parts of the RFQ can be formulated by means of these ten steps. Target costing methodology is mainly used at Steps 2, 3, and 8. QFD and CE methodologies are mainly used at Steps 4-7, and 9. In the following, these ten steps will be explained.Step 1: Receive an RFQ from an ODM customer\n5 A case study of using the proposed methodology: In this section, a case study that was conducted in order to ascertain the effectiveness of the proposed methodology is presented. After asking the eight case companies presented in Section 3, ODM Company A agreed to use of this methodology to formulate a 37 inch LCD TV RFQ. The proposed methodology was introduced to the product manager of the LCD TV marketing department of ODM Company A during a 2-hour presentation. The product manager was then asked to assess the feasibility of the proposed methodology and the possibility of its implementation in his company. He responded in the affirmative and agreed to implement it in ODM Company A's new 37 inch LCD TV ODM project. Since ODM Company A has no specific RFQ formulation method currently in place, the product manager wanted to use the proposed methodology to systematically formulate the RFQ response in order to improve its less-than-desirable track record of inaccurate and unprofitable RFQ responses on some projects in the past two years. The total RFQ formulation time was one week. The product manager was in charge of inviting all of related departments to attend the discussion meetings and formulate the RFQ response concurrently. In addition, component suppliers were also invited to attend to provide information on a technological support plan, component price, and technological risk. At the same time, the product manager proactively got in touch with the ODM customer to ask about unclear items on the RFQ. The ten-step process of the proposed methodology for the ODM Company A's 37 inch LCD TV RFQ formulation was performed as follows.Step 1: Receive an RFQ from the ODM customer\n6 Suggestions for successfully using the proposed methodology: From the implementation of the proposed QFD-, CE-, and target costing-based methodology in the RFQ formulation for ODM Company A's 37-inch LCD TV project, we identify four key points in successfully using the proposed methodology:1. A dedicated leader is needed to handle the whole RFQ formulation process. In order to complete the RFQ on time, it is important for the ODM company to assign a dedicated leader to coordinate discussion from and the participation of all departments. In addition, this leader needs to clearly explain the proposed methodology to all those involved and implement it step-by-step. Furthermore, the leader needs to hold periodic meetings to check each department's progress.2. All responsible departments need to be fully involved in the RFQ formulation. In order to formulate an accurate and detailed RFQ, it is imperative that all departments are involved in the process. The leader needs to explain the importance of the RFQ in the RFQ kickoff meeting and ask all participants to attend the periodical review meetings on time.3. Component suppliers need to participate in the RFQ formulation. In terms of technical support, having component suppliers in the meetings is a must. They should be asked to introduce new components' application notes to the ODM company's R&D team in order to evaluate potential technical risk. In addition, component suppliers need to commit to set up a support team to help the ODM company solve quality issues that may occur during any stage of product development. This will ensure that the product development can be kept on schedule.4. The ODM customer should be invited to join the RFQ formulation. In order to formulate accurate RFQs, it is helpful to invite the ODM customer to join in the RFQ formulation. However, if the ODM customer thinks their participation is improper, unclear items should be clarified.\n7 Summary and conclusion: The problem that ODM companies encounter with the RFQ process is that there is no effective and efficient methodology for ODM companies to formulate accurate and profitable RFQs. According to the overall findings of ODM companies' interviews in Section 3, there is no specific method adopted by the eight ODM companies interviewed; instead traditional approximation methods are used. Since these traditional approximation methods lack accuracy in identifying product specifications, calculating total costs, and establishing a product development schedule, ODM companies who use such approaches usually end up submitting inaccurate RFQs to ODM customers. If an inaccurate RFQ is accepted, it can result in unexpected product development schedule delays or unprofitable business due to a high total cost. The objective of this paper is to propose a methodology that can help ODM companies formulate accurate, profitable, and competitive RFQs. QFD, CE, and target costing are the basis of the proposed RFQ formulation methodology. Compared to the traditional approximation methods adopted by these eight case companies, the proposed methodology provides a systematic ten-step approach to accurately formulate the three parts of the RFQ: the product specifications proposal, the product price quotation, and the product development schedule. The case study in Section 5 shows the proposed methodology is an effective and efficient methodology for ODM companies to use in formulating accurate and detailed RFQs. This methodology's strength lies in the fact that it integrates QFD, CE, and target costing into a ten-step process to formulate RFQs, allowing all responsible departments in the ODM company to follow this process in formulating accurate and profitable RFQs within the deadline. The proposed methodology helps ODM companies to solve current RFQ formulation problems such as inaccurate data, lack of participation, etc. Once the ODM company receives an RFQ from its ODM customer, the ODM company can form a dedicated team to formulate the RFQ by means of the proposed methodology. The result will be an accurate and profitable RFQ that can be submitted to the ODM customer. Ultimately, users of this methodology should see an increase in the number of ODM orders procured. After submitting the accurate RFQ and being awarded the project, the ODM company will be better able to complete product development smoothly, provide a quality product to the ODM customer, and increase profits.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The problem that original design manufacturing (ODM) companies encounter with the request for quotation (RFQ) process is that there is no effective and efficient methodology for them to formulate accurate and profitable RFQs. The purpose of this paper is to present a quality function deployment (QFD)-, concurrent engineering (CE)-, and target costing-based methodology for ODM companies to formulate accurate and profitable RFQs.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - From eight Taiwan electronics ODM companies, 15 people are interviewed to understand their current methods for formulating RFQs and the problems of these methods. Based on the interview results, it was decided to make use of the merits of QFD, CE, and target costing by integrating them into the proposed methodology.\nFindings: - A case study is presented to illustrate a successful application of the proposed methodology in a case company. The case study shows integrating QFD, CE, and target costing into the proposed methodology allows the authors to effectively and efficiently formulate an accurate and profitable RFQ for the case company.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The interview sample quantity of this study is limited to eight Taiwan electronics companies, which is insufficient to represent all ODM companies in various industries. For the future research, it is suggested researchers collect more samples from different industries in order to verify the effectiveness of the proposed methodology in ODM companies from different industries.\nOriginality/value: - This paper aims to integrate QFD, CE, and target costing to come up with a systematic ten-step approach that can accurately formulate the three parts of an RFQ: the product specifications proposal, the product price quotation, and the product development schedule. By adopting this methodology, ODM companies can provide accurate and profitable RFQs to ODM customers, thus increasing their chances of obtaining ODM business.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Tourist perceived image of local cuisine: the case of Bosnian food culture
|
[
"Tourism",
"Food culture",
"Bosnia and Herzegovina",
"Local cuisine image",
"Tourist satisfaction"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Food is an important component of the tourism product, and plays a pivotal role in crafting a memorable travel experience (McKercher et al., 2008). Over the past decade, amid the highly dynamic global tourism environment, many destinations have integrated local food (cuisine) into the tourism product in order to attract more tourists (Robinson and Getz, 2014). The existing literature suggests that a synergy between food and tourism can be created in several ways (Henderson, 2009). First, food adds value to a core tourism product by expressing the intangible cultural heritage of a destination (Hegarty and O'Mahoney, 2001). Second, food is considered to be a strategic management tool that can (re)create a destination image (Fox, 2007; Renko et al., 2010) and maintain or rejuvenate tourist flows towards a destination (Cohen and Avieli, 2004; Kivela and Crotts, 2006; Nield et al., 2000). Third, food can be viewed as a stand-alone tourism product for tourists who intentionally seek out food activities and food experiences while travelling (Jones and Jenkins, 2002).\n2. Theoretical background and research hypotheses: 2.1 Food tourism\n3. The study and methodology: 3.1 Study setting\n4. Research findings: 4.1 Demographics of respondents\n5. Conclusion: In spite of broad agreement among scholars regarding the influence of food in the process of destination brand-building and destination identity, only a few studies have analyzed the image of food in relation to a destination in the context of tourism (e.g. Jang et al., 2009; Qing-Chi et al., 2013). The present study advances the literature on the use of local cuisine (food) in destination marketing, by assessing the attributes of local cuisine from the tourist perspective in the context of a newly emerging tourism destination in the Western Balkans. The current study also contributes to the ongoing debate regarding the image formation of cuisine within a destination, its conceptualization and measurement (e.g. Ab Karim et al., 2011; Qing-Chi et al., 2013; Kivela and Crotts, 2006). By bringing the destination image specificities into the field of food and tourism, this research makes a significant conceptual contribution towards the development of a valid and reliable measure of local cuisine image within a destination. The resulting four-dimensional structure of local cuisine image reveals that tourists' evaluation of a cuisine within a destination can be translated into rational benefits (cognitive images) such as the quality and price of food, and emotional benefits (affective images), such as excitement. Thus, this study addresses a gap in the literature regarding the lack of empirical research on the subject of cuisine image formation and its application to vacation destinations. This study also confirms a previous theory suggesting that cuisine image within a destination is an important antecedent of tourist satisfaction with the food experience (Qing-Chi et al., 2013).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the underlying dimensions of local cuisine image by identifying the key cuisine attributes tourists rely on in their evaluations of local cuisine; and to identify those dimensions of local cuisine image which have the strongest influence of tourist satisfaction with food experience. These issues are addressed within the context of Bosnia and Herzegovina, an emergent tourism market in Western Balkans.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The research is exploratory. The city of Sarajevo was chosen as a study setting. Image of local cuisine was measured by using a multi-attribute approach in which several food attributes are specified and incorporated into the measurement instrument. Data from convenience sample of foreign tourists (n=402) were quantitatively analyzed using multivariate and descriptive statistics.\nFindings: Results suggest that the local cuisine image compromises four components (dimensions): \"food uniqueness and cultural heritage\", \"food quality and price\", \"nutrition and health benefits of food\" and \"affective image of food\". Furthermore, findings show that these dimensions differ in terms of their relative importance in explaining the overall tourist satisfaction with food experience.\nResearch limitations/implications: The main limitation of this study is related to the geographical area (tourist site) where the research process was carried out. Thus, future research with greater geographical scope is required.\nPractical implications: This study provides valuable insight to practitioners who are seeking to integrate local food (cuisine) into the tourism product.\nOriginality/value: This paper is the one of the first study that tries to identify perceived image of local cuisine held by visitors in Bosnia and Herzegovina.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Foreign direct investment and institutional stability: who drives whom?
|
[
"FDI",
"Foreign direct investment",
"ARDL",
"Economic growth",
"Institutional stability"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows were $1.45tn in 2013 and are expected to rise about 5 per cent in 2017 to almost $1.85bn (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development [UNCTAD], 2017). The top host countries for FDI inflows as of 2016 include the USA, Ireland, Hong Kong, China and Singapore. Also, North America is the top region of FDI outflow. To further add, from the period of 2000 to 2012, about 55 countries adopted 1,082 institutional policy changes, with the goal of creating a more favourable environment for foreign investors (Demir, 2016).\n2. Literature review: Institutional quality is crucial to attract FDI (Kurul, 2017). Good governance of a country, for instance, political stability, regulatory quality and control of corruption are the prerequisite for attracting FDI inflow (Kaufmann et al., 2011). Weak institutional quality is an obstacle for FDI (Aziz, 2017). The literature from previous studies shows that there is a link between institutional quality and FDI (Ahmad and Ahmed, 2014; Asif and Majid, 2017; Aziz, 2017). Some studies found a positive relationship between institutional quality and FDI (Aziz, 2017; Buchanan et al., 2012; Kurul, 2017). Aziz (2017) investigated the influence of institutional quality on FDI by considering Arab countries between 1984 and 2012 and found a substantial positive association between them. Kurul (2017) examines the effect of institutional quality on FDI by using panel threshold methodology and considers the developing countries. The author finds a positive relationship between institutional quality and FDI after attaining a certain threshold level of institutional quality. Besides, Buchanan et al. (2012) studied the impact of institutional quality on FDI between developed and emerging countries and found a positive association between them. However, poor institutional quality, which includes factors such as corruption, bureaucratic delays and weak law and order governance; adversely impact FDI in developing countries (Ahmad and Ahmed, 2014). According to Globerman and Shapiro (1999), better institutional quality encourages FDI inflows, as it makes it easier for multinational corporations to invest abroad. Corruption was found to be the most significant deterrent to FDI, according to a study done by Brunetti and Weder (1998).\n3. Data and methodology: This paper aims to analyse the relationship between institutional quality and FDI. However, simple bivariate studies suffer omission bias (Appiah, 2018; Caporale and Pittis, 1995). Hence other variables were included in our model to reduce omission bias and better reflect causality. The study employed annual time series data spanning the period from 1981 to 2014, consisting of a total of 33 observations. The model comprised of institutional quality variable (institutional stability) obtained from International Country Risk Guide database and inflation, GNP, exports and FDI derived from World Bank's World Development Indicators (WDI).\n4. Findings and interpretations: The Augmented Dicky-Fuller (ADF) test was conducted to see if there were any unit roots and to identify the order of integration for each variable. Further tests were done using Phillips-Perron (PP), which is different from ADF since it deals with autocorrelation and heteroscedasticity in the errors. As such it is a more comprehensive test. Since the variables in this study are a combination of stationary and non-stationary variables. The ARDL approach is used. This technique can be applied regardless of the order of integration. Also, it is more robust when dealing with smaller sample sizes and when there is cointegration.\n5. Conclusion: Several studies have been conducted on FDI and institutional development or other macroeconomic factors (Ahmad and Ahmed, 2014; Asif and Majid, 2017; Aziz, 2017). It is not surprising given that we operate in the highly integrated global community. This study focussed on the Canadian economy to see the role institutional stability that plays in its economy; given its economies have been the less volatile over the past decade as compared to other economies.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between foreign direct investment (FDI) flows and institutional stability. The focus country is Canada. It is one of the few countries where the economy remained relatively stable compared to other economies during the Global Financial Crisis. It is crucial for Canada to determine the optimal level of institutional development to attract more FDI and sustain the sound financial stability in future.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study uses the auto-regressive distributive lag (ARDL) approach to understand the relationship between FDI and institutional stability along with other controlled variables, for instance, gross national product, inflation and exports.\nFindings: The key finding of this work is that FDI and institutional stability are cointegrated in the long run. The error correction model of ARDL shed light on institutional stability being an exogenous variable, and FDI is an endogenous variable. Institutional stability affects FDI, as it is exogenous. The findings will help policymakers to implement policies to strengthen the institution's settings, and this, in turn, will attract more investment.\nOriginality/value: Based on previous theoretical and empirical literature, most of the research points to FDI positively affect institutional stability. In some cases, the relationship does not always hold true. This study will fix the gap in the literature by investigating the relationship between FDI and institutional stability of Canada.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Fashion retailers rolling out across multi-cultural Europe
|
[
"International business",
"National culture",
"Retailing"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Within Europe internationalization of retailers is ever increasing. Not many years ago one could find stores like Gap, Gucci, Armani, and Benetton in a few countries only. Currently, walking through cities and villages across Europe one finds oneself gazing at similar retail outlets no matter where you are. One of the reasons of the fast internationalization of retailers may be that the European unification facilitates doing business in various countries in Europe. Nevertheless, it is surprising to observe these relatively quick developments when realizing that local cultures are still quite diverse. For example, based on the cultural dimensions of Hofstede (2001), Sweden and Portugal are culturally as opposite as are Canada and Hong Kong. de Mooij and Hofstede (2002) even conclude that there is no reason to believe that converging technology and disappearing income differences across countries will ever lead to far-reaching homogenization of consumer behavior. Given these considerations, the objective of this paper is to explore to what extent cultural factors drive the sequence of foreign market entries by retailers. More precise, this study contributes to the foreign market entry studies by conducting an empirical study on the influence of both cultural and geographic distances on the entry sequencing decisions of retailers competing across Europe. This study is limited to the \"old\" Western European countries because information about cultural values of the new \"eastern\" countries is still rarely available.In the marketing literature, empirical studies on foreign market entry are relatively scarce, and most research focus on the initial entry decision (Robinson and Clarke-Hill, 1990; Kim and Rhee, 2001) rather than on the sequence of the subsequent entries. A recent study by Mitra and Golder (2002) is the first study modeling the complete entry process rather than just the initial foreign entry. Their sample mainly represents US-based manufacturing firms exporting to many foreign markets. The current study focuses on the complete entry process of retailers, who are in close contact with the culturally heterogeneous customers in various countries of the European Union.To demonstrate underlying mechanisms of internationalization the authors perform an in depth study of the key retailers operating in the fashion clothing retailing industry. The study provides a rich picture of what has actually been going on in this market. The European fashion retail market is one of the important retail markets in Europe with a yearly turnover of more than $70 billion (www.euromonitor.com). It includes a fair number of well-documented internationally operating US- and EU-based retail chains. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study analyzing the complete international entry sequences of retailers from a national culture perspective.In the remainder of this paper, the authors discuss the literature related to the international expansion of retailers, and formulate specific hypotheses about expected sequences. Thereafter, an alternative map of Western Europe based on cultural distances between the countries shall be developed. To derive the map, the authors use an improved version of the cultural distance measure of Kogut and Singh (1988). Then they analyze patterns in entry sequences of the key competing retailers operating in Europe.\nThe international expansion of retailers: a theoretical perspective: Initial expansion\nDeriving a cultural map of Europe: The national cultural classifications of Hofstede and Hall\nInternationalization of fashion clothing retail chains: Within Europe, many fashion-clothing retailers are active, varying from local clothing stores and department stores, to internationally active fashion retail chains. Looking closer at the latter, the authors have identified a list of the biggest players operating in Europe as shown in Table II. Gap, Inc. is by far the largest chain worldwide, followed by H&M and C&A. Gap, however, is currently merely a small player in Europe, operating in France, Germany and the UK only (www.gap.com). Conversely, the well-known Benetton group is relatively small on world scale with an annual turnover of about [?]2 billion, but has the largest number of outlets and is present in nearly every single European country (www.benetton.com). A notable observation as well is that the home countries of the chains are very diversely spread over the various countries. There are two \"Nordic\" chains (H&M, and C&A), originating from Sweden and the Netherlands, respectively. There are three \"Latin\" chains (Inditex, Benetton, and Mango) rooted in Spain and Italy, and four \"Anglo&Germanic\" chains, one of which originates from the UK (Marks & Spencer), and three from the USA (Gap, Levi Strauss, and Esprit (www.esprit.com). This cultural root diversity enables the authors to explore the similarities and differences between the internationalization processes of the retail chains in Europe.Using multiple sources (corporate web sites, Lexis Nexis, Annual reports, company reviews) the authors constructed Table III, showing the sequences and dates of European market entry of the big fashion retailers. Only the entries in the 16 countries shown in Figure 1 are included, in order to be able to analyze the within- and across-cluster expansion of the retailers. Although for some of the chains the exact dates were not known, the authors have been able to determine the sequence of market entry.As has been discussed above, it is expected that in the first stage of their international development, fashion retailer chains prefer to enter a geographically near country that also is closed in a cultural sense. In the later stages of their internationalization process, the chains are expected to prefer entering culturally closest countries in the same cluster first.Analysis of the initial foreign entry\nDiscussion, conclusions and managerial implications: Despite the inevitable limitations that go with a study like this - most importantly including just one sector and a limited number of countries - this study does provide deeper and new insights into the geographical and cultural factors driving the internationalization processes of retailers. The authors have developed a meaningful cultural map of European countries on the basis of cultural research by Hofstede (2001) and Hall (1976) and identified three culturally different clusters of Western European countries.Second, the authors observe that, at least in the fashion clothing retailing industry, both geographical and cultural proximity play an important role when expanding in Europe. However, geographical proximity seems to be in particular imperative for the first foreign entry, while cultural similarity seems to be a key factor in subsequent expansions.Third, retailers seem to take a stepwise cluster-by-cluster approach when making their way into Europe. Continental European retailers tend to start off in the same cultural cluster, preferring the geographically closest country first; UK- and US-based retailers have to take the step of entering a geographically distant Europe and vary with respect to the specific country of first landing. After the initial expansion, retailers tend to expand cluster-by-cluster, but step into new clusters before the old ones are completely covered.This \"stepwise cluster-by-cluster expansion strategy\" is an interesting one from the perspective of knowledge management and organizational learning. Mitra and Golder (2002) point out that organizations use their existing knowledge, based upon past experiences, to expand further into markets where they can use those past experiences. This does make sense, but it reflects only one side of knowledge management and the organizational learning coin. Existing knowledge can indeed be seen as facilitator of incremental renewal and growth (Cohen and Levinthal, 1990). Indeed, expanding into countries belonging to the same cultural cluster first, can be beneficial because of the past experiences and existing knowledge. But existing knowledge can also be an inhibitor of new learning opportunities and breakthrough growth (Nystrom and Starbuck, 1984; Walsh and Fahey, 1986). In other words, building strategies on past experiences only may frustrate going into new avenues and may hamper organizational learning. Put into the context of international expansion strategies, if a company completed the entire cultural cluster before entering another, it made optimal use of existing experiences but did badly in learning about new ones. From that point of view, a stepwise cluster-by-cluster expansion strategy as observed in this study may be an optimal combination of using existing knowledge and creating new learning experiences.The findings of this study have implications for retailers expanding in Europe. For US/Canada-based retailers as well as for European-based retailers it is crucial to fully recognize the differences between European countries, but it is very useful to consider their similarities too. Similarities may be beneficial for incremental growth and reducing risk, while coping with differences may be beneficial for enhancing organizational learning skills in order to become able to operate all across Europe. Dividing the European market into clusters of countries seems to be a pragmatic way of handling differences and similarities. This information can help managers to make better decisions on entry sequences in foreign markets.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - Many retailers are expanding throughout Europe, while it is well-known that large differences still exist between the European countries. This paper aims to explore to what extent the historical expansion sequence patterns of retailers operating across Europe are driven by cultural factors.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper derives a cultural map of Western Europe based on data of Hofstede and Hall. Three important cultural clusters are identified. Next, this study investigates the expansion sequences of nine big EU- and US-based fashion-clothing retailers across those three cultural clusters.\nFindings: - The results show that initial expansion typically takes place in a neighbor country belonging to the same cultural cluster. Subsequent expansion tends to follow a stepwise cluster-by-cluster pattern, where retailers make cluster jumps, first expanding in the same cluster, but already move to another before the first is completed.\nPractical implications: - For US/Canada-based retailers as well as for European-based retailers it is crucial to fully recognize the differences between European countries, but it is very useful to consider their similarities too. Dividing the European market into clusters of countries seems to be a pragmatic way of handling differences and similarities. This information can help managers to make better decisions on entry sequences in foreign markets.\nOriginality/value: - To the authors' best knowledge, this is the first study analyzing the complete international entry sequences, i.e. both the initial and subsequent entries of retailers in Western Europe, from a national cultural perspective.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The impact of social dominance orientation on female entrepreneurial intention
|
[
"Self-efficacy",
"Social dominance orientation"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Entrepreneurial ventures are a fast-growing employment opportunity for women globally (Langowitz and Minniti, 2007). Yet extant literature suggests that entrepreneurial ventures by men far surpass those begun by women, despite changes in society (Delmar and Davidsson, 2000; Marlow et al., 2008; Manolova et al., 2012; Minniti et al., 2005). There are two main types of entrepreneurial ventures that women start: conventional and social. Much of the research on gender differences has been focused on conventional entrepreneurship based on business creation for profit (Ahl, 2006). However, the empowerment of female entrepreneurship through social entrepreneurship has become a focus from start-ups to large companies (Johnstone-Louis, 2017). Both types of firms recognize the untapped economic contribution of female entrepreneurs to have a \"multiplier effect\" to children and communities (Elborgh-Woytek, 2013). Scholars identified gender-specific barriers that may inhibit some females from pursuing entrepreneurial endeavors (barriers to credit, gender-based discrimination, and legal and customary male-based regimes; Ahl et al., 2016; Kabeer, 2005, 2011; Lewis, 2014; Nussbaum, 2011). For many women, entrepreneurship is an expression of social change instead of economic activity (Calas et al., 2009). Datta and Gailey (2012) found social entrepreneurship provides social value and empowers women, especially those women living in oppressive economic societies. Our purpose is to research the role of perception in what drives some women into social entrepreneurship and away from conventional entrepreneurship.\nTheoretical development: The growth of many economies has been attributed to the activity and behaviors of entrepreneurs (Baumol, 1990; Miaoulis et al., 2005; Thomas and Mueller, 2000). New business ventures are often the result of entrepreneurial start-ups that expand businesses, create new employment opportunities and generate economic growth. Due to the complexities of this process, Davidsson and Gordon (2012) suggest that studying new business creation requires longitudinal studies that define new business ventures with multiple criteria including the generation of income, provision of product or services, completion of gestational activities and continued operation of the business. The clear conclusion for entrepreneurial researchers is that new business creation is not the result of a quick, impulsive process but rather a developed, challenging experience surrounded by risk and uncertainty (Krueger et al., 2000).\nProposition development: SDT offers an explanation of the role of bias and discrimination in the formation of entrepreneurs. The theory's basic assumption is that individuals hierarchically divide society (Sidanius and Pratto, 1999). According to the theory, a small number of hegemonic groups wish to maintain the hierarchy and to do so, they create myths, systems of control and discrimination to prevent change. Hegemonic groups possess the majority of socially desirable values and use those values to justify an established hierarchy. Those who are at the bottom of society lack certain characteristics that would make them socially desirable and discrimination, by society against them, is therefore justified (Sidanius and Pratto, 1999).\nSDO and social cognition: Bandura (1997) defines self-efficacy as the conviction that an individual can successfully accomplish a behavior expected to produce the needed outcome. Self-efficacy can be generalized or it could be devoted to a task or activity such as entrepreneurship or leadership (Bandura, 1989, 1992, 1997). Thus, entrepreneurial self-efficacy is often studied as the specific perceived behavioral control necessary to produce entrepreneurial intentions. As Wilson et al. (2007, p. 389) argue, self-efficacy \"reflects an individual's innermost thoughts on whether they have the abilities perceived as important to task performance, as well as the belief that they will be able to effectively convert those skills into a chosen outcome\" (as cited in Bandura's, 1989, 1997 self-efficacy literature). Perceived self-efficacy motivates people more than objective measures of their abilities and self-efficacy plays a key role in our behavioral intentions and then later behaviors (Bandura, 1997), including career motivation (Day and Allen, 2002). Individuals generally pursue goals in which they believe they have a chance of completing. Bandura and his colleagues have recognized a vast difference between the desire to achieve a goal vs an evaluation that one could achieve a goal. Thus, people with higher degrees of self-efficacy will be more likely to set challenging goals, persist during difficult times and have greater commitment and immersion in their field of interest (Bandura, 1997). Accordingly, self-efficacy plays a key role in the selection of careers, including the intention to start a business (Bandura, 1986; Markman et al., 2002).\nMentorship: Mentorship refers to a one-on-one relationship between a protege and a mentor (authority figure), which is intended to advance the personal and professional growth of the less experienced protege (Blickle et al., 2010; Kalbfleisch and Keyton, 1995; St-Jean and Audet, 2012; Wanberg et al., 2003, p. 1897). Mentors ideally provide vicarious experience, learning and other potential career development resources (i.e. coaching, sponsorship, protection, fostering visibility, counseling and role modeling; Kram, 1985; Ragins, 1995). Mentors are especially important in providing the knowledge that individuals can succeed in their entrepreneurial endeavors, as well as providing practical education and training to budding entrepreneurs (Vanevenhoven and Liguori, 2013). Scholars have consistently found that the level of entrepreneurial intention increases with mentor interactions (St-Jean et al., 2018). It is also important to note that individuals can overcome their SDO through education and the production of more accurate mental models (Kulik and Roberson, 2008). Minorities are more likely to take on activities where they have been shown that minorities can thrive (Sidanius et al., 1996).\nDiscussion: We propose that female entrepreneur's SDO may influence the entrepreneur's intention toward social entrepreneurship opportunities and away from conventional entrepreneurship through entrepreneurial self-efficacy. We propose that mentorship moderates the relationships between SDO and entrepreneurial self-efficacy. We also examined the role of the mentor in developing intentions on the part of female entrepreneurs. In doing so, we have provided a view of the entrepreneur, as well as the mentor. Our model provides a broader picture of the individual in their social surrounding and different relationships. In doing so, we provide an explanation why stereotypes exist and why people buy into them. We also suggest a possible way to overcome these beliefs.\nLimitations, future research agenda and theoretical implications: There are several limitations to the model above. The model proposed here is not comprehensive. There are variables of interest, in both personality and other life variables that can influence the relationships proposed. We speculate that someone who has a high locus of control and proactive personality - both of which are related to entrepreneurial intentions - can overcome SDO similar to conscientiousness. Likewise, life or situational variables, such as the lack of other work opportunities, can influence the relationships proposed. It is common for many women to go into entrepreneurship due to a lack of opportunity elsewhere. Like other variables that are attitudinal or based on personality, situational moderators can weaken the relationship between attitude and behavior. Another issue that scholars may grapple with is whether mentoring increases or decreases the relationship between SDO and social entrepreneurship, as research indicates both relationships may be true. Scholars need to consider these outcomes in future research.\nPractical implications: Bias and prejudice, within both potential entrepreneurs and society, need to be attenuated. It is critical that we not only are aware of the existence of bias and its effect on entrepreneurship, but that we intentionally address and eliminate bias to ensure the success of wealth creation and entrepreneurial endeavors. Yet despite the gains over the last 50 years toward building greater equality, we still have issues of bias and notions of a glass ceiling (Hechavarria and Ingram, 2016).\nConclusion: We make several proposals in the paper related to SDO and female entrepreneurial intentions. Our purpose is to explain the impact of gender bias and stereotypes on conventional and social entrepreneurial intention. We emphasize the moderating impact of mentorship on entrepreneurial self-efficacy and ultimately entrepreneurial intention. Additionally, this study highlights the impact of SDO on social and conventional entrepreneurial intention. Future research is also proposed.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Understanding the factors that influence entrepreneurs throughout the entrepreneurial process has been a vital topic of entrepreneurial research. Despite societal changes, male entrepreneurs still outnumber females. The purpose of this paper is to develop a greater grasp on the factors that contribute to this phenomenon.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Utilizing social dominance theory and social cognition theory, the authors suggest that a female entrepreneur's social dominance orientation (SDO) and mentorship experiences will influence her social and conventional entrepreneurial intention.\nFindings: The authors' theorizing suggests SDO can lower entrepreneurial self-efficacy which in turn can lower conventional entrepreneurial intentions but increase social intentions in some women. However, if the entrepreneur has mentoring, the effect could be dissipated.\nOriginality/value: This paper is one of the first to examine the impact of SDO on entrepreneurial intentions, and builds on the work of other scholars.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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An exploratory study of using 3D avatars as online salespeople: The effect of avatar type on credibility, homophily, attractiveness and intention to interact
|
[
"Credibility",
"Avatars",
"Intention",
"Homophily",
"Salespeople",
"Attractiveness"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: For over a decade, emerging three-dimensional (3D) technologies have opened a wide and limitless universe in the form of 3D virtual worlds. These new worlds can be a digital representation of the world in which we live; only a world not bound by laws of nature, physics or social structure. Users, players, and businesses can create, live, and interact with other users in a simulated 3D space unbound by time, seasons, or geography. The simulated space provides important features that include: an interactive 3D environment, 3D avatars that serve as visual representations, and an interactive communication function to converse with others (Davis et al., 2009; Dickey, 2005; Esch et al., 2009). Avatars can navigate this world with nearly any bodily form (human, animal or fantasy) and create an entire digital life: they can shop, meet with friends, go dancing, and even have sexual intercourse. The potential to use avatars in an online setting is boundless and retailers are exploring these virtual worlds. The potential to exploit virtual worlds and using avatars as a salesperson in order to enhance the consumers' shopping experience has spawned an onslaught of interest and research from business and academic sectors (Jin and Bolebruch, 2009; Keeling et al., 2010). Discovering the potential use of avatars in online sales environments will provide practical and theoretical implications to retailers and researchers.\nLiterature review: Avatars as salespeople\nMethodology: Participants\nResults: Overall, 90 percent of the participants responded that they would like to use an avatar while browsing online stores and only 12 participants explicitly replied that they would not want to use an avatar. When asked which fashion brand each avatar should work for, many brands were suggested but the three most frequently mentioned were recorded. The brands most commonly reported for the human avatar (A1) were H&M (n=13), Forever 21 (n=13), and Express (n=10). The three collective brands recorded for the fantasy avatar (A2) were Disney (n=46), Justice (n=10) and Limited Too (n=8). The most common brands responded for the animal avatar (A3) was Petco (n=6), Cabella's (n=5), and Petsmart (n=4). The three most frequently mentioned brands for the humanoid avatar (A4) were Hot Topic (n=9), Disney (n=5) and Betsy Johnson (n=4). Finally, this study showed participants wanted to interact with 3D animated avatars as sales assistants to greet them on the homepage of a web site (80.3 percent), answer questions about products (66.7 percent) and services (61.7 percent) and make product recommendations (55 percent). However, the results found that only a minority of participants wanted an avatar to assist them with the checkout process (35.8 percent) and when the transaction was complete (36.7 percent).\nDiscussion and implications: By providing social interactions and actively engaging in consumer-brand communications, avatars can assist online retailers by increasing consumers' perceptions of social presence (Short et al., 1976), and social response (Reeves and Nass, 1996; Nass and Steur, 1993). This study utilized 3D animation technology to increase the realism of the avatar and augment the sense of social presence and social response among consumers. Supporting previous research (Gefen and Straub, 2004; Wang and Fodness, 2010), the findings of the current study suggest that avatars used as salespeople by online retailers may increase perceptions of socialness. The majority of participants indicated that they would like avatars to take the role of salespeople in the online shopping context. From the consumer's perspective, an avatar may be regarded as a \"real\" salesperson and the social interactions would be similar in an online environment, much like the social interactions in the offline environment.\nLimitations and future research: While attempts were made to mitigate limitations, this exploratory study encountered several which are worth discussing. Participants in our study were college female undergraduate students from one geographical area; therefore the findings of this study should be applied with caution to the general population. Future studies should include a broader and larger sample in a real-world setting. The scope of this study was limited to using 3D animated avatars for online fashion retailers, therefore future research endeavors should focus on various shopping contexts (i.e. sporting goods) and business sectors (i.e. banking). These endeavors may find that the results of using 3D animated avatars differ depending on shopping context and business sector. This study utilized four avatars (human, humanoid, fantasy human, and animal) to conceptualize graphic representations of potential salespeople based on theories of self and previous research. Due to the exploratory nature of the study, manipulation checks were not conducted and researcher bias could have affected the visual appearance of the 3D avatars. Considering this study used only one graphic representation of each type of avatar, future studies should include several options of each type of avatar. For instance, the hair color of the human avatar or the size of the fantasy avatar might have a significant effect on the overall findings. The fictional avatars operationalized for this study were created by using SL technology, which limited the range of options in selecting the physical characteristics of each avatar. Participants with previous experience in SL may also have influenced the results of this study. Online retailers are afforded almost limitless options in creating an avatar; therefore this study only scratched the surface in identifying potential avatar embodiments. Avatars given voices or affectations might enhance the consumers' perceptions of realism when interacting with avatars. Future research needs to consider utilizing various avatar characteristics and interactions in order to identify the most suitable avatars for specific retailers, business sectors, product categories, or target market.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine consumers' perceptions of using different types of 3D animated avatars as salespeople based on credibility, homophily, attractiveness and intention to interact.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Using a survey method, participants (n=120) evaluated four types of 3D animated avatars (i.e. human, fantasy, animal and humanoid) based on the supposition the avatars would represent a salesperson for an online retailer.\nFindings: The results show that avatar type has a significant influence on the perception of credibility, homophily, and attractiveness. Furthermore, credibility, homophily, and attractiveness significantly influence the intention to interact with the avatar. Overall, the human avatar was found to be perceived as the most credible, homophilous, attractive and was regarded as the highest in relation to intention to interact.\nOriginality/value: The practical and theoretical implications are discussed to offer guidance to online retailers, graphic designers, and researchers in the benefits and pitfalls of utilizing 3D animated avatars as salespeople.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Leaders need to develop their willpower
|
[
"Leadership",
"Leadership development",
"Process",
"Will",
"Willpower"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: We still know little about the process of leadership. Further research is neded on perspectives of leadership as a dynamic social process. The leadership phenomenon seems much more fragile than the \"leadership industry\" the literature on the subject typically assumes. In our view, leadership is comprised of acts to which leaders aspire, but it seems to include acts that are difficult to carry out in everyday organisational life - despite strong normative encouragement from educators, researchers, journalists, and senior or subordinate people in organisations. We think such acts of leadership are far more rare, subtle, and fragile than frequently suggested by popular theories (Karp, 2013). If we take a processual perspective (e.g. Crevani et al., 2010; Holmberg and Tyrstrup, 2010; Gronn, 2009; Drath et al., 2008; Bolden and Gosling, 2006; Wood, 2005; O'Connor and Quinn, 2004; Gemmill and Oakley, 1992), then leadership is a result of a series of interactive processes. It is not only a function of the person in charge, but a result of the dynamic interaction of individual and collective wills mobilised to meet various needs and objectives. The dynamics of power, roles, actions, and events thus lead to situations where leadership is required, meaning that leadership must somehow be taken by those assuming the responsibility, whether that is a formal leader or another person (Karp, 2013).\nOn the freedom of will: Philosophy has been characterised by raging debates about free will for more than 2,000 years. The ontological status of free will may be resolved if free will is contrasted with determinism, although some philosophers regard free will as compatible with determinism. Originating within Leibniz's principles of reason, causal determinism posits that a specific set of antecedents necessitates one and only one set of consequences, despite the fact that no human being may have the requisite skills to fully analyse the contingency that is ultimately based on complex laws of nature - for example, in the case of biochemical principles that govern neurological processes and subsequent behaviour. If determinism is a truly existing condition, then we do not have free will, some argue. To address this problem, philosophers have proposed \"compatibilist\" and \"incompatibilist\" theories of free will. Compatibilist theories maintain that ontological determinism is compatible with the notion freedom of action, and in such theories determinism and freedom of will are regarded as incompatible. However, assuming indeterminacy of the will does not imply that behaviour is random, but rather allows it to be purposeful (Kane, 2002; Clarke, 2005). Kane (1996), suggesting that the choices most relevant to a person's autonomy will involve the exercise of will as part of his or her deliberation process. These are also choices that involve a conflict of will, where duty or long-term self-interest compete with a more immediate desire. Struggling to prioritise values, the possible outcomes of choices are indeterminate. This indeterminacy, Kane believes, is essential to freedom of will.\nThe power of willpower: A belief in free will means a belief in the exercise of willpower. The social psychologist, Roy Baumeister and Tierney (2011), argues that willpower is a quality that predicts positive outcomes in many areas of life, and ranks willpower as one of the most important factors in this respect. In leadership research, however, willpower is a capacity that is less studied, although some argue that wilful leaders achieve results (Collins, 2001; Bruch and Ghoshal, 2004). Willpower is regarded as the cognitive process by which an individual decides on and commits to a particular course of action. It is commonly understood as purposive striving, and is one of the primary human psychological functions, besides affection, motivation, and cognition.\nDeveloping willpower as a leadership capability: According to Baumeister and Tierney (2011), willpower may have a genetic component, while it also seems amenable to nurturing. Thus, one hypothesis is that leaders may develop their willpower if they are motivated to do so. However, if one regards willpower as more than a metaphor, it must be described in terms of what is happening in neural circuits. \"Our brains operate at three levels: I will, I won't and I want\", says psychologist Kelly McGonigal (2011): \"For many of us, the I-want part wins\". This part of the lower brain is not designed with moderation in mind. Human beings emerged in a world in which resources were highly limited and there was no benefit in reflecting too much on proportionality, or whether and when we availed ourselves of them. When the midbrain indicates a desire or a temptation on the rise, activity in the prefrontal cortex, situated at the top forward portion of the brain, indicates an effort to control that impulse. This is the exercise of the free will, as previously discussed. Ideally, the prefrontal cortex \"wins\" and controls such choices, but many things can prevent that, and in layman's terms, the lower brain wants to have fun, but the higher brain, with practice, can still have a say as to how much. Energy is the key to understanding why and how this balance is managed.\nMental energy: Freud theorised that humans use a process called sublimation to convert energy from its basic instinctual sources into more socially approved selections. His energy model was not embraced by psychologists of the twentieth century, nor were his thoughts on sublimation mechanisms. Baumeister and Tierney (2011), however, developed Freud's ideas further. Following his thoughts on self - the ego - the term ego depletion was conceptualised to describe people's diminishing capacities to regulate their thoughts, feelings, and actions. People can overcome fatigue, but if they were to use up energy by forms of ego depletion activities they would eventually not be able to follow their commitment and would give in to their desires. Mental energy is the powering of such operations. Psychologists or neuroscientists would equate it with increased chemical reactions (metabolism) in neurons of the brain (Bowlby, 1999). Just as physical energy acts on physical objects, psychological energy would act on psychological entities, i.e. thoughts and feelings. Newer studies have found that mental effort can be measured in terms of increased metabolism in the brain, and the dominant neurological view is that brain metabolism is a physical correlate of mental activity (e.g. Fairclough and Houston, 2004; Benton et al., 1996). Here, let us discuss some mental activities of particular importance to the development of willpower.\nEnergy balance: A person's energy balance impacts on his or her willpower. As energy can be systematically expanded and regularly renewed by establishing specific habits, rituals, and/or behaviours that are intentionally practised and scheduled, some researchers recommend that leaders should spend more time managing their energy, not their time; time is a finite resource, while energy is not (Schwartz and McCarthy, 2007).\nConclusion: Leadership is a social process in the form of acts to which leaders aspire, but such acts seem difficult to carry out in everyday organisational life. If leaderhips is at all related to individual qualities, acts of leadership depend on a leader's ability to deal with uncertainty, resistance, and opposition. Event-driven situations in organisations create a need for leadership, and leadership must then be exercised. Given such dynamics, one hypothesis is that, in addition to process parameters, a leader's willpower seems to matter. It is the willpower from those assuming leadership outmatching the willpower of others not in that position that may govern outcomes in situations requiring leadership.\n",
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"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the importance of willpower in acts of leadership and, if significant, how a leader should develop his or her willpower in order to take a greater leadership role.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The objectives are achieved by a conceptually grounded discussion of the topic, while the arguments are also built upon both a recent survey of leadership acts and on related theoretical material.\nFindings: Willpower governs acts of leadership. Willpower is a capability that has been found to be genetic, but which also is possible to develop by raised awareness, disciplined practice, and extending one's comfort zones by exposing oneself to challenges. Willpower is a mental capability, and if leaders develop their ability to focus their time and energy management, and become more aware of their feelings, they may improve their willpower. Additionally, their energy balance matters: taking care of basics including paying attention to nutrition and to resting, as well as taking up some form of physical/mental practice may have a positive impact on a leader's willpower.\nResearch limitations/implications: Research on willpower and its impact on leadership are scarce, and more studies are obviously needed. Since this discussion is conceptual, added empirical research is required.\nPractical implications: Leadership must be exercised in organisations, and willpower is an important vehicle in this respect. The implication for practicing leaders is that they need to develop their willpower. This is a capability that most people can develop by raised awareness and disciplined practice, as well as by exposing themselves to challenging tasks aimed at extending their comfort zones.\nOriginality/value: Some argue that willpower is a quality whose exercise suggests positive outcomes in many areas of life. In leadership research, however, willpower is a capacity that is less studied. Conclusions in the paper support the argument that willpower is important for leadership, and that this is a capacity leaders should pay more attention to and develop. The paper is of value to practicing leaders who want to further extend their leadership capabilities.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Mini-muddling: learning from project plan deviations
|
[
"Learning",
"Project management"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: \"Project management - It's all about change and deviations!\" - the words of a project manager with 30 years of project experience. This thought is reflected in present thinking of projects and their management, i.e. most projects are not as planned and controlled as they might seem (see Dvir and Lechler, 2004). Further, the thought takes on special importance when it is considered that projects appear to be becoming more important as a means for getting things done (see Whittington et al., 1999; Kerzner, 1998; Wysocki, 1996; Midler, 1995).The need for managers to adapt to these changes and deviations strongly suggests that there is informal and incidental learning in the workplace for these individuals - at least the successful ones. Although this need is appreciated in practice, it is not clear that there is an understanding of how it occurs. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to that understanding. It reports on actual changes that had to be incorporated in global construction projects. Decisions are interpreted in terms of Lindblom's (1979, 1959) concepts of muddling - the idea that means and ends are necessarily interrelated in some decision processes. Of necessity, there is learning in that process. There is also learning in the organisation as reflected in the system that is set up. It is thought that these observations will have practical implications and relevance for those individuals involved in supervising, facilitating and undertaking workplace learning.\nBackground: Project management - projects as complex, hierarchic systems\nMethodology: The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of the need that project managers have to adapt to changes from plan and the informal and incidental learning that may occur in the workplace as a consequence of this adaptation. A multiple case study approach was used in which cases were taken from four distributed power plant projects developed by an integrated provider of projects of this type. The projects were followed by participative observations during a total of ten weeks of onsite visits for each project. These observations were in line with the classic ethnographic studies of Mintzberg (1973) and Carlson (1964) and the stream of ethnographic studies associated with contemporary practice research (see Jarzabkowski, 2005; Johnson et al., 2003), which have gained appreciation for producing knowledge based on actual practice in everyday situations. Basically, the multiple case protocol described by Yin (1989, pp. 52-60) and his suggested six sources of evidence (Yin, 1989, pp. 85-103) were utilised in the study.The actual cases arose as unanticipated events in the broader study of projects as they actually are conducted (Hallgren, 2004). That is, although one may expect that deviations will occur within a project, one does not know at which point they might happen. In fact, it was found that they occur at any point within a project as shown in Figure 1. Consequently, identification and follow-up virtually mandated an onsite presence. One suggestion by Van Maanen (1988) of keeping a field diary was helpful in the association of events prior to and after these incidents occurred, as well as what was considered deviations by the project team. The observations themselves were somewhere between the direct and participative observations described by Yin (1989, pp. 91-4). In other words, the observations were made contemporaneously, but the observer was not really part of the project team thus avoiding the bias that might be associated with such involvement (Yin, 1989, p. 94). Informal conversations also were noted and recorded. In this way, the diary provided notes on team conversations as well as those conducted with onlookers. There was full access to the database of plans, emails and reports. Previous agreement gave access to phone calls and other records for the specific periods in which the deviations occurred. Subsequently, formal, semi-structured interviews among participants ranging between 30 minutes to two hours were conducted and tape-recorded.Data collected in this manner were used to build cases as in a manner described by Yin (1989) and Eisenhardt (1989) who in combination suggested first that cases include several types of data in order to triangulate evidence. Data hence included interviews, reports, minutes-of-meetings, observations, and e-mail correspondence to characterise the cases. In addition to the 26 formal interviews conducted on these cases, there were 26 informal conversations monitored among participants, ten meetings attended, 138 e-mails monitored and two formal reports made available as shown in Table I. Second, it is recognised that good practice provides breaks for analysis in order to get some distancing from observations so that modifications might be made in the methodology. Two-week long breaks between the cases were therefore used for post-analysis. This time was utilised to summarise the individual cases as suggested by Yin (1989). Third, it has been recommended that cases should be spread in order to extend the findings. In this regard, projects were available with different geographic locations and type, which produced deviations along the projects' time lines. Finally, cross-case observations have been discussed in internal seminars with the project group at the authors' university and at external conferences of peers, which provided a sense of credibility for observations and inferences made from them (see Lincoln and Guba, 1985, pp. 281-308). The projects identified for evaluation are described in Table II, and the sources of the information cited in the paper are given in Table I.\nObservations: General\nDiscussion: Mini-muddling\nConclusion: A study has been described in which a project organisation has learned to deal with deviations that occur. These deviations did not tend to form at any one stage of the project cycle, but rather examples were found that occurred in each stage. A clear pattern was observed that reminded us of the scientific muddling described by Lindblom (1959). For concerns in relative importance and simplicity, the patterns of remedy observed here have been referred to as mini-muddling. Learning occurred within the workplace in two ways. First, because muddling is a learning by doing approach, learning occurred with regard to how to handle random problems. Second, learning also occurred with regard to how these problems can (should) be handled in general. The recognition of these developments represents the contribution to the understanding of real projects. On the other hand, the study had apparent practical applications. The system set up tended to handle these problems well. Thus, similar organisations may be encouraged. Further, because expeditious treatment was at a premium, greater use of intuition might be encouraged.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to contribute to the understanding of the informal and incidental learning that takes place in project work among individuals who must adapt to deviations from project plans.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Reflections in the study are built on four power plant projects found in an integrated provider of projects of this type. The projects were followed by participative observations during ten weeks of onsite visits. Furthermore, 26 interviews were done among participants in the organisation on working practices and implications. Data included interviews, reports, minutes-of-meetings, observations, and e-mail correspondence that characterised the cases.\nFindings: - The paper finds that learning occurred at two levels. First, there was the learning that occurred as each of the deviations was handled. The second aspect of learning involved the patterns in which remedies were handled.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Because research was built on case studies, one has the reservations common with that approach. Nevertheless, the learning architecture that Sense related to intra-project learning has features that relate to the situation where learning has occurred from projects. Further, by associating observations with the background provided by Lindblom and Simon, suggestions carry inherent credibility.\nPractical implications: - The organisation that was set up seemed particularly effective in handling the deviations. Also, intuition came into play. Both these items may interest consultants and trainers as well as academics.\nOriginality/value: - Although the need to handle project deviations is appreciated in practice, it is not clear that there is an understanding of how response occurs. The paper documents response across the stages of projects, which is original. Value is associated with the interpretation.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The new customer-centred business model for the hospitality industry
|
[
"Hospitality services",
"Customer orientation",
"International marketing"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The increasingly competitive global marketplace has compelled organisations to transform themselves in the way they conceptualise and conduct business. As one of the largest industries in the service sector, hospitality firms must gain a broader understanding of the essentials that are required if they are to thrive and survive in a rapidly evolving and increasingly competitive global market. Modern hospitality firms must operate within a new business paradigm that has only limited resemblance to the superseded business models. Economic progress, new technology and globalisation have forced firms to seek new market opportunities and to provide new solutions for customers (Doz and Hamel, 1998). The changes in the marketplace have produced a profound reappraisal of historically established paradigms within the hospitality industry. Hospitality firms have been forced to think and act as global enterprises as they face the economic, technological, and market challenges of the modern era.The profound changes that have occurred in the marketplace and within hospitality firms have meant that the prevailing paradigm of hospitality management is unable to provide a conceptual framework for this new environment. Those factors that guaranteed business success in the past are no longer relevant today as managers have realised that traditional approaches to management and marketing are inadequate in an increasingly competitive market. It is therefore imperative that managers re-examine conventional wisdom and seek a new paradigm for the transformed hospitality industry.One of the distinguishing features of the twenty-first century is that the products and services offered by hospitality firms have become an integral part of modern lifestyles - especially in developed nations. Fulfilling their customers' various needs within a social setting of personal interaction has thus become a prominent feature of most hospitality firms. It is therefore imperative that hospitality firms are attuned to changing customer needs, expectations, and values - especially with respect to personal lifestyle and social interaction.In addition to these changes in lifestyle and social interaction, hotel management must be aware that customer needs today are predominantly service-oriented, as opposed to product-oriented. If they are to fulfil customers' needs, hospitality firms must increasingly emphasise service (as opposed to goods) in compiling their total offer.Following this introduction, in which the present state of the hospitality industry has been explored, the paper then seeks to establish the essential factors for success in today's competitive environment. The paper then proposes a new conceptual business model for success in the modern competitive hospitality environment. The study concludes with a summary of its findings and recommendations.\n2. Factors required for success: 2.1 Increasing service contribution to the offer\n3. A customer-centred business model: As the above discussion demonstrates, hospitality firms must seek new ways of conducting their business (new business models) if they are to compete in terms of value, efficiency, and uniqueness. Changes in business practices, new knowledge, and new technology, taken together, are assisting firms to find efficient solutions to old problems (Chapman et al., 2002). New business models provide alternative approaches for firms to consider - not only in terms of what is done, but also in terms of how it is done. Defining new business models can be difficult. However, in the present context, they can be conceived of as business practices that utilise information technology to enhance the firm's efficiency and to augment the value received by customers. The framework of the proposed model is discussed in three phases.3.1 Phase 1: corporate intent\n4. Conclusion: In less turbulent times, firms were able to rely on the \"flywheel of momentum\" to sustain their progress. However, in today's competitive times, a hospitality company is able to stand apart from its look-alike competitors only if it can \"out-innovate\" the rest. However, innovation per se does not benefit the firm unless it manifests superior value in the customer-driven marketplace by focusing its entire energies on thinking in terms of the customer. However, most old business models still treat customers as the last link in the supply chain, and thus fail to recognise the vital role played by the customer in determining the strategic direction of the organisation. This is truly a strategic turning point for hospitality managers to step into the new paradigm of customer-centred direction if they aim to gain market leadership. According to Hamel and Valikangas (2003), in a turbulent market, the dependable advantage for any firm is its capacity to reinvent its business model before circumstances force it to do so.Ongoing changes in the marketplace will continue to pose new challenges to the hospitality managers. Hence it is imperative that hospitality managers have to adopt radical changes in the way they conducted business thus traditional business model on which they have relied in the past, will no longer prove relevant. The transformation that is taking place in the hospitality industry has not been generated in accordance with the internal models of the past; rather, the transformation has been triggered by external changes in customers' lifestyles. Thinking in isolation in today's global market, using the internalised models of the past, is therefore likely to prove to be a dangerous recipe for hospitality managers with disastrous outcomes. The market leaders in today's hospitality environment will be those innovative firms that work collectively with various other firms in the market to enhance the value, efficiency, and distinctiveness of their service offers. The new business model proposed in this study provides hospitality managers with an opportunity to take up radical strategies proactively - to the firm's ultimate advantage. The model provides a management framework that allows hospitality firms to transform themselves continuously and to adjust to new challenges that confront hospitality managers from time to time.This new business model, proposed in this study, has direct practical application in the hospitality industry and it also provides a framework of literature for researchers and an action plan for practitioners to adopt, discuss and evaluate the possibilities and advantages of new ways of conducting hospitality business by focusing on the customer. In particular, the make-up of the identified essential factors and their contributions and interrelationships are worthy of further consideration and debate. Conceptual and empirical studies in the future will be of assistance in extending the contribution of this research. Although the present study specifically addresses the hospitality industry, the model is also applicable to various other service sectors, and hence it has generalisable qualities throughout the services sector.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The objective of this research is to identify and present factors that are essential to support a customer-centred business model that is theoretically sound and can be used for practical application in the hospitality industry.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Extensive literature that links both nascent theory and practice forms the framework of this study. This study examines recent transformational changes in the industry and the global market and provides direction for practising managers and theoreticians.\nFindings: - This research presents a three-phase strategic orientation plan that provides both theoretical and practical direction for the hospitality industry, so as to effectively reorient the hospitality firm into a customer-centred business.\nPractical implications: - The ongoing challenges in the ever-increasing competitive global market can be met by hospitality firms by adopting strategic directions proposed by the customer-centred business model. This research provides a three-step plan that can be used in any hospitality firm to reorient the organisation into a customer-centred business. This research has identified factors that are essential to support hospitality firms to operate effectively within the new business model.\nOriginality/value: - The three-phase strategic orientation of the proposed business model is conceptually sound and contributes new knowledge to the present body of literature. It can also be used effectively in a practical setting. Hence this study provides a theoretical and practical contribution in terms of originality and value.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
The role of relational norms in linking inter-partner learning and IT co-sourcing performance: A study of Taiwan enterprises
|
[
"Organizational identity",
"Collaboration",
"Organizational learning",
"IT/IS management"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Information technology (IT) outsourcing is presented as an attractive business proposition to improve productivity and increase competitiveness. Addition, innovative IT has changed industrial competitive model continually. In recent years, new business models have emerged to apply innovative IT knowledge into sophisticated industrial domains. For example, the development of FinTech and InsurTech have called for joining efforts by IT firms and the banking industry, not only to reduce development costs and to supplement in-house IT staff knowledge (Kaiser and Hawk, 2004), but also to deploy disruptive innovative financial services. This kind of collaborative outsourcing, also called IT co-sourcing, has become mainstream and popular in the IT world.\nTheoretical background and hypotheses development: IT co-sourcing is a relational norms-based partnership, which is not controlled through incentives or fiat, but through relational norms (Joshi and Stump, 1999; Muller and Martinsuo, 2015). Some researchers point out that partnership performance is determined by the extent of shared relational norms and values. Many observers suggest that benefits accrue to relational norms. These include increased within-relationship adaptability, smoother coordination, reduced opportunism, ex post negotiation costs and greater effort by the partners. Furthermore, the performance benefit of a realization of relational norms tends to be positive (Artz and Brush, 2000; Bercovitz et al., 2006).\nMethod: Data collection and sample\nResults: Measurement model\nDiscussion: This study investigates the effects of IL on IT co-sourcing performance when mediated by PPI and collaboration engagement. We propose a typology of relational norms comprised of partnership identity and collaboration engagement, and we examine how these two aspects of relational norms were developed by IL, and how they further affected IT co-sourcing performance. The empirical results show that IL positively effects partnership identity and collaboration, while both significantly mediate the effects of IL on IT co-sourcing performance.\nConclusion: The present work empirically examines the antecedent factors that foster and sustain the development of relational norms from a social exchange process perspective and articulates the mediating effect of relational norms on the relationship between IL and IT co-sourcing performance. The findings provide important contributions to research and practice. The analytical outcomes reveal that relational norms play an important role in IL and affect the potential success of IT co-sourcing performance by mediating the effects of identity and collaboration. It is believed that our work creates opportunities for further cross-disciplinary studies of co-sourcing, especially with regard to knowledge sharing. Future research can be conducted in a longitudinal manner to explore the risk which a failure to establish relational norms may have on co-sourcing management, such as free-riding and plagiarism.\nLimitation: Identity and collaboration cannot form a second-order construct (relational norm). This is because the two constructs have to exist in a relational norm simultaneously, and some studies have pointed out that the two constructs have complementary and interdependent relationships. In this study, we focus on the effect of these two constructs on IT co-sourcing, rather than discussing the relationships between them. Therefore, we suggest future study could focus on their relationships and the effect which these relationships have to their application to other co-sourcing fields.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify the antecedent factors that foster and sustain the development of relational norms from a social exchange process perspective and articulates the mediating effect of relational norms on the relationship between inter-partner learning (IL) and IT co-sourcing performance.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A total of 197 usable questionnaires were returned from 1,000 Taiwan enterprises. Results from a partial least squares method supported the hypothesis that relational norms serve as dependent variable (to IL) and independent (mediating) variable (to IT co-sourcing performance).\nFindings: The empirical results show that IL positively effects partnership identity and collaboration, while both significantly mediate the effects of IL on IT co-sourcing performance.\nResearch limitations/implications: The research implications confirm that the relational norms which IT co-sourcing parties must include both attitudes and behavior simultaneously, and that IT co-sourcing will not produce good performance without both parties developing shared attitudes and collaborative behavior.\nPractical implications: Relational norms can play a critical mediation role to help ensure that both parties reach their common goals successfully and prevent the risk of their effort to cooperate together falling apart. Therefore, project managers have to take account of the importance of relational norms on inter-organizational cooperation or strategic alliances.\nOriginality/value: This study creates opportunities for further cross-disciplinary studies of inter-firm co-sourcing project especially with regard to relational norms and knowledge sharing.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
International buyers' repurchase intentions in a Chinese cross-border e-commerce platform: A valence framework perspective
|
[
"Value",
"Cross-border e-commerce",
"Information asymmetry",
"Valence framework"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Cross-border e-commerce (CBEC) has become an important channel for promoting international trade (Li and Chan, 2016; Kim et al., 2017). It includes both export and import CBEC with global e-commerce sales reaching $1.9 trillion in 2014 and set to double to almost $4 trillion by 2020 (BobsGuide, 2016). According to Forrester (2015), cross-border sales will reach EUR40bn by 2018 in Europe. Through CBEC platforms, the boundaries of political geography are being eroded as online sellers compete on a global/local basis to deliver anything, from anywhere (Dekleva, 2000; Gomez-Herrera et al., 2014).\n2. Conceptual background: 2.1 Cross-border e-commerce and related research\n3. Research model and hypotheses: Our research model is depicted in Figure 1. The dependent variable in the model is consumer repurchase intention. Repurchase intention refers to the subjective probability that a customer will continue to purchase from the same online provider (Chiu et al., 2014). In our study, repurchase intention is thus a buyer's willingness to continue to purchase products from the same CBEC platform and to select the platform as their first choice for future cross-border purchases. In an e-commerce setting, once a consumer forms positive behaviors, they are likely to become a loyal customer, recommending their preferred cross-border provider to others.\n4. Research methodology: 4.1 Study design\n5. Research results: 5.1 Participants\n6. Discussion and contributions: 6.1 General discussion\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to develop and test a model of the uncertainties and benefits influencing the repurchase intentions of buyers in cross-border e-commerce (CBEC).\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors draw on the valence framework to hypothesize effects of positive valences (utilitarian benefits) along with negative valences (pre- and post-contractual uncertainties) on buyers' repeat purchase intentions. Data were collected using an online survey from 378 international B2C buyers on a CBEC platform in China.\nFindings: Results explain 51.4 percent of the variance and reveal that overall value, as determined by monetary saving, convenience and product offerings as positive valences, exerts the strongest effect on repeat purchase intention. However, negative valences remain significant, and are particularly salient for female shoppers.\nResearch limitations/implications: The authors extend the valence theory into the study of repeat purchase behavior and contribute to much needed literature on why consumers return to repurchase from a CBEC platform.\nPractical implications: Repeat purchase and loyalty of online consumers is essential for success of e-commerce providers. The results help online providers competing in international markets understand how buyers form repurchase intentions based on their evaluations of both value and uncertainty.\nOriginality/value: Buyer behavior in CBEC has received relatively less attention than domestic e-commerce. This paper is among the first to examine how both positive and negative valences combine to effect repurchase intention of international buyers in CBEC.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Improvement maintenance implementation based on downtime analysis approach
|
[
"Downtimes analysis",
"Improvement maintenance",
"Maintenance function"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Many definitions and methods published concerning improvement maintenance incite solely to lead improvement actions after abnormal failures apparition or in order to satisfy the performance objectives (Ben-Daya et al., 2009) formulated by the production, such as: quality, cost, safety and the environment protection (Ahuja and Khamba, 2008).\n2. Improvement maintenance tools and methods: Along with the different typologies evolution of maintenance (preventive, corrective, etc.), tools and improvement methods knew a consequent development:\n3. Maintenance downtime analysis and time global diagram (TGD) creation: This proposed approach depends on downtime to improve the function maintenance goals, in this context an inventory of different times in type and category is really needed.\n4. Proposed methodology: We propose a global methodology based on combination of several methods, aiming to identify the improvement actions and applied them on an equipment in service. This approach is based on the following phases.\n5. Application: To implement the proposed approach, we chose a company with continuous flow.\n6. Conclusion: Modern companies lead to applied continuous improvement concepts in all their process. In this context improvement maintenance must be easily introduced. This work offers an original improvement maintenance concept, based on the downtime study and analysis depending on the scheme to improve objectives of the maintenance function: reliability, maintainability, availability and safety.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Improvement maintenance's aim is identifying and implementing improvement action on equipment in service. The purpose of this paper is to propose an approach based on downtime's analysis to raise up equipment's performance, such as reliability, maintainability, availability, and safety. Steps of this approach will be illustrated by industrial applications.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Furthermore, it proposes an approach based on a combination of several methods (FMECA, cause and effect diagrams, ABC analysis, 5W, RCA method, etc.). This approach is based on the downtime analysis and lead to improve maintenance's performance and equipment's reliability, maintainability, availability and safety. Those objectives have a strong correlation with the downtime.\nFindings: This approach led to apply easily improvement maintenance by using known methods. In the industrial application, this approach helps the authors to choose the good solution with the better life durance.\nPractical implications: After following the steps simulated by the proposed approach, actions and concrete measures will be deducted and illustrated by the industrial's application.\nOriginality/value: At present, there is not an explicit improvement maintenance, to lead to specific maintenance actions on equipment in service, in order to improve the maintenance function goals.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Mobile-banking adoption: empirical evidence from the banking sector in Pakistan
|
[
"Pakistan",
"Intention",
"Bank customers",
"M-banking",
"UTAUT2",
"Use behaviour"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Traditionally, banks have adopted the brick-and-mortar approach in order to expand geographically and capture a larger market share (Tan and Teo, 2000). Nevertheless, ever since the 1990s, the banking sector has started to shift from its traditional financial delivery mediums toward autonomous, self-service delivery channels (Pikkarainen et al., 2004). This movement has been fueled by the advent of the internet, which allowed banks to opt for the latter revolutionary approach, thereby enabling greater market access and reach (Tan and Teo, 2000). Indeed, and due to its highly competitive nature, the banking industry has remained a leader when it comes to the adoption of new technologies such as the internet (Luo et al., 2010). These contemporary technological innovations have significantly benefitted the commercial sector, allowing banks to provide better services to customers (Afshan and Sharif, 2016). For example, modern telecommunication and networking technologies led to the development of automated teller machines (ATMs), which have facilitated and simplified consumer banking transactions (Adesuyi et al., 2013).\n2. Literature review: M-banking\n3. Methodology: Research design and instrument\n4. Results: Data analysis tools and techniques\n5. Discussion: Building on the UTAUT, this study investigated some important factors in m-banking adoption. It examined the constructs of the UTAUT to better predict consumer mobile BI and its endorsing role toward the actual usage behavior of m-banking. Our study demonstrated that UTAUT is an influential framework (Goodhue, 2007) that can significantly improve the understanding of a significant phenomenon such as m-banking adoption.\n6. Conclusion: This study has demonstrated that the UTAUT constructs offer an accurate prediction regarding banking customers' intention to adopt m-banking. Customers consider performance and effort expectancy to be important factors that influence their m-banking adoption likelihood. The results of our study also indicate that m-banking adoption is significantly impacted by perceived value, hedonic motivation, habit and social influence. The results further imply that facilitating conditions, trust and perceived risk all appear to be insignificant predictors of consumer adoption intentions. Finally, the current study implies that intention successfully lead toward the actual usage of m-banking. Accordingly, the current manuscript offers a number of theoretical and practical implications.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to study the important factors which help explain consumer intention and use behavior in mobile banking (m-banking) adoption. All constructs of the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology 2 are studied. Non-monetary value is studied through perceived value. Trust and perceived risk are also included to predict intention.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A questionnaire was utilized to evaluate customer responses on a five-point Likert scale. A convenience sampling technique was used to collect data from a sample of 490 respondents in Pakistan. The data were analyzed using AMOS and SPSS for Cronbach's a, CR, CMV, AVE, Harmon's single factor test, correlation and structural equation modeling.\nFindings: The results of the study show that most of the predictors of intention, including perceived value, performance expectancy, habit, social influence, effort expectancy, hedonic motivation (except for facilitating condition), perceived risk and trust, are significant. All predictors of usage behavior are significant.\nResearch limitations/implications: A cross-sectional study was conducted due to time constraints.\nPractical implications: Bank managers must focus on improving customers' intentions to use m-banking as well as on providing facilitating conditions to increase its actual use. To boost mobile banking, banks' management must consider the customers' habits while designing their m-banking products.\nOriginality/value: The findings of this paper are not only interesting in terms of boosting m-banking diffusion rate, but also in terms of financial inclusion of the vast majority of mobile users. Further the impact of intention, facilitating condition and habit were checked on actual use behavior since people tend not always to act upon their intentions.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
A volunteer companion-observer intervention reduces falls on an acute aged care ward
|
[
"Elder care",
"Hospitals"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Background\nMethod: Design\nAnalysis: Falls incidents were recorded using the hospital incident monitoring system. Falls rates per 1,000 occupied bed days were compared with Chi square tests, using the SPSS version 11 statistical package.\nResults: Six-month pilot\nDiscussion: The CO role was deliberately restricted. Even simple non-patient care tasks, for example, walking with the patient to the toilet, carry potential risks for injury to the volunteer. If a patient started to fall, a volunteer could be injured trying to prevent the fall. In addition, a more extensive role would have interfered with the project aim of close concurrent observation of four high-risk patients. There are also obvious occupational health and safety risks in allowing volunteers to perform nursing work, even if the volunteers were registered or enrolled nurses. A long-term effect could be an increased reliance on unpaid workers to perform nursing.Within the limitations of their role, COs exercised a fair amount of initiative, determining how they would engage with patients in the room, the amount of time they would spend in the corridor with \"wanderers\", and devising resources such as the lockable, wheeled cupboard used to store cards, books, magazines and other diversional materials.Falls reduction was due to a combination of factors. Nurses' routine assessment of falls risk improved, and the reduction in multiple falls is evidence of appropriate assignment of high falls risk patients to the observation rooms. Increased supervision by COs played a major role in reducing falls, and their interactions may have increased patients' cognitive function through stimulation. Visiting family members frequently commented that their relative seemed more alert and \"brighter\". Further research is required to investigate if a connection exists between cognitive improvement and falls reduction. The existence of the project, with posters on the walls and brochures given to families, has alerted patients and families to the dangers of falling in hospital and in the community.Celebrating achievements is an important aspect of sustainability, particularly with initiatives run by volunteers. The results of the pilot were shared with the COs at a catered morning tea. The hospital executive director presented them with individual certificates of appreciation. At the completion of 12 months, nursing staff and volunteers were invited to afternoon tea on the ward, and the director of nursing presented nursing staff with certificates. These celebrations underscored the message, repeated in posters on the ward, that \"Staff and volunteers, working together, prevent patient falls\".Future developments will include strategies to retain existing volunteers and recruit more, expansion of the program to the neurology ward and research into the cognitive benefits of CO interventions. Ideally, a diversional therapist should be seconded to the program to assist COs in planning appropriately stimulating activities.The CO intervention has demonstrated effectiveness, however the volunteers cannot be expected to provide round-the-clock supervision. In aged care, 60 percent of patient falls occur at night or on weekends. Further interventions are required for this period, possibly involving employment of assistants in nursing, other staff or relatives who are prepared to stay overnight.\nConclusion: The success of this intervention is due to the creativity and commitment of the COs. They applied their considerable life experiences to the challenges of assisting frail and frequently confused patients to avoid falling. Other investigators have applied high-tech solutions to the problem of inpatient falls. This project utilised a human resources approach and achieved significant and sustainable improvements over a 21-month period (to date) without major increases in nurses' workloads.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - Falls are the most frequently reported adverse event in hospitalised patients and carry a risk of great harm for the frail elderly. This intervention aimed to prevent high-risk in-patients on an acute aged care ward from falling.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Patients assessed at high falls risk were accommodated in a room staffed by volunteer companion-observers. The volunteers engaged them in conversation, played cards, opened meals and used the call bell to summon nurses if patients attempted to move from the bed or chair without assistance. Because of occupational health and safety considerations, the volunteers did not assist patients to ambulate.\nFindings: - The falls rate in the acute aged care ward decreased by 44 percent (p<0.000). No patients fell in the observation room when volunteers were present. Relatives of participating in-patients expressed appreciation of the volunteer role, in terms of increased safety and also companionship. Volunteers exercised initiative in determining their pattern of work and developing resources to support their role.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Because volunteers are not present around the clock, other strategies are needed to prevent wandering, frequently confused older in-patients from falling during the night.\nPractical implications: - In a context where frail elderly patients need constant supervision, using volunteers is a reasonable strategy.\nOriginality/value: - This intervention used an inexpensive, human resources-based approach to significantly reduce the incidence of falls in the population at highest risk of falling. The additional benefits to patients in terms of cognitive improvement bear further investigation.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
An information literacy teaching model for Vietnam's schools
|
[
"Information literacy",
"Vietnam",
"Pedagogy",
"High school",
"Information literacy teaching model",
"Upper secondary schools"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In the educational environment, schools are striving to prepare students to meet the changes of the information environment. Despite the important role of information literacy (IL) being widely acknowledged, there is still a lack of IL programmes implemented in educational institutions (Shenton et al., 2014). This paper reports on the findings of a qualitative research, which aims to identify the ways in which IL in-practice initiatives are framed for Vietnam's upper secondary students and to suggest an appropriate IL teaching model for schools in the country.\n2. Context of the study: The blending of three ideologies, Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism has contributed to the development of Vietnam's society and culture. They put the emphasis on the hierarchy of superior-inferior relationships, human suffering and the relationship between humans and the cosmos. This has created the notable characteristics of passivity, compliance, submissiveness, acceptance of fate and maintenance of the status quo in Asian countries' culture and that of Vietnam. This creates the ideal environment for the ingrained acceptance of passive learning and the teacher-centred teaching model in Vietnam (Nguyen, 2013).\n3. Information literacy and its contextual and cultural nature: IL can be interpreted and defined from different perspectives. According to Walton and Cleland (2013), the development of IL capability ensues from a broader social setting and that IL comprises three spheres, namely, finding, evaluating and using information and each scope activates its own set of behavioural, cognitive, metacognitive and affective elements. Lloyd (2012, p. 772), by examining how people connect with the information landscape that forms their settings or practices, sees IL \"as a socially enacted practice\". The sociocultural perspective of IL views \"how people's use of information cannot be meaningfully separated from the tools that are an integral part of social practices\" (Limberg et al., 2012, p. 95). Instead of identifying IL as a set of skills, this point of view recognises IL in its relationship with the information setting, which has a strong influence on how people understand information.\n4. Methodology: This qualitative research focussed on two of Vietnam's upper secondary schools in which each school was treated as a single case. The research brought the context of each case/school at both macro- and micro-environment level together based on Layder's (1993) approach (Figure 1).\n5. Findings and discussion: 5.1 Lack of information literacy programmes\n6. An information literacy teaching model for Vietnam's upper secondary schools: Here the study introduces an IL teaching model, which offers a framework for Vietnam's schools to design, develop and deliver IL programmes (Figure 3). The model addresses issues surrounding factors affecting the development of IL teaching, as discussed earlier. The expanded AASL model is also included.\n7. Conclusion: This research provides an insight into the practice of IL teaching and learning in Vietnam's upper secondary schools. The development of IL programmes in Vietnam's high schools faces many challenges that can be encountered across educational institutions of both developing and developed countries, such as lack of IL programmes, teaching method, resources, collaboration, teaching capability and cognitive readiness of professionals, time pressure, students' awareness of IL and support from family. Nevertheless, contextual issues surrounding the absence of IL programmes, teaching method, lacking resources and time pressure are noticeable issues in Vietnam. These issues need to be addressed to promote the development of IL programmes and the constructivist approach in teaching and learning.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This study aims to identify the ways in which information literacy (IL) in-practice initiatives are framed for Vietnam's upper secondary students and to suggest an appropriate IL teaching model for schools in the country.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The research used a qualitative multiple case study approach, including two phases of data collection. The first phase gathered data from semi-structured student interviews. The second phase included semi-structured professional interviews and an analysis of documents.\nFindings: The research found that time pressure, teaching method, resource issues, students' awareness of IL and support from family are challenges for the development of IL programmes. These factors impinge upon the development of an IL teaching model for Vietnam's upper secondary schools.\nResearch limitations/implications: The focus of this study was limited to two schools to gain the depth of data needed to provide a holistic picture of the practice of IL teaching in Vietnam's upper secondary schools.\nPractical implications: This study could provide some guidance to the Ministry of Education and Training in the development of educational policies and initiatives through identifying the possible contributions of IL to Vietnam's education system.\nOriginality/value: The study provides an understanding of the development of IL in the education system in transition, from a didactic to a constructivist approach.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Engineering and development in Brazil, challenges and prospects: a new perspective on the topic
|
[
"Brazil",
"Engineering",
"Socioeconomic development",
"Productive systems",
"Industrial development"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Since 2005, Brazil has been ranked among the ten largest economies in the world, currently occupying eighth place in terms of global gross domestic product (GDP) (Global R&D Funding Forecast, 2017). Despite the recognized, cyclical pace of the Brazilian economy in recent decades, there has been a certain period of monetary stabilization and an adoption of social public policies aimed at income redistribution. Thus, the fall in the unemployment rate, combined with a favorable external environment and a strengthened internal market, guaranteed a cycle of economic growth and social inclusion during this period (Brazil, 2012). However, recent studies demonstrate that the country's productivity did not follow the economic growth of this period, particularly with regard to the industry. Unlike events in the previous decade, between 2001 and 2009, there was a greater disparity in relation to GDP per capita versus growth in productivity. In other words, Brazilian GDP per capita evolved significantly in the above-mentioned decade, while productivity remained relatively stable. This gap emerged mainly because of the strong correlation between GDP growth and the increase in the workforce and purchasing power, though with less significant contributions from productivity (De Negri and Cavalcante, 2013). A study by the Boston Consulting Group concluded that over the past decade, the gain in productivity for GDP growth in Brazil was only 26 per cent, while the remaining 74 per cent was attributed to the fall in unemployment - a rather different scenario from that of China and India, where contributions from productivity have reached 93 and 82 per cent, respectively. Finally, it is important to highlight that the modest growth in Brazilian productivity occurred, chiefly, in the extractive industry and in farming and livestock, sectors that concern directly natural resources and entail relatively low added value (Ukon et al., 2013). Given that the unemployment rate fell considerably in this most positive, above-mentioned period for the Brazilian economy, it is impossible to rely only on the significant increase in the economically active population to increase GDP. For Brazil to resume the virtuous cycle of economic growth and social development, there needs to be an upturn in productivity rates and innovation capacity, particularly through the qualification of the workforce[1] and integration between the research and industrial sectors.\n2. Research and development in universities and research centers in Brazil: A positive aspect of this challenge concerns the academic field. In this regard, Brazil has evidently achieved an extraordinary performance over the past two decades and since 2008 has occupied 13th place for scientific production at the global level, overtaking countries with a far greater tradition in research and training of human resources, such as The Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden, Belgium, Denmark and Israel. Endeavoring to occupy the tenth position in the global science rankings by 2020, Brazil is seeking to place itself among the top ten countries with the greatest potential to produce new knowledge, which would be more in line with its position in the global GDP rankings and with the correlation observed in the case of more developed countries in comparing GDP vs scientific production. In the past 30 years, Brazil has enhanced significantly its investment in science, technology and innovation (ST&I)[2], investing 1.2 per cent of GDP in 2013. Nevertheless, in international comparisons, Brazil is still behind many countries regarding the number of scientists and engineers, the percentage of GDP investment in ST&I and, consequently, in the human development index (HDI), as shown in Table I. In this context, it seems important to note that there is apparently a certain confluence between a proportion of at least 1.6 per cent of GDP in R&D and the existence of a minimum level of around 3,000 scientists and engineers per 1 million inhabitants in allowing a country to occupy a more prominent position in terms of the social and economic development of nations.\n3. RD&I in companies in Brazil: It is well known that Brazil carries out little R&D in the industrial sector, compared with more developed countries. The understanding many businessmen have of what RD&I represents is closely linked to foreign technological dependence. A survey conducted by the National Confederation of Industry (NCI) shows that in national companies, investment in RD&I amounts to non-specific research activities such as staff training, spending on products and purchasing machines. Importantly, the concept of human resources that guided the responses of the businessmen in the NCI survey is restricted to the training of machine operators and sales staff, therefore falling short of what is discussed in this article.\n4. The challenge for small- and medium-sized companies: The demands of the manufacturing and equipment industries (agriculture, automobile, electronics, etc.) highlight the critical position of current industrial development. There is a clear, growing need for greater participation and performance from small- and medium-sized companies. Nonetheless, there is a lack of scientific-technological knowledge, which, in turn, is intimately linked to the low supply of well-trained engineers in the country.\n5. Demands for a system of graduate studies and research in engineering: Research and graduate qualifications have been stimulated in unequivocal and monolithic fashion in Brazil. For there to be an enhancement in quality and quantity in engineering, it is necessary to comprehend the role of each of its subfields, taking into account the characteristics and peculiarities of each sector. In engineering, two elements need to be addressed:\n6. Economic growth and the development of engineering in Brazil and the world: Few countries are protagonists of global scientific production in engineering in indexed journals. Approximately 70 per cent of what is published worldwide in engineering can be attributed to ten countries: China (including Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan), the USA, the UK, South Korea, Japan, France, Germany, India and Iran. They are also leaders in global technological production. From this group, it is worth highlighting China, India, Canada and South Korea, competitors for Brazil in several commercial sectors. Brazil has gone down in the engineering rankings and currently occupies 18th place, accounting for around 1.33 per cent of global scientific production (around 8,390 articles between 2010 and 2014). The charts in Figure 4 outline global participation in engineering in the main countries. One point to note is that Brazil is the only Latin American country to feature among the 20 most competitive countries in engineering, having been recognized for its strong engineering.\n7. The Science without Borders program: Launched on July 26, 2011, the Science without Borders program became a strategic instrument for the Brazilian Government to invest in the qualified training of professionals from engineering and the other technological fields. The program sought the mobility of up to 101,000 students and researchers at foreign higher education institutions and laboratories with excellent reputations in teaching and research. In addition, the program aimed to attract young people and renowned researchers for them to develop research projects along with scientific and technological groups in Brazil. Figure 7 displays the distribution of scholarship holders across the fields of knowledge. Managed and implemented by Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES) and National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), the program was financed chiefly by public funds (75,000 scholarships). However, owing to its strategic character for the country's development, it triggered interest from the private sector. Hence, Brazilian companies (Petrobras, Vale and Eletrobras), foreign companies (Boeing, Shell, BG Group, Statoil, Petrogal) and directly concerned groups (FEBRABAN) offered to co-finance 26,000 additional scholarships, amounting to the target of 101,000.\n8. Challenges and prospects: Based on the analysis outlined, the development of engineering is evidently an important requirement for supporting business and economic success in Brazil. Clearly, there is a need to enhance the proportion of PhD holders and qualified individuals in engineering, with the aim of having a higher number of professionals equipped to operate the business and scientific systems in engineering. In particular, there is a demand for professionals who are able to perform duties in research, development and innovation at companies, bolstering this weak branch of the Brazilian business system. The need to increase the number of PhD holders in engineering has been highlighted in the National Graduate Qualification Plans. The latest plans (2011-2020) specially highlighted the objective of broadening Brazilian graduate qualifications in technology and engineering. This was defined as one of the greatest challenges with regard to the interplay between academic research and the business world, which is crucial to the development of strategic sectors in the country. Another obvious challenge is that of enhancing the formalization of engineering knowledge generated in the country through quality publications. Planning is also needed to enhance certain engineering fields that are vital to a Brazilian development strategy. The reinforcement of chemical and electrical engineering, for instance, is necessary to support industry. Notably, chemical engineering accounts for 10.2 per cent of Brazil's engineering bibliographic production, while the worldwide proportion is close to 12.4 per cent of all engineering. This type of analysis, though simplified, represents a way to seek balance between interconnected engineering fields, helping the country to understand how it can find its place on the world stage. In further respect to the chemical industry*, chemical products represent the fourth most significant participation in industrial GDP, and the net turnover of the Brazilian chemical industry occupies fifth place at the global level. Nevertheless, the trade deficit for chemical products has increased enormously, from US$1.5bn in 1991 to US$32.2bn in 2013, highlighting the need to strengthen national chemical engineering.\n9. Conclusions: Engineering is a powerful instrument for promoting the social and economic development of nations. Its enhancement is a strategic element to accelerate Brazil's progress. The data analysis shows that emerging nations have invested heavily in the growth of their engineering. There is a need to continue investing in the development of Brazilian engineering through maintaining academic mobility programs, such as Science without Borders, as well as implementing new teaching methodologies and integrating globally, through the financing of international research projects. The distribution of this investment in the various fields of engineering must be balanced, taking into account national strategies and the technological interrelations between the fields analyzed in this article. Brazil has strong potential for development in the various fields of engineering and must seize this opportunity in the most efficient and timely manner.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Engineering is a powerful instrument for promoting the social and economic development of nations. Its enhancement is a strategic element to accelerate Brazil's progress. This paper aims to present a new perspective on the topic of \"Engineering and Development in Brazil, Challenges and Prospects\" (Guimaraes et al., 2007). Its goal is to discuss the need for restructuring the Brazilian system for research, development and innovation (RD&I) and the training of human resources in engineering in the country.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This article is designed to discuss the relations between the performance of the industrial sector and the maturation of engineering in Brazil by looking at the national scientific production in the area in comparison to the world production and to countries (South Korea and The Netherlands). Finally, in terms of training human resources, the Brazilian study abroad program Science without Borders program is discussed in the article as an important tool for the qualification of engineering students in Brazil.\nFindings: A few of the main findings in this research are as follows: despite being among the top 20 countries in scientific production in Engineering, Brazil still lacks turning this scientific-technological knowledge into products and patents; Brazilian universities and research institutes must build interorganizational collaborations with the industrial sector to increase innovation in the field of engineering; The distribution of the investment in RD&I in engineering must be strategically distributed among its various fields, taking into account national strategies and the technological interrelations between them. The article concludes that engineering is a powerful instrument for promoting a country's social development while offering indications about Brazilian strategic orientation in the development of engineering.\nOriginality/value: Despite already being well known that engineering is a powerful instrument for promoting a country's social development, this article innovates by associating academic scientific production in engineering to other variables related to economic development, such as gross domestic product, human development index, industrial and manufactured production and the filing of patents. It comes at an important moment when the Brazilian Government is discussing new strategies to increase social and economic development in the country while controlling for the investment in RD&I. Therefore, it is the right moment to discuss national policies in science, technology and innovation, especially in the area of engineering.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Estimating factors for the demand of organic milk in Turkey
|
[
"Willingness to pay",
"Consumer preferences",
"Demand for milk",
"Organic milk"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Milk is a staple food that provides essential macronutrients such as protein, fat, carbohydrates and many other valuable micronutrients. While these nutrients are important in making purchase decisions, there are several other factors that might be effective in decision-making process. The retail market for milk is segmented into several categories. Traditionally, fluid milk products are classified according to their fat content such as full-fat, half-fat and skim milk. Recent research suggests that besides choosing the fat content, the consumers nowadays are also making a decision to buy or not to buy organic labeled dairy products. However, as the market for organic milk is relatively small, it tends to be less efficient, which is reflected in the retail price. The price difference between organic and non-organic dairy products is disproportionately high to the point that only the wealthy can afford organic milk products. Therefore, it is of interest to see whether sociodemographic indicators are relevant in the organic milk purchase decision besides the price-related information.\n2. Methods: 2.1 Data collection\n3. Results: 3.1 Tabular data analysis results\n4. Discussion: The results revealed that Turkish consumers are interested in organic dairy products and they are willing to pay substantial price premiums. Based on their stated preferences on how much the consumers are willing to pay for organic milk, one would expect the share of organic milk to be substantially higher than the current 1.2 percent market share. However, this is not the currently observed case. Along with the high price premium, unavailability of organic milk is among the major factors for this low market share.\n5. Conclusion: In this paper, the Turkish consumers' attitude toward organic milk is investigated using different econometric approaches. First, the summary statistics suggest that milk is the most frequently purchased fluid drink in Turkey, followed by ayran which is actually a kind of milk in fermented form. When purchasing milk, households pay substantial attention to price, packaging and brand of the milk. Those characteristics are rated with significantly higher scores compared to nutritional contents. Second, the stated preferences based on consumer responses suggested that consumers are willing to pay more for organic milk over non-organic milk. However, partially due the unavailability of organic milk at convenient shopping locations in Turkey, the market share of organic milk is very low. This result is in line with that of Lanfranchi et al. (2017) where authors state that customers have difficulty finding and purchasing special milk products at convenient shopping locations. Sampaio and Gosling (2014) also observed a similar result where availability of organic food is a statistically significant determinant in purchasing behavior in Brazil.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify the sociodemographic factors that affect Turkish consumers' decision to purchase organic milk. It is also of interest to derive the demand curve for organic milk based on the consumers' stated preferences.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The data used in this search are based on a face-to-face consumer survey that asked the respondents about how much they are willing to pay for organic milk and what factors affect their purchasing decision. A variant approach is applied where the determinants selected include both product/market characteristics and household-specific demographic factors. The data are analyzed by means of tabular analysis, summary tables, contingent valuation, stepwise regression, kh2 tests and logistic discrete-choice modeling.\nFindings: The tabular analysis suggests that price, packaging and brand image are the primary milk characteristics that affect consumers' decision. According to the contingent valuation analysis, consumers are willing to pay substantial premiums for milk products. The stepwise regression, kh2 tests and logistic regression results unanimously suggest that educational attainment is the only significant indicator. Households with university education are twice more likely to purchase organic milk.\nResearch limitations/implications: The data used in this research are based on stated preferences which might be different than actual shopping behavior.\nOriginality/value: This paper presents a pioneer study on the characteristics of Turkish organic milk consumers and represents a credible, empirical case study to complement existing literature. It also lays the framework for follow-up research work that can be conducted in future.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Community bank product design within an asymmetric competitive market: An X-efficiency approach
|
[
"X-efficiency",
"Competition",
"Product positioning",
"Community banks",
"Call reports"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Competitive interaction of community banks and credit unions in non-metro financial markets is of interest. Given that relatively fewer deposits are available in these regions, comparatively lesser numbers of financial institutions are likely to be present. As a result, entry and exit by financial institutions into a non-metro area may signal extraction of monopoly rents after eliminating other competitors (Berger et al., 2005). In particular, research suggests large banks could affect relationship banking in non-metro locations.\n2. Literature: The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of institutional type on competition within non-metro financial markets. Investor owned and cooperative financial institutions operate in the same competitive environment but under distinct business/economic objectives. These differences suggest that the ability of a financial institution to react to changes in the supply or demand of financial products may be altered by the presence of competitors with varying capacities to accurately interpret this information (Bauer et al., 2009; Dopico and Wilcox, 2009, 2010; Wilcox and Dopico, 2011). Prior studies have discussed the effect of information technology on the ability of large banks to operate successfully in local markets, but repeated transactions between a financial institution and its local customers may translate into performance gains for the institution. Evidence exists to show the presence of a competitor within a geographic market may affect the distribution and size of the rewards from these advantages (Kagan and Conklin, 2001; Acharya et al., 2008).\n3. Hypotheses: This study considers the effect of competition between differing types of financial institutions on the cost efficiency of each. Large banks may be likely to participate in non-metro markets wherein they can enjoy greater profits; these banks are unlikely to exert market power in the costs of employees and fixed assets. Large banks may, however, exert market power in the acquisition cost of funds, with this category of banks being less inclined to reward deposits when compared with credit unions. Hence, an initial proposition is that the presence of different institutions types in the same market will be associated with increased cost efficiency when compared with markets in which credit unions or community banks operate alone. To test this hypothesis, consider the following:\n4. Data and method: Using a panel of finance and macroeconomic data spanning 1994-2014, this study examines the effect competition among large banks, community banks, and credit unions in non-metro markets. Credit union financial data are compiled from the December versions of the \"5300 Call Reports\" available at the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) website. 5300 Call Reports contain year-to-date financial statement and operational data from each credit union. Annual data are available from Q1 1994 through Q4 2014. Only credit unions headquartered in a county outside a non-metropolitan statistical area are considered. These data are not provided at the branch level. Call Reports contain information about the location of the main branch of each credit union. In 2011 it is observed that, over 90 percent of all credit unions have six or fewer branches; while 50.2 percent operate as single branch entities; 64.4 percent of credit unions conduct business operations with one or two branch locations.\n5. Empirical results: Summary performance statistics, by institutional type, are presented in Table II. There are six combinations of institutions considered. Observed ROA is greatest when all three institutions compete in the same market. The average ROA is greater when institutions compete.\n6. Conclusions: The number of large banks increases community bank efficiency and efficiency of large banks, the opposite of the a priori expectation. Also, contrary to expectations, the number of community banks does affect large bank cost efficiency. The magnitude of the effect pertaining to the number of community banks upon large bank efficiency is much smaller than that of the number of large banks on community bank efficiency. This provides weak support for the hypothesis of no effect of community banks on large bank efficiency. The direction of the effect also depends on institutional type; an increased number of community banks decreases large bank cost efficiency whereas this increases community bank cost efficiency. Concentration, loan-to-assets and population size all increase large bank and community bank efficiency.\n7. Managerial implications: Managers in non-metro financial institutions need to be cognizant of the competitive alignment within the local market sphere. The presence financial organization types will impact the firm's responsiveness to market forces, product mixes and operating efficiencies.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to assess product and service arrays of community banks within competitive markets that are impacted by varying sized financial institutions. A cost efficiency model is used to understand the relationship of product offerings and business cycle response upon bank performance.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A cost efficiency model is used to understand the relationship of product offerings and business cycle response upon bank performance. Markets comprised of alternate size and type of financial institutions are compared.\nFindings: Greater values of X_EFF\nOriginality/value: This study considers cost efficiency and profitability as measures of institution on the performance of a competing institutional type. The modeling approach uses cost efficiency as a method of observing the performance of financial institutions and an explanation of how firms persist, grow, and respond to changes in technology or regulation. The effects of the presence of each type of financial institution on the performance of another type are compared. Situations in which any number of one or more institutional types is present in a market are considered for analysis purposes.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Procurement strategy and outcomes of a new universities project in South Africa
|
[
"Integration",
"Case study",
"Project management",
"Strategic management"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Project management outcomes reported in the construction management literature typically portray significant deviations from intended outcomes, which places value for money for a project at risk. This phenomenon is a common occurrence in the construction industry and various theories arising from several studies on causes of project cost and time overruns have proved insufficient to address this perennial problem over time. One reason for this may be due to the observation that a majority of the studies on this phenomenon have tended to focus superficially on the symptoms rather than root causes (see Flyvbjerg et al., 2018).\n2. Literature review: The international standard for construction procurement (ISO, 2010) defines construction procurement as the process through which contracts are created, managed and fulfilled. This process entails establishing what is to be procured; deciding on procurement strategy; soliciting tender offers; evaluating tender offers; contract award; and administering contracts and confirming compliance with requirements.\n3. Research problem and question: As demonstrated in the literature review, project management outcomes reported in the construction management literature typically portray significant deviations between expected and actual outcomes. Various studies have been conducted by academic researchers attempting to provide solutions to this problem. However, most of them have focused superficially on causes of project cost and time overruns, and the results obtained have not proved sufficient in tackling this problem over time. This paper argues that cost and time overruns are predominantly symptoms or consequences of a more underlying problem relating to procurement strategy. A construction procurement strategy identifies the best way to achieve intended outcomes and value for money (OGC, 2003; ISO, 2010). It provides the fundamental key to achieve intended outcomes or closer tolerances between intended and achieved outcomes. Therefore, a root cause of the problem may lie in the lack of procurement strategy in projects or inability of client teams to develop an appropriate procurement strategy for infrastructure projects. Currently, little empirical knowledge exists in the literature on the relationship between construction procurement strategy and outcomes. A detailed search of the literature revealed no comprehensive study examining the relationship between procurement strategy and outcomes; and this relationship is currently poorly understood in the construction management literature. This study addresses that gap by examining the procurement strategy used to deliver a new universities project in South Africa successfully within budget. The research question was:\n4. Research design and methods: The purpose of this study was to examine the procurement strategy for the new universities project and its influence on the project outcomes. A suitable research design was needed to provide a framework to collect and analyse measures of the variables specified in the research problem which were procurement strategy and project outcomes. A precise measure of the impact of procurement strategy alone on the end outcomes is complex due to the presence other intervening variables during implementation like quality of contractor, quality of project management, quality of project delivery systems - although a good procurement strategy will provide the basis for choices relating to these other variables. Therefore, the practical approach taken in this study was to examine the procurement strategy, examine the outcomes achieved, examine what was stated in the procurement strategy regarding the intended outcomes sought to be achieved, interview members of the project management team to obtain their perspective on the influence of the procurement strategy, in particular, on the project outcomes, and then discuss any empirical observations on the relationship between the procurement strategy and the outcomes achieved.\n5. Data collection, analysis and results: The two new universities whose procurement strategy and outcomes are examined in this paper are Sol Plaajte University (hereafter referred to as SPU) located in Kimberley, Northern Cape Province and University of Mpumalanga (hereafter referred to as UMP) located in Nelpruit and Siyabuswa both in the Mpumalanga Province.\n6. Discussion of results: The research aim was to examine nature of the procurement strategy used to deliver the new universities project and its influence on the project outcomes. The data presented in Tables I and II summarise the procurement strategy and project outcomes in terms of time and cost performance. Three points are brought forward for discussion.\n7. Conclusions: The research aim was to examine the procurement strategy for the new universities project and its influence on the project outcomes. Key conclusions on the three research objectives are as follows.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Construction project management outcomes in the literature typically portray significant deviations from expected outcomes. Various theories from studies that focus superficially on causes of project cost and time overruns rather than root causes have not addressed this problem. The need is for a better understanding of how procurement strategy provides a fundamental means to address this problem. The purpose of this paper is to examine the procurement strategy used to deliver a new universities project in South Africa within budget and to ascertain its influence on the outcomes.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A case study was designed to provide a comprehensive and intensive methodology to identify and examine the construction procurement strategy and its influence on the project outcomes. Document analyses and semi-structured interviews were used to collect data on the construction procurement strategy and outcomes from the client team.\nFindings: The evidence brought forward demonstrates that the successful outcome was largely a consequence of the client team, procurement strategy and systems of delivery. However, the collaborative procurement strategy formed the basis of the successful project delivery and outcomes. A general observation from the data is that an appropriate construction procurement strategy developed by an experienced client team and proactively implemented by an integrated delivery team working collaboratively is likely to achieve the intended project outcomes.\nPractical implications: The findings show three critical keys to achieving intended outcomes - people, procurement strategy and systems of delivery at the governance, portfolio, programme and project management levels.\nOriginality/value: The value of this paper lies in using a comprehensive methodology to study the relationship between procurement strategy and outcomes. The findings can be applied by client teams to achieve better outcomes and value for money in infrastructure projects.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Critical success factors for post-disaster infrastructure recovery: Learning from the Canterbury (NZ) earthquake recovery
|
[
"Decision making",
"Infrastructure",
"Critical success factor",
"Post-disaster recovery",
"Disaster management",
"Canterbury earthquake"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Natural hazards, like hydro-meteorological, geophysical and biological disasters, stem from single or multiple spontaneous movements of the Earth (United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, 2002). They are inevitable and, in many cases, disastrous. According to the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (2004), natural hazards in 1994-2004 have cost the lives of 478,100 people worldwide, injured more than 2.5 billion people and caused US$690 billion of damage to engineered structures and infrastructure. Commonly infrastructure refers to water supply, sewerage, storm water, transportation, gas and telecommunication systems (Kameda, 2000).\nBackground: Christchurch, the second largest city in New Zealand, and the nearby Waimakariri District were seriously affected by the Canterbury earthquake sequence in 2010-2011. The sequence started on 4 September 2010 earthquake (Mw=7.1), and the subsequent major shocks, including the ones on 22 February 2011 (Mw=6.3), 13 June 2011 (Mw=6.0) and 23 December 2011 (Mw=5.8) were each followed by thousands of aftershocks (Bannister and Gledhill, 2012; Cubrinovski et al., 2011). The strong ground motion caused extensive soil liquefaction, resulting in widespread physical damage to and functional failure of lifeline utilities and facilities. After the earthquakes the initial assessments indicated that 1,021 kilometres or 52 per cent of the Christchurch urban sealed roads were in need of rebuilding operations (Canterbury Development Corporation (CDC), 2015). Approximately 348 km fresh water pipelines (almost 10 per cent of the water supply network) were damaged and the main reservoir (Huntsbury reservoir) was so severely damaged that it lost all stored water. The greater Christchurch region is served by 175 fresh water wells of which 22 lost all functionality and 64 more required repairs (Giovinazzi et al., 2011). However, the Christchurch sewerage system sustained the most severe damage with 659 kilometres of wastewater pipelines, 41 per cent of the entire system, damaged (Liu et al., 2015). Especially near waterways a large proportion of pipelines lost functionality and had to be replaced by more advanced pressurised sewerage systems. The storm water system in Christchurch was least affected and needed only a moderate amount of effort to restore the service and avoid flooding (CDC, 2015).\nResearch methods: The research is framed by the research questions which determine the methods, and drive all activities and strategies (Yin, 2013). They also identify the theory and phenomena to be studied (Eisenhardt and Graebner, 2007), and guide the data collection process. Data collection often combines archive, interviews, observations and questionnaires (Yin, 2013). The combined method could better substantiate conceptions and hypotheses (Meyer, 2001). In terms of interviews, it is useful to capture views from multiple interviewees for providing a pluralist view regarding the research questions (Glick et al., 1990). Any replicated or contrast information provided is of value in that they could enhance findings or disclose research breakthroughs (Hartley, 1994). In the preparation for decision-related interview questions, Schramm (1971) suggests to delineate each factor/decision by answering why it was taken, how it was implemented and with what results. Examples of applying the abovementioned combined case study method to draw CSFs for ensuing the success of the disaster-related projects can be found in Brown et al. (2011), Moe and Pathranarakul (2006), Ophiyandri et al. (2013), Pathirage et al. (2012), Seneviratne et al. (2010) and Taylor et al. (2012).\nIdentification of CSFs for post-disaster infrastructure recovery: The six identified CSFs cover organisation, finance, communication and technical aspects of the Canterbury infrastructure recovery. CSFs 1, 2 and 3 entail managerial and organisational aspects of the post-earthquake infrastructure recovery from a policy-makers' viewpoint, whereas the remainder deal with the restoration from a technical perspective.\nCSF 1: establishment of a recovery vehicle: The 4 September 2010 earthquake (Mw=7.1) caused \"moderate\" damage to infrastructure systems in Christchurch city. In the aftermath of the quake, CCC established an Infrastructure Rebuild Management Office (IRMO) to rebuild its damaged infrastructure. IRMO comprised of 20-30 council staff that were responsible for design, construction management, finance, communication, programming, procurement and project administration (Controller and Auditor-General, 2012). IRMO entered into four design-build contracts with five construction companies to reinstate the impaired infrastructure. The division of work was based on geographical location and six weeks after this seismic event, almost 480 repairs to water supply and wastewater pipelines had been initiated by IRMO.\nCSF 2: formulation of a flexible funding plan: Following a number of intervening seismic events in 2010 and 2011, the severity and quantity of the damage to infrastructure highlighted that extensive funding support from central government was needed. The central government of New Zealand through CERA pays 60 per cent of the costs for three waters infrastructure (Christchurch City Council (CCC), 2013b).\nCSF 3: community engagement: SCIRT actively communicates all rebuilding operations to the community, it strives to clear up any uncertainties of locals and thereby build up their confidence. Extensive work has been done to promote community engagement in the Canterbury recovery. Until November 2015, approximately 6,047 work notes have been specifically produced and delivered to 1,409,083 residents/businesses. In total, 34,921 face-to-face meetings were organised with locals who were living/working in SCIRT rebuilding areas. In addition to this, 160 visits to local schools were acted to engage with students in relation with SCIRT's (2015) work. A SCIRT webpage had been set up as an interface with public for updating work progress, informing the upcoming tasks and answering people's inquiries. The communication team conducts surveys and interviews to collect people's ideas and satisfaction levels with regard to SCIRT's rebuilding operations on a six-month interval. The results of a survey conducted in November 2013 by Opinions Market Research Ltd. are presented in Table I (Stronger Christchurch Infrastructure Rebuild Team (SCIRT), 2014). All of the surveyed subjects receive more than half of support level. The high (90 and 86 per cent) support levels shows the community feel informed and satisfied regarding the construction work.\nCSF 4: selection of a rebuild driver: SCIRT chose the repair of the sewerage system as the rebuild driver when it planned the infrastructure rebuilding programme. First, SCIRT planners determined recovery plans depending on the priority and severity of the impaired sewerage assets. Then the need of repairing other underground infrastructure in the same location was identified. This way, the recovery operations are carried out without unnecessary duplication of digging and traffic blocking.\nCSF 5: determination of rebuild project prioritisation methodology: SCIRT developed a spatial prioritisation methodology to underpin the decision-making process of post-earthquake reinstatement for horizontal infrastructure systems (Figure 2). The prioritisation methodology aims to prioritise rebuilding projects of infrastructure facilities and the sequence in which those projects are carried out. It is run in a platform Feature Manipulation Engine, by where GIS data and non-GIS data are incorporated and integrated to rank infrastructure facilities of interest.\nCSF 6: standardisation of data management mechanism: After the Canterbury earthquakes, assessment teams were summoned nationally and internationally to investigate the earthquake-induced physical and functional damage to local infrastructure systems. For example, three types of damage assessment teams were assigned to investigate the Christchurch wastewater reticulation system, namely: manhole-level survey team, closed circuit television inspection team and pipe profilometer assessment team, for the purpose of gaining a comprehensive understanding of the level of the physical damage to the sewerage system pipelines in Christchurch.\nDiscussion: The infrastructure recovery in Christchurch provides an exemplary case study for others that could come to face a similar situation. The CSFs identified in the previous sections disclose the opportunities for improvements in the field of post-disaster disaster management specifically for infrastructure systems.\nConclusion: Natural hazards can severely damage urban infrastructure services such as water, wastewater, storm water, gas, electricity, and transportation and telecommunication systems. Damaged infrastructure systems need comprehensive rebuilding programmes which involve inspection, assessment, design, construction of the networks. How to cope with the complexity, number and size of these projects and how to systematically plan the rebuilding projects becomes a challenge to decision makers responsible for the infrastructure rebuild.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to synthesise critical success factors (CSFs) for advancing post-disaster infrastructure recovery and underpinning recovery authorities in decision making when facing future disasters.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The seismic recovery after the Canterbury (NZ) earthquake sequence in 2010-2011 was selected as a case study for identifying CSFs for an efficient recovery of infrastructure post-disaster. A combination of research approaches, including archival study, observations and semi-structured interviews were conducted for collecting data and evidences by engaging with participants involved at various tiers in the post-disaster recovery and reconstruction. The CSFs are evaluated and analysed by tracking the decision-making process, examining resultant consequences and foreseeing onwards challenges.\nFindings: Six salient CSFs for strengthening infrastructure recovery management after disasters are identified. Furthermore, the study shows how each of these CSFs have been incorporated into the decision-making process in support of the post-disaster recovery and what difficulties encountered in the recovery process when implementing.\nPractical implications: The proposed CSFs provide a future reference and guidance to be drawn on by decision makers when project-managing post-disaster recovery operations.\nOriginality/value: The value of the paper is that it bridges the gap between managerial contexts and technical aspects of post-disaster recovery process in an effort to rapidly and efficiently rebuild municipal infrastructure.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Investigation of process and product parameters for physico-chemical properties of low Glycemic Index water chestnut and barley flour-based extruded snacks
|
[
"SME",
"Extrusion",
"HDPE",
"Barley",
"Water chestnut"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Extrusion cooking is a multistep baro-thermal operation used by the food processors to produce quality snacks with unique shapes, due to its versatility, high productivity and affordability (Chiu et al., 2011). Any starchy material can be exploited for the development of expanded extrudates. However, most of the research conducted on extrusion cooking is based on the cereals like rice, corn and wheat which have high Glycemic Index (GI) and low resistant starch content. Several authors have reported incorporation of various underutilized crops also for development of different types of snacks due to their rich bioactive constituents. Water chestnut and barley are ideal underutilized crops to be explored for development of healthy snacks due to their low GI and good starch content.\nMaterial and methods: Raw material\nExtrusion cooking: Extrusion cooking was performed in a twin-screw extruder (Basic Technology Pvt. Ltd, Kolkata, India). The barrel diameter and its length to diameter ratio were 2.5 mm and 8:1, respectively. First, second and third barrel temperature zones were maintained at 40, 60 and 80oC, respectively, throughout the experiment, whereas the temperature of last zone varied according to experimental design. The die (made up of stainless steel) with opening diameter of 3 mm was used. The extruder was equipped with a torque indicator, which showed per cent of torque in proportion to current drawn by a drive motor. Prior to extrusion, the moisture content of the flour samples was adjusted according to the experimental design through pre-conditioning. The extruded samples were collected in trays, cooled and packed in HDPE bags for further analysis.\nStatistical analysis: Statistical analysis of data was conducted using SPSS software (version 21). All the experiments were carried out in triplicate, and data were analyzed using design factorial in the completely randomized design (CRD). For storage experiment, one factorial CRD was used to analyze the data and to test the significance at 5 per cent level of significance.\nResults and discussion: A fit of models\nEffect of process parameters on system response and product responses: System response\nOptimization: By applying the desirability function method and covering our criteria as discussed in material and method section, the best solution was selected for development of snacks on the basis of highest desirability value (0.75) (Figure 1(a)). The optimum predicted conditions in the selected solution for development of snacks were feed proportion (90 per cent water chestnut flour and 10 per cent barley flour), barrel temperature (90oC), screw speed (300 rpm) and feed moisture content (14 per cent) with predicted values for ER, BS, WAI, WSI, BD and SME as 3.46, 46.87 N, 3.75 g/g, 23.80 per cent, 181.44 kg/m3 and 72.94 Wh/100 g, respectively. By applying the optimal conditions, the snacks with ER of 3.40, BD of 175 kg/m3, BS of 45.38 N, WAI of 3.85 g/g, WSI of 24.72 per cent and SME of 72.98 Wh/kg were obtained. The predicted response values and actual response values were almost similar with a variation of less 3.87 per cent. The optimized product and raw materials (water chestnut flour and barley flour) were analyzed for proximate composition and some important nutritional characteristics as discussed below.\nStorage studies: The final product was packed in HDPE bags and kept under ambient (25+-2oC) storage conditions for a period of 180 days to determine its shelf-stability.\nConclusion: In the present investigation, functional properties of snacks were modified by varying the feed composition and processing conditions encountered during extrusion. Feed composition had most significant (p<0.05) effect on system and product characteristics followed by feed moisture, screw speed and barrel temperature. The study confirmed the feasibility of blending 10 per cent barley flour with water chestnut flour for development of low GI extruded snacks at a barrel temperature of 90oC, screw speed of 300 rpm and feed moisture of 14 per cent. The storage studies confirmed that developed snacks can be stored safely upto 180 days in HDPE bags under ambient conditions. Development of such snacks will prove fruitful for processing sector.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Keeping in view the diabetes status that has affected about 415 million people globally and is the leading cause of death in many countries along with therising demand for low Glycemic Index (GI) foods, the purpose of this paper is to optimize the extrusion process for the development of low GI snacks from underutilized crops like water chestnut and barley.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The extrusion parameters (screw speed and barrel temperature), feed moisture and water chestnut flour, barley flour proportion, were varied and their effects on system and product responses (specific mechanical energy, water absorption index, water solubility index, bulk density, expansion ratio and breaking strength) were studied.\nFindings: All the system and product responses were significantly affected by independent variables. Response surface and regression models were established to determine the responses as function of process variables. Models obtained were highly significant with high coefficient of determination (R2=0.88). The optimum processing conditions obtained by numerical optimization for the development of snacks were 90degC barrel temperature, 300 rpm screw speed, 14 per cent feed moisture and WCF-to-BF ratio as 90:10. Shelf life studies confirmed that the developed snacks can be safely stored in HDPE bags for a period of six months under ambient conditions.\nOriginality/value: Water chestnut and barley flour did not blend till date for extrusion cooking. Such snacks shall be a viable food option for diabetic people and can act as laxative due to high fibre and b-glucan content from barley.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The role of hierarchical production planning in food manufacturing SMEs
|
[
"Action research",
"Combined MTO-MTS",
"Hierarchical production planning (HPP)",
"Quality decision making",
"SME food manufacturing"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Manufacturing processes have traditionally been described in terms of a volume/variety continuum with low-variety, high-volume production at one end and high variety, low volume at the other end (Hayes and Wheelwright, 1984). Given the positive relationship between low variety and forecast accuracy the dominant production strategy for this category is based on speculation and hence make-to-stock (MTS) prevails. Given the uncertainty associated with high variety, production strategies are based on postponement with variations of make-to-order (MTO) employed for this category (Alderson, 1950). However, in recent decades combined MTO-MTS production strategies have become increasingly commonplace as production planning and scheduling complexity has increased due to demand for product variety, short product lifecycles, shorter customer order lead times and unpredictable consumer demand (Van Donk and Van Dam, 1996; Soman et al., 2007). Thus combined strategies are now more the norm than the exception, particularly in fast moving consumer goods industries, such as food (Soman et al., 2004, 2007; Akkerman et al., 2007).\n2. Literature review: 2.1. SCM\n3. Research methodology: We adopted an action research methodology to test the efficacy of this HPP framework in real world settings, because of its focus on change, learning and critical reflection. Action research requires the active participation of the researcher and results in change or improvements (Checkland and Holwell, 1998; McDonagh and Coghlan, 2001; Gummesson, 2000). This research methodology has become popular in recent years for conducting SCM research because complex networks of interrelated activities within and between organisations make it difficult for managers to identify and understand the problems and hence find solutions (Naslund et al., 2010).\n4. Findings: An overview of the case studies is outlined below. The findings are presented in line with the action research approach adopted. The pre-intervention phase is presented at case study level, while the intervention and post-intervention phases adopt a cross-case analytical approach in order to draw out key findings.\n5. Discussion and conclusions: This research reveals the need for a hierarchical decision-making framework to support planning and scheduling of combined MTO-MTS products in the case study companies. We find implementation of a more formalised and detailed planning and scheduling framework, based on product and customer segmentation, improved efficiency and effectiveness. An improvement in operational efficiency was also achieved as measured by reduced inventory levels, rationalisation of product variety and weekly levelled scheduling.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: In recent years there has been an increasing interest in make-to-stock and make-to-order combined strategies in food manufacturing operations. However, most scholarly work to-date has neglected the role of hierarchical production planning (HPP) in guiding small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) implementation of such strategies. The purpose of this paper is to address food SME manufacturers' readiness to adopt such strategies, in terms of internal integration and their capability to adopt formalised planning approaches.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study adopted an action research methodology to explore the potential impact of HPP in SME food manufacturers. Selected companies had identified product variety management as a challenge and also had recognised the need to enhance internal integration. Given this, the research team, from a theoretical perspective, proposed the use of HPP set within a broader decision-making conceptual framework to improve internal integration and planning.\nFindings: This paper adopts the fundamental position that HPP provides a useful framework in the establishment of strategic and tactical level constraints and priorities which then act as specific guides at the operational level, and presents empirical evidence in a food SME manufacturing context. In the cases the authors studies, the cascading effect of this decision-making framework focused attention on key metrics, encouraged greater internal integration and delivered tangible, significant improvements in performance. This was greatly facilitated by the provision of new key data on the cost of certain managerial trade-offs which these firms faced.\nOriginality/value: SMEs are of a scale that requires a formalised planning approach; however production planning systems are typically designed for large scale enterprises. This paper addresses the need of SMEs in this regard. Well-established supply chain metrics were used to establish the benefits of both HPP and resulting improvement in internal integration and beyond, in terms of improvement in the quality of planning decisions.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Gender differences in the response to unfair prices: a cross-country analysis
|
[
"Gender",
"Prices",
"National cultures",
"Germany",
"South Korea",
"United States of America"
] |
[
{
"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.\nFair price: A \"fair\" price is defined in English as a price that is both \"reasonable\" and \"just.\" Languages other than English do not combine these two meanings. It usually takes two words to translate \"fair\" into foreign languages. For example, in German one translation of fair is angemessen meaning \"reasonable\" and the other is gerecht meaning \"just.\"The difference between a \"reasonable\" fair price and a \"just\" fair price corresponds to the difference between personal and social fairness (Maxwell, 2008). In many cases, customers consider a price fair simply because it less than anticipated. If it is low enough, it is fair. As Darke and Dahl (2003, p. 334) have commented:Saying a price is fair may be another way of saying it is lower.It is what customers prefer because it meets their own personal expectations. That price is considered to be reasonable and personally fair. If a price is unexpectedly increased, the price is considered to be personally unfair.But a price is also considered unfair when it does not meet society's expectations. Society expects a price to adhere to the social norms of equity, equality, and need. A price is expected to be set in a manner that is both transparent and consistent: that is considered \"just\" to society in general. However, if the seller violates a social norm by taking advantage of the customer - by lying or cheating - that is considered to be \"unjust\" to society.For example, in the US gasoline prices over $4 a gallon are considered by individuals to be personally unfair (too expensive for their budgets); zone pricing of gasoline - where some people have to pay more than others - is considered to be socially unfair. The response to social unfairness is likely to be stronger than to personal unfairness because social unfairness is backed by the strength of social consensus.\nGender differences in response to unfair prices: Behavioral economics evidence\nNational differences in the response to unfair prices: The three countries included in the study - Germany, South Korea, and the USA - were selected because of their geographic and cultural differences. They are located on three different continents, one in Europe, one in Asia, and one in North America. According to Hofstede (1991), the US is the most individualist country in the world. In contrast, South Korea is highly collectivist. And Germany is somewhere in the middle: although Germany is considered individualist by Hofstede (1991), it is also collectivist, but not as collectivist as Asian countries (Nees, 2000).If any observed gender differences are based on biological differences in the thought processes between the sexes, we would expect that the responses in all three countries to be similar. If, however, the differences are based on cultural factors that affect the way gender roles are defined in a particular country, the responses will vary among the cultures.\nResearch questions: Because of the preliminary nature of this research, research questions were posed rather than theoretically-derived hypotheses. Two general research questions were addressed:RQ1. Will there be gender differences in the degree to which male and female responders perceive a price increase to be personally unfair? Will the same differences be seen across the three countries?RQ2. Will there be gender differences in the degree to which male and female responders perceive unjust reasons for a price increase to be socially unfair? Will these same differences be seen across the three countries?\nStudy: The study was conducted with 390 subjects: undergraduates in Germany, South Korea and the USA. Their average ages and the sample sizes are given in Table I. Participants completed self-administered questionnaires. The questionnaire was designed to elicit responses to both types of price unfairness (personal unfairness and social unfairness). It was first pre-tested with 35 participants. It was then translated into Korean and German. Equivalence across countries was evaluated using a back translation procedure. Any inconsistencies were discussed and resolved.Procedure\nDiscussion: What does this all mean? First, it appears that gender differences in reactions to unfairness in pricing are culture specific, being seen only in the US. Since the prior research underlying the design of the study was conducted in the US culture, it is not surprising that this occurred. It does suggest, however, that responses to unfairness in pricing are not derived from the differential way in which males and females think, but are probably derived, at least in part, from the way the gender roles are differentiated within the particular country in which the individuals are living.Overall, both male and female South Koreans were the most negative to the personally unfair price increase, thus confirming the findings of Jin and Sternquist (2003) that Koreans are highly price sensitive. Both male and female Americans were the least negative with the responses of Germans somewhere in the middle. Since a reaction to a personally unfair price increase is likely to be related to the concern of the responder with the household budget, a relative affluence explanation might be appropriate. Economic statistics support this view. Americans are affluent. According to the CIA Fact Book, per person GDP=$45,800. People in Germany are also relatively affluent, but not as affluent as those in the US. Their per-person GDP=$34,200 (based on purchasing power parity). South Korea is a developing country and less affluent. The per-person GDP is $24,880 (also based on purchasing power parity). These differences in relative affluence correspond directly with the strength of negative responses of respondents in each country to a price increase.The reaction to social unfairness due to the perceived unjust reason given for a price increase involves more universal issues than merely one's own pocketbook. It may reflect the degree to which consumers are morally concerned about the greater good within their social system and are, therefore, offended by what they perceive to be an unfair action. Looking at the responses, overall, to social unfairness in price, it appears that the Germans are the most incensed by social injustice, South Koreans are next, and Americans are last.The responses in Germany to social unfairness were particularly interesting because both males and females respond much more strongly than those in the other two countries. Apparently, there is a keen sense of morality operating in the German mentality. According to Vehrkamp and Kleinsteuber (2007), social justice is the most important theme in today's political debate in Germany. Hence, Germans are incensed by any sign of social injustice. Koreans also responded vigorously to social injustice. The reason may be the sensitivity that has developed there due to the socially irresponsible actions of some business persons. The Korean people have learned to respond forcefully to any perceived injustice. Only the Americans are less than vigorous in their objections to injustice. A possible reason is that the US, according to Hofstede (1991), is the most individualist country in the world. Since Americans are so highly individualistic, they are less sensitive to social injustice than more collectivist countries like Germany and South Korea.Of particular interest to this paper are the responses of males and females within the individual countries. The males and females in the American sample tend to confirm the gender differences indicated in the literature: females appear to be more sensitive to price unfairness. But the differences are apparent only in the US. In both Germany and South Korea, males and females responded equally negatively to price unfairness with males, if anything, appearing to be more concerned about social fairness than were females.Managerial implications\nLimitations and suggestions for future research: The study is limited in that the sample was made up of university students. These students, both males and females, are often supported by their parents and, thus, less conscious of household economics and of the gender roles connected with them. Such gender differences might be more pronounced when they graduate, get jobs, marry, and assume their family responsibilities.As college students, they also might be better educated than many others in the country and, therefore, not reflect the thinking of the less well educated. Future research should make an effort to include a broader spectrum of responders who might be better representative of the general population of the country.However, students who are still in the formative years of their lives might be considered to be the future leaders of a country and, therefore, their responses might be predictive of cultural changes within a country. Longitudinal research should be conducted to determine whether there is any value to this possibility.Given this information, a theoretical framework should be constructed that might be used to position contrasting countries in order of their priorities. As a start to this, qualitative information needs to be obtained from both males and females within each individual culture in order to understand the different factors that are taken into consideration when evaluating the fairness of price increases. These factors might be economic, cultural or both.Research also needs to be directed toward understanding the deleterious impact of consumers' negative responses to a price increase on the offending businesses. For example, how likely are consumers to boycott the businesses or to engage in other negative activities? Marketers who are aware of the potential impact of rising prices on the economics of their businesses might be reluctant to initiate a price increase that might be perceived as unfair. Information could be found that might give them insights when introducing such a price increase so as to soften any negative impact on their operations.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The research questions are whether there is a difference in how men and women respond to unfair prices and, if so, whether this gender difference extends across national cultures. Is the difference due to nature or to nurture? This paper aims to answer these questions.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The study uses scenarios to conduct a survey-based analysis of the effects of gender and country on responses to personally and socially unfair prices.\nFindings: - The results indicate that the response to price unfairness is due more to nurture than to nature. Although American females tend to be more sensitive than men to price unfairness, there is little or no difference between men and women in Germany and South Korea: both sexes there react negatively to an unfair price, particularly when the seller has acted unjustly.\nPractical implications: - In the USA, the gender difference in response to unfair prices suggests that different pricing tactics should be used for men than for women. However, since males in South Korea and Germany are just as sensitive as females to unfair prices, pricing tactics acceptable to American men may not work in other countries.\nOriginality/value: - This paper takes a look at the manner in which a price increase for a frequently purchased but essential product is viewed as unfair. The paper examines the issue in three contrasting countries - Germany, South Korea and the USA - to determine if any observed differences are universal or culture-specific.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
A survey on VV&A of large-scale simulations
|
[
"Large-scale simulation",
"Crowd network simulations",
"VV&A",
"Credibility"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Due to rapid advancements in computer hardware and software development techniques, simulation technology is widely used in numerous application domains that include national defense, geology (Miller, 1981), human anatomy and biology (Snyder et al., 1968; Andrews and Graef, 1970), electronics (Shichman and Hodges, 2003), military (Kheir and Holmes, 1978) and railway systems (Goodman et al., 1987). It has also succeeded to achieve worldwide attention over the past several years due to its multiple features that include cost-efficiency, elimination of prototyping, better risk assessment, increased speed and optimized accuracy. Early concepts and theories of simulations and their applications are first introduced in previous works (Evans et al., 1967; A, 1967; Martin, 1968; McLeod, 1968; Rothenberg, 1989). According to Rothenberg (1989), simulation can broadly be defined as a behavioral or phenomenological approach to modeling: This means, it is an active and behavioral analog of its referent. Since the end of the twentieth century, to deal with simulation objects' complexities and improving user's requirements in the simulation application domains, it has entered into a new stage of large-scale simulations. This also brings new challenges to the credibility of evaluation due to the underlying characteristics of large-scale simulations that include multiple levels, multiple structures, multiple relationships, multiple models and large scale (Zhang et al., 2012).\n2. The research on VV&A theory of simulations: Since the inception of modeling and simulations (M&S), the concept of VV&A in simulation models has been defined using life cycle simulations and model development processes (Borko, 1962).\n3. The research and establishment on VV&A standards of large-scale simulations: Does the establishment of VV&A standards of a large-scale simulation in the life cycle guide the work effectively and orderly? To answer this question, we can observe the following VV&A standards and specifications.\n4. The research on VV&A framework of large-scale simulations: Heritage techniques for VV&A (Sargent, 2005) cannot easily be transferred for simulations. It needs time and efforts (Terano, 2007; Klugl, 2008; Niazi et al., 2009; Pengfei et al., 2011; Railsback and Grimm, 2011), but these studies do not directly deal with the model verifying process. Validation techniques and their guidelines are addressed in most of the modeling textbooks and have even been instantiated in the form of a validation process for general agent-based models (Law, 2007; Klugl, 2009). However, such techniques are still too general to provide a concrete, practical methodology for the key validation step. At the same time, agent-based modeling and simulation (ABMS) is an important branch of large-scale simulations (Li and Sun, 2007). It involves multiple agent co-simulations and has diverted researchers' attention during the past decades. Furthermore, the weak validation and verification of agent-based simulation models make ABMS hard to trust. Each of these agent-based models needs to be validated separately, but how to validate the overall simulation of these combined models remains an unanswered question. It is generally well accepted that it is difficult to validate large-scale simulations sufficiently then to trust their results (Sargent et al., 2000). In many cases, the cost of trying to achieve complete validation is neither practical nor worthwhile (Shannon, 1975). In fact, it has been shown in previous research studies (Weisel et al., 2003; Weisel, 2004) that separately validated models can produce invalid outputs when combined. As per above discussion, it can be concluded that a VV&A simulation verification framework is needed to solve how to verify the simulations.\n5. The research on VV&A technology and method of large-scale simulations: In every step of VV&A activities, proper VV&A methods and techniques should be selected and used as the specific operation methods. Therefore, it is extremely important and necessary to expand the research on VV&A methods and techniques of large-scale simulations.\n6. The development of VV&A validation tools of large-scale simulations: VV&A is of great significance in the simulations. In the actual VV&A activities, it is difficult to implement the complete VV&A principles due to the systematic engineering, which requires a sound program design, effective organization, efficient management, a large number of testing and data processing work (Mazhen et al., 2016). Furthermore, comparing with simple simulations, most of the difficulties that can be found during the assessment of the credibility of large-scale simulations are mainly manifested in the following aspects (Chens et al., 2001):\n7. Summary: VV&A is the most important method to assess the credibility of the simulation system. This paper presents a review of 114 papers on VV&A research of simulation and elaborates the application of VV&A in the simulation system by reviewing VV&A concept, VV&A standard, VV&A framework, VV&A technology, methods, VV&A tool, etc. The primary motivation is to present an in-depth theoretical review and analysis for the application of VV&A in large-scale simulations. We focused on the related research of VV&A in large-scale simulation; the standards of VV&A have defined the processes and procedures. The framework which facilitates the full application of techniques and methods to simulation. Moreover, we also examined the tools that can improve automation level and operation efficiency of VV&A in simulations.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Simulation is a well-known technique for using computers to imitate or simulate the operations of various kinds of real-world facilities or processes. The facility or process of interest is usually called a system, and to study it scientifically, we often have to make a set of assumptions about how it works. These assumptions, which usually take the form of mathematical or logical relationships, constitute a model that is used to gain some understanding of how the corresponding system behaves, and the quality of these understandings essentially depends on the credibility of given assumptions or models, known as VV&A (verification, validation and accreditation). The main purpose of this paper is to present an in-depth theoretical review and analysis for the application of VV&A in large-scale simulations.\nDesign/methodology/approach: After summarizing the VV&A of related research studies, the standards, frameworks, techniques, methods and tools have been discussed according to the characteristics of large-scale simulations (such as crowd network simulations).\nFindings: The contributions of this paper will be useful for both academics and practitioners for formulating VV&A in large-scale simulations (such as crowd network simulations).\nOriginality/value: This paper will help researchers to provide support of a recommendation for formulating VV&A in large-scale simulations (such as crowd network simulations).\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Better systems, better people? Changing behaviors of employees
|
[
"Motivation",
"Communication",
"Knowledge sharing",
"Business process management",
"Employee behavior"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nReview: In recent years, one of the trends that has been observed in human relations research and practice is that the term \"human relations\" has become, well, a little old hat. There are numerous examples of companies changing the names of their departments to something else, such as \"people,\" to make the teams sound more relevant and employee-focused. Indeed, much academic research has also followed this trend and - this journal not withstanding - have sought to become less mechanical about the nature of what is covered, and increase the psychological aspects of what is being studied.\nAt the heart of the business: Understanding how people react to business process change is at the heart of the study \"Exploring the relationship between business process improvement and employees\" behavior' by Bakotic and Krnic (2017). In their research, the authors seek to open the \"black box\" of the act of improving business processes itself, rather than what has to be done to implement it beforehand and afterwards.\nThe human element: The way to understand if any business process change has been successful or not, is to measure the supposed benefits above in terms of overall efficiency and effectiveness. Human resources will be involved here in the crucial aspect of whether employee motivation has improved or not before, during, and after any change. The question of buy-in is central to this - if employees do not understand or agree with any business process changes, then the purported benefits of those changes can easily be wasted.\nAgile or not?: To test how employees best go through business process change, two teams in a software company were observed as one implemented a project through the more traditional waterfall method, and the other adopted an agile (or \"Kanban\") process. The time taken to implement changes and the employees' behavior were recorded and compared with some fascinating results.\nAm I bothered?: Moving on to the motivational aspect of the changes that were made, then again in every case, employee motivation was measured as higher with the more effective Kanban method than the waterfall method, suggesting that being more productive does indeed enhance employee motivation, either through overall enhancement of processes or through a more effective change than another alternative.\nImplementation: In addition to a pure comparison of how project implementation can be improved through the adoption of Kanban methodology, what is also important about the study from Bakotic and Krnic is that employee motivation is not only greater working with the more successful method, but that it is higher overall. This shows that employees will buy-in to business process changes, as long as communication and knowledge-sharing improvements complement a more effective way of working.\nComment: The article \"Exploring the relationship between business process improvement and employees\" behavior' by Bakotic and Krnic (2017) is as clear an academic article you could wish for in terms of explaining the benefits of implementing something and how it can be achieved. It is also very successful in explaining the benefits of agile project management against traditional waterfall methods, even though this is not the main thrust of the article. This is a must-read for HR managers and business change practitioners alike.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.\nFindings: In recent years, one of the trends that has been observed in human relations research and practice is that the term \"human relations\" has become, well, a little old hat. There are numerous examples of companies changing the names of their departments to something else, such as \"people,\" to make the teams sound more relevant and employee-focused. Indeed, much academic research has also followed this trend and - this journal not withstanding - have sought to become less mechanical about the nature of what is covered, and increase the psychological aspects of what is being studied.\nPractical implications: The paper provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world's leading organizations.\nOriginality/value: The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent, information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Human capital in the eco-innovative firms: a case study of eco-innovation projects
|
[
"Corporate entrepreneurship",
"Human capital",
"Eco-innovation",
"QCA"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: It is generally accepted that business competitiveness in the long term goes through a compromise between productivity and resource consumption which maximize efficiency \"doing more with less.\" Herein lays the special interest that eco-innovation represents for the environmental sustainability in business. In this context, we cannot forget the role of human capital (HC) in the interrelated processes for eco-innovation. HC is generally considered an essential part of innovation (OECD, 2011). Yet, the characteristics of the HC involved in this process have to be analyzed and optimized.\nResearch design: This study uses data collected through an intensive campaign[1] launched within a collaborative public/private framework to promote eco-innovation among companies, including SMEs (Llera-Sastresa et al., 2013). In the framework of the campaign, more than 50 eco-innovative projects were disseminated and analyzed (Scarpellini et al., 2016). Among those projects, eight case studies were selected to specifically analyze the HC for eco-innovation, thanks to the availability of data and the proactivity of firms to collaborate with the study (Table I). The time frame of the field work was the year 2014.\nFindings: The QCA conducted with the eight case samples brings in the main results in terms of necessary conditions (those which have to be present to make possible the eco-innovation practice), and sufficient conditions (those which permit to forecast the presence of eco-innovation practice).\nConclusions: The full integration of environmental concerns within the internal capabilities and firm's own assets is far from being reached, even in advanced and competitive industrial regions. Nevertheless, the environmental concerns are strategically considered by firms far more than in the past. Consequently, the role of HR in the environmental performance improvement must be explored and organized for the development of eco-innovations.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explain the influence of human capital (HC) on the organizations in terms of eco-innovative entrepreneurship, and the existing relations of these resources with economic and financial resources as well as other capabilities of the firms. A secondary challenge in the research is to define and measure the availability of HC in firms for those eco-innovative processes.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The targeted population for the study was eight eco-innovative companies in Spain. Within each company, a detailed CEO questionnaire was collected to measure HR information, certification or the existence of internal initiatives to promote eco/innovation, and secondary source records to measure economic and financial performance. This data collection strategy eliminated the possibility of percept-percept bias, since the data for each stage of the model were collected from different sources. The database has been analyzed through a qualitative comparative analysis (QCA).\nFindings: The main conclusion from the QCA analysis indicates that the role of the specialized HC involved in the R&D and innovation activities, the environmental management of firms and the resources (energy) management are relevant factors in the eco-innovative process and they have to be specifically managed for the development of eco-innovations. The qualitative analysis shows that firms that devoted specialized HC to the eco-innovation activities are companies at least ten years old, which have R&D and innovation departments as well as a specific department for the environmental management. They have been certified through some environmental certification standards, have human resources devoted to the product design, promote entrepreneurship for innovation among their own employees and also have higher than the sector average rates of leverage.\nResearch limitations/implications: The main limitation of this paper is linked to the number of analyzed study cases, although all of them are sufficiently representative. Nevertheless, given that the empirical research addressing the interrelated factors of eco-innovation and HC is still not abundant, this study provides an interesting starting point for discussion and the improvement of the qualitative method applied in this paper. Moreover, further research is still needed to fully elucidate how the corporate entrepreneurship is promoted to respond to the eco-innovation strategy of firms, as well as to deeply explore the characteristics of the intellectual capital concerned to the eco-innovation processes.\nOriginality/value: As a novel application, the influence of HC in organizations in terms of eco-innovative entrepreneurship has been analyzed through the measurement of the level of HC specifically devoted to eco-innovation in eight eco-innovative companies. One of the contributions of this study is to define the variables to measure the HC that is available for eco-innovation in an eco-innovative firm. The main conclusions are of interest to practitioners concerning the eco-innovation development in firms.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Factors instead of demographic characteristics related to nutrition label use
|
[
"Ethics",
"Nutrition labelling",
"Knowledge management",
"Health"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Due to increasing demand for a healthy lifestyle, people now pay more attention to their health and nutrition intake, and nutrition labels are used to inform the consumer and help sell food products (Cheftel, 2005). Satia et al. (2005) maintained that nutrition labels on packaged foods help consumers to improve food choices and healthy eating practices. Labelling statements on food products can make consumers better informed and more health conscious (Tarasuk, 2006). Nutrition labels can simplify the whole concept of healthy eating and are useful for making better food choices (Grunert et al., 2010). Hence, nutrition labelling should be a critical reference for consumer selection of foods (Lai, 2012), and nutrition label usage is an important intermediate step in evaluating the effects of nutrition labels on purchase behaviour and actual consumption (Hieke and Taylor, 2012).\nLiterature review and hypotheses: Health consciousness and nutrition label attitude\nResearch methodology: Research framework\nData analysis and results: Reliability and validity\nDiscussion: Overall, empirical findings have indicated that health consciousness, self-efficacy, and nutrition knowledge have different influences on nutrition label use (Chiang, 2008; Kempen, 2012; Michaelidou and Hassan, 2008). This study investigated the relationships of health consciousness, self-efficacy, label attitude and label use and also focused on examining the moderating effect of nutrition knowledge between health consciousness and nutrition label attitude and the impact of ethical evaluation on label use. This study develops insights into nutrition labelling and provides evidence that health consciousness and self-efficacy affect both nutrition label attitudes and the impact of the consumer's nutrition label attitude on label use. Furthermore, our findings underscore the role of subjective and objective nutrition knowledge as a moderating factor and confirm that ethical evaluation also influences label use. Our research also contributes to existing theories on nutrition labelling and knowledge management.\nConclusion and managerial implications: Nutrition labelling is the foundation of conveying food content and information, as well as a basis on which consumers can adjust their dietary intake. Our research findings reveal that the consumer's nutrition label attitude is positively affected by nutritional self-efficacy and health consciousness. Mai and Hoffmann (2012) identified two groups of consumers based on level of health consciousness (taste lovers and nutrition fact seekers). Thus, the government health department should encourage the general public to address their own health and enhance health consciousness to improve their attitude towards nutrition labelling and should emphasize health promotion and advocate the use of labelling to reduce heavy spending on chronic disease. Food marketers and manufacturers can tailor the nutrition label content to develop a healthy food market for health-conscious people, thereby targeting different market segments.\nResearch limitations and directions for future research: Although this study is the first of its kind to indicate that nutrition label knowledge moderates the relationship between consumers' health consciousness and nutrition label attitude and to confirm the relationship between ethical evaluation and nutrition label use, there are important limitations to address. First, most of the samples in this study are young groups familiar with the internet. Older groups and individuals who seldom use computers or the internet are not included in our sample; thus, these results may not generalize to older people. Particularly in an ageing society, older people may more strongly emphasize the importance of nutrition label use. Second, in our study, we explore the moderating effect of nutrition knowledge between health consciousness and nutrition label attitude. However, Chang and Lin (2006) found a positive correlation between dietary knowledge and dietary self-efficacy. Future research can address the moderating effect of nutrition knowledge between dietary self-efficacy and nutrition label attitude. Third, Ye et al. (2015) demonstrated that the relationship between consumer attitudes towards the disclosure of nutrition information and their subsequent evaluation of the food provider is impacted by corporate social responsibility (CSR)-related initiatives. We suggest that, based on business ethics, researchers can explore the relationship between CSR and nutrition label use in future work.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine how health consciousness and nutrition self-efficacy influence attitudes towards and use of nutrition labels, the moderating effect of nutrition knowledge between health consciousness and nutrition label attitude, and the impact of the consumer's ethical evaluation of a business on nutrition label use.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study proposes an integrative model that includes health consciousness, nutrition self-efficacy, nutrition knowledge, nutrition label attitude, ethical evaluation, and nutrition label use. Empirical data were collected from a famous website in Taiwan by a non-ordered questionnaire to decrease the priming effect, and 306 valid questionnaires were collected. The collected data were analysed using SPSS and AMOS software.\nFindings: The results show that both health consciousness and nutrition self-efficacy have direct effects on nutrition label attitude, and this attitude will influence label use. There is a moderating effect of nutrition knowledge, in terms of both subjective and objective nutrition label knowledge, between health consciousness and nutrition label attitude. However, the moderating effect in the low nutrition label knowledge group is slightly greater than in the high nutrition label knowledge group. The consumer's ethical evaluation of businesses affects nutrition label use.\nOriginality/value: This study is the first to indicate that nutrition label knowledge, both subjective and objective, will moderate the relationship between consumers' health consciousness and their attitude towards nutrition labels. Furthermore, this study affirms the relationship between the consumer's ethical evaluation of a firm and nutrition label use.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
A framework for disruptive innovation
|
[
"Innovation",
"Product innovation",
"Disruptive innovation",
"Innovation management",
"Innovation framework",
"Product design and development"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Innovation can be regarded as the single most important factor allowing firms to gain competitive advantage and grow economically. Ideas that are realized to increase productivity, profit, market share or cost reduction are called innovations (Garcia and Calantone, 2002). In a business context, two types of innovation occur, i.e. process innovation and product innovation (Neely et al., 2001). Process innovation can be described as implementation of new or improved systems to transform inputs into outputs during production and distribution and achieve higher quality and lower cost (Buggie, 2001; Neely et al., 2001; Reichstein and Salter, 2006). Product innovation, on the other hand, refers to designing, development and market launch of a new or improved product/service to satisfy external users (customers) (Neely et al., 2001; Langley et al., 2005; Alegre and Chiva, 2008; Jusoh and Parnell, 2008). These types of innovation are not mutually exclusive; one type of innovation sometimes acts as a platform for other type (Neely et al., 2001). This study mainly focuses on product innovation (tangible and intangible) and activities related to it. Despite the efforts, time and resources consumed during the innovation process, the majority of \"innovations\" are only marginally or not at all successful (Cagan and Vogel, 2002; Diederiks and Hoonhout, 2007; Basole and Rouse, 2008). To assist firms in this expensive and critical process, academia has developed several innovation models, including architectural and modular innovation (Magnusson et al., 2003), incremental and radical innovation (Norman and Verganti, 2012), discontinuous innovation (Veryzer, 1998), technological innovation (Teece, 1986), jugaad innovation (Radjou et al., 2012) and others.\n2. Identifying disruptive innovation: There is an ongoing debate in the literature that emphasizes the need to define disruptive innovation. This study argues that without properly defining disruptive innovation, it is not possible to advance the theory and understand which innovations can be classified as disruptive (Danneels, 2004; Nagy et al., 2016). Several researchers have attempted to define and identify the features of disruptive innovations; unfortunately, most of the tools and frameworks developed to understand and examine disruptive innovations are ex post, examining the potential and effect of developed disruptive products after their launch (Christensen et al., 2002; Anthony et al., 2008; Hang et al., 2011), but failing to provide guidelines on how to identify the disruptive potential of a product at the development stage. Even the ex ante tools that have been developed (Christensen et al.,2002; Govindarajan and Kopalle, 2006b; Schmidt and Druehl, 2008; Keller and Husig, 2009; Hang et al., 2011; Dos Santos Paulino and Le Hir, 2016) are unable to predict the disruptive potential of the innovation during product development. These require initial response data from customers and competitors to predict future disruption potential. These tools use special characteristics of disruptive innovations that are not generally found in sustaining innovations to identify the disruptive potential of new innovations.\n3. Proposed framework: For past two decades, disruptive innovation has been a buzzword in the innovation community; the literature and practice of its theory have grown not only many-fold but also in many directions (Christensen et al., 2015). This breadth of literature has answered a wide variety of questions concerning the theory, including presenting the improved definition of the theory (Danneels, 2004; Govindarajan and Kopalle, 2006b), proposing ways to mitigate or delay disruption (Christensen et al., 2002; Schmidt and Druehl, 2008; Hang et al., 2011), or identify disruptive products at initial stage of market introduction (Christensen et al., 2002; Govindarajan and Kopalle, 2006b; Keller and Husig, 2009; Dijk et al., 2016; Nagy et al., 2016). Conservative applications of the theory limited to explaining the past have limited its wider use. Some authors have made calls to use the theory to propose prospects of future (Assink, 2006; Hang et al., 2011). Recent studies have used it to predict the disruptive future of newly introduced innovations (Christensen et al., 2002; Govindarajan and Kopalle, 2006b; Schmidt and Druehl, 2008; Keller and Husig, 2009; Hang et al., 2011; Dos Santos Paulino and Le Hir, 2016), but to the best of our knowledge, there has not been any study that has encouraged firms (incumbent or market entrant) to use the theory to develop their own disruptive offerings.\n4. Application example: Disruptive innovations take years to disrupt the market, and majority of these disruptive innovations are initially considered market failures. Therefore, little or no attention is paid to them until they have overtaken a large share of incumbents (Christensen and Raynor, 2003; Heiskanen et al., 2007; Hang, Chen and Yu, 2011; Denning, 2016). To understand how disruptive innovations are created and overtake bigger and more sophisticated competitors, a longitudinal study is required.\n5. Conclusion: This paper started by noting that innovation is necessary for the survival of organizations, and that with advances in technologies and low entry barriers for new entrants, incumbent firms are living under constant fear of disruption. Because of the overwhelming changes that disruption can bring to the market, the theory of disruption has garnered much attention from scholars and practitioners alike. But much of this attention has focused on mitigating or delaying disruption for incumbents, with little or no attention paid to the disruptor itself. This study approaches the theory of disruption from a different perspective. It proposes a practical framework to assist firms in developing disruptive innovations of their own instead of waiting and facing the dilemma of whether to act against new innovations or ignore them. This framework requires a holistic approach and market overview, not just competitor-specific information, to innovate products with disruptive potential. The current debate regarding the identification of disruptive innovations has been explored, and a scale for disruptive potential proposed. This scale can also be applied to identify the disruptive potential of innovations being introduced to the market by competitors. The developed framework is demonstrated using a historical case study of the Nintendo Wii; this demonstration shows that Nintendo could have planned its disruptive product using the proposed framework.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Disruptive innovations have the potential to fundamentally change how businesses operate. This study aims to propose a five-step framework to help firms develop disruptive innovations and to offer a scale for evaluating their disruptive potential. This scale can also be applied to identify the disruptive potential of innovations introduced to the market by competitors.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The framework was designed on the basis of criteria chosen to identify the disruptive potential of innovations at early stages of development based on a theoretical understanding of disruptive innovation, its challenges and holistic consideration of innovation as a dynamic process. It consists of steps that could serve as a reference model during the process of developing innovations with disruptive potential. A case study is discussed in detail to demonstrate the applicability of the framework.\nFindings: A simple yet comprehensive assessment framework for disruptive innovation has been developed, which can help develop innovations with disruptive potential in existing settings of incumbent firm. A case study of the Wii demonstrates that Nintendo could have planned its disruptive product using the proposed framework.\nOriginality/value: Most research works in this area have focused on difficulties experienced by firms facing disruption and failed to highlight its opportunities; this study argues that firms can intentionally create disruptive innovations. The results of this study offer firms a tool that facilitates a proactive approach, helping develop new disruptive innovations and identify those from competitors.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Sealed computation: a mechanism to support privacy-aware trustworthy cloud service
|
[
"Data privacy",
"Auditor",
"Cloud service",
"Privacy by design",
"Sealed computation",
"Trustworthy cloud requirements"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Cloud computing has become widespread because it allows for supplying and utilizing computation resources in an on-demand fashion. This reduces cost, increases flexibility and improves infrastructure scalability (Mell and Grance, 2009). Cloud computing is increasingly being adapted for several kinds of services, including services provided by networks of small devices, commonly referred to as the Internet of Things (IoT). IoT Cloud (Alam et al., 2010) or \"Cloud of Things\" (CoT) (Aazam et al., 2014) provides resources, such as storage, analytics tools and shared configurable computing resources, to reduce the cost and complexity associated with the IoT systems.\n2. Related work: Privacy is a major factor in trusting data and computation outsourcing such as in a cloud-based applications (Pearson, 2013; Takabi et al., 2010). Hence, trust establishment has been discussed in the context of cloud from different perspectives in the literature. We distinguish them into technical and non-technical approaches. Georgiopoulou and Lambrinoudakis (2016) reviewed a number of trust models for cloud computing, trying to provide a gap analysis in the literature. However, the review considered only a very limited set of models. Pavlidis et al. (2014) studied the trust from requirements engineering perspective and suggested a methodology that enables developers to represent and reason about trust relationships in the system. Moreover, a framework that, in addition to the security and privacy requirements criteria, enables the analysis of trust assumptions by identifying direct and indirect trust relationships was proposed by Pavlidis et al. (2013). Supported by a CASE tool, the framework allows calculating a score for each cloud provider based on the analyzed trust relationship, which is defined as \"a relationship that exists between the trustor and the trustee and resolves a dependency based on trust.\" Then, the cloud provider with the highest score is selected.\n3. Sealed computation: While data at rest can typically be protected by encryption, data are commonly unprotected during processing against attackers that have physical access to the execution environment. We now introduce the abstraction of sealed computation that describes a well-defined level of protection against such attackers. Intuitively, this is done by encapsulating the software execution within a physical piece of hardware. We introduce the definition of sealed computation using abstract roles to keep it general. Later, these roles are mapped to the parties of cloud computing (see Section 4) where we utilize the notion of sealed computation to maintain the integrity and confidentiality requirements of the system.\n4. System and attacker model: We now describe the system and attacker model in more detail.\n5. Combining sealed computation with an auditor: One application of sealed computation in cloud computing would be for the CP to offer a mechanism to its \"clients,\" DP and ASP, to run applications in a sealed container. In this case, SCP and CP would be the same party. However, note that utilizing sealed computation alone is not sufficient to ensure the participants' security and privacy requirements because:\n6. Security analysis and discussion: 6.1 Preliminary observation\n7. Conclusions and future work: We introduced the sealed computation concept definition and proposed a mutual checking procedure with an auditor role during setup time to provide an increased level of security and trust in cloud scenarios. The sealed computation concept abstracts from trusted hardware technologies such as HSMs. The auditor is an abstraction of policies and procedures that increase trust in a single party.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study is to propose an approach to avoid having to trust a single entity in cloud-based applications. In cloud computing, data processing is delegated to a remote party for efficiency and flexibility reasons. A practical user requirement usually is data privacy; hence, the confidentiality and integrity of data processing needs to be protected. In the common scenarios of cloud computing today, this can only be achieved by assuming that the remote party does not in any form act maliciously.\nDesign/methodology/approach: An approach that avoids having to trust a single entity is proposed. This approach is based on two concepts: the technical abstraction of sealed computation, i.e. a technical mechanism to confine a privacy-aware processing of data within a tamper-proof hardware container, and the role of an auditing party that itself cannot add functionality to the system but is able to check whether the system (including the mechanism for sealed computation) works as expected.\nFindings: Discussion and analysis of the abstract, technical and procedural requirements of these concepts and how they can be applied in practice are explained.\nOriginality/value: A preliminary version of this paper was published in the proceedings of the second International Workshop on SECurity and Privacy Requirements Engineering (SECPRE, 2018).\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Inhalation and dermal exposure to toluene among printing workers in a plastic bag factory
|
[
"Dermal",
"Toluene",
"Printing",
"Charcoal cloth pad",
"Urinary toluene"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Toluene is an aromatic hydrocarbon compound widely used as a solvent in paint, lacquer and thinner, and as a cleaning and dying agent in many industries including printing. A serious health concern of toluene is its effect on the central nervous system which can be temporary, such as headaches, dizziness or unconsciousness. However, effects such as poor coordination, cognitive impairment and vision and hearing loss may become permanent with repeated exposure[1]. The major chemical routes of entry in occupational settings are inhalation and dermal exposure. \"Skin notation\" (S or Sk or H) indicates that these substances are capable of penetrating the skin in a significant quantity to cause health effects. However, the \"S\" assigned to some certain chemicals differs among countries and organizations[2]. The permeability coefficient (Kp) was proposed as a criterion for skin notation in occupational settings[3]. However, most Kp values obtained from prediction use physicochemical data of the chemicals and some from in vivo and/or in vitro experiments; thus, they varied from source to source, e.g. Kp of toluene=0.5375 cm/h[4]; 0.031 cm/h[5] and 0.000079 cm/h[6] An experiment and field study was conducted to assess skin absorption ability of toluene among printing workers[7]. For the field study, no association was found between dermal contact and biomarkers, i.e. hippuric acid and urinary toluene (UTol). However, the experiment involving volunteers who washed their hands with toluene could detect toluene in exhaled air after approximately 30 min of washing. This demonstrated the skin absorption ability of toluene.\nMethods and materials: Factory and subject\nResults: Inhalation exposure (Table IV) the TWA concentration for all workers over nine days range between 4.34 to 509.36 mg/m3 and the mean (SD) was 164.21(+-118.13) mg/m3, which exceeded the TLV of 75 mg/m3. Among these, 46 of 65 TWAs exceeded the TLV. Whereas, the urinary toluene (UTol), an indicator of toluene uptake, of the workers varied by person and by workload on each day, the mean (SD) of the UTol was 13.42 (9.72) ug/L and the range was 2.12-48.5 ug/L. Among these, only three urine samples contained toluene exceeding the BEI of 30 mg/L, and 26 samples exceeded the 50 percent BEI.\nDiscussion and conclusion: Because the BEI of toluene is based on a direct correlation with the TLV, the concentration of urinary toluene of 0.03 mg/L could be expected when the TWA concentration was at TLV. However, the TWA concentration of toluene in this study was higher compared with urinary toluene, i.e. the average of TWA was higher than TLV while that of urinary toluene was well below the BEI. The TWA concentration obtained from the area samples was likely overestimated. When the workers refused to carry air sampling equipment, stationary sampling was selected confidently because the workers spent most of their working time around the machine. Thus, according to our observation, the equipment was attached to the machine at the workers' seated breathing zone to best represent the workers' inhalation, though located close to the paint tray. Based on the results, the size of the room and good general ventilation in the workplace could have more impact on the exposure concentration of the workers than the location of the workers[20] (see Plate 1 and Figure 1). One foot away from the breathing zone at the sitting level, the toluene concentration at the workers' standing breathing zone could be significantly lower. Nevertheless, due to the urinary toluene, 3 and 26 of 65 urine samples contained toluene above the BEI and 50 percent BEI, respectively. At this level of exposure, workers should wear respirators as a minimum safety precaution.\nLimitations of the study: There are two limitations to this study. First, as the study protocol approved by the Ethics Review Committee had to be followed strictly, the study relied on the cooperation of the participants. The workers normally do not wear respirators and did not cooperate with the request to do so during the study. Therefore, the urinary toluene from inhalation was estimated from the best previous study[11] to obtain the urinary toluene from the dermal absorption. Thus, the results may have deviated from the true values.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore inhalation levels and dermal exposure to toluene among printing workers who wore no personal protective equipment; it is conducted in a plastic bag factory. Using a charcoal cloth pad (CCP) as a dermal sampler to assess skin permeation of liquid toluene is also investigated.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In total, 27 stationary air samples as well as urine and dermal samples were collected over 9 days from 11 printing workers. Six pieces of CCP were wrapped on each of the workers' fingers for the dermal sample collection. Air samples were collected and analyzed according to NIOSH No. 1501, and 65 post-shift urine samples were collected and analyzed using gas chromatography equipped with headspace sampler (GC-HS/FID). Multiple linear regression was employed to analyze the association between the studied variables.\nFindings: The mean (SD) urinary toluene (UTol) level was 13.42 (9.72) ug/L. Toluene on the CCP (TolCCP) was a meaningful predictor for UTol (p-value=0.027) with r and r2 values of 0.441 and 0.195, respectively. The r and r2 of the model using the toluene time-weighted average concentrations in air were 0.739 and 0.546, respectively. The absorbed dose of toluene determined from the TolCCP ranged from 1.05 to 91.94 mg, accounting for 12.3 percent of the threshold limit value (TLV).\nOriginality/value: Dermal exposure was insignificant when workers wore respirators, but when not, dermal absorption could contribute to the overall uptake and exposure above the TLV. Appropriate gloves should be assigned to the workers to reduce dermal exposure to toluene.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Geographical indications, implementation and traceability: Gemlik table olives
|
[
"Turkey",
"Traceability",
"Gemlik olives",
"Geographical indication",
"Label",
"QR"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Food is not a source of life alone, but a social symbol with disparate social gatherings and rituals during processing, transportation, storage, and consumption (Besirli, 2010). Over the past few decades, multinational companies began to gain more market share, with rapid growth in global trade and regional borders disappearing. With the disappearance of national borders, local and regional entities, and their characteristics, are of growing importance (Ittersum, 2002). Agrifood systems have experienced significant shifts towards market differentiation and product proliferation in many parts of the world (Bramley et al., 2009). These changes resulted in growing production, varying quality, and losses in regional tastes and production methods. A new generation experienced fast food instead of traditional, and probably more nutrient, foods. A popular image of the effects of trade on culture is the proliferation of \"McWorld\", in which globally standardized products of mass culture through international free trade threaten to stifle national and local cultures and traditions embodied in cultural goods and services (Broude, 2005a). This trend stimulates both local and regional demand, especially among middle-aged and older consumers. Although young people generally prefer global brands, middle-aged and older consumers prefer local ones (Steenkamp and De Jong, 2010; Nijssen and Douglas, 2011; Bosworth et al., 2015). However, growing demand and attention on the qualities of agrifood products are the result of a range factors, including increased awareness of food safety, sociocultural statuses of consumption of certain foods, and renewed interest in and nostalgia for culinary heritage (Bramley et al., 2009). Trade blocks and global trade agreements influenced trade and competition, and under strict competition, marketing strategies and consumer choices became more important. Product differentiation is one of the most essential forms of competition, and one such strategy is to identify geographic regions. The strategy of marketing products based on region of origin is especially suited to products produced under particular conditions and by unique handicraft. Production characteristics give regional products exclusive features that can be capitalized on in the market (Ittersum, 2002). Increasing effects of free trade push governments and producers to protect national and/or regional products using geographical indications (GIs), or trademark licensing. The challenges of Basmati rice, Darjeeling Tea, Champagne, Parma Ham, Feta Cheese, Sidamo, Yirgacheffe Coffee, Cafe de Colombia, and Cognac are typical examples (Broude, 2005b; Das, 2006; Marie-Vivien, 2008; Jena and Grote, 2010; Gervais, 2013; Marie-Vivien et al., 2014; WIPO, 2014b).\n2. GIs in Turkey: Intellectual property rights have a long history in Turkey, applied since the Ottoman Empire. The first legal arrangements appeared in 1871 regarding trademark law, and in 1879 for patent law. More than 100 historical records concerning trademarks and patents are stored in state archives (i.e. the Ottoman Empire Archives) (T.C. Basbakanlik Devlet Arsivleri Genel Mudurlugu, 2015). The Turkish Republic became a member of the Paris Convention in 1925, and trademark law came into force in 1965. Turkey enacted its legal framework for the protection of GIs in 1995 through Decree-Law No. 555 and Implementing Regulations under Decree-Law No. 555 Pertaining to the Protection of Geographical Signs. Both came into force the same year. The Turkish Patent Institute (TPI) administers GI registration and control. Turkey has been a member of WIPO since 1976 (TPE, 2014a; WIPO, 2014c).\n3. Background: The Gemlik table olive is a popular black table olive in Turkey. Olea europaea L. cv. Gemlik is a variety from the Gemlik Gulf of North-western Turkey. They are small- to medium-sized black olives, with high oil content and processed most commonly in brine. The industry faced unfair competition in the last few decades, due primarily to reputation and consumer tastes. Gemlik cultivar spread across Turkey, and many provinces began growing and processing Gemlik table olives, but products produced in other regions began to sell under the same name. It was registered as PDO in 2003, and the right holder is Gemlik Commodity Exchange (GTB), a non-governmental organization. However, GTB could not benefit from its GI because there was very limited knowledge about GIs, and there are neither control mechanisms nor logos/insignia regarding GIs. First attempts at implementing GIs began in 2010 by a new management team at GTB and an academician from Uludag University. Bursa - Eskisehir - Bilecik Development Agency (BEBKA) supported GTB's efforts financially from 2013 to 2014.\n4. Implementation of GIs in domestic markets - Gemlik table olives: Implementation and control of GIs begin with registration (Figure 2). The most critical part of the registration preparation stage is determination of discriminative attributes, which is difficult to determine for agricultural and food products since many factors influence a product, and it is difficult to identify which factors (e.g. climate and soil) affect the taste or other properties of a product. Typicity is acknowledged through tradition and experience, but laboratory analysis might be required to identify a profile and prove authenticity and adulteration (Reviron et al., 2009). If discriminative factors cannot be identified clearly, it is very difficult to submit evidence or proof regarding the originality of a product during a GI lawsuit. Each food or agricultural product has discriminative features, though it is difficult to demonstrate them. Technological and laboratory findings are often limited regarding identifying discriminative features in developing countries, and some applicants do not pay enough attention to finding such features. Another aspect of registration concerns determination of geographical limits of a territory. Incorrect and/or incomplete identification of a territory might exclude some producers and/or processors from the geographical limits, and therefore benefits, of a GI. In the case of Gemlik olives, one important district lied outside of the GI's geographical limits. The area cannot include these borders because current legal arrangements do not allow changes after registration is completed.\n5. Conclusion: The need to establish a Gemlik olive control system was borne from two necessities. First, there existed no common logo developed by the state that allowed distinguishing GI products from non-GI products. Second, registered products could be traded freely without control, whether procured within geographical limits. In the latter case, there were no differences between registered products and others. GI registration does not create value or offer advantages without a logo and control of it. Generally, consumers are less informed than producers are about the quality of agricultural goods, and they might never be able to assess quality. To reduce this information gap, consumers rely on standards (e.g. labels, GIs, and certifications) to ensure the quality of goods (Langinier and Babcock, 2008). Logos and labels reduce information asymmetry between producers/traders and consumers, and build trust regarding the origin and quality of a product. The economic rationale for protecting GIs derives from the fact that place of origin might be used as a quality signal, or alternatively, that regional resources might be construed as quality attributes. Theoretical literature suggests that food labelling plays a complex role during interactions between food systems and consumers, potentially as a symbol of shared values, norms, and expectations (Tonkin et al., 2015). Experience from GTB suggests that individual promotion to consumers is insufficient. Relevant public institutions should engage in comprehensive promotions for consumers at the national level. Consumer awareness is an important condition for attaining price premiums for GI products. Most consumers still do not know what the logo means, and thus no price premium can be obtained. Information activities towards retailers were very effective. According to results from 7 of 11 Gemlik olive companies' experiences that were captured six months after adoption of the label, increased market shares and order quantities had a positive effect on the traders' incomes. This positive effect was subsequently reflected by producers. Traders who achieved advantages when selling labelled products tried to procure quality products from producers of Gemlik using premium prices. This system fostered creation of a collective monopoly for a group of traders of Gemlik olives. While market entry by companies that used the name unfairly was restricted, labelled products had a chance to enter new markets. The labels also reduced information asymmetry between producers/traders and retailers. Many retailers began to demand labelled products, and an international supermarket chain offered to support a Gemlik table-olive cooperative to carry its products. A lawyer from GTB sent warning letters to other companies that violated the right to use the registered name, and although some removed the name from product packages, a few asked for some time to remove it due to products already in inventory. A collective monopoly offers many advantages, but also includes risks. If a trader offers low-quality products under the label, it might result in distrust of the logo and reduce the effectiveness of the system. If labelled products are lower quality than non-GI and cheaper products, problems might arise with selling GI products (Fancesco, 2015). Thus, GTB set higher-quality standards in its logo-use agreement, in comparison to standards in the registration file. To minimize risk, inspections/audits of labelled products were of critical importance. QR codes make it easier to control products and provide traceability of producers.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Geographical indications (GIs) have been implemented across the EU for agricultural and food products for many years and consumers know them well. However, developing countries and/or transitioning economies do not have sufficient experience to apply GIs. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate ways to implement GI in domestic markets in countries in which there are no common logo and control/tracking systems to help GI holders manage the process.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study uses a qualitative case study to describe a process to implement GI registered food products in domestic markets. The system was developed by the author and applied by the Gemlik Commodity Exchange (GTB).\nFindings: A registration system that allows inspection of producers in GI limits should be established. For good practice and to ensure correct registration, an efficient, established control system, promotion, and conservancy of GI-holding organizations are essential.\nPractical implications: GTB implemented two projects, for which a GI logo and labels with quick-response (QR) codes were created. A regional, GI promotion project was conducted, and after one year, there was no increase in consumer demand, but entering markets became easier, and traders of PDO products began to experience increases in orders and/or shortening of intervals. Long-term implications of the system could not be measured since one year had passed.\nOriginality/value: This study develops and demonstrates a QR tracking system for implementation of GIs.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Performance of microfinance institutions in the MENA region: a comparative analysis
|
[
"Microfinance",
"Efficiency",
"MENA region",
"DEA–Bootstrap",
"C14",
"016",
"G21"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Microfinance is defined as the provision of financial services (credit, savings, micro-insurance, money transfers, etc.) to the poor and low-income households and their microenterprises on a sustainable basis. Besides, microfinance institutions (MFIs) provide a broad range of non-financial services to their beneficiaries such as professional training, technical assistance, agricultural education, health care, etc. The microfinance sector involves a diversity of providers that vary in their legal structure, mission, methodologies and objectives even though they share the common characteristic of providing financial services to the needy and financially excluded. Due to the dual social and financial vocation claimed by the microfinance sector, many microfinance institutions have to simultaneously achieve their financial goals by attaining sustainability, and their social objectives by providing financial services to the poor and the excluded from the traditional banking system.\n2. Literature review: The purpose of this section is to summarize some empirical studies that have investigated the efficiency of MFIs. Table A1 in Appendix 1 provides a glimpse of previous studies on variable selections and data performance measurement tools. Most of the studies have used either DEA (Widiarto and Emrouznejad, 2015; Haq et al., 2010; Segun and Anjugam, 2013; Gutierrez-Nieto et al., 2007; Gregoire and Ramirez Tuya, 2006, among others) or stochastic frontier models (SFA) (Abate et al., 2013; Nghiem et al., 2006, among others) to investigate the efficiency of MFIs. Nghiem et al. (2006) are the only to use both approaches.\n3. Microfinance in the MENA region: The MENA region is characterized by a high population growth rate of nearly 2 percent and a young population. The Arab states rank second after Sub-Saharan Africa with a proportion of young people equal to 19.2 percent of the population against 20.2 percent for Sub-Saharan Africa (UNDP, 2009, 2014). The unemployment rate, especially for women, is also among the highest. In a report on the development of the World Bank (2012), the countries of the region recorded the lowest female activity rate, only 26 percent, followed by South Asia, with 35 percent. The problem of unemployment, especially of young people, is one of the problematic aspects of this region. Compared with other regions of the world, the poverty rate is relatively low. According to data from the World Bank (2014), 12.04 percent of the population of the region lived on less than $2 per day in 2010 and only 2.4 percent of the population is below the 1.25 threshold dollar a day. However, the World Bank (2014) points out that a large segment of the population live in vulnerable situations and are, therefore, vulnerable to external shocks. In some countries, even those who are not considered poor are scarcely better off than those in the poor category. For this region, two countries seem to suffer particularly from extreme poverty: Nearly half of the population of Yemen (Middle East) and Sudan (North Africa) are below the poverty line of $2 per day. Rates are also high for Iraq and Syria with 21.41 and 16.9 percent, respectively. According to the World Bank classification by income bracket, Yemen and Sudan belong to the category of low-income countries. The majority of countries in the region belong to this category and to middle-income countries, with the exception of a few oil-rich countries belonging to the Gulf Cooperation Council. It should also be noted that the MENA region is one of the most conflicting regions in the world. In Yemen and Libya, for example, increased insecurity due to conflict and violence continues to harm the economy. In Libya, ongoing clashes between militias and authorities continue to cause enormous damage, thereby impeding the country's economic activity (World Bank, 2014). Let us also not forget that recent conflicts in the Syrian Arab Republic in Libya and Yemen have forced many residents to seek refuge in neighboring countries. In some Arab countries such as Iraq, Lebanon, Somalia and Sudan, where the population is not homogeneous, because of ethnic, religious, community and linguistic differences, the incessant struggles in these countries are also a source of great instability. Regarding access to basic financial services, developing countries of Arab region had the lowest proportion of adults with accounts compared to other regions of the world. In 2014, the proportion of adults with an account was only 14 percent. Women are less likely than men to have an account in the Arab world. Women's financial inclusion can thus be a solution to help women increase their economic participation and create their own income-generating activities. The characteristics of the region make it a fruitful field for the development of microfinance.\n4. Methodology: A plethora of papers have employed the non-parametric DEA model to estimate the efficiency of MFI (Gutierrez-Nieto et al., 2007; Ben Soltane, 2008; Cornee 2007; Gutierrez-Nieto et al., 2009 and others). According to Gutierrez-Nieto et al. (2009), DEA is by far the most popular approach to modeling financial efficiencies. However, Simar and Wilson (1998, 2000) noted that the traditional DEA methodology estimation is biased by construction and is affected by uncertainty due to sampling variation and suffers of the curse of dimensionality. Given that, we apply a bootstrap-DEA method proposed by Simar and Wilson (1998, 2000) to drive unbiased DEA estimators (see Appendix 2).\n5. Data and model specification: 5.1 Data\n6. Results and discussion: Having cleared the sample from outliers, we compute the input DEA-CRS model. The average bias-corrected score is of 0.73 which indicates that an average MFI could decrease its inputs by 0.27 without changing the quantity produced.\n7. Conclusion: This paper uses a large panel data set covering 72 Arab MFIs in ten countries to analyze the efficiency of MFIs in the MENA region by employing a bootstrap-DEA model. We find that efficiency scores of the MENA region exhibit high variability, both across time and countries. Furthermore, the results reveal no significant difference in efficiency by legal status. However, significant difference in efficiency was found due to MFI age or regulation. The use of the DEA-bootstrap method allowed us to prove the ability of MFIs to combine financial and social performance since a large proportion of these institutions have achieved high average efficiency scores. In summary, within-country research is required to assess Arab MFIs in the future, given the unbalanced dataset of Arab MFIs in this research. This study thereby serves to provide preliminary efficiency assessment of Arab MFI performance which is still lacking in literature. Further study expects to refine DEA specification and modeling.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide preliminary efficiency assessment of Arab microfinance institutions (MFIs) within the period 2002-2012. Microfinance is defined as the provision of financial services to poor and low-income households and their microenterprises on a sustainable basis.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors first present the main features of microfinance in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Second, based on a simple of 72 microfinance institutions issued from ten countries of the region, they develop a bootstrap-data envelopment analysis (bootstrap-DEA) framework to measure Arab MFIs' efficiency. Finally, they apply parametric and non-parametric tests to compare the performance and identify factors that contribute to the efficiency of Arab Islamic microfinance institutions.\nFindings: Efficiency scores of the MENA region exhibit high variability, both across time and countries. Significant difference in efficiency was found due to MFI age or regulation. Results also reveal the ability of Arab MFIs to combine social and financial performance and their solidity in time of crisis.\nOriginality/value: In this paper, the authors apply DEA-bootstrap method on a large sample of Arab MFI with special look at the peer group differences. Unlike most previous relevant studies, the paper overcomes many of the drawbacks of the DEA method by using, in addition to the DEA-bootstrap approach, a test of return to scale and a combination of three procedures to detect outliers. Furthermore, this paper analyses the efficiency of MFI in the MENA region in the light of financial crises and Arab Spring.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Team-based rewards in computer-mediated groups
|
[
"Team‐based rewards",
"Computer‐mediated groups",
"Group incentives",
"Computer‐mediated communication",
"Reward pay",
"Team working"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: In times of worldwide networking, aspects of decentralization and flexibility combined with high productivity become more and more important for organizations. As a consequence, many companies implement networked systems, such as virtual teams or computer-mediated groups (Gibson and Cohen, 2003; Hart and McLeod, 2003; Bell and Kozlowski, 2002). Besides managing collaboration in these systems, an important issue is how the members of computer-mediated teams should be paid. Although initial research exists on the different pay systems in traditional teams (e.g. Jenkins et al., 1998), a simple transfer to computer-mediated teamwork is not advisable given the various differences in the collaboration processes between computer-mediated and face-to-face teams (e.g. Hollingshead et al., 1993; see below for details). Therefore, the current study examines effects of different types of team-based rewards on performance and communication in computer-mediated teams. Moreover, moderating effects of individual team member characteristics are considered in a multi-level design.\nLiterature review and hypotheses: Current reviews on virtual teamwork are surprisingly silent on pay systems and rewards (e.g. Baltes et al., 2002; Fjermestad, 2004; Hertel et al., 2005). Thus, direct evidence of how to create an incentive structure for virtual teams is lacking. Moreover, a simple transfer of research findings from face-to-face groups (Honeywell-Johnson and Dickinson, 1999; DeMatteo et al., 1998) to virtual teams is problematic. For instance, a variety of results show that media influences performance due to the formation of trust (Wilson et al., 2006) or in the appearance of conflicts (Hobman et al., 2002). Furthermore, face-to-face groups and computer-mediated groups differ in their communication behavior and in performance appraisals (Hollingshead et al., 1993). Thus, research seems to be warranted that address high virtuality of teamwork as a specific context condition that might require different management structures. Therefore, the focus of the current study is on different reward structures within highly virtual teams given that virtuality is usually a consequence of more general business strategies (going international, merger and acquisition, etc.). Consequently, we do not address whether virtual teams should be implemented or not but rather how to make virtual teams most successful. Nevertheless, we start from research with face-to-face teams (e.g. Honeywell-Johnson and Dickinson, 1999) in order to develop our hypotheses.According to DeMatteo et al. (1998), distribution strategies are a reasonable criterion to influence the effectiveness of team-based rewards. Following Leventhal's (1976) justice judgment model, two different distribution strategies can be distinguished. An equality principle is given when each team member receives the same amount of the reward regardless of his/her effort or contribution. An equity principle is given when each team member receives rewards in direct proportion of his/her individual contributions to the team task. Equality principles potentially entail the risk of motivational losses due to social loafing processes (Spink, 2000; Hertel et al., 2003). Indeed, empirical results show that equality principles increase perceived harmony, cohesion, and solidarity within groups (e.g. Heneman et al., 1988).Team-based rewards and performance\nMethod: Participants\nResults: First of all, no significant correlations occurred between the initial motivation and the experimental conditions (r=0.00, ns, for treatments versus control; r=-0.03 for equality vs. equity), showing that the experimental variation is not confounded with differences in initial motivation of participants. Table I shows reliabilities (in brackets), means, standard deviations and correlations for the main variables at the individual level[2].Team-based rewards held significant, bivariate correlations with extrinsic motivation (r=0.25, p<0.05) and intrinsic motivation (r=0.21, p<0.05), respectively. Furthermore, distribution strategies of team-based rewards (equality vs. equity) were negatively related to pay satisfaction (r=-0.26, p<0.05), indicating lower satisfaction scores for an equity-strategy. Most of the bivariate correlations are significant and in the expected direction. However, team-based rewards showed no significant bivariate correlation with performance (r=-0.08, ns).HLM - step 1\nDiscussion: The purpose of this paper was to examine effects of different monetary team-based reward strategies on performance, pay satisfaction, and communication behavior in virtual teams. Results revealed that team-based rewards had positive effects on team members' motivation and pay satisfaction, replicating earlier results (Hertel et al., 2004) under more controlled conditions. Moreover, results confirmed our expectation that equality reward conditions lead to higher motivation than equity reward conditions. Additionally, content analysis of chat protocols revealed positive effects of team-based rewards on task-orientation and cooperation in the observed teams discussions (Taylor, 2006). Finally, rewards distributed equally lead to higher pay satisfaction than equitably distributed rewards.Although no empirical evidence was found for a direct effect of team-based rewards on performance, the observed results confirmed the expected moderation effect of team member's assertiveness on the relation between reward structure and performance. Individuals with low assertiveness showed higher individual performance under equality conditions than under equity conditions. Thus, team members with a high assertiveness motive performed better when the rewards were distributed according to equity principles, while team members with low levels of self-efficacy or assertiveness motive showed higher individual performance when the rewards were distributed according to equality principles. Hence, mixed results according to the effects of team-based reward structures on performance might be due to moderation effects of team members' dispositions such as assertiveness.Limitations\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to compare effects of different monetary team-based reward strategies on performance, pay satisfaction, and communication behavior in computer-mediated groups.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - In a laboratory experiment, 32 groups of undergraduate students, each consisting of three individuals, interacted electronically and performed a consensus-reaching task. Team-based incentives were distributed either equally (each team member received an equal share) or equitably (each team member's share depended on her/his individual contribution). A control group received no team-based (or other) incentives.\nFindings: - Hierarchical multilevel analyses revealed that both types of team-based rewards increased team members' motivation and pay satisfaction compared to the control condition. Moreover, the effects of team-based rewards on performance were moderated by group members' assertiveness. In addition, team-based rewards lead to more cooperative and task-oriented communication in the computer-mediated groups. Finally, equally divided rewards led to higher pay satisfaction on average than equitably divided incentives.\nOriginality/value: - On a research level, this study shows that team-based rewards have positive effects not only on performance but also on communication behavior in computer-mediated groups. As a practical implication, reward effects should be considered cautiously as they might be influenced by team members' personality. Moreover, whereas no major differences were found between equity and equality principles in terms of performance, the latter seems to be preferable when satisfaction is a major issue in virtual teams.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
TQM practices of Japanese-owned manufacturers in the USA and China
|
[
"Total quality management",
"Technology led strategy",
"Japan",
"United States of America",
"China"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Total quality management (TQM) has been implemented in many countries over the world to improve organizational performance in areas such as increasing profit, productivity and market share. Evidence from the literatures of the past two decades shows the strong correlation between TQM implementation and organizational performance (Yavas, 1995; Yoshida, 1989; Douglas and Judge, 2001; Miyagawa and Yoshida, 2005; Sun et al., 2006).TQM, which originated in Japan in the early 1960s, has been proven to be a particularly successful approach in improving organizational competitiveness. Intensive global market competition and the need for consumer satisfaction, makes most manufacturers, industries and countries pay more attention to quality management. Companies in developing countries such as China and India have begun to adopt TQM to improve their competitive position (Zhao et al., 1995; Sun et al., 2006; Yusuf et al., 2007).According to the latest statistics based on the responses from 227 out of 530 manufacturing companies in Japan, 92 per cent of the respondents replied that TQM was considered in the company strategic plan, and that TQM-related training was given to employees throughout the company (Osada, 2009).Development of quality management\n2. Methodology: In our research, a pre-tested questionnaire, which was also used in earlier empirical studies was adopted as the survey instrument (see Appendix 1, see Figure A1). The questionnaire was previously used in comparison of quality management practices in different countries such as the US, India, Mexico, Norway and China. To investigate the relationship between TQM practices and business performance in Japanese-owned manufacturers in the US, the authors conducted research through the distribution, collection and analysis of a questionnaire in August 2007. Raghunathan et al. (1997) and Sun's (2000) theoretical framework was adopted for use in this survey. The questionnaire consists of 118 related questions in nine categories as per Appendix 2. These categories correspond to the MBNQA (Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award) criteria, which has been used for the evaluation of quality management in many American organizations (Pannirselvam et al., 1998). Five-point scales ranging from 1 (very low) to 5 (very high), representing the strength or degree of the assessment, agreement, perception or pinion, were used to measure the responses to a total of 118 questions. Twenty-four questions regarding turnover, number of employees and ISO certificate status were also asked (Miyagawa and Yoshida, 2005).Evans (1997) proposed a causal model of the key linkages in the Baldrige Award framework, addressed as linkages between management practices and business results. In order to explore the relationship between TQM practices and business results, Sun (2000) conducted a study of 71 Shanghai manufacturers in 1998 using step-wise multiple regression analysis (Hua et al., 2000). As it is difficult to prove the causal relationship between TQM practices and business results by a simple data process, we chose to use the correlation analysis proved by Evans and Sun in our research (Miyagawa and Yoshida, 2005).Survey\n3. Discussions and implications: The data sample of Japanese-owned manufacturers in the USA show the following quality management statistics:* 90.7 per cent of the sample has implemented TQM for more than three years.* 81.3 per cent of the sample marked a \"High\" and \"Very high\" rating of assessment to the question that TQM was considered in the company strategic plan.* 66 per cent of samples marked a \"High\" and \"Very high\" rating of assessment to the question that TQM has contributed to keep the company in business.* 66 per cent of samples marked a \"High\" and \"Very high\" rating of assessment to the question that the competitive position of the company has been enhanced by TQM.* 62.5 per cent of samples marked a \"High\" and \"Very high\" rating of assessment to the question that TQM has contributed to improving business performance of the company.Implication\n4. Limitations and future research: First, the data analysis method and research design in this paper is based on multiple correlation, which has the advantage of considering relationships among several independent variables and a dependent variable. As a network relationship cannot be considered by this analysis method, future research needs to investigate network relationships based on path analysis, or structural education modeling methods (Sun et al. 2006). Second, in order to explore the generic model of the TQM practices-performance relationship, more comparative studies in other areas, such as India or Europe, should be conducted. Third, it cannot be denied that some sort of bias marking better performance than the actual conditions might have influenced the respondents due to the fact that the questionnaires were distributed to the responsible persons in charge after obtaining the authorization of the chief executive officer (CEO) of each company.\n5. Conclusions: Our survey finds that that 90 percent of the respondents had implemented TQM for more than three years, and that top management and quality managers in these companies regarded TQM as the first priority for the survival of the company. Quality management is defined as one element, of operations management (Krajewski et al., 2006) and as a management method designed to reach organizational objectives more efficiently, thus enhancing the quality of business resources as well as the competitiveness and vitality of the organization. It is achieved by motivating employees by providing the opportunity to become self-actualized and enjoy their work, as well as by respecting the humanity and harmony of their associates through creative and dynamic group activities (TQM Committee, 1998; Yoshida, 2000; Miyagawa and Yoshida, 2005).Ishikawa (1981) insisted that TQC (total quality control) activities were adaptable to any firm all over the world, as human resources played a vital role in operations. Based on our research both in China and the US we conclude that TQM is an effective method to improve organizational performance, including employee empowerment, regardless of where the company might be operating. The crucial factor is that TQM practices are implemented appropriately within the organization (Miyagawa and Yoshida, 2005).Although the economy's environment may always be in flux, the importance of quality management's effect on the competitive position of and employee satisfaction in an organization will never change; quality-conscious management is one of the most effective methods for improving the holistic competitiveness of any firm.We summarize that quality oriented management in Japanese-owned manufacturers contributes positively and significantly to organizational performance both in the US and in China. Our findings support the earlier literature that studies the relationship between TQM practices and organizational performance in changing environments.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The main objective of this study is to explore the relationship between total quality management (TQM) practices and the business performance of Japanese-owned manufacturers in the USA.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - In this empirical study, 200 companies were chosen by random sampling from the universe group of 519 in August 2007. A total of 32 usable questionnaires were received, and the overall response rate was 16 percent.\nFindings: - The survey results show that TQM practices significantly influence the overall company performance of Japanese-owned manufacturers in the USA. This implies that TQM is an effective method for improving business performance, regardless of where the company might be operating, as long as the TQM practices are appropriately implemented. In addition to the research data, findings from a field research also provide supplementary evidence to support this conclusion.\nOriginality/value: - This study compares the findings from a recent survey conducted in the USA with the authors' previous study done in China. The survey uses the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) criteria as a measuring scale, and the project adopts a pre-tested questionnaire as a survey instrument, which has also been used in previous empirical studies.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Comparing the web and mobile platforms of a social Q&A service from the user's perspective
|
[
"Social Q&A",
"Mobile service",
"Comparative study",
"Web service",
"User’s perspective",
"Zhihu.com"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Social question and answering (Q&A) provides an avenue for internet users to share information (Gazan, 2011; Choi and Shah, 2017). The appeal of social Q&A services lies in the ease of use and acceptable turnaround time (Chua and Banerjee, 2013). Meanwhile, along with the explosive adoption of mobile services, traditional web-based social Q&A services have begun to venture into the mobile space (Lee et al., 2012; Lee et al., 2013). As a result, users can post questions or answer them via a mobile platform anytime and anywhere (Shen et al., 2014). The mobile platform of social Q&A refers to any service platform based on mobile devices such as smartphones, tablets, etc. (Zhao et al., 2015). For example, Zhihu.com, which is one of the most popular social Q&A services in China, has both web-based and mobile-based platforms (henceforth web and mobile platforms). The website had 18.5 million daily active users seeking information in 2016[1].\nLiterature review: Web and mobile social Q&A platforms\nMethod: Research setting\nResults: Reliability and validity test\nDiscussion: Analysis of results\nConclusion: This study compares web and mobile social Q&A platforms based on a framework including user demographics, individual-based constructs, and information-based constructs. Specifically, demographics include three components, namely, gender, age, and usage experience; individual-based constructs include three components, namely, self-efficacy for critical thinking, affinity, and satisfaction; and information-based constructs include three components, namely, information need, information seeking, and information adoption. The results indicate that there exist significant differences between web and mobile users on Zhihu.com in terms of gender, affinity, and information seeking.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: As an increasing number of users have acquired information across the web and mobile platforms for social question and answering (Q&A), it is of interest to explore whether there are differences in social Q&A usages between the two platforms. The purpose of this paper is to compare web and mobile platforms of a social Q&A service from the user's perspective in terms of three dimensions, namely, demographics, individual-based constructs, and information-based constructs.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Because Zhihu.com is one of the most popular social Q&A sites in China, the authors used online questionnaires to investigate its users' perceptions of these three dimensions. From January to March 2016, the authors obtained 278 valid responses in total through snowball and convenient sampling. Collected data are analyzed through descriptive statistics and inferential statistics.\nFindings: The results indicate that there exist significant differences between web users and mobile users on Zhihu.com in terms of gender, affinity, and information seeking. More specifically, compared to the male users, more female users rely on the mobile platform to access the information service; mobile users perceive higher affinity with Zhihu.com than web users; and mobile users perceive higher information-seeking intention than web users do.\nOriginality/value: Regarding the theoretical aspect, this study proposes a conceptual framework for comparison between the web and mobile platforms of social Q&A from the user's perspective. Regarding the practical aspect, the comparative results of this study could give social Q&A service providers useful information about users' differences between web and mobile platforms of social Q&A services.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Economic deals in the construction industry: Implications for socio-material interaction and monetary processes
|
[
"Planning",
"Infrastructure",
"Construction industry",
"Business relationships",
"Deals",
"Financial agreements"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Construction business and the monetary flow\nThe money-handling processes in construction: Due to construction companies' positions as community builders, developers and business units, the total interaction should result in profitable projects and fit into long-term community planning as well as financial structures (Said et al., 2014; Kalbro et al., 2009). The companies also play an important role in relation to society's monetary flow, not least as an important counterpart to financial actors such as banks and financial institutions (Fahey and Norris, 2011). In connecting to financial actors, and to those actors needed to carry out individual projects (suppliers and customers), there are interactions from both long-term and short-term monetary perspectives. Put differently, construction companies need to relate to two types of monetary systems: a long-term type of monetary system influencing their ability to act as community builders (e.g. land issues and financing of housing) and a short-term type for managing individual projects (e.g. interactions related to suppliers and/or customers). Construction companies need to relate to these two types of monetary systems, characterized by different time frames, to create a profitable business. Hence, one main challenge for construction companies in handling the monetary systems is time. Normally the construction of housing properties takes several years from the initial exploitation of land to the final production and set up of the residential building. Consequently, construction companies have to handle long lead-times - an average of six to seven years (Statens offentliga utredningar (SOU), 2002) - characterized by large investments and uncertainties as to whether their investment will generate a profit (Statskontoret, 2012)[1]. In the short-term, this implies that construction companies need efficient ways of managing a short-term flow of money to create both short-term and long-term benefits. In the long-term, one challenge is that all constructions - houses, offices, roads, etc. - are part of a greater societal and economic development, and whether or not these constructions will create a positive monetary flow for owners and investors, therefore, depends on this development. One example is after the Swedish recession and property crisis in the early 1990s, it was possible to create positive monetary flow with apartments in most large cities in Sweden, which had a positive effect especially on Sweden's four large construction companies (SOU, 2002).\nMethod: To study the deals, i.e., the interface between socio-material interaction and the money-handling processes in the construction industry, as well as studying the potential interrelatedness of deals, we performed a case study of three interrelated construction projects in Uppsala, Sweden. This study is part of a larger study of the Swedish construction industry in identifying drivers and hindrances of technological and organizational development. The broader investigation includes the following: an encompassing survey of innovation in the Swedish construction industry (Ingemansson, 2012; Hakansson and Ingemansson, 2013); comparisons with the Norwegian construction industry (Bygballe and Ingemansson, 2011; Bygballe and Ingemansson, 2014); and three other in-depth case studies of construction projects regarding business relationships and specific innovation processes (Crespin-Mazet, Havenvid and Linne, 2015; Havenvid et al., 2016). The case studies, of which the study in this paper is a part of, focus specifically on the project-oriented character of construction activities and what this type of organization implies for forming business relationships and ultimately innovation (both technological and organizational). In all the case studies, we witnessed how different types of interactions impacted the construction projects in various ways and the coordinating role taken up by the construction company to achieve a successful project. The deals were one type of interactions that we identified as steering and impacting construction projects. Hence, in collecting the main empirical data through interviews for this paper, we did not focus on deals in particular but more on how construction projects are affected by relationships among actors, resources and activities. The issue of deals came up as an interesting interaction among others when reviewing the collected data; as a consequence, we do not have explicit data and quotes on how actors perceive the deals per se. The decision to investigate how socio-material interaction and the money-handling process are related through deals we needed to complement the primary data collection with secondary data collection that could give more background on how construction projects are related to the overall planning in municipalities along with buying and selling of land. To summarize, our point of departure was understanding the interaction among actors behind construction projects and how they tie resources and link activities together. Central construction project actors were identified with help from the construction company that guided the identification of the deals. As a consequence, the main part of the deals discussed in the paper are related to long-term relationships among central actors.\nThe case study - three interrelated construction projects in Uppsala: The following case description departs from the perspective of the contractor, the construction company Peab, and its way of handling the construction of three housing projects: Moltas[3], Brandbilen and Brandsoldaten[4].\nAnalysis: The following analysis will depart from the three identified situations outlined in the case, and in each situation, we identify a number of deals and discuss their characteristics.\nConclusion - the problematic deal: This paper set out to investigate how construction companies handle and create deals and how this affects both the single actor and the total structure. The deal was seen as an empirical phenomenon, and the ambition was to see them as separate entities but interrelated with the total business interactions. We tried to identify the role they play in business interaction, as they are interdependent with particular resources such as land, financial means, products/services and activities such as development and production over time. We studied the deals and the actors making them in relation to activated resources and in relation to other deals. This case illustrated what we expected - that a monetary deal does not exist in a vacuum in which its significance or value is only related to the individual deal or to the financial transaction in itself. Instead, most deals are part of a \"broader\" interaction pattern of social and material resources spanning the organizational borders of individual companies. However, due to the unmanageable task of comprehending the totality of past, present and future interdependencies, as well as the consequences of introducing change to these interdependencies, there are only some factors that can be translated into a monetary dimension or a deal at a certain point in time. The deal will always only depict which factors were considered when making the deal. Furthermore, the deals are never objectively efficient (as assumed in a traditional market model) - they are just mirroring what the involved actors saw and managed to activate in terms of features of the single deal and some of the existing interdependencies.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between social-material interaction and the monetary aspects of business relationships in the construction industry. The authors term the formal financial agreements necessary for such activities \"deals\", and this paper seeks to open a research avenue to further investigate the multifaceted interaction processes among business actors. The construction industry is a suitable empirical setting for this purpose; its project-based character and societal position of linking business with the construction of essential community infrastructure imply that different types of money-handling activities need to be managed continuously with both short-term and long-term effects taken into account.\nDesign/methodology/approach: To investigate the deals, i.e., the interface between socio-material interaction and the money-handling processes in the construction industry, as well as studying the potential interrelatedness of deals, the authors performed a case study involving three interrelated housing projects in Uppsala, Sweden.\nFindings: The study shows that deals do not only have an intricate relationship to the social-material interaction processes among construction actors, but they also become interrelated in specific ways to form \"deal structures\" as actors engage in different business relationships over time. This means, for instance, that a single deal can enable several other deals, and involved actors have different abilities in performing deals. Hence, most deals are part of a \"broader\" interaction pattern of social and material resources spanning the organizational borders of individual companies.\nOriginality/value: Within the industrial marketing and purchasing, the socio-material interaction among actors has been well studied, but less attention has been paid to the monetary dimension and its relationship to the socio-material interaction processes. In particular, this study provides an understanding of monetary agreements in the construction industry.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
What caused the decrease in RevPAR during the recession? An ARIMA with intervention analysis of room supply and market demand
|
[
"Recession",
"Intervention",
"Box-Jenkins",
"Hotel overbuilding",
"RevPAR",
"Seasonal ARIMA"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: According to American Hotel & Lodging Association (AH&LA, 2012), the US lodging industry witnessed an 18.3 per cent decrease in Revenue per Available Room (RevPAR) through the recession of 2007-2009 (the recession hereafter). The nationwide average decreased from $65.52 in 2007 to $53.5 in 2009 (AH&LA, 2012). Furthermore, like the nation's economy, RevPAR has not been rebounding strongly in the aftermath of the recession. After two years of slow recovery, RevPAR reached $61.5 in 2011 (AH&LA, 2012), which was about 7 per cent lower than that in 2007.\nReview of literature: Revenue per available room\nMethods and data: Time series analysis\nData analysis and results: ARIMA model fitting\nConclusion and discussions: Using the ARIMA with Intervention analysis technique, this study found a statistically significant decrease in weekly RevPAR and a statistically significant increase in weekly Supply during the recession. The weekly RevPAR was about $0.16 lower than expected and the weekly Supply was about 9,878 rooms more than expected. However, no statistically significant decrease in weekly Demand has been identified during the recession. Given that RevPAR is determined by market demand and room inventory, the results suggest that the significant decrease in RevPAR during the recession might have been caused by the significant increase of room capacity. The results of the second intervention analysis of weekly RevPAR using estimated data suggest that approximate $0.10 of the $0.16 decrease in RevPAR was probably caused by the rapid growth of room supply. In other words, during the recession, regardless of how market demand fluctuated, room supply increased by 6.12 per cent (illustrated in Figure 1), which resulted in average weekly occupancy of 58 per cent during the recession with the lowest of 35.8 per cent observed in the week of December 21, 2008, which, in turn, caused a significant decrease in RevPAR.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This study aims to attempt to examine whether the increase in hotel room capacity in the USA had a significant impact on nationwide aggregated weekly revenue per available room (RevPAR) during the recession of 2007-2009 and forecast average RevPAR, Occupancy and Average Daily Rate (ADR) for 2013 and 2014.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Using Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average with Intervention analysis technique, this study examined the significance of the fluctuations in weekly RevPAR, room capacity and market demand through the recent recession and forecasted hotel performance for 2013 and 2014.\nFindings: The results of time series analysis suggest that the fast growth of room capacity during the recession was one of the main causes of the decrease in RevPAR. The 9,878 more than expected increase in average weekly number of rooms probably caused at least $0.10 more than expected decrease in average weekly RevPAR. The findings of this study also suggest that the US lodging industry has been facing more severe oversupply since the recession and fully rebound of RevPAR cannot be expected in the very near future.\nPractical implications: The findings of this study will help stakeholders make more informed decisions to cope with possible future economic downturns. By quantifying the capacity increase and forecasting future market demand, this study provides hotel investors with empirical evidence on the overdevelopment and insights into expected overall hotel performance in next two years. This study has also discussed the cyclical patterns of hotel development during the past two recessions.\nOriginality/value: By identifying overdevelopment as one of the main causes of RevPAR decrease during the recession, this study contributes to the literature by adding an alternative explanation of RevPAR fluctuations and deepens the understanding of the adverse effects overdevelopment has on the lodging industry. The findings of this study will help hotel investors develop more informed future expansion plans.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Dominant logics and the manager's role in university business incubators
|
[
"Institutional logic approach",
"University business incubators"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Universities are considered part of an innovation ecosystem and are deemed key actors in creating and processing the knowledge which is to be exploited and commercialized in the market. They have gradually adapted this new profile (Etzkowitz, 2002; Wissema, 2009) and have acquired an active role in transferring research results to the market (Etzkowitz, 1998) and in entrepreneurship activities (Lockett et al., 2005).\n2. University business incubator services: Incubators provide a range of different services aimed at accompanying and supporting clients. These include offering facilities for business activities, training in various areas of business, business assistance and access to networking, amongst others.\n3. Institutional logics in university business incubators: Thornton and Ocasio (1999, p. 804) defined institutional logics as:\n4. Methodology and data collection: 4.1 Method and sample selection\n5. Results: The results of the structural model estimation for H1 and H2 are shown in Table V. The R2 values are 0.205 for personal assistance, 0.322 for business assistance and 0.072 for networking. Additionally, path analysis was conducted using the AMOS v20.0 statistical programme to check the robustness of our results and to offer a global goodness-of-fit measure. Previously, each variable was reduced to a measurement index, specifically the latent variable scores provided by partial least squares to use similar measures. The goodness of fit or the estimated model are adequate: kh2(2) = 3.467 (p = 0.177); RMR = 0.042; RMSEA = 0.089; GFI = 0.985; CFI = 0.984; NFI = 0.965.\n6. Conclusions: The current study explores the role of the university incubator manager as a driver of the kind of assistance which incubatees receive. On the basis of the institutional logics approach, it is proposed that even if all UBI managers are concerned with training incubatees in business competences and skills, the manager's dominant logic (academic versus commercial) will influence the effectiveness of the services offered. The results indicate that commercial logic proves superior to academic logic when training incubatees and instilling this commercial logic in them. Moreover, incubators managed by managers who combine both logics (a hybrid logic as a consequence of their scientific and entrepreneurial experience) will provide a better offer of services.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to investigate the role of university business incubator managers as drivers of the training and advice given to academic incubatees. Based on the institutional logics approach, the current paper proposes that the dominant logic, academic versus commercial, determines the degree of emphasis on personal assistance, business assistance and networking training.\nDesign/methodology/approach: To test the proposed hypotheses, data were collected from 93 incubation programmes from Spanish and Dutch universities through questionnaires addressed to their respective managers, as well as clients.\nFindings: The results indicate that the greater the managers' experience in the business and entrepreneurial world, the greater the fostering of personal and business assistance and networking activities in the incubator. Managers lacking an entrepreneurial profile weaken incubatee access to other business networks and prove less efficient in business training.\nOriginality/value: This research makes a contribution to the study of university incubatees, showing that managers can be involved in different institutional logics, whether they be academic or commercial, and that the dominant logic determines the activities promoted and, consequently, the success of the incubation process. Business and entrepreneurial experience is key to instilling business logic in incubatees together with the training and assistance they require.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Information contextualizer: making sense of the information overload
|
[
"Information research",
"Communication technologies"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: In 2011, hundreds of thousands of books will be written worldwide. Blogs and data on the internet are increasing at an exponential rate and each week sees the launch of new media outlets. Information is everywhere, available to all of us at the click of a button but what is relevant to whom when it come to learning; what will help and what will hinder? Google certainly provides results but it is unable to qualify and filter them. One solution - as is so often the case in business - is a person, an information contextualizer (IC).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - Reviews the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoints practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.\nFindings: - In 2011, hundreds of thousands of books will be written worldwide. Blogs and data on the internet are increasing at an exponential rate and each week sees the launch of new media outlets. Information is everywhere, available to all of us at the click of a button but what is relevant to whom when it come to learning; what will help and what will hinder? Google certainly provides results but it is unable to qualify and filter them. One solution - as is so often the case in business - is a person, an information contextualizer (IC).\nPractical implications: - Provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world's leading organizations.\nSocial implications: - Provides strategic insights and practical thinking that can have a broader social impact.\nOriginality/value: - The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Gaps in sustainability education: The impact of higher education coursework on perceptions of sustainability
|
[
"Sustainability",
"Curriculum",
"Interdisciplinary",
"Sustainability education",
"Sustainability perceptions"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Although the American public tends to think about \"sustainability\" in terms of basic environmental issues, there has been increasing nuance in the academic discourse about this term. While the concepts of ecosystems, environmental preservation and energy efficiency have begun to expand individuals' understandings of sustainability, academic scholarship demonstrates that there are different ways of thinking about sustainability well beyond the environmental realm. While some have emphasized democratic participation and social justice (Norton, 2005), other scholars have identified the importance of \"systems\" and their role in decision-making as central to sustainability (Cash et al., 2003; Levin and Clark, 2010; Fisher, 2014). In other words, there are different dimensions to and definitions of \"sustainability\", which have expanded considerably since the inception of the term \"sustainable development\" from the Brundtland Commission (1987).The existence of these varied definitions has important implications for the ability of the scientific community to offer holistic and integrated solutions to advance the principles of sustainability, particularly as the solutions and policy prescriptions that are offered are directly related to the diagnosis and understanding of the problems encountered (Miller, 2013). Indeed, one's perception of what sustainability is necessarily impacts to what one attributes the cause of the problem, who or what one finds responsible for action and the type of solutions that one perceives are appropriate to address those concerns. A limited definition of sustainability may thus hamper debate and decision-making, question the credibility and legitimacy of prescriptions related to other definitions of sustainability and even limit the discovery of new and innovative solutions across disciplines and different areas of expertise. As a result, understanding how individuals define sustainability in different ways and the sources of those varied definitions becomes increasingly important.\nLiterature review: Sustainability typology\nMethods: Data were examined from the 2011 Sustainability Survey, an original, Web-based survey of students, faculty, staff and administrators at the College of Charleston (a medium-sized public university in South Carolina). All students, faculty, staff and administrators were invited via email to participate in the anonymous and voluntary survey. Fielded from November 28 through December 20, 2011, the survey was completed by 930 individuals, including 552 undergraduate and graduate students, for a total response rate of approximately 10 per cent. The analyses presented here are limited to the 552 student respondents.\nResults: To determine whether the number of courses related to sustainability or the type of sustainability-related courses that students take impacts their understanding of sustainability, a series of four ordinary least squares regression analyses were conducted - one on each of the four indices discussed above. As noted, the key independent variables include the number of courses that a student reports having taken at the College (ranging from zero to six or more) and five dichotomous variables, each measuring whether or not the student had reported having taken a sustainability-related course in the natural sciences, humanities, social sciences, business/economics/policy or a course with an integrated and direct emphasis on sustainability.\nDiscussion: Conceptions of sustainability\nConclusion: Systems-level phenomena that lead to unsustainability demand \"new approaches to teaching and learning\" (Rowe, 2007; Jiusto et al., 2013; Selby, 2007). Previous survey data have demonstrated that coursework can affect students' perceptions of social and environmental issues that lead to unsustainability. Our results here provide additional evidence that coursework in higher education has a significant impact on how students think about sustainability. While students who take a sustainability-related course in the natural sciences and business/economics/policy tend to think about this term in more environmentally centric ways, those who take courses in the social sciences and integrated courses directly related to sustainability tend to broaden their conceptualizations of this term to include notions of democratic participation, community, systemic change and innovation. While the results also show some crossover between conceptualizations of sustainability, there is also a clear message of disciplinary fragmentation, one that may shape students' definitions of what sustainability is and, as a result, how they approach sustainability concerns and policies. Therefore, while sustainability education touches on virtually all academic disciplines, this research demonstrates the need for greater interdisciplinary dialogue - not only on sustainability but for education in general.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to examine how both the amount and type of coursework impact students' conceptualizations of sustainability. Previous research demonstrates that academic coursework influences students' environmental attitudes, yet few studies have examined the impact of coursework on how students conceptualize \"sustainability\".\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data are examined from the 2011 Sustainability Survey, which yielded a sample of 552 students at a medium-sized university in the southeastern USA. A series of four linear regression models estimate the impact of academic coursework on students' conceptualizations of sustainability (ecosystems/nature, eco-efficiency, community/well-being and systemic change/innovation).\nFindings: The results indicate that the type of course that students take significantly impacts the way in which students conceptualize this term; the number of courses taken has no statistically significant impact. This suggests that mere exposure to a particular theme in a class, rather than continued exposure to courses related to sustainability, is more important in shaping students' perceptions.\nOriginality/value: This study expands on previous research by examining the influence of the number and type of academic coursework on students' conceptions of sustainability and provides a framework for understanding the varied ways in which sustainability is defined. This has important implications for how students approach ways to achieve a sustainable future. The results suggest that students may be exposed to particular messages within an academic division that encourage students to emphasize particular elements of sustainability. While not problematic on its face, the data demonstrate that students lack an integrated or holistic understanding of sustainability. They usually view sustainability through the same prism as the academic division where their coursework was located, and this has implications for students' continued perceptions of sustainability, academic programming of sustainability and the practice of it.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Portfolio construction and risk management: theory versus practice
|
[
"Risk",
"Performance evaluation",
"Portfolio construction"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Many new methods and concepts have emerged in financial portfolio construction, risk management and performance evaluation since Markowitz's (1952) pioneering work. The use of the variance, or standard deviation, of returns as a proxy for investment risk has been questioned, and alternative risk measures have been proposed, according to Rom and Ferguson (1994); Roman and Mitra (2009) and Araujo and Montini (2015). The use of the original sample covariance matrix to estimate the risk of an asset portfolio has also been questioned, according to Chan et al. (1999) and Santos and Tessari (2012). Not even the use of quantitative methods to optimize portfolios or to allocate resources among different asset classes has been spared from criticism (DeMiguel et al. (2009).\n2. Literature review and Hypotheses: 2.1 Measuring market risk\n3. Empirical methodology: To test the hypotheses, we collected data via online questionnaires hosted on the website of the Centro de Estudos em Financas CEF of Fundacao Getulio Vargas' Business Administration School. Invitations and links were sent to key executives, portfolio and risk managers representing 274 asset management companies between August and September 2015. To increase the number of responses, follow-up telephone calls were made to the managers. We obtained telephone numbers and email addresses from the CEF database.\n4. Analysis and discussion of results: 4.1 Descriptive statistics and comparison of results with European data\n5. Final remarks: This paper aims to identify a possible mismatch between the theory found in academic research and the practices of investment managers in Brazil. For this purpose, a bibliographical and field survey was carried out with 78 respondents to a questionnaire posted online, out of a total of 274 asset management companies. This study may be considered a pioneering work in portfolio construction, risk management and performance evaluation in Brazil.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to identify a possible mismatch between the theory found in academic research and the practices of investment managers in Brazil.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The chosen approach is a field survey. This paper considers 78 survey responses from 274 asset management companies. Data obtained are analyzed using independence tests between two variables and multiple regressions.\nFindings: The results show that most Brazilian investment managers have not adopted current best practices recommended by the financial academic literature and that there is a significant gap between academic recommendations and asset management practices. The modern portfolio theory is still more widely used than the post-modern portfolio theory, and quantitative portfolio optimization is less often used than the simple rule of defining a maximum concentration limit for any single asset. Moreover, the results show that the normal distribution is used more than parametrical distributions with asymmetry and kurtosis to estimate value at risk, among other findings.\nOriginality/value: This study may be considered a pioneering work in portfolio construction, risk management and performance evaluation in Brazil. Although academia in Brazil and abroad has thoroughly researched portfolio construction, risk management and performance evaluation, little is known about the actual implementation and utilization of this research by Brazilian practitioners.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
When do abusive leaders experience guilt?
|
[
"Agreeableness",
"Appraisal theory",
"Enacted abusive supervision",
"Experienced guilt",
"Managerial abusive supervision"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Abusive supervision is pervasive in hospitality organizations (Bloisi and Hoel, 2008), Hight et al. (2019) found that active abusive supervision - managers \"yell or become hostile during interactions with employees\" (p. 101) - was common among \"bad\" hospitality managers. Although the hospitality industry ranks among the top five industries with abusive supervision (Namie, 2013), abusive supervision is ineffective (Tepper et al., 2017). Working for an abusive leader harms hospitality employees' service performance (Hon and Lu, 2016; Lyu et al., 2016a, 2016b) and helping behaviors (Zhao and Guo, 2019). It also increases job dissatisfaction (Pan et al., 2018) and career turnover (Xu et al., 2018). Besides, hostile comments from supervisors can result in a lawsuit against hospitality organizations (EEOC, 2018). Given the importance of maintaining service quality and keeping talent in the hospitality industry, there is a pressing need to study abusive supervision in the hospitality industry with a focus to convince hospitality leaders not to enact abusive supervision.\nTheory and hypotheses: Appraisal theory, enacted abusive supervision and guilt\nMethod: Participants and procedures\nResults: Table II shows the descriptive statistics and intervariable correlations. Supporting the trickle-down effect (Tu et al., 2018), perceived managerial abuse is positively related to enacted abuse (r = 0.52; p < 0.01). Additionally, managerial abuse manipulation was positively related to perceived managerial abuse (r = 0.40; p < 0.01), supporting the effectiveness of the manipulation. Enacted abuse was positively related to guilt (r = 0.89; p < 0.01) and guilt was positively related to the intention to help followers (r = 0.56; p < 0.01). The results provide preliminary support to the hypotheses.\nDiscussion and conclusions: Conclusions\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Drawing from the appraisal theory, this paper aims to examine the conditions under which abusive leaders experience guilt and suggests that guilt motivates leaders to help followers.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A scenario study with a sample of 285 hospitality supervisors was used to test the theoretical model. Path analyses were conducted to test the three-way-moderated mediation model.\nFindings: Results show a three-way interaction among enacted abuse, managerial abuse and agreeableness on the guilt: leaders are more likely to experience guilt over their enacted abusive supervision when they do not perceive their direct manager as abusive and when they are agreeable. Moreover, guilt mediates the relationship between enacted abuse and a leader's intention to help their followers.\nResearch limitations/implications: This study shows that abusive supervisors pay an emotional cost for their enacted abuse (in terms of guilt).\nPractical implications: Hospitality organization should assign non-abusive mentors to leaders, especially agreeable ones, to detect and reduce abusive supervision.\nOriginality/value: First, this study addressed the lack of research on the effect of abusive supervision on the abusers by studying the conditions under which abusive leaders experience guilt. Second, this study shows that because of guilt, abusive leaders have a higher intention to help their followers. It explains why abusive leaders can be helpful.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The history and development of interlibrary loans and document supply in China
|
[
"Document delivery",
"Libraries",
"China"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The origin of document supply in China can be traced back to the time between the late Ming Dynasty and early Qing Dynasty in the seventeenth century. Rong Cao (1613-1685), a famous bibliophile, in his book Agreement of Ancient Books Circulation, describes how to browse collections and make a wish list, copy elaborately and exchange the copies. Cao pointed out that the main reason why so many Chinese ancient books were being lost was that bibliophiles were not willing to share their book collections because they treated them as a private treasure, resulting in complete loss in the case of natural and man-made disasters. Cao emphasized interlending, namely every person who wants to borrow a book should show his own catalogue to the owner of the book; if the owner finds books he wants, they can then visit each other and copy the same number of books. The copies could then be retained while the original books do not leave the owner's possession. This so-called \"circulation\" is somewhat different to document circulation in modern library science.The earliest modern interlending regulation in China appears in the Shanghai Library Constitution, promulgated in 1924, while the earliest interlending operation began in Beijing Library (now the National Library) in 1927. Interlending began formally in the 1950s. In 1957, the State Department approved the National Coordination Project of Books, putting into practice its aim to establish a national and regional centre library committee, and to compile a printed National Union Catalogue of Journals and Books. There were two national central library committees, in Beijing and Shanghai, and nine regional central library committees. Interlending outside the local area was limited because of poor communications and unfortunately, interlending was interrupted for political reasons until the early 1980s. As an unprecedented political movement, the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) affected almost every sector in China badly, and is known as \"the ten traumatic years\". Its influence continued for years. It was thought that the more knowledgeable, the more rebellious one was. Thus, the intelligentsia was discriminated against and even persecuted in that era. As a symbol of knowledge, the library's fate is obvious.Thanks to reforms and the more open policy advocated by Mr Deng Xiaoping since 1978, significant changes have taken place in China, including in the library sector. The lack of a union catalogue meant that collections were not shared effectively. Interlending is still limited to local areas or to mailing within the system to which the library belongs. In the early 1990s information technology was developed in Chinese libraries. Some libraries were able to receive and supply documents via the internet; for example the Shanghai Area Information Resources Network, established in 1994, aimed at the coordination of document acquisitions and effective document supply. The network's members comprise 19 libraries and information institutes in public services, scientific research colleges and universities. Beijing Library (the former National Library) held a meeting of 122 libraries and information institutes in these sectors to agree a national framework for the sharing of documents and information systems and a national library scheme for document supply was agreed. This was a remarkable achievement and collaboration started across systems, horizontally across occupations and vertically across organisations (Wu, 2006).\n2. Knowledge and research of document supply in China: It is agreed by Chinese librarians that it is necessary to enhance our document supply services for three reasons.1. Since the 1990s, libraries in the world have witnessed a clear decline in the collection of paper documents. The decline has been particularly severe with foreign language resources in the libraries of China. In recent years, the volume demand for documents and information has been increasing at 8 per cent per year and the price of paper documents has risen rapidly. The price of Chinese books has been increasing by 20 per cent per year, Chinese journal subscription prices by 28 per cent, foreign language books by 15 per cent, and foreign language journals by 40 per cent (Bao, 2005). The growth in library collections lags far behind the increased demand for documents and price growth. For example, many Chinese colleges and universities libraries aim at 5 per cent of their total educational budget for library document purchasing. However, only about 30 per cent of universities can reach or get close to this benchmark; 16 per cent of them cannot even reach 2 per cent (Liu and Zhang, 2005). Even those that have reached 5 per cent still cannot catch up with the price increases for paper documents, especially as the unrestricted photocopying of journals ceased after China joined the World Trade Organisation. As a result, no library can satisfy demand from its own collections.2. Libraries are lacking in document resources, but the document average usage rate is low in China: 35 per cent in public libraries, 45 per cent in colleges and universities' libraries, 17 per cent in the Library of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (LCAS) and 30 per cent in the Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (ISTIC). (Usage rate equals the annual circulation divided by the total collection.) Only interlibrary collaboration and resource sharing can solve the problem (Bao, 2005).3. Digital resources are growing rapidly. Users can search resources in any subject directly via the internet. However, most full-text material is not accessible due to copyright restrictions. Besides, neither free nor paid for digital resources are satisfying user demand efficiently compared to paper documents. Therefore, document supply is necessary and is a crucial part of library cooperation and resource sharing.2.1 A note on terminology\n3. The current status of ILL/DD in China: 3.1 National suppliers of ILL/DD service\n4. The existing problems of ILL/DD in China and some suggestions: Chinese libraries and information institutions have endeavored to make ILL/DD services practicable and effective and their achievement has been remarkable. Of course, there is still room for improvement compared to advanced libraries overseas. The following suggestions are based on existing problems and some good examples will now be described.3.1 Change our mind and adjust the standard of library evaluation\n5. Conclusion: It is commonly agreed in Chinese library circles that it is necessary to enhance ILL/DD services in order to make resource sharing effective and to satisfy users. The ILL/DD systems that exist can provide any document in theory as long as the user has enough money and patience. From a user's point of view, there are two key factors, convenience and cheapness. Convenience means it is easy to search and obtain and some suggestions are given above.It is necessary to discuss library issues not only at an individual library level but also at national level. An effective ILL/DD service depends on effective and complementary collection development and timely and accurate catalog accessibility. Cooperative development and sharing of resources is a hot topic in China. We need an administration to plan and to manage the development as a whole.Along with the development of digital resources, there are arguments about the future of ILL/DD.Google Book Search seems to be a threat to libraries (MacColl, 2006) including libraries in China. Another famous search engine, Baidu (see www.baidu.com), the largest Chinese search engine, is also implementing the Baidu Book Search project (Yang, 2006). The project's collaborators include Peking University Library, The Library of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (LCAS), Chaoxing Digital Library, which is the biggest commercial database of Chinese digital books (see www.ssreader.com/), Shusheng Digital Books Gateway (see www.shusheng.cn/) and the Apabi Digital Resource Platform (see http://ebook.lib.apabi.com.pitt.idm.oclc.org/List.asp?lang=en).A constraining influence is a decree of the State Council of the People's Republic of China (2006) (issued last July), which pointed out that a library can only provide digital collections to its own users. Differing from Google, one of Baidu's services is to provide a search platform and link for digitized library collections instead of scanning, copying or storing libraries' full-text books. Another Baidu project is to collaborate with electronic providers and agreements have been signed with over 100 publishers. So it is possible that Baidu will provide full-text books in the future.In the short and medium term, Baidu seems like a union catalog that will encourage ILL/DD services in China. In the longer term, Baidu may be a potential competitor with libraries, as well as with Google.In fact, Baidu and Google are not the only competitors. There are two types of library users - leisure and research. In China, internet access increased from 3.7 per cent of the adult population in 1999 to 27.8 per cent in 2005, a 7.5 times growth rate in seven years; the average annual growth rate was 107 per cent (Wei, 2006). Reading habits are changing. The publisher-library-reader relationship is also changing. Library suppliers such as publishers and database providers can provide services to the users directly and thus bypass the library. The ILL/DD users are usually engaged in research, and material is not easily accessible freely on the internet. Even if publishers can provide full-text direct to users via libraries, their purposes are quite different; one is commercial, another is non-profit. Thus, their operating methods are different. For instance, some libraries provide subsidies. As a professional information institution, a library can provide professional aid to users, such as a subject retrieval service.There is a dualism in the copyright system; the rights of copyright owners and users, including libraries, should be protected and an appropriate balance struck. A Public Lending Right (PLR) mechanism is reasonable from the perspective of the developed countries, which was discussed in the early 1990s in China; however, it was not adopted as most Chinese scholars argued against it.Consider what Montesquieu (1689-1755) said in The Spirit of Law:They [laws] should be in relation to the climate of each country, to the quality of its soil, to its situation and extent, to the principal occupation of the natives, whether husbandmen, huntsmen, or shepherds: they should have relation to the degree of liberty which the constitution will bear; to the religion of the inhabitants, to their inclinations, riches, numbers, commerce, manners, and customs. In fine, they have relations to each other, as also to their origin, to the intent of the legislator, and to the order of things on which they are established; in all of which different lights they ought to be considered[11].There is no soil for PLR in China. Law enforcement is not only an academic issue but also political based on economic status; this is reflected in the IFLA position (IFLA, 2005).However, China has already joined the WTO, and thus the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) should be complied with, and national laws should be adjusted according to TRIPS, so as to protect other member states' intellectual property. Therefore, in order to deal with the conflict between PLR demands of foreign owners and the vacuum in Chinese law, Chinese scholars need to apply themselves to the issue of connecting Chinese laws with the rest of the world.In short, ILL/DD will be still useful if only because printed documents will exist for a long time because of the high price of digitized material and the contradiction between copyright protection and knowledge sharing.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of the paper is to describe the history of document supply in China and recent developments, locally, regionally and nationally.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Document supply in China is described in detail.\nFindings: - The paper provides insights into the development of document supply in China with practical examples, and suggestions are made for improvement.\nOriginality/value: - Document supply in China is a subject that has been addressed rarely in the international library literature. Also provided is a list of web sites that will be valuable for all those wishing to learn more about Chinese document supply.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Complexity complicates lean: lessons from seven emergency services
|
[
"Complexity",
"Learning",
"Lean",
"Emergency care",
"Realistic evaluation",
"Waiting time"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Since early 2000, lean has become the approach to healthcare improvement most commonly reported in the literature (Walshe, 2009; Brandao de Souza, 2009). Both Great Britain's National Health Service (NHS) and the Joint Commission Institute in the USA have promoted the use of lean thinking as a strategy to help healthcare organizations provide more value to their patients, while at the same time using less resources (Jones and Mitchell, 2006; Zak, 2006). In Sweden, nine out of ten hospitals claim to have implemented lean to some extent (Weimarsson, 2011). However, whether and how the benefits of lean thinking seen in manufacturing can be emulated in healthcare remains uncertain (Brandao de Souza and Pidd, 2011; Radnor et al., 2012).\nMethods: Study setting\nResults: In this section we first present an intervention description (I) for each service (C), outcomes (O), and the cross-case CIMO comparison.\nDiscussion: This in-depth comparative case study illustrates how the impact of the same lean-inspired changes to emergency services varied with the complexity of the care process. This has several implications for the design, implementation, choice of improvement goals and performance indicators, and evaluation of lean initiatives in emergency services.\nAcknowledgements: Author contributions: P.M., C.S., J.T. conceived of and designed the study. P.M. developed the structured interview guide and identified potential mechanisms which were reviewed and refined with U.B., C.S., and J.T. P.M. conducted the statistical analysis. P.M., C.S., J.T., and U.B. conducted the interviews. P.M. and C.S. analyzed the interviews, refined the CIMO configurations, and drafted the paper. J.T., M.B., and J.C. critically reviewed the manuscript. Additional critical comments beyond data and analysis validation were received from U.B., M.H., and F.J. All authors gave their final approval prior to submission of the manuscript. P.M. and C.S. are the guarantors of the paper.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explain how different emergency services adopt and adapt the same hospital-wide lean-inspired intervention and how this is reflected in hospital process performance data.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A multiple case study based on a realistic evaluation approach to identify mechanisms for how lean impacts process performance and services' capability to learn and continually improve. Four years of process performance data were collected from seven emergency services at a Swedish University Hospital: ear, nose and throat (ENT) (two), pediatrics (two), gynecology, internal medicine, and surgery. Performance patterns were linked with qualitative data collected through realist interviews.\nFindings: The complexity of the care process influenced how improvement in access to care was achieved. For less complex care processes (ENT and gynecology), large and sustained improvement was mainly the result of a better match between capacity and demand. For medicine, surgery, and pediatrics, which exhibit greater care process complexity, sustainable, or continual improvement were constrained because the changes implemented were insufficient in addressing the higher degree of complexity.\nOriginality/value: The variation in process performance and sustainability of results indicate that lean efforts should be carefully adapted to the complexity of the care process and to the educational commitment of healthcare organizations. Ultimately, the ability to adapt lean to a particular context of application depends on the development of routines that effectively support learning from daily practices.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Adoption of information systems in organizations: Understanding the role of institutional pressures in a collectivist culture
|
[
"Information system usage",
"Social influence",
"Institutional theory",
"Information system",
"Collectivism",
"Hedonic motivation"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Technology adoption is an important area of the information system (IS) theory (Lee and Rao, 2009). In the increasingly global business environment, there is a growing need to utilize IS to achieve efficiencies and effectiveness in business operations. With the diversity of the workforce and cultural differences among employees (Abbasi et al., 2015), it has become difficult to understand employees' technology acceptance behavior; in particular, the existing research has examined the effect of different factors on employees' IS usage without considering the boundary conditions of cultural diversity among employees (Zhang et al., 2018; Yang and Bahli, 2015).\nBanking sector in Pakistan: Today the majority of the banks in Pakistan are moving from traditional banking to online mobile banking services (Rashid et al., 2019). Because of highly competitive nature of banking industry in Pakistan, the banks are more attentive toward new and sophisticated banking technologies (Farah et al., 2018) which can provide the efficient mobile banking services to customers. A new customer relationship management (CRM) software (T24) has recently been implemented in branches of different banks, and their employees are thus in a learning phase. The current study was conducted in the private banking sector in Pakistan, which is undergoing a new technology implementation phase. How employees responded to this technological change is the key focus of our study. The management of the banking sector has a primary focus on the effectiveness of the newly implemented technology (Padmavathy et al., 2012) because banks are highly concerned about providing customized services for customers by using advanced IS (Al-Dmour et al., 2019). This study will provide managerial implications to the managers of the banking sector who want to proliferate the employees' IS usage behavior. With the help of this study, they can develop employees' positive attitudes to using new IS and ultimately can enhance the IS usage. This research proposed that institutional factors (coercive, normative and mimetic) and cultural factors (collectivism/individualism, etc.) can play a vital role in understanding the employees' new IS adoption process.\nTheoretical foundation: Previous studies have focused on the technology acceptance model to explain individuals' intention to use new technology (To and Tang, 2019). Hegner et al. (2019) studied the role of extrinsic and intrinsic factors in the technology adoption process. Shao (2019) examined the effect of leadership on employees' IT extended use. Compeau and Higgins used social cognitive theory to explain the effect of self-efficacy on individuals' technology acceptance behavior (Compeau and Higgins, 1995; Abdullah and Ward, 2016). Park et al. (2014) examined the impact of institutional support and voluntariness on employees' technology acceptance behavior.\nHypotheses development: Coercive forces and employees' attitudes to using new IS\nResearch method: Sample and procedure\nData analysis techniques: The data analysis was undertaken in two stages. In the first stage, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was performed to establish the reliability and validity of the constructs. In addition, common method bias (CMB) was performed to identify any methodological flaws in the data.\nScale validation: The instruments in this study were adapted from western studies; thus, it was necessary to establish the validity and reliability of all constructs in the Asian context. To test the validity and reliability of all constructs in this study, CFA was performed using SEM in MPlus 7 software. First, a single-factor CFA was conducted, in which all observed variables were modeled with one latent factor (Anderson and Gerbing, 1988). The data showed poor model fit with this single-factor CFA (see Table I, Model 1), with none of the fit indices meeting the threshold. Following that, an eight-factor CFA was conducted, which modeled all observed variables with their theorized latent constructs. The eight-factor CFA produced very good model fit indices (kh2=710.32; df=436; kh2/df=1.63; RMSEA=0.04; SRMR=0.04; TLI=0.96, CFI=0.97). A kh2 difference test indicated that Model 2 was superior to Model 1 (p<0.05), as shown in Table I.\nModel testing: The hypothesized model was tested in the unified model using MPlus. The model fit of the structural regression model met or exceeded the threshold for all fit indices (kh2=1,322.52; df=690; kh2/df=1.92; RMSEA=0.05; SRMR=0.07; TLI=0.92, CFI=0.92).\nDiscussion: The results of this study demonstrate the positive effect of all institutional forces (i.e. coercive, normative and mimetic) on employees' attitudes to using a new IS. The effects of coercive and normative forces were greater than the mimetic force on employees' attitudes to using a new IS. This study confirms the findings of Shi et al. (2008), who tested the effect of coercive, normative and mimetic pressures on students' attitudes and IS usage. However, this study differs from Shi et al. (2008) in multiple ways. First, the data of Shi et al. (2008) were drawn from students, whereas the current study collected data from banking sector employees. Second, Shi et al. (2008) ignored the moderating role of individualism/collectivism in studying the effect of institutional forces on individuals' technology adoption behavior.\nTheoretical contribution: The most research on employee technology acceptance behavior focuses largely on the TPB (To and Tang, 2019; Scherer et al., 2019), whereas the present study offers a new perspective in this research by suggesting the institutional theory as an alternative framework to explain employees' attitudes toward IS usage especially in the banking sector of Pakistan.\nLimitations and future research directions: While this study provides numerous theoretical and practical contributions, it also has limitations. The data were collected at a single point in time from the banking sector in Pakistan and the results cannot be generalized to other sectors or countries because of cultural, social and legal differences - future research could address this. The cross-sectional nature of this study inhibits testing the causality between constructs. To further inform such causality, longitudinal studies using casual research designs are essential. Finally, future research could triangulate in-depth qualitative case studies to provide further robust results. Researchers could conduct a qualitative study on employees' IS usage behavior, which may unfold many other factors related to personality and social, cultural and organizational factors that could further foster employees' IS usage.\nConclusion: Drawing upon the employees' IS usage, this research develops a conceptual model to study the effect of institutional forces on employees' attitudes to using a new IS and employees' IS usage behavior. This study further investigated the moderation of collectivism/individualism between the relationship of institutional forces and employees' attitudes to using new IS. To test the model, data from 370 banking sector employees was used. The structural equation modeling technique in MPlus 7.0 was used to test the model and corresponding hypotheses. The results revealed that coercive, normative and mimetic forces positively influenced employees' IS usage through the mediation of attitudes to using a new IS. Meanwhile, the effect of institutional forces on employees' attitudes to using a new IS was moderated by the collectivism in such a way: Coercive and normative forces had a stronger effect on attitude to using a new IS for employees with high collectivism, and collectivism weakens the effect of mimetic force on employees' attitudes to using a new IS. The institutional theory provides a comprehensive understanding of the employees' attitudes to using new IS and IS usage. This study provided useful information to the managers about the factors which can foster the technology implementation process within organizations.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to determine the factors influencing the adoption of new information systems (IS) in organizations. Based on the institutional theory, this research proposes that organizations may induce their employees to adopt new IS by creating three types of institutional pressure: coercive, normative and mimetic. It is further argued that the effects of these three institutional pressures on employees' new IS usage depend on their cultural orientations.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Model testing relies on data collected from 370 banking sector employees during the implementation of a new \"customer relationship management\" system. The hypothesized model was tested by using the structural equation modeling technique in MPlus 7.0.\nFindings: The findings of this research reveal that institutional pressures (coercive, normative and mimetic) have positive effects on employees' attitudes to using the new IS, which, in turn, positively influences their IS usage. In addition, collectivism strengthens the positive effect of coercive and normative forces on attitudes to using the new IS. Conversely, collectivism weakens the effect of the mimetic force on employees' attitudes to using the new IS.\nOriginality/value: This research is among pioneering studies that explain the effect of institutional pressures (coercive, normative and mimetic) on employees' IS usage. It is the first study of its nature that demonstrates that each of the three institutional pressures has differential effects on employees with highly collectivist orientations in comparison with employees with low collectivist orientations.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Bioactive property of soymilk fermented by agrowastes-immobilized lactobacilli
|
[
"Agrowastes",
"Immobilization",
"Soymilk",
"Lactobacilli",
"Proteolytic",
"Micro‐organisms",
"Personal health",
"Food products"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Lactobacillus is one the primary genera of probiotic microorganisms. Probiotics are viable microorganisms that confer health benefits to the host once consumed in adequate amounts, primarily by promoting the proliferation of beneficial gastrointestinal indigenous microflora (Lye et al., 2009). In addition to improving gut health, previous studies have found that lactobacilli could exert other health promoting effects such as antimutagenic properties (Hsieh and Chou, 2006), immune enhancement, reduction of cancer risks, decreasing of serum cholesterol level (Liong, 2008; Ooi and Liong, 2010), and antihypertension (Lye et al., 2009). The International Dairy Federation has stated that growth of probiotics should exceed 107 CFU/g in food products in order to provide therapeutic effects to the hosts (Ouwehand and Salminen, 1998). Therefore, the survivability of probiotics through the harsh gastrointestinal environment is crucial as it may result in a significant decrease in viability of probiotics (Liao et al., 2010).Methods have been constantly developed and improved, aimed at enhancing the viability of probiotics, such as stress adaptation, mutation, alginate coating (Mokarram et al., 2009) and microencapsulation (Kim et al., 2008). Immobilization has been found to be an effective way to increase the viability of bacteria. Various materials have been used as carriers for cell immobilization such as cryo-polyvinyl-alcohol gels (cryoPVAGs) to immobilize Saccharomyces cerevisiae (Lozinsky, 1994), natural fibers and artificial fibers as immobilizers for E. coli (Chu et al., 2009) and polyethyleneimine for baker's yeast cell immobilization (D'Souza and Melo, 2001). However, the production of the above carriers is often costly.Agrowastes are biological materials generated from the agricultural industries that are not utilized and thus abandoned as wastes. The increasing amount of agrowastes generated annually has become an economical and environmental concern. Although much effort have emphasized on the recycling of agrowastes such as the production of biofuel, conversion into animal feed and beddings, and the production of industrial composites, a large portion of wastes remain unused.Soymilk is rich in protein and equivalent to the protein quality of eggs. The peptides of soymilk have been reported to exert antihypertensive effects but most of the peptides are inactive in the forms of their parent protein structure. Lactobacilli have the ability to degrade soy proteins, releasing bioactive peptides via proteolysis (Fung et al., 2008). These bioactive peptides have been found to exhibit ACE inhibitory activity, which inhibit angiotensin-I converting enzyme (ACE), the key enzyme responsible for hypertension. ACE (ACE; peptidyldipeptide hydrolase, EC 3.4.15.1) is a carboxypeptidase that converts angiotensin-I to angiotensin-II, a potent vasoconstrictor and by degrading bradykinin, a vasodilatory peptides, thus giving rise to a net hypertensive effect (Sentandreu and Toldra, 2007). The use of lactobacilli to yield bioactive peptides is economic and convenient, where bioactive peptides are released directly into soymilk without purification or processing compared to conventional chemical synthesis (Florence et al., 2003).We have previously reported that agrowastes are efficient immobilizers for lactobacilli cells in the fermentation of soymilk. Immobilized cells showed better growth, utilization of substrates and production of short-chain fatty acids during prolonged fermentation at different temperatures (4degC, 25degC, 36degC) compared to free cells (Teh et al., 2009, 2010a, b). However, the effect of such immobilization on the bioactivity of fermented soymilk remains unknown. Thus, in the present study, we aimed to evaluate the proteolytic- and in-vitro ACE inhibitory activities of agrowastes-immobilized lactobacilli in soymilk.\n2. Materials and methods: 2.1 Bacterial cultures\n3. Results and discussion: 3.1 Immobilization of lactobacilli cells to agrowastes\n4. Conclusions: The immobilization of lactobacilli on agrowastes led to improved bioactive properties in fermented soymilk. This was accompanied by an increased proteolytic activity, which liberated peptides with in vitro ACE inhibitory activity. In general, proteolytic activity and in vitro ACE inhibitory activity were higher at 37degC and 25degC compared to 4degC. Our results indicated that agrowastes have potential as cell immobilizers for the production of new functional foods, and at the same time could reduce the accumulation of wastes, concurrently alleviating environmental and economical issues.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This study aims to evaluate the effect of cell immobilization on bioactive property of lactobacilli-fermented soymilk.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Agrowastes from durian (Durio zibethinus), cempedak (Artocarpus champeden), and mangosteen (Garcinia mangostana) were used as immobilizers for lactobacilli (Lactobacillus acidophilus FTDC 1331, L. acidophilus FTDC 2631, L. acidophilus FTDC 2333, L. acidophilus FTDC 1733, and L. bulgaricus FTCC 0411) in soymilk fermentation. Fermented soymilk was stored at different temperatures (4degC, 25degC and 37degC) for 168 h and sampled for analyses periodically.\nFindings: - Scanning electron micrographs showed that cells of lactobacilli were immobilized onto the matrix of agrowastes powder. The proteolytic activity was higher in soymilk supplemented with immobilized lactobacilli at 37degC and 25degC compared to that at 4degC. Soymilk fermented by cells immobilized on cempedak rind powder showed higher proteolytic activity (p<0.0001), followed by durian and mangosteen rinds powder (p<0.001). The highest ACE inhibitory activity was also found in soymilk fermented by cells immobilized on cempedak rind powder for all temperatures studied (p<0.0001). In addition, ACE inhibitory activity was higher in soymilk fermented at 37degC, compared to 25degC and 4degC (p<0.0001).\nOriginality/value: - The results in the paper show that cell immobilization enhances the bioactive property of fermented soymilk, in terms of proteolysis and in-vitro ACE inhibitory activity.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Migration policy uncertainty and stock market investor sentiment
|
[
"Politics",
"Stock markets",
"Investor sentiment",
"Migration policy",
"Volatility spillover",
"F22",
"G10",
"G15"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: United Nations (UN) reported that total number of migrants has increased by almost 50 percent from 2000 to 2017 (UN, 2017). One of the underlying reasons for this surprising increase is the civil war bursting out in 2011, in Syria. There are over 7m Syrians who crossed the Syrian border to resettle at a different country (UN, 2017). Although majority of asylum seekers are relocated to Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt, they are still seeking ways to cross the Aegean Sea to settle in one of the European countries. Moreover, the seekers are not only from Syria; citizens of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Bangladesh and many other citizens of underdeveloped countries have been looking for a way out from their countries for a more prosperous and peaceful life.\n2. Literature review: Our paper is related with three strands of literature. As we mention above, there are three major channels of migration to affect stock market investor sentiment. First of all, as we have seen in the last decade, right-wing party politicians have highly benefited from potential migration claims to their countries. So how does the right-wing election win is perceived by investors on average? One of the first studies on this area is by Santa-Clara and Valkanov (2003), who test the impact of Democrats and Republicans separately on stock market, whilst controlling for several macroeconomic factors. Although Huang (1985) and Johnson et al. (1999) show there is a difference in stock returns under left and right-wing parties, Santa-Clara and Valkanov (2003), using a data for the last century, find that the excess return of CRSP index is 2 and 11 percent under Republican and Democrat management, respectively. Therefore, they conclude that equity market investors perceive left-wing to be more stock market-friendly. Wong and McAleer (2009) support their findings for the USA, and Chretien and Coggins (2009) also argue that Democrat premium is also applicable for Canadian equities. However, Powell et al. (2009) state that long-regimes such as presidential cycles lead to a spurious regression problem, if standard testing procedures are used. Therefore, they indicate that findings of previous likewise studies are questionable.\n3. Methodology: We employ a recent volatility spillover analysis via Diebold and Yilmaz (2012), which is based upon the pretty well-known forecast error variance decomposition (FEVD) methodology. FEVD allows one to analyze the relative importance of each variable on other selected variables in the VAR, through forecasting the H-step-ahead variance. In our setting, FEVD provides us to understand the impact of 1 standard deviation shock in migration policy uncertainty index (MI) on the stock market volatility.\n4. Data: We examine volatility spillover between migration policy uncertainty and stock markets for the major immigrant receivers, namely, USA, UK, France and Germany. Since these markets are also major financial markets, our analysis would also cast light on whether migration is critical enough to affect stock markets and investor sentiment. We employ S&P500, FTSE100, CAc40 and DAX indices to proxy for US, UK, France and Germany stock markets, respectively.\n5. Discussion of findings: We present findings of Diebold-Yilmaz volatility spillover tests for each country, respectively. We start with France at which, Table II presents results for the connectedness analysis between CAC40 and migration policy uncertainty indices. We base our results on a horizon of H=4. Diagonals depict contribution of the variable itself on its own variance, and hence, they are the highest numbers. Off-diagonals present the contribution of variable i on the other variable j; for instance, France migration index explains 1.3 percent of the four-step ahead forecast error variance in French stocks. The other way around, CAC40 explains 7.7 percent of the four-step ahead forecast error variance in FMI. If one would like to find the net connectedness, then we deduct 1.1 from 7.7 percent and come up with 6.4, which indicates the direction of the spillover. Although both FMI and CAC40 affect each other, the higher spillover is from CAC40 to FMI and hence the spillover is from stocks to migration index. Therefore, France's migration policy uncertainty does not seem to affect equity market investors' investment sentiment.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the volatility transmission between migration policy uncertainty indices (MI) of France, Germany, UK and the USA, and respective stock markets of these countries. Therefore, the author's major intention is to understand whether MI is a critical factor affecting company valuations and investor sentiment.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The author proxies volatility via EGARCH (1,1) for all series and employs Diebold-Yilmaz (2012) methodology to test the spillover, which is a simple yet very intuitive procedure. This method allows one to analyze the numerical amount of spillover, as well as the direction.\nFindings: Findings propose that volatility transmission is from migration index to stock markets for the UK and US markets, but similar findings are not applicable for France and Germany. However, when cross-market transmissions are analyzed, it is observed that migration policy uncertainty of US spills significant volatility to all European stock markets. Hence, the findings underline the central role of US markets.\nOriginality/value: Given the increasing worries about migration across the USA and Europe, the author tries to cast light on whether investor sentiment alters by migration policies. The literature is recently building and best of the author's knowledge; the paper is the first to investigate the cross-country spillover between MIs, which has not been performed before.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Critical reflection in the workplace: is it just too difficult?
|
[
"Critical thinking",
"Organizational change",
"Organizational development",
"Stakeholder analysis",
"Private sector organizations"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Critical reflection engages participants in a process of drawing from critical perspectives to make connections between their learning and work experiences, to understand and change interpersonal and organisational practices. However, it is one thing to do this within the academy but the rarely explored question is, what does this raise for in-organisation development? How can critical reflection be expedited? What outcomes can critical reflection have for participants, for in-company developers and for management/ organisation development providers? And in the end is it just too difficult to bother with? The intentions of this paper are to contribute reflections of an empirical account of working with critical reflection within an organisational development programme\"Critical reflection - that's a good thing, right?\"\nCritical reflection in the organisation - an account of practice: Context\nMaking sense: The institutional dynamics of employing critical reflection within a workplace development programme is significantly different from within the academy. Much as we might continue to use the language of participant and facilitator as taken from the university-based programme, the relationships are more complex. In the workplace programme there are certainly participants and facilitators, but this is no longer the primary relationship; now there is also client, and academic manager, in addition to the sponsor (chief executive). This is a different and more complicated brew of emotion and power dynamics. There is an interesting tension in which participating members are constructed simultaneously as customers of a product and as actors in an organisation transformation process. There is an inherent contradiction between the pull to keep the customer satisfied and the conception that organisation change needs disruption to the existing order (i.e. dis-order, dis-organisation and disturbance), which inevitably will cause some discord amongst individual members. How this is constructed and managed by the client, sponsor, participants, facilitators and academic manager will affect which direction prevails. The power dynamics between client, academic manager and facilitator are even further complicated if the client is a participating member of the programme, also invited to engage in critical reflection. As client they have the authority to influence the programme implementation and as final sanction to recommend closure. They can choose to listen to individual organisation members' complaints or not. At the same time, as participants they are subject to the facilitator's power to challenge, question and guide meaning-making for them in ways that might provoke dissonance.In a commercialised context, where contracts to deliver in-company programmes are bid for competitively, the academic manager is subject to additional pressures compared to when managing a programme entirely within the academy. There is the added consideration of \"What impact will the perception of this programme have on our (my) reputation to win the next contract?\".One way of looking at these complex dynamics builds on Geoff Mead's (2006) use of the \"four territories of experience\" proposed by Fisher and Rooke (2000), Torbert (2004) and others. They present the four territories as critical for effective action in the world:1. visioning;2. strategising;3. performing; and4. assessing.As they define them, visioning is concerned with long-term intentions, purposes, and aims; strategising involves planning and implementing overall delivery; performing is concerned with acting in pursuit of role-defined responsibilities; and assessing focuses on observed behavioural consequences and the effects of action. Table I uses this framework to surmise the different perspectives held on critical reflection by the different players in this case study.\nConcluding reflections - is it just too difficult?: This account illustrates the difficulty of employing critical reflection within the workplace and reminds us that we need to be prepared for the dissonance that is integral. This can lead to unsettled individuals, disgruntled customers, clients in dilemma and facilitators as repositories for participants' emotions. One conclusion might be that it is just too difficult because of the multiple stakeholders and the commercial context. However, other voices remind us why critical self-reflection has a place in the professional activity of management education and practice. Reed and Anthony (1992), for example, argue that critical reflection is about social, political and ethical issues, which are fundamentals upon which any organisational reality rests. It is also important for education and organisational practice to counter current preoccupations with instrumentalism and introduce methodologies which focus their attention to the moral, political and cultural aspects of managing and organising. If this is the conclusion we stay with, a crucial implication is that simplistic interpretations of an expectation like \"90% sessions to be rated good or higher\" have to be challenged at the outset and used to make explicit between client and developers the issues that may be raised by engaging in critical reflection in the workplace.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The intentions of this article are to contribute reflections of an empirical account of working with critical reflection within an organisational development programme, addressing the following questions: What space is there for critical reflection in organisational development? What issues are raised for in-company developers and providers by advocating critical reflection in organisation practice?\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A case study approach is taken, presenting an empirical account of a management and organisational development programme that integrated action learning and critical reflection.\nFindings: - The account illustrates difficulties of employing critical reflection within the workplace arising from the more complex power relations between the multiple stakeholders in a commercial context. In particular, dissonance provoked by critical reflection confronts the client with a tension over whether to see organisation members primarily as customers to please or as participants in a change process which inevitably will disrupt.\nPractical implications: - In making sense of the perspectives of different stakeholders a model is presented to help practitioners in development of this kind to anticipate potential issues.\nOriginality/value: - The paper presents a rare account of employing critical reflection in a work organisation development programme.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Accreditation in one teaching hospital: a phenomenology study among Iranian nurses
|
[
"Iran",
"Quality healthcare",
"Hospital",
"Accreditation"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Quality improvement plays an important role in health system policies in all countries and force governments to improve health service quality (Campbell et al., 2002; Moss et al., 2000; Moghria et al., 2013). Accreditation is a common strategy for improving healthcare standards and has attracted government, healthcare organization, medical association, manager, insurance company and other stakeholder attention (Scrivens, 1996). Accreditation is a process in which health service providers are evaluated and accredited by experts from an independent organization based on written, comprehensive and predetermined standards, and, accordingly, which leads to providers being awarded an accreditation certificate (Raeisi et al., 2006). Accreditation should ideally be outside government control. Independent accreditation staff should evaluate and accredit healthcare organizations, especially hospitals, comprehensively (Shaw, 2001).\nMethods: We implemented a qualitative study using a phenomenological approach to studying nurses' experience with and understanding of hospital accreditation in an Iranian teaching hospital in 2016. This hospital had 154 beds and received \"grade 1 excellent\" in the accreditation program implemented by Iran's Ministry of Health and Medical Education in 2014 and 2016. The hospital was among ten grade 1 institutions in Iran. The quality improvement activities, in accordance with accreditation standards, started in 2011 with senior manager planning and participation. We collected data using two focus groups (seven and eight nurses), which were held in the hospital. Nurses were selected using purposive sampling. Inclusion criteria were more than two years' work experience and an active role in implementing the accreditation program. Each focus group lasted one hour. First, the study objectives were explained to participating nurses and then discussions started. Five topics were explored:\nResults: Most (90 percent) focus group participants had a bachelor's degree in nursing. Findings emerging from group discussions were classified according to five main topics, 19 themes and 63 sub-themes.\nDiscussion: Nurses had different experiences implementing the teaching hospital accreditation program. Senior manager and nurse roles, poor cooperation among physicians and administrative staff, superfluous documentation and a poor incentive system were some items that nurses experienced during the accreditation process. Results showed positive effects on hospital service quality from the nurses' perspective, which was like the results from a similar study on accreditation effect on teaching hospital health service delivery (Moradi et al., 2015). The Schmaltz et al. (2011) and Lutfiyya et al. (2009) studies indicated that hospital performance improved through implementing accreditation programs. In another study in 110 hospitals in Lebanon, most hospital managers considered accreditation a good and useful investment (Saleh et al., 2013). Other studies did not show any significant relationships between accreditation and service quality (Sack et al., 2010; Dean Beaulieu and Epstein, 2002; Miller et al., 2005). The difference between these studies may be due to the instruments used to assess accreditation program effects on service quality, study methods and context.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Accreditation helps to ensure safe and high-quality services in hospitals. Different occupational groups have various hospital accreditation experiences. The purpose of this paper is to investigate nurses' accreditation experience and its effects on Iranian teaching hospital service quality.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This was a qualitative study involving a phenomenological approach to studying nurses' hospital accreditation experience and understanding the effects on Iranian teaching hospital service quality. Data were collected using two focus groups in which nurses were selected using purposive sampling. Transcripts were analyzed using content analysis.\nFindings: Nurses' experiences showed that hospital administrators and nurses had greater role in implementing accreditation than other occupational groups. Accreditation improved patient-centeredness, patient safety, logistics and managerial processes and decision making. However, a weak incentive system, extra documentation and work stress were negative experiences.\nPractical implications: Nurse experience, as the most important care team member, reveals accreditation's strengths and weaknesses and its effects on service quality.\nOriginality/value: The author used a phenomenology approach to measure accreditation effects on service quality - a valuable tool for understanding a phenomenon among those that experience hospital accreditation processes.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Can't change my political disaffection! The role of political disaffection, trust, and resistance to change in internet voting
|
[
"Trust in technology",
"Trust in government",
"Cynicism",
"Apathy",
"Online voting",
"Political disaffection"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The voter turnout for many nations, including the USA, is on the decline. To rectify this trend, several nations have proposed convenience voting reforms, such as electoral day registration and postal voting, intending to simplify the voting process and increase political participation (Gronke et al., 2008). Recently, Internet voting has been discussed as a means of increasing turnout, especially among younger people (Alvarez et al., 2008; Warkentin et al., 2018; Germann and Serdult, 2017; Goodman, 2014; Powell et al., 2012). Internet voting (i-voting) is defined as a voting method that allows voters to cast their vote remotely over the internet and electronic media from any location (Warkentin et al., 2018). Studies on internet voting point to different directions with some studies finding larger turnout increases, some moderate ones and others find no turnout effect at all. This questions the major justification for internet voting. Internet voting was first experimented in Arizona Democratic Primaries in 2000, followed by other countries such as the UK in 2002, Canada and Switzerland in 2003 and Estonia in 2005. Despite the initial enthusiasm, and expectation of increasing voters' turnout, internet voting has not grown and has even been abandoned in different countries. Germann and Serdult (2017) found that the introduction of internet voting did not affect turnout in the Swiss cantons of Geneva and Zurich. Several studies have found that the expectation of the immense turnout has not been materialized and often exaggerated (Bochsler, 2010; Goodman, 2014).\n2. Literature review: Over the last two decades, scholars have examined the issues related to the adoption of internet voting and the impact of it on voters' turnout. These studies can be separated into several categories. The majority of the empirical studies based on survey design have used the technology acceptance model (TAM) as the basis of their study. TAM is an information systems theory that explains if perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use and attitude toward the product predict user's acceptance and use of technology. Choi and Kim (2012) used TAM to empirically examine how political ideology may impact the adoption of online voting. This study found that perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, accuracy and confidentiality have direct and indirect impacts on the intention to use e-voting. Similarly, Warkentin et al. (2018) also extend the TAM adding a sense of belongingness construct to the research model to understand the intention to use online voting. Some recent research studies have used the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) model to explore people's behavior related to eVoting. Using the four key constructs, such as performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence and facilitating conditions, the UTAUT model investigates the underlying factors influencing the acceptance and usage of information systems. Powell et al. (2012) used the UTAUT model to analyze the impact of performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, trust in the internet and computer anxiety on the intention to use online voting for both young and elderly voters. Schaupp et al. (2009) also applied the UTAUT model to analyze the impact of performance expectancy, social influence, facilitating conditions, trust and optimism bias on e-file intention of the citizens. Several other studies have followed this trend (Choi and Kim, 2012; Gefen et al., 2005; Lippert and Ojumu, 2008; Nemeslaki et al., 2016; Seo and Bernsen, 2016). While TAM, UTAUT, trust model, sense of identity theory model and other extended versions of these theories and models are capable to explain the voter's intention to vote online, repetitive use of these theories and model in the online voting and eGovernment context may not help to expand the existing knowledge regarding voter's behavior.\n3. Theories and hypotheses: In this section, a theoretical framework for empirical testing is laid. Based on the arguments presented in the preceding section and this section, a theoretical research model will be proposed which will summarize the proposed hypotheses as well as the nature of each relationship. The following subsections provide more detail and explanation.\n4. Research methodology: 4.1 Sample and sampling procedure\n5. Data analysis and results: 5.1 Measurement model\n6. Discussion and implications: By integrating factors of political disaffection and trust to the resistance to change, this study investigated the factors that impact the intention of users to use online voting. The findings in this study have both theoretical as well as practical implications discussed below.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to put the focus on political disaffection that the voters may have and its impact on their resistance to the changes, thereby influencing intention to adopt Internet voting. This study also examines the impact of perceived risk and technological skills on the trust of the Internet technology and informal networks, such as social influence and media influence on the trust of the government.\nDesign/methodology/approach: To empirically test the model, an online survey is administered to 851 people who are eligible to vote.\nFindings: The findings show that positive media influence and social influence also significantly impact trust in government but trust in government does not necessarily decrease resistance to change and positively impact intention to adopt eVoting. Also, the resistance to change was shown to significantly influence the intention to use Internet voting.\nResearch limitations/implications: A primary potential limitation of this study is the use of convenience sampling, which may lead to self-selection bias that limits the generalization of our research to all citizens.\nPractical implications: Government institutions, as well as political parties, can use the findings of this research to understand how political dissatisfaction such as apathy and cynicism can increase trust in technology and lead to higher participation in online voting.\nOriginality/value: While the focus on previous literature has been heavily on security and system requirements, this study expands existing research by exploring voting habits, political disaffection, the resistance of change and informal influence on intention to use online voting.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
A model for the diffusion of knowledge sharing technologies inside private transport companies
|
[
"Knowledge-sharing",
"Diffusion of innovation",
"Community of practice",
"Private transport sector",
"Taxi drivers",
"Technology forecasting"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In the management field, a considerable research effort has been spent in developing analytical models that try to explain the process of diffusion of knowledge-sharing technologies within a community of potential adopters. The authors evaluate the literature on the diffusion models in marketing management focused mainly on communication channels by which the information about an innovation is transmitted. One of these models, which is still nowadays very popular among researchers and practitioners, is that developed by Bass (1969). According to this model, which combines and generalizes previous concepts and findings (Fourt and Woodlock, 1960; Mansfield, 1961), the potential adopters of a technology are influenced by two kinds of communications. One group of adopters, referred to as \"innovators\", are driven by mass-media communications, that is, by external influence. Another group of adopters, referred to as \"imitators\", are driven by word-of-mouth communication, that is, by internal influence (Norton and Bass, 1987; Dodson and Muller, 1978; Hongxing and Pengfei, 2012; Horsky, 1990; Horsky and Simon, 1983; Jain and Rao, 1990; Kalish, 1983, 1985; Kalish and Lilien, 1986; Libai et al., 2009; Mahajan, 1993; Parker and Gatignon, 1994; Robinson and Lakhani, 1975; Peres et al., 2010).\nTheoretical background: A large amount of literature has investigated the knowledge-sharing processes and technologies from two distinct theoretical viewpoints. Starting with Roger's (1983) studies regarding the early and late users of technological innovations, as well as with Szulanski's (1996) analysis of best practices transfers within firms, a number of researchers have examined in detail the elements that cause difficulties in knowledge transfers, basing their studies on the communications theory (Shannon and Weaver, 1949). As stated by Szulanski (1996), this theory argues that knowledge transfer and sharing may be conceptualized as the transmission of a message from a source to a recipient in a particular setting. Moreover, the message or the situation could have certain features, limiting the quantity of transferrable knowledge, which may result in a stickier transfer. As pointed out by Szulanski (2000), in recent times, this field has increasingly attracted the attention of organizational learning theories, as not only a set of communications is deemed relevant for the success of knowledge transfers but also a constant process of learning interactions.\nThe research design: Taxi driver companies are organized as cooperatives of several individual entrepreneurs (i.e. \"taxi brokers\"): each taxi driver usually pays a monthly fee to the taxi broker to use common services and/or technologies (e.g. inter-communication technologies, use of parking areas, use of the cooperative brand equity and awareness, use of the brokers' Web areas, etc.). Prior to the diffusion of blogs and social networks, taxi brokers were using a knowledge-sharing system exclusively based on the Central Radio. The drivers were maintaining a considerable amount of information and knowledge about the rides (e.g. details about destinations, formation of traffic during on-peak hours, rates to be charged, customers' experiences, etc.), and they were sharing them indirectly with the whole fleet through the Central Radio. This system has allowed taxi drivers to observe some patterns of recurring features in time (similar requests and destinations, homogeneous preferences, etc.), thus making them learn and distinguish the most interesting and profitable rides (e.g. customers visiting the city), from the low profile ones (e.g. random rides or targeted workplace or nearby places). Anyway, the great quantity of information to be managed, as a consequence, has encouraged the taxi brokers to develop and adopt better tools for knowledge-sharing, to allow the taxi drivers to identify their best job opportunities. For this reason, since 2013, taxi brokers have progressively adopted either technologies for knowledge-sharing based on social networks and blogs or apps that help the passengers locate the taxi drivers and use the broker's services. This has resulted in a strong network of shared experiences and in an information flow that has allowed the taxi drivers to perform their daily work more efficiently.\nThe empirical model: Let N(t) denote the cumulative number of persons who at time t have already adopted a certain innovative technology (in the present study, N(t) denotes the number of cumulative uses of knowledge-sharing technologies, as formerly expressed). According to the popular model proposed by Bass (1969), N(t) satisfies the following ordinary differential equation:\nTheoretical analysis: From the theoretical standpoint, we can prove the following proposition, which ensures that the model by Easingwood et al. (1983) has a unique solution.\nEmpirical analysis: In this section, we use the model equations (3) and (4) to evaluate and forecast the time evolution of knowledge-sharing technologies inside the community of taxi drivers. As evidenced from the gathered data, knowledge-sharing practices among the drivers dramatically increased, starting from 2013, thanks to the emerging of software-based technologies: that evidence stimulated the taxi brokers to adopt progressively new innovative technologies to simplify the taxi drivers' daily work and offer better services to their passengers. Therefore, it appeared interesting to make some predictions on the time evolution of such a sector, which is done using the model by Easingwood et al. (1983).\nNumerical results: The values of the model parameters obtained using the calibration procedure described in the previous section are shown in Table I. Note that in this table, we also report the optimum of the objective function, namely, f^\nConclusions: Turning to the drivers, prior to the introduction of multiple knowledge-sharing tools, information and knowledge transfer were deeply linked to ongoing radio interaction, a function that served to create a \"virtual\" network whereby all members directly participated in and \"heard\" the organization doing its work. Similarly, informal gatherings at taxi ranks and coffee stops during slack times served as a key opportunity for community engagement and socialization. In these ways, members of the organization constituted, negotiated and enacted the organization's knowledge system essentially through tacit and not formalized codes of knowledge-sharing, typical of the CoPs. However, the introduction of knowledge-sharing technologies, like the social network or the Internet-based ones, replaced the previous network with regulated and formalized means of interaction that do not integrate existing deeper structures. A primary outcome of the adoption of the described technologies was the removal of multi-directional radio communications between driver, base and driver-network and its replacement with a highly sophisticated automated job allocation system. Therefore, drivers were no more strictly tied to their cars, sharing knowledge only when parking or queuing.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to investigate, inside the private sector of transport, a model for the diffusion of knowledge-sharing technologies with non-uniform internal influence that has been developed by Easingwood et al. (1983).\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors performed an empirical evaluation of the performances of the model by Easingwood et al. (1983) by analyzing data gathered from almost 230 taxi drivers joining two of the biggest taxi brokers operating in the Southern Italian city of Naples.\nFindings: Such an analysis reveals that the model by Easingwood et al. (1983) provides an excellent agreement with the empirical data and allows to obtain interesting predictions on the future evolution of the sector performances in terms of increasing use of knowledge-sharing technologies within the taxi drivers' community of practice (CoP).\nResearch limitations/implications: In particular, the authors show that a unique solution always exists, which is defined on the whole (positive) set of times and, in the long run, tends to a steady-state equilibrium. A first limit of the present research is certainly the use of a sample restricted to the taxi companies from only one city: future investigations should consider a larger sample by interviewing taxi companies from multiple regions as well. Another limit is that the model performed does not take into account all the factors influencing the diffusion of knowledge-sharing technologies within the CoP. Finally, the research design is not considering the impact of the diffusion of knowledge-sharing technologies on the customer relationship management.\nOriginality/value: The research shows the application of a valid model both for evaluating the diffusion of technologies for sharing knowledge within a CoP and for estimating its development trend. It represents the first original study in Italy that empirically investigates the diffusion of technological innovations for the knowledge management in an industry typically dominated by tacit codes of knowledge-sharing: the taxi companies.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
School-age cooking program assessment has face validity
|
[
"Survey",
"Cognitive interviews",
"Nutrition",
"Cooking",
"Validation",
"School-age children"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Children who are more involved in cooking at home and meal preparation with a parent have greater preference for vegetables (van der Horst et al., 2014), increased self-efficacy (SE) for selecting healthy foods (Chu et al., 2012), and increased consumption of fruit and vegetables (Chu et al., 2014). In a study of children in grades 4-8, Woodruff and Kirby (2013) found that higher confidence in cooking was related to increased family dinner frequency. These benefits and the rise in childhood obesity are prompting study of children's cooking abilities and attitudes toward food, and the promotion of childhood nutrition education programs to encourage healthy lifestyles (Nicklas and Hayes, 2008). Instruments to measure these educational outcomes require rigorous psychometric assessment, including establishing face validity.\nMethod: Study design\nResults: Participants\nDiscussion: This study revealed that items used to measure CE, skill, and attitudes in a cooking-driven intervention were comprehended by a mostly white sample of children in third through fifth grades who were from middle income families. Identifying valid measures to assess cooking intervention outcomes is important because interventions targeting skills and methods that support healthful dietary patterns lead to improved nutrition (Hartmann et al., 2013; Woodruff and Kirby, 2013; Chu et al., 2012, 2014; van der Horst et al., 2014). Increased consumption of healthful foods during early childhood promotes positive development of executive cognitive functions that encourage long-term healthful eating (Riggs et al., 2010). Using a measure that is not face valid can falsely label an intervention as effective or demerit a sound program.\nConclusions: This study examined the face validity of CE, SE, and AT survey items from Cooking with Kids outcomes measures by conducting CIs with a new sample and analyzing the qualitative data inductively using a content analysis approach. The children in this study comprehended the Cooking with Kids survey items and provided responses congruent with established operational definitions. Therefore, this survey was found to be face valid with this mostly white sample of third to fifth grade children from mostly middle income families. This study also demonstrated a variety of interpretations that children have for the activity of cooking. The definition of cooking and the constitution of cooking behaviors are poorly established in the literature and little research on the subject exists with children. This research has expanded current knowledge of what cooking means to this audience. CIs provided insight into interpretation discrepancies for children completing survey items. Cooking-based nutrition education programs emphasize increasing fruit and vegetable preferences and intake through tasting new foods and learning to cook dishes rich in fruits and vegetables. Further research is needed on possible effects that the variety of children's CEs and interpretations may have on outcomes of cooking-based interventions.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Children's cooking abilities are correlated with increased self-efficacy (SE) for selecting healthy foods and increased consumption of fruits and vegetables. Instruments that measure outcomes of nutrition education programs require psychometric assessment for face validity. Survey items related to cooking experience (CE), SE, and attitude used in a school-based cooking program were assessed for face validity. The paper aims to discuss these issues.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Cognitive interviews were conducted with children who had completed third to fifth grades in Northern Colorado, USA. Interviews were examined using content analysis to derive categories for children's concepts of cooking and making food and to assess survey item comprehension.\nFindings: In total, 24 children participated. Most were white, non-Hispanic/Latino and half had most recently completed fourth grade. Categories related to \"making food\" and \"cooking\" included foods prepared with and without a heat source, baked goods/desserts, and activities used in meal/food preparation. Most participants comprehended the survey items and provided responses that were congruent with operational definitions established from identified themes, demonstrating face validity with this sample.\nPractical implications: Children's concepts of \"cooking,\" although robust, show interpersonal variation requiring a prudent approach toward intervention evaluation and supporting use of these face valid survey items. Consider revisions of survey items that add frequency qualifiers and explicit cooking examples as appropriate.\nOriginality/value: This study addresses a gap in the literature on children's understanding of cooking and offers face valid survey items to measure CEs, skill, and attitudes.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Exploring consumer collecting behavior: a conceptual model and research agenda
|
[
"Self-identity",
"Paradox",
"Identity salience",
"Collecting",
"Consumer behaviour",
"Mortality salience"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: \"Collecting is more than just buying objects.\" - Eli Broad\nIntroduction: The Milwaukee Art Museum recently featured an exhibition, \"Milwaukee Collects,\" of artwork on loan from the private collections of local citizens (Tanzilo, 2017). This exhibition featured a variety of pieces from collectors who \"very carefully considered and built their collections based on their personal interests and unique artistic eye\" (Polednik, 2017), and the exhibition was unique in that there were contributions from collectors from diverse backgrounds, not just contributions from large, influential patrons as is common. Attending this exhibition revealed several interesting details to this author. One, the art and furniture, and other curios collected seemed to attest to the varying perspectives of what constitutes a collection; each collection featured items that were related in some way, be it period, aesthetics, theme or other congruency, and each item was selected to convey a specific meaning. Two, the apparent motivation behind the pieces collected varied significantly. Whereas some collectors had the resources to create impressive collections worthy of their own legacy exhibits, other collectors appeared to use their collections to solely communicate their unique tastes and interests. And three, irrespective of their motivation behind or their perspective on collecting, these individuals embraced a collector identity and literally put it on display.\nDefining a collection: It has been estimated that 40 per cent of US households engage in some form of collecting activity (Danzinger, 2002). These collections would likely constitute as broad a variety of collectibles as perspectives on collecting. To better understand the necessary traits of collections and how collections typically begin, an exploration of extant literature is undertaken.\nHow collectors collect: The concept of paradox was prominent throughout the collecting behavior literature (Belk et al., 1988; Carey, 2008; Danet and Katriel, 1986; Long and Schiffman, 1997). Some paradoxical aspects such as the rational/irrational nature of collecting were well covered, while others received less attention. A specific paradox not directly addressed in the literature is the social/solitary nature of collecting, which will be expounded upon later. Tension creation and dissipation were also reoccurring topics and were closely associated with the paradoxical nature of collecting (Carey, 2008; Danet and Katriel, 1986; Hughes and Hogg, 2006; Long and Schiffman, 1997; McIntosh and Schmeichel, 2004; Rubel and Rosman, 2001).\nTheoretical background and research propositions: Whether a collector should be categorized as \"good\" or \"bad,\" overlooks a more fundamental point: an individual's identity as a collector coexists alongside many other social and solitary identities. As Stryker (2002, p. 60) states, \"one may have a long list of identities, limited only by the number of structured role relationships one is involved in.\" In other words, one is never just a collector, he or she may also simultaneously be a scholar, parent, leader, volunteer...and each of these identities may bring its own motivations to the collecting activity. A historian may collect because they are interested in studying and preserving the past, a parent might collect mementos of their child to preserve personal histories, and a child might collect to help discover new worlds and revel in their complexity.\nDiscussion: Through the synthesis of collecting behavior literature and psychological and social psychological theories, this paper provides a conceptual model and research propositions to extend knowledge of consumer collecting behavior. specifically, the model proposes a collector salient identity and collecting motivations that drive tension-filled social and solitary collecting behaviors and these behaviors lead to a reinforcement of the collector salient identity. further, a number of dispositional constructs that may motivate collecting behaviors and a framework of social and solitary collecting behaviors organized by collecting process were presented.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the behaviors that revolve around collecting, the motivations behind these behaviors and the psychological benefits collectors receive from engaging in these collecting behaviors.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A thorough literature review and integration of prominent psychological and social psychology theories are used to propose a conceptual model, several research propositions and potential research questions for future scholarship.\nFindings: This paper proposes that a collector salient identity and collecting motives drive tension-inducing social and solitary collecting behaviors and that these behaviors in turn reinforce the collector salient identity. Relevant aspects of the collecting phenomenon are explored, and included propositions provide future research direction to validate a proposed conceptual model designed to provide insights into a common consumer behavior.\nOriginality/value: This paper provides a broad conceptual model and explores several details of consumer collecting behavior as a basis for future research.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Comparison of total phenolic content and antioxidant activities in selected coloured plants
|
[
"Coloured plants",
"TPC",
"DPPH",
"FRAP",
"TEAC"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Antioxidant refers to any substances used to delay, control or inhibit oxidative stress caused by free radicals. Literature has consistently reported that accumulation of free radicals in human body may disrupt the normal functions of cells and organs, which in turn lead to the onset of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) (Gulcin, 2012). Bioactive compounds have been shown to possess antioxidant properties that can buffer the adverse effects of free radicals. As coloured plants contain a significant amount of bioactive compounds, it is believed that frequent consumption of these plants may reduce the risk of NCDs such as cardiovascular disease, hypertension, diabetes and cancers (Dwiyanti et al., 2018; Jafarian et al., 2014; Tan et al., 2010a).Blue butterfly pea flower, roselle calyx, yellow bell pepper and purple sweet potato are among the plants which come with intense colour and abundant amount of dietary bioactive compounds. Owning to these special characteristics, the plants can be potentially used in the formulation of natural food colourants (Siti Azima et al., 2017; Oloumi et al., 2016; Tang et al., 2015). Besides, it is also worth mentioning that prolonged use of synthetic colourants may bring undesirable health effects such as cancers and allergic reactions (Amchova et al., 2015). In comparison to synthetic colourants, natural colour pigments derived from plants appear to be a safer choice for food industry as these pigments usually do not impose significant health effects to the consumers. Moreover, natural colour pigments usually accompany antioxidant effects which may provide additional health benefits for human beings. Therefore, this study aims to evaluate the total phenolic content and antioxidant activities of coloured plants and explore the possibility of using the colour pigments derived from these plants in the formulation of natural food colourants and nutraceuticals.\n2. Materials and methods: 2.1 Chemicals\n3. Results and discussion: 3.1 Total phenolic content (TPC)\n4. Conclusions: Colour pigment is not only making the plants become more appealing but it also contains significant amount of bioactive compounds. Emerging findings suggested that roselle calyx is the most potential coloured plant for the formulation of natural food colourants as it exhibited the highest amount of total phenolic content and FRAP value among the studied extracts.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Literature has consistently reported that coloured plants are rich in dietary bioactive compounds. Therefore, this study aims to compare the total phenolic content and antioxidant activities in selected coloured plants (blue butterfly pea flower, roselle calyx, yellow bell pepper and purple sweet potato).\nDesign/methodology/approach: Total Phenolic Content (TPC) was determined using Folin-Ciocalteu assay, while antioxidant activities were evaluated using 2,2-dophenyl-1-picryl-hydrazyl-hydrate (DPPH) radical scavenging, Ferric Reducing Antioxidant Power (FRAP) and Trolox Equivalent Antioxidant Capacity (TEAC) assays.\nFindings: TPC was reported from 273.15 +- 19.57 ug GAE/g DW (blue butterfly pea flower extract) to 363.10 +- 7.94 ug GAE/g DW (roselle calyx extract). Antioxidant activities as determined by DPPH assay ranged from 17.26 +- 0.06% (purple sweet potato extract) to 83.38 +- 1.04% (yellow bell pepper extract); while for FRAP assay was 4.92 +- 0.18 mg Fe (II)/g DW (purple sweet potato extract) to 128.33 +- 11.59 mg Fe (II)/g DW (roselle calyx extract). On the other hand, TEAC values were in the range of 15.26 +- 2.83 ug Trolox/g DW (roselle calyx extract) to 364.27 +- 7.14 ug Trolox/g DW (blue butterfly pea flower extract). A significant moderate positive correlation was observed between TPC and DPPH (r = 0.562) as well as TPC and FRAP (r = 0.686).\nOriginality/value: This study was the first to compare the total phenolic content and antioxidant activities in coloured plants. Findings derived from this study can be extended to the formulation of natural food colourants and nutraceuticals.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Fuzzy sets and the organization of literary texts: a conceptualization and two-stage pilot study
|
[
"Fuzzy sets",
"Visual analogue scales",
"Indexing",
"Libraries",
"Literary forms"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The organization of literary texts has presented problems for catalogers and indexers who attempt to perform traditional subject analysis of those texts, and no other system has been developed and consistently deployed for organizing those works. The study described in this paper represents an exploratory attempt to begin determining whether there are sound theoretical reasons to question the utility of subject analysis for literary texts. The main research question in the study was: can the indexability of literary and nonliterary texts be described usefully with fuzzy sets?This paper is also meant to begin extending Literature and Art Informatics, the interdisciplinary study of the design, uses and consequences of information technologies that takes into account their role in the creative efforts of writers and artists (Paling, 2008; adapted from Kling, 1999), to cover the organization and dissemination of literary and artistic works.Literary texts referred in this study to poetry, fiction, and reviews of poetry or fiction. Nonliterary texts referred to texts that are not poetry, fiction, or reviews of poetry or fiction. Subject analysis was defined in this study as assignment of subject headings and call numbers to texts.Indexability referred to the ease with which a text can be organized through subject analysis for discovery or retrieval. This definition is complementary to Buckland's (1997, p. 806) definition of indexicality as \"the quality of having been placed in an organized, meaningful relationship with other evidence\". Indexability has been used differently in other contexts. For example, Hellerstein et al. (2002, p. 38) referred to indexability theory as \"a formal framework that would 'describe whether or not trying to index a given data set is practical for a given set of queries'\". Hellerstein et al., though, addressed the computational aspects of building such indexes, not the human factors that were the focus here.Fuzzy sets (Zadeh, 1965) vary from sets described in traditional set theory. In traditional set theory every item either has full membership in a set (a membership value of 1), or no membership (a membership value of 0). But in fuzzy set theory each item can possess a value anywhere in a continuous range from 0 to 1. Zadeh (1965, p. 338) used the example of the set of tall men in describing imprecisely defined classes that may nonetheless be important. Similarly, the set of indexable texts might constitute a fuzzy set, with texts displaying a continuous range of indexability from extremely high to extremely low.Similar limits were proposed by Swanson (1988, p. 94), who posited a series of postulates of impotence (PIs), \"statements of what cannot be done\". Swanson (1988, p. 94) pointed to the principles of physics and cosmology, and used as an example the impossibility of perpetual motion. Swanson intended his proposed PIs to apply to information retrieval very generally, but the limits discussed here would apply to attempts to perform subject analysis on literary and, in contrast, nonliterary texts. Creating a formal measure of indexability could help us determine which texts can be productively indexed using traditional subject analysis, and which texts might require a different approach.\n2. Background: The American Library Association has published Guidelines on Subject Access to Individual Works of Fiction, Drama, etc. (GSAFD) (ALA, 2000), but library catalogers often choose not to assign subject headings to literary works, and call numbers assigned to literary works often provide only broad groupings, e.g. by a broad range of dates. The ALA SAC Subcommittee on Fiction Guidelines (Bogan et al., 2003, p. 5) issued a follow-up report on the GSAFD. The report referred to \"the question of the legitimacy of the underpinnings of the [GSAFD]\", and arguments \"that novels don't have subjects and are not 'about' something, in the way of nonfiction works\". The GSAFD and the subsequent report focused largely on fiction, and not on other types of literary works such as poetry. Other systems (e.g. Beghtol, 1994) have been proposed, but are not used in common practice. Databases of literary works exist, but do not enjoy widespread use.Humanist scholars such as Derrida (1990) have made arguments similar to the arguments discussed by Bogan et al. (2003). Derrida suggested that all texts are inherently open in meaning, perhaps radically so, because they come to us free of their original context. Derrida (1990, p. 1175) argued, particularly of written texts, that the signifying form loses any absolute meaning:by the possibility of its being repeated in the absence not only of its \"referent,\" which is self-evident, but in the absence of a determined signified or the intention of actual signification, as well as of all intention of present communication.Gadamer (1976, p. 24) took a similar position, arguing, \"what is written is so distanced and detached from its author [...] that the grasping of the meaning of the text takes on something of the character of an independent productive act [...] \". Grondin (1995, p. 29) said more generally of hermeneutics that, \"For hermeneutics, there is no such thing as a self-sufficient judgment nor a 'pure proposition' that would exhaust all there is to say about what is being said\". Openness of meaning could also create limits on the indexability of texts. If readers and indexers indeed have trouble finding a clear or stable meaning in a text, then placing that text in an indexical relationship may be difficult, i.e. the text may exhibit low indexability. This paper builds in part on a conceptualization begun in earlier work (Paling, 2004) that tied hermeneutics and deconstruction to the organization of information.Gadamer and Derrida placed the reader at the center of the construction of textual meaning. Barthes (1974, p. 4), however, made a different distinction that may be useful in this context. He distinguished between writerly and readerly texts. Barthes describes writerly texts in terms that are similar to those used by Gadamer and Derrida: \"[...] the goal of literary work (of literature as work) is to make the reader no longer a consumer, but a producer of the text [...] This reader is [...] serious [...] \". In contrast, Barthes (1974, pp. 4, 5) describes readerly texts as texts that \"can be read, but not written\". \"They are products (and not productions), they make up the enormous mass of our literature.\" Barthes (1975, p. 14) also made a distinction between text of pleasure and text of bliss, and this distinction can help elucidate the difference between writerly and readerly texts. Barthes (1975, p. 14) defines text of pleasure as, \"the text that contents, fills, grants euphoria; the text that comes from the culture and does not break with it, is linked to a comfortable practice of reading\". In contrast, text of bliss:[...] imposes a state of loss, the text that discomforts (perhaps to the point of a certain boredom), unsettles the reader's historical, cultural, psychological assumption, the consistency of his tastes, values, memories, brings to a crisis his relation with language.So it could well be that some texts, e.g. literary texts, exhibit greater openness of meaning than other texts. And even within literary texts, writerly and readerly texts may different levels of openness of meaning. A structured empirical comparison of literary and nonliterary texts could help us build a theoretical base from which to make very practical decisions about whether and how to perform subject analysis on each type of text. This study proceeded, in part, from the premise that differences in the openness of meaning experienced by readers will leave measurable traces in the perceptions of those readers, and was intended to reach a preliminary determination of whether fuzzy sets can be useful tools for describing that openness. This study represented, in part, an attempt to find a productive middle ground between humanistic scholarship and empirical social science with respect to this particular issue. Those two broad forms of scholarship can complement each other. In this context, scholars such as Barthes, Derrida, and Gadamer can establish persuasively the broad differences between different types of texts, and describe ways in which phenomena such as readerly and writerly texts demonstrate different ways in which meaning can be constructed. Empirical research can contribute to this process in several ways. First, it can provide a kind of replication of conclusions reached through other forms of scholarship. Similar conclusions reached by different means can reinforce each other. Second, empirical research can help us determine where the boundaries between different types of texts lie. That, in turn, can aid the professional imperative in library and information studies to name, describe, and organize texts in ways that can help readers find them.Fuzzy sets have been used before in the study of information. Srinivasan et al. (2001) examined the use of rough and fuzzy sets for mining vocabulary in the context of information retrieval. Egghe and Michel (2003) developed and tested a set of measures for the use of fuzzy sets as similarity measures for sets of ordered documents. Bensman (2001) applied fuzzy sets in a somewhat different manner to use Bradford's Law (Bradford, 1934) as a generator of fuzzy sets. Boyce et al. (1994) discussed the role of fuzzy sets in measurement within information science, mainly in the context of information retrieval. Those previous studies focused on properties of the texts themselves, but the current study focused on human perception of texts.As part of answering the basic research question, the study looked at several factors that could help determine whether fuzzy sets can be useful for describing the indexability of literary and nonliterary texts. Under fuzzy set theory, every member of a set has a membership value that can fall anywhere in a continuous range from 0 to 1. Each set is characterized by a membership function, fA(x) that associates a membership value with each point in x (Zadeh, 1965, p. 339). Because the intent in the study was not to use fuzzy sets as a metaphor, but to actually begin the process of determining whether and how fuzzy sets could be used to describe the indexability of literary and nonliterary texts, variables would be needed to define the function. Three variables were hypothesized for the study. The first hypothesized variable was the perceived clarity of the texts on the part of the participants. If literary texts were perceived by participants as being less clear than nonliterary texts, then that might suggest that literary texts possess a less stable core of meaning than nonliterary texts. The second hypothesized variable was the confidence expressed by participants in their ability to describe the subject of a text. If participants felt less confident in their ability to describe the subject matter of some texts, then that also could indicate that those texts might lack a stable core of meaning, which could make placing those texts in indexical relationships difficult. The third variable was the differences in subject descriptions provided by participants when they were asked to describe the subject matter of literary and nonliterary texts. If the descriptions of the subject matter of literary texts were quantitatively or qualitatively different than the descriptions of nonliterary texts, then that also could suggest differences in the stability of the meaning of texts from each group. The study addressed three specific research questions:RQ1. Are there significant differences in the perceived clarity by users of literary and nonliterary texts?RQ2. Are there significant differences in the confidence that users express about their descriptions of the subject of literary and nonliterary texts?RQ3. Are there significant differences in the subject descriptions provided by users for literary and nonliterary texts?If significant differences were detected, those differences could help us create a very preliminary function to describe membership in the set of indexable texts.These research questions were not intended to imply that user perceptions were the only factors to be taken into account. Traditional subject analysis can play multiple roles. For example, call numbers can serve an inventory and shelving function for library staff, and some literary texts may be more amenable than others to the assignment of subject headings. But having said that, this study was based, in part, on the premise that user perceptions of texts can still convey valuable information about the indexability of literary and nonliterary texts. For example, if traditional subject analysis of literary texts is problematic because users tend not to perceive a stable core of meaning in literary texts, then other models, e.g. a view of a literary text as being embedded in a social network, may serve our users more effectively. Future studies may incorporate a sampling frame that would include catalogers and indexers. This study was the beginning, not the end, of making those determinations.\n3. Methodology: 3.1 The user tasks\n4. Results: 4.1 Basic information\n5. Conclusions: 5.1 Methodological\n6. Limitations and future research: The cautious language used in reporting these results was chosen deliberately. Very conservative tests were used in some cases, and while the results largely provided support for the conceptualization described in the study, the ambiguous significance of several of the tests merits caution in interpreting the results. So rather than stating the results in terms of acceptance or rejection of specific hypotheses, a middle ground between exploratory analysis and strict hypothesis testing was used.The two samples (texts and participants) used in this study also require a strong level of caution in interpreting the data. The sample of texts was purposive, small, and non-random. Future studies will need to move toward larger, more random samples of texts. That may be difficult to achieve over the short term, however. Drawing a random sample of texts would require a sampling frame or corpus that would accurately represent the proportion of literary and nonliterary texts, and finding such a corpus may be difficult. For the immediate future it may be more feasible to increase the purposive sample size and include different texts, perhaps texts chosen by someone other than the researcher.Something similar may need to be done to address the sample of participants, e.g. by continuing with purposive samples, but make those samples less homogeneous than the sample in this study.On a final note, distinctions such as Barthes's between readerly and writerly texts will be worth exploring in the future. It may be that indexability may vary across those groups of texts, and that the characteristics of those texts can help us decide what can be indexed effectively and what cannot.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to describe a conceptualization and two-stage pilot study that explores ways in which fuzzy sets can be used to measure the indexability of literary texts.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Participants provided a subject description for each in a series of literary and nonliterary texts. Each participant was also randomly assigned to one of three tasks: using a visual analog scale to rate the clarity of each text, using a visual analog scale to rate the confidence each participant felt in describing the subject of each text, or sorting the texts from most to least clear without the use of a visual analog scale. Nonparametric statistics and qualitative analysis were used to analyze the data.\nFindings: - Participants and coders used the visual analog scales successfully. The participants perceived literary texts as less clear than nonliterary texts, and expressed less confidence in their subject description of literary texts than in their descriptions of literary texts. The study found preliminary support for the idea that fuzzy sets can provide a useful theoretical basis for examining the indexability of texts.\nOriginality/value: - A measure of the indexability of literary texts could help provide sound theoretical guidance for construction of tools to organize those texts. A structured comparison of literary and nonliterary texts could help to build a theoretical base from which to make practical decisions about whether and how to perform subject analysis on each type of text.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Metadata for diversity: Identification and implications of potential access points for diverse library resources
|
[
"Diversity",
"Metadata",
"Knowledge management",
"Access points",
"Library resources",
"Resource description"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Diversity is a core value of American librarianship, with a specific call for librarians to provide access to library resources for diverse communities and from diverse populations (American Library Association, 2004). People from traditionally marginalized communities in the USA, including women and people of non-traditional genders, people of color, indigenous peoples, people identifying as LGBTQIA+, and people with disabilities need access to books and other library resources about or created by people like themselves to see their identities, stories and experiences reflected in contemporary media, and feel empowered to create new works. Traditionally mainstream communities also benefit from exposure to media about and by diverse people to learn alternative perspectives and empathy. As bastions of reading and literacy, American libraries are uniquely positioned to support these benefits by providing access to and promoting diverse books and other bibliographic resources.\nLiterature review: Benefits of access to diverse materials\nMethods: The first step toward more systematic access to diverse library resources is to understand what descriptive metadata is necessary to enable access points for such fiction and non-fiction reading materials. To investigate this question, we conducted a field scan of contemporary metadata schemas - \"machine-processable specification[s] that define the structure, encoding syntax, rules, and formats for a metadata element set in a formal schema language\" (Zeng and Qin, 2016) - to determine what, if any, metadata exists to represent diverse library reading materials, and what metadata elements may be necessary but currently not present. In sum, 13 metadata schemas were purposefully selected for review based on scope and objectives. We began with metadata schemas standard in library cataloging, such as the Machine Readable Cataloging (MARC) encoding standard and the RDA element set, to investigate existing metadata for diverse library resources. We also reviewed schemas used to describe bibliographic materials outside of libraries, as descriptive practices in these contexts might be used as inspiration and guidance. Schemas were purposefully selected based on scope and objectives; schemas that intentionally aimed to describe diverse materials, both inside and outside of libraries, were chosen for review. For a wider comparison, several standard library schemas and general schemas intended for broad use and application, such as Dublin Core and schema.org, were included. See Table I for a list of schemas included in the field scan and the rationale for their inclusion.\nFindings: After initial collection of metadata elements from each schema, it became clear that two distinct crosswalks were necessary: one to semantically map elements describing resource creators and one to map elements describing resources themselves because library resources featuring diverse characters and themes may be written by mainstream (non-diverse) authors and vice versa. Generic descriptive text was applied to the crosswalks to map elements across schemas with the same semantic meaning and descriptive function, even though element labels in each schema varied. The crosswalks revealed patterns that illustrate which elements are dominantly used, which are missing and the variety of values used to populate elements.\nDiscussion: Tangled, conflated and intersectional descriptions of identity\nConclusion: With diversity as one of the core values of American librarianship, libraries are charged with promoting diverse materials and advocating for diverse populations. This field scan of 13 schemas revealed that metadata elements and associated values from libraries and external sources describing gender, occupation, geographic region, audience and age currently exist in many schemas and could potentially be used as access points for diverse library materials. However, this work also revealed that specific metadata elements and corresponding values necessary to represent racial, ethnic, national and cultural identity are currently not present, at least not in a form that represents these aspects of identity in ways necessary for enabling resource access and collection assessment. Prominent elements suggest dominant American social practices and centricities. The use of a \"basket\" element, while supporting nuanced and intersectional identities, raises challenges in creating distinct descriptors. The lack of specificity in descriptive values, especially those intended to represent disability and indigeneity, implicitly erase the identities of large groups of marginalized people. Although not without issues, separating diversity characteristics into more concrete access points may offer increased visibility of populations being rendered invisible in traditional information systems. Additionally, any access points to describe diverse reading materials needs to consider support for self-identification, impermanent and flexible metadata, and intentional and explicit positionality.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate what metadata elements for access points currently exist to represent diverse library reading materials, either in libraries or from external sources, as well as what metadata elements for access points are currently not present but are necessary to represent diverse library reading materials.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A field scan of thirteen contemporary metadata schemas identified elements that might serve as potential access points regarding the diversity status of resource creators as well as topical or thematic content. Elements were semantically mapped using a metadata crosswalk to understand the intellectual and conceptual space of the elements. Element definitions and application of controlled vocabularies were also examined where possible to offer an additional context.\nFindings: Metadata elements describing gender, occupation, geographic region, audience and age currently exist in many schemas and could potentially be used to offer access to diverse library materials. However, metadata elements necessary to represent racial, ethnic, national and cultural identity are currently not present in specific forms necessary for enabling resource access and collection assessment. The lack of distinct elements contributes to the implicit erasure of marginalized identities.\nOriginality/value: The search for metadata describing diversity is a first step toward enabling more systematic access to diverse library materials. The need for systematic description of diversity to make visible and promote diverse materials is highlighted in this paper. Though the subject of this paper is library organization systems and, for clarity, uses terms specific to the library profession, the issues present are relevant to all information professionals and knowledge organization systems.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Maritime autonomous surface ships (MASS): implementation and legal issues
|
[
"Autonomy",
"Surface ship",
"Hong Kong"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In the past decade, there was a rapid development in the autonomous land vehicle and surface vessels. Autonomous land vehicles are being tested and running in different countries currently; while the world first autonomous surface ship is expected to conduct the testing in 2019 and deliver to commercial operation in Norway by 2020. Then it will gradually move from manned operation to fully autonomous operation by 2022. Unlike the land vehicles, the autonomous surface ships are more complicated.\n2. The concept of autonomy: In the past few years, level of autonomy has been defined for road vehicles and the marine industry (Bureau Vertitas, 2017; Lloyd's Register, 2017). Despite different levels of autonomy, it could be observed that the operation decision is handed over to the system from human at the highest level.\n3. Implementation of unmanned vessel: Unmanned cars and aircraft have been commonly seen today and few are used in road transportation as well as military engagement. Last year in China, Shenzhen has deployed unmanned bus in a test trial for in town transportation, the service received much welcome by the community and proved to be successful. In Europe and the United States, there are also researches into small unmanned underwater and military vessels, some of them are already made available and in use.\n4. Legal aspects concerning unmanned ships in Hong Kong: There are major international IMO treaties and Hong Kong legislation that are applicable to the Shipping operations in Hong Kong. To limit the scope of our study, we only confine ourselves with the study of cargo ships engaged on international voyages. If these \"unmanned\" ships can comply with the local laws and regulation, they can operate in Hong Kong or if not, the international laws and domestic legislation are needed to be amended with clarifications to cater for \"unmanned\" cargo ships before these ships can be operated in international waters or in the waters of Hong Kong.\n5. Conclusions: This paper has demonstrated the potentials of unmanned vessels and its competitive advantages over existing cargo ships. Besides its contribution to reduce fatigue and workload of navigating officers, the improvement of navigational safety by eliminating human errors and reduction of harmful exhaust emission can make shipping safer and more sustainable. However, as the technology is still under development, it is too early for a final evaluation. That said, as the international regulation body, IMO is required to gain acceptance to future unmanned shipping and to designate routes and impose regulations for their safe operation.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to see whether the concept of autonomous ship is having an effect on pioneering the sea transportation as well as improvement of ship safety and the possibility of local development. Following the lead of the first autonomous surface ship by Norway that met to develop the Advanced Autonomous Waterborne Application (AAWA) and introduce of autonomous operation to the region, this study also aims to compare the initiation of action by surface ships to that of the air and land vehicle automation.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The ideas for writing this paper came from meeting and interview with maritime professionals such as ship captains, marine chief engineers and naval architects. Through the review of various international journals, the development of Autonomy and Technology are explored and analysed. Owing to the practical approach of this paper, a qualitative research method is used with collecting and analysing information.\nFindings: The findings of this paper are as follows: it brings out the importance on the potentials of unmanned vessels and its competitive advantages over existing cargo ships. Besides its contribution to reduce fatigue and workload of navigating officers, the improvement of navigational safety by eliminating human errors and reduction of harmful exhaust emission can make shipping safer and more sustainable. However, as the technology is still under development, it is too early for a final evaluation. That said, as the international regulation body, International Maritime Organisation is required to gain acceptance to future unmanned shipping and to designate routes and impose regulations for their safe operation.\nOriginality/value: Recently, there are many conferences and meetings on autonomous surface vessel focussing on regulation, technology, human-factor, legal and regulatory framework for such ships around the world. This paper summarises the current development of the autonomous surface ships, in term of the design and technology, their interaction and co-existence with manned ships and suggest some operation issues on board an autonomous surface ship during voyage. Taking Hong Kong as an example, this paper attempts to examine the feasibility for introducing the autonomous surface ships in local waters.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Rethinking Master's degrees in business and management: a more diverse offering?
|
[
"Master of business administration",
"Master's degrees",
"Careers",
"Professional education",
"Learning methods"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nA short history: Since the 1960s there has been a proliferation of business degrees in the UK and abroad. The early degrees were based on American models from institutions such as Harvard Business School and Sloan School of Management at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The Americans have dominated the field and all other schools are compared to the Americans in the ranking lists (e.g. Financial Times, UK).In the UK, the London and Manchester business schools were founded specially to improve competiveness. London was based on the Harvard case study model (although it now offers a Sloan Fellowship program) and Manchester followed the MIT Sloan model.In Europe there has been a growth in business schools with the French INSEAD in the lead. Other European business schools tend towards promoting themselves as having international faculty. Three universities offer a joint program internationally - New York University Stern, London School of Economics and HEC School of Management, Paris. Some of the newer ones (e.g. in The Netherlands) also have partnership deals with UK universities. And some UK business universities such as Middlesex and Nottingham have campuses in Malyasia, which have a business component. The Economist newspaper has advertisements from leading and aspiring business schools every week. The standard offering is an MBA that is validated by membership of the International Association of MBAs. There may be a good deal of self-interest in self-regulation, but most providers will aspire to membership of the elite club.\nDifferences on approach: The European and American MBAs are somewhat differently aimed. The American degree is a cross-functional introduction to business intended for young people at the start of their career - in effect, initial training. The European MBAs tend to be aimed at professionals moving into their mid-career and they are usually funded by employers rather than individuals. In some case they are offered in-house but are mostly cross-functional rather than specialist.MBAs have historically been offered by universities (unlike Europe where they have generally been independent and financed by industry). In the UK the most well-known private business schools are Ashridge and Henley (the latter now amalgamating with Reading University). The private business schools have always been closer to business and industry than the university schools. Roffey Park, for instance, has stayed resolutely under the control of its sponsoring businesses.\nA particular UK difference: In the UK there used to be a difference between business degrees and management degrees but the distinction has been lost in the passage of time - without serious thought as to why. The difference used to be that \"business\" was concerned with structural functions (finance, marketing, manufacturing technology, etc.) while \"management\" was the more general role functions of people in charge and controlling performance - organization development (OD), leadership, strategic thinking. The international popularity of MBAs with their aura of \"hard skills\" (scientific management) overshadowed the soft skills of managing people and organizations. It is probably time to resurrect the differentiation in terminology if only to rescue the term \"leadership\" from its current imprecision.In the UK, there have always been a number of business degrees at master's level that are not designated as MBAs. Lancaster has long had management degrees in management learning. Leeds started with a MA in Organization Studies in the late 1960s, and Bath had a series of master's degrees in the transitional and leadership aspects of management in the early 1970s. Salford ran an MSc in Strategic Leadership from 1990 to 2006. There have also been several degrees in the financial and accounting fields such as the Bangor degree in association with the Manchester Business School.\nSome questions: There are some questions about whether the current abundance of MBAs is appropriate to business needs. As an initial training experience for young aspirants to managerial careers, MBAs are probably useful as they provide broad intern experience and offer training in procedures. But most middle and senior managers do not need broad specialism having already gained a professional qualification (accountancy, technology, marketing, etc.) and gained departmental experience within their employment - many on a graduate apprenticeship of some sort.One of the great benefits of the top international MBAs is that the learning community is international. Many others offer mixed experience as the students come from a variety of sectors let alone businesses. In many ways the learning value of a master's degrees is not in the formal teaching, but in the interactions among students. The Revans approach to action learning was based on this variety even in its in-house programs. Where students come from the same company, new experiences and approaches become difficult to introduce and the program lacks the readily available experience resource for proper inter-organizational comparisons.\nImportance of learning modes: One of the outstanding characteristics of management degrees (more even than business degrees) has been the way in which they have adopted experiential approaches to learning. Probably more experimentation and development in modes of learning have been adopted in management education than anywhere else.The case study approach (Harvard) was quite different from the formal instruction approach of many university courses. The influence of the Unit for Management Learning financed by ICI at Lancaster University at its foundation was a leader in experiential approaches to learning. Reg Revans developed a widely adopted approach to learning in his Action Learning Approach. OD was infused with the approach to social psychology in the USA at Bethel Main. Early management development in the UK was led by the phenomenological approaches of the Glacier Metals project and the Tavistock Institute - themselves emanating from War Office officer development during the Second World War. Models of independent learning have also infused approaches to developing managers from the NE London Polytechnic's approach to independent learning to forms of leadership development like Ian Cunningham's Self-managed Learning.The important characteristic of both business and management education is that it should be designed to facilitate the learning of practical and mental skills - that is, learning how to behave appropriately in organizational contexts. It should also be designed in to build coherently on experience. The processes of learning employed should be the same processes that managers have to engage in when they act as managers - which is essentially problem solving and strategic thinking with and through others.On the whole, middle and senior managers are these days not so well disposed to MBAs as such, but are attracted to more specialist programs, especially when they are experiential and closely related to their own working situations. In these days of multi-national and global organizations, managers are particularly keen to be able to work with others from around the world so that national and international comparisons can be made.It is time to review and reassess the way management education is provided worldwide. There will be fresh prizes for the institutions that make the next step changes in the provision of learning experience and qualifications for senior managers in our new global business context.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The paper aims to make a broad assessment of the proliferation of Master of business administration (MBA) degrees and to consider comparative value.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - There is brief description and analysis of what MBAs are and are intended for, with best and worst kinds of provision discussed\nFindings: - The conclusion is that the whole concept of MBA needs to be rethought bearing in mind the wide variety of careers and ages of students.\nOriginality/value: - The conclusion is that there should be more specialist masters degrees for mature professionals and better consideration should be given to real career needs of younger students.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Information technology in supply networks: Does it lead to better collaborative planning?
|
[
"Supply chain management",
"Process planning",
"Change management",
"Forestry"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Forestry faces tremendous challenges. The market for timber products has changed from a seller's market into a buyer's market. It is not possible anymore to produce timber for an anonymous market. Nowadays timber production has to take market requirements into account continuously (Heinimann, 2000). Companies have to be able to react quickly and flexibly to customers' demands. As response to these changes supply networks and supply chain management systems (SCMS) have been introduced in forestry in recent years (Heinimann, 1999). Supply networks consist of a range of different actors as, for example, forest land owners, harvesting and transportation contractors, and companies from the timber industry.Our project uses different case studies in forestry for analyzing these developments with emphasis on collaborative planning processes in supply networks. In this paper, we analyze a newly established SCMS used in one supply network in forestry. We initially clarify the concept of SCMS and point out issues arising when implementing new technologies. Based on prior research, we stress the importance of collaborative planning in supply networks. In the empirical part of the paper we investigate how one non-hierarchical supply network manages the development and implementation of one SCMS and how this affects the collaborative planning processes in the supply network. Finally, we present a conceptual integration of our central findings.\nConcepts and theoretical foundation: Supply chain management systems\nDescription of the forestry supply network: The supply network studied in the case study is mainly coordinated by one company, which is LENCA AG, a service provider in logistics in forestry. The supply network is formally non-hierarchically organized. That means that LENCA AG has no formal power over forest land owners, harvesting and transportation contractors and companies from the timber industry. In view of these difficult circumstances LENCA AG developed a SCMS to increase transparency and standardization for better being able to coordinate activities of all actors in the supply network.The core of this SCMS is a database, which processes and stores order information, stock information, technical information about processes and products, and financial information. This database is centrally controlled by one person at LENCA AG, referred to as network coordinator in this paper. The flow of timber through the supply network is only indirectly coordinated by the network coordinator. The network coordinator cooperates closely with a group of former foresters representing LENCA AG at a regional level. They will be referred to as sub-contractors in this paper. This business model enables LENCA to use the foresters' knowledge as well as their longstanding business contacts to forest owners and service providers in forestry. Five such local sub-contractors are responsible for coordinating the processes of all other network members. These network members are:* companies responsible for timber harvesting;* transportation contractors;* forest owners (mostly private forest owners); and* customers from the paper and timber as well as from the sawmill industry.Figure 1 gives an idea of the organizational structure of the supply network.The workflow within this supply network operates as follows: the sub-contractor assesses customer demands and checks with the forest owners and forest district management if they are able to meet the demand. As soon as an agreement is reached the sub-contractor contacts companies responsible for timber harvesting. These companies are equipped with information on the various harvesting sites. These harvesting companies inform the sub-contractors via e-mail or fax about the progress of logging operations. Sub-contractors enter this information in the database. As soon as the logging operations are finished, sub-contractors provide the hauling and transportation contractors with information about the dimensions, quality and storage location of the harvested timber. This information is submitted in written format or summarized in an electronic map supported by a geographic information system (GIS). Transportation contractors deliver the timber to the customer where the delivery is compared with the contracted supply. Finally, a transaction report is submitted to the sub-contractor of LENCA AG for accounting and invoicing. The network coordinator manages inter-organization payments for goods and services of all actors in the supply network through electronic fund transfers, which ensures quick payment.\nStudy aims and methods: The aim of this research is to find answers to two highly interrelated questions:1. How does the way in which the SCMS is developed and implemented influence the degree of utilization of this information technology?2. In what way does the SCMS influence coordination and collaborative planning processes in the supply network?Answers to these questions given in this paper are mainly based on semi-structured interviews within one supply network in forestry. We conducted five interviews in total. We interviewed four out of five sub-contractors of the supply network and the coordinator of the network.The duration of each interview was between two and four hours. These interviews were carried out between February and May 2004. Respondents were asked to describe the functioning of the SCMS, its most important features and influences on working procedures, coordination and collaborative planning processes. The questions on how the different aspects of collaborative planning were influenced through the implementation of the software were derived from the model of collaborative planning (Windischer, 2003; Windischer and Grote, 2003). We further analyzed the SCMS through direct observation of its usage.\nQualitative findings and implications: Development of the SCMS and its relation to the utilization degree\nConclusion: Just like any other organization, or network of organizations, supply networks in forestry and in timber industry have to pay close attention to change management issues when designing and implementing information technology to tap the full potential of SCMS. Our case study of a forestry supply network demonstrates that investments in information technology will only pay off if users are motivated and skilled to use the new software. The users of the SCMS justified their reluctance to use the newly implemented SCMS more frequently with the lack of training and the lacking of a test phase to fully explore the system.The implementation of the SCMS has had only very limited influence on collaborative planning so far. Out of eight critical success factors of collaborative planning only two, namely lateral agreements on goals and exchange about the availability of alternatives improved since the SCMS was implemented. Based on our empirical findings the most likely explanation for these weak effects is the low degree of utilization of the SCMS.One main mechanism mediating between the degree of utilization and the quality of collaborative planning is the enactment of technologies-in-practice (Orlikowski, 2000). Recurrently used, these technologies-in-practice become social routines; routines that enhance mutual understanding in underorganized networks and that are likely to improve collaborative planning.With regard to future research three main questions arise. First, the mechanisms depicted in our preliminary conceptual model (Figure 2) have to be investigated more thoroughly. Of major concern are the mechanisms mediating between technologies-in-practice and collaborative planning. Second, more knowledge on different types of technologies-in-practice is needed. Direct observations of how sub-contractors interact with the SCMS in day-to-day activities could result in important insights. Third, we will investigate if and how technologies-in-practice can be used as substitutes for formal hierarchy in non-hierarchical networks. This question is related to the more general question on how change processes in non-hierarchical networks can be managed. With regard to this issue we will investigate other potential change management mechanisms in heterarchic networks, e.g. interdependency among network members (Campion et al., 1993; Grote, 1997; Halinen et al., 1999; Hertel et al., 2004).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - One of the main challenges of supply chain management (SCM) is to improve collaborative planning in supply networks while preserving autonomy of each network member. In order to improve coordination and planning processes across company boundaries supply chain management systems (SCMS;, e.g. shared databases) are introduced in supply networks. Aims to address these issues.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - There is a lack of knowledge about the extent to which SCMS can support collaborative planning processes. The preliminary findings concerning this question are based on a case study of a supply network in the forestry and timber industry.\nFindings: - The results indicate that the SCMS implemented in this forestry network has had only limited effects on collaborative planning processes so far. One possible explanation for this result is that the SCMS was implemented suboptimally (e.g. modifications of the SCMS were not communicated to users).\nOriginality/value: - Supply networks in forestry have to pay close attention to change management issues when designing and implementing information technology to tap the full potential of SCMS.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Modeling errors in parts supply processes for assembly lines feeding
|
[
"Assembly line",
"Human error",
"Material-handling error",
"Parts feeding",
"Quality cost"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Nomenclature\n1. Introduction: In assembly plants, internal material-handling systems are needed to periodically replenish stock along the line according to production plans, thus ensuring uninterrupted supply of parts at the workstations and a continuous production flow. This usually implies moving parts from an internal warehouse to a dedicated storage area at the workstations (Caputo and Pelagagge, 2011; Kilic and Durmusoglu, 2015). Continuous material supply is one of the most common parts feeding methods, where each different part type is supplied in an individual container to the assembly line (Caputo et al., 2015a). This can be done, in turn, by adopting two different practices. First, small-sized containers may be moved in by adopting just-in-time (JIT) delivery, for instance, a Kanban-based policy. Second, component containers holding bulk quantities are simply stored along the line and periodically replenished (line storage LS). Parts kitting (K) is another frequently adopted method to deliver parts to assembly lines. In a kitting policy (Brynzer and Johansson, 1995; Bozer and McGinnis 1992; Caputo and Pelagagge, 2011; Caputo et al., 2015b; Hanson, 2012; Hanson and Brolin, 2012), all parts required to assemble one unit of the end product are grouped together and placed into one or more kit containers. Kits are prepared in a stockroom and delivered to the assembly line, either at the start of the line (traveling kit concept) or to specific workstations (stationary kits), according to the production schedule.\n2. Methodological approach: In order to develop quality cost models for the three examined feeding policies, a unified methodology has been followed based on established techniques for human error analysis (Schuller et al., 1997). The method includes the following steps:\n3. Errors modeling in kitting systems: 3.1 Quality issues in kitting processes\n4. Errors modeling in LS systems: In this section, models for estimating the error probability and total error correction cost for LS systems will be developed.\n5. Errors modeling in JIT systems: 5.1 Derivation of error taxonomy in JIT systems\n6. Application example: In order to demonstrate the application of the proposed method, a brief example will be examined referring to the assembly of an end item utilizing 50 different part types of which NI=40 parts of Type I, and NII=10 parts of Type II each with a multiplicity of 2 units. An yearly production volume A=10.000 units/year is requested which would imply at least the handling of the same number of kits. The parameters values assumed in the computation are reported in Table I.\n7. Conclusions: Errors in the logistic process supplying parts to assembly lines are a neglected but relevant issue which is responsible for significant costs and QPs. While literature on this topic is scarce, to the best of our knowledge, this is the first extended work in the literature developing comparative models for quantitative assessment of QPs, error rates, and related correction costs in parts feeding systems for assembly lines. Therefore, it can complement existing literature models which only compare parts feeding policies on the basis of other points of view (i.e. workforce, work in process and space occupation cost), but neglect quality costs. This allows a more comprehensive comparison of the cost-effectiveness of different parts feeding strategies. Apart from the use in cost comparison, the developed model highlights the role played by each error type occurrence on QPs, helps to identify problem areas, and suggests possible means to improve quality of parts feeding process.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to develop a quantitative model to assess probability of errors and errors correction costs in parts feeding systems for assembly lines.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Event trees are adopted to model errors in the picking-handling-delivery-utilization of materials containers from the warehouse to assembly stations. Error probabilities and quality costs functions are developed to compare alternative feeding policies including kitting, line stocking and just-in-time delivery. A numerical case study is included.\nFindings: This paper confirms with quantitative evidence the economic relevance of logistic errors (LEs) in parts feeding processes, a problem neglected in the existing literature. It also points out the most frequent or relevant error types and identifies specific corrective measures.\nResearch limitations/implications: While the model is general purpose, conclusions are specific to each applicative case and are not generalizable, and some modifications may be required to adapt it to specific industrial cases. When no experimental data are available, human error analysis should be used to estimate event probabilities based on underlying modes and causes of human error.\nPractical implications: Production managers are given a quantitative decision tool to assess errors probability and errors correction costs in assembly lines parts feeding systems. This allows better comparing of alternative parts feeding policies and identifying corrective measures.\nOriginality/value: This is the first paper to develop quantitative models for estimating LEs and related quality cost, allowing a comparison between alternative parts feeding policies.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Supply chain risk mitigation in South Africa: a case study of Eskom
|
[
"Supply chain",
"Sub-Saharan Africa"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Background: 1.1 Supply chain risk management (SCRM)\n2. Data collection and research methodology: The target population for this study included SC management professionals at Eskom, who were stationed at various power stations and head offices in the Mpumalanga and Gauteng provinces in South Africa. The sample frame has been compiled from the list of professionals in Eskom, including various professional and management levels. As for sampling, this study adopted the non-probability sampling approach using the purposive sampling technique to choose the sampling components from the target population. Data were collected using focus group discussions as well as in-depth interviews. A combined total of 22 managers participated in the interviews focus groups and in-depth interviews conducted for the study. The data obtained were transcribed by employing the services of a professional transcriber.\n3. Findings and discussions: As evident from the prior discussion, qualitative methodology of a company-specific case study was utilised to gather an assortment of useful and dependable information, including interviews, focus groups, direct observation and historical records. Eskom being the national electricity supplier of South Africa, the discussion with the participants incorporated all topics related to risks present in the electrical energy industry in South Africa.\n4. Other observations: 4.1 Supply chain risks in the energy sector in South Africa\n5. Conclusions and recommendations: The conclusions of the study suggest that several challenges need to be addressed by Eskom for its SCRM. These recommendations and their application to the energy sector in Africa are discussed below. The general thrust of these recommendations may be summarised as:\n6. Limitations and future research: All research studies have limitations, and this study is no exception. One of the real impediments of this research is that it just considered a limited number of types of risks that apply to SC management. A significant restriction of this study is that its scope was narrow because the research focussed only on the electrical energy sector in South Africa through one company. Even though the investigation made every effort to limit the threats to validity, there were certain conditions, which may have influenced the internal validity of the study. For example, after the interviews scheduled for both the managers and the focus groups, Eskom faced a significant restructuring process in the SC department. The move was disruptive to the participants, this resulted in the rescheduling of meetings and interviews on different occasions and might have given them distinct impressions and attitudes that they might not otherwise hold (Gladwin et al., 2011, p. 364). The research could not control the answers during the focus group sessions as participants made use of the opportunity to express their frustrations with Eskom's management due to different scandals, which had emerged during meetings. Even though it is never an objective of qualitative methods to state goals, truths, a phenomenon, or to generalise the results, the findings reflect only the views of the case firm.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Interferences to supply chains (SC), regardless of whether they are regular, unplanned or intentional, are progressively distorting SC execution. As such, risk mitigation in SCs has received sufficient attention in the academic literature. However, there is scant research done on this topic within the African context, and none on the SC of electrical energy on that continent. In an effort to address this gap, the purpose of this paper is to focus on the SC department of Eskom, the primary utility company of South Africa and one of the largest on the continent.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Adopting a non-probability sampling approach utilising the purposive sampling technique to choose the sampling components from the target population, data were collected through semi-structured interviews as well as additional documentation in various forms. Data interpretation and codification thereof were done using ATLAS.ti 8 from which ten themes emerged.\nFindings: The ten themes that emerged from the analysis of data show that SC risks emanate from value streams, information and affiliations, SC activities and external situations. Furthermore, these are brought into relief within the African context through examples and quotes from Eskom managers.\nResearch limitations/implications: Based on the findings, the paper makes five major recommendations that would broadly apply not only to SC risk management (SCRM) in Eskom, but also other African utility companies.\nPractical implications: Companies in emerging economies such as South Africa and other Sub-Saharan countries face a unique set of challenges with regards to SCRM. Some of these are identified in this paper and appropriate recommendations have been made.\nSocial implications: Being the largest utility provider in Africa, services offered by Eskom are vital for economic development of South Africa as well as neighbouring countries. As such, the findings of this paper as well as the recommendations have social implications for economic development in that country as well as the region.\nOriginality/value: While SC risk management has been studied extensively in the academic literature, to the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first paper that attempts to study it within the context of South Africa with focal emphasis on one of the largest corporations in that country.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Seeing destinations through vlogs: implications for leveraging customer engagement behavior to increase travel intention
|
[
"Customer engagement behavior",
"WOM",
"Travel vlogs",
"Theory of resonance",
"Travel intention",
"Experience"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Marketers in hospitality and tourism industry endeavor to attract customers by applying innovative technologies. Travel vlogs emerge as a new face and phase of travel blogs shared through social media, involving many tourism aspects such as travel activities, accommodations, food and adventures (Peralta, 2019). Compared to blogs, travel vlogs mostly record vloggers' travel stories and personalized travel-related information with videos instead of text and photos (Griffith and Papacharissi, 2010). This type of video featured personal travel experiences and real-life stories, contributing to nearly half among all the travel subscriptions and receiving four times more social engagement from the audience (Think with Google, 2014). Given the incredible online traffic, travel vlogs have vast marketing potential of providing real experiences for destination marketing (Peralta, 2019). Audiences who are actively engaged in the vivid stories and images conveyed in vlogs may be more likely to travel to the actual destination. However, empirical research addressing this topic from a customer engagement perspective is relatively silent in comparison to studies on media's role in formulating destination images (Connell, 2012; Fu et al., 2016). Therefore, how customer engagement behaviors (CEBs) bridge the relationship between watching experiences and travel intention is an issue of considerable interest among hospitality and tourism scholars and practitioners alike.\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Travel vlogs in tourism\n3. Methodology: 3.1 Procedure and sample\n4. Results: 4.1 Sample profile\n5. Conclusions and implications: With the growing needs of short video consumption, both hospitality and tourism academia and industry call for a more in-depth understanding of travel vlogs (Lodha and Philip, 2019). This study made one of the first attempts to identify cognitive and emotional factors related to audiences watching experiences of travel vlogs following the theory of resonance. It also examined the effects of watching experiences on CEBs, manifested as WOM intention in travel vlogs, and on their behavioral intention. By emphasizing how cognitive and emotional factors influence WOM with travel vlogs and travel intentions, this study provided a more holistic and explicit framework as a foundation for future research of online videos.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This study aims to understand customers' watching experience with travel vlogs and its impacts on one of the most prominent manifestations of customer engagement behaviors (CEBs) - word-of-mouth (WOM) - and their travel intention. Drawing upon the theory of resonance, this study incorporated both cognitive and emotional aspects of travel vlog watching experience.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Online survey data were collected from 352 participants who have watched travel vlogs over the past 12 months. Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was performed for hypotheses testing.\nFindings: The study results reveal positive impacts of source credibility, inspiration, escapism and self-congruence on WOM, which further leads to travel intention. While source credibility is the strongest predictor of WOM, more factors representing the emotional resonance turn out to be the driving factors of WOM.\nResearch limitations/implications: This study pinpoints the value of investigating audiences' vlogs watching experience from a CEB perspective within the tourism setting. Future research is encouraged to explore more types of CEBs in the intersection of social media consumption and travel behaviors.\nPractical implications: Travel vloggers need to convey their intrinsic passion and enthusiasm to create an emotional connection with the audiences. Hospitality and tourism marketers are recommended to promote products and services by incentivizing audiences to engage with the travel vlogs.\nOriginality/value: No prior research integrated vlogs watching experiences, engagement behavior and future travel intention in a tourism setting. This study fills this gap and contributes to the literature on customer engagement, media consumption and marketing.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Hotel innovation and performance in times of crisis
|
[
"Performance",
"Innovation",
"Spain",
"Crisis",
"Hotel sector"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Traditionally, the hotel sector is considered to have limited innovation orientation (Pivcevic and Petric, 2011; Mattsson and Orfila-Sintes, 2013), although differences are observed in the industry. These differences may be based on the type and degree of innovation considered (Martinez-Ros and Orfila-Sintes, 2009) or the characteristics of the company, such as the category, dimension, ownership and type of administration (Orfila-Sintes et al., 2005, Orfila-Sintes and Mattsson, 2009; Lopez-Fernandez et al., 2011). They may also be linked to the degree of employee and customer involvement (Orfila-Sintes et al., 2005; Ottenbacher and Gnoth, 2005; Lopez-Fernandez et al., 2011), to the importance of incorporating information and communication technologies (ICT) (Sundbo et al., 2007; Aldebert et al., 2011) or even vary depending on the country (Pivcevic and Petric, 2011).\n2. Review of the literature: 2.1 Innovation and performance in services\n3. Methodology: To test the hypotheses formulated herein, an on-line survey was sent to the managers of 357 four-star hotels, in 52 cities of Spain (administrative capitals). We extracted the list of hotels from Booking.com, the leading online sales travel agency in Spain, and selected only those hotels with more than 100 rooms. The request for participation was made by e-mail and by telephone. We obtained a total of 151 valid surveys (42 per cent response rate); among them, 131 hotels belonged to a chain (87 per cent) and 20 hotels were independent establishments (13 per cent). Data collection was performed between March and May of 2010. The questionnaire was answered by the manager or assistant manager of the selected hotels with an average seniority of eight years.\n4. Results: 4.1 Descriptive analysis\n5. Conclusions, implications for management and limitations of the study: This work seeks to fill a research gap in the field of innovation within the context of the current economic crisis: the relationship between innovation and firm performance is not clear, and there are few studies dealing with this topic in the tourism sector. By understanding the effect of a pro-innovation mentality on business results and how an optimistic/pessimistic perception on behalf of entrepreneurs affects this relationship, hotel managers have arguments when considering an investment in innovation to be a priority.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to analyze the influence of innovation-based orientation on hotel performance, how the management's perception of market turbulence moderates this relationship and the effect of an atmosphere of crisis.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The research carried out used an on-line survey among four-star hotel managers in 52 Spanish cities.\nFindings: The results obtained indicate that the tendency of a hotel to innovate does not contribute directly and positively on short-term performance. However, it does confirm its importance when improving hotel performance in the medium- and long-term. This work discusses how the perception of technological turbulence influences the willingness to innovate, together with the effect that an economic-crisis-related-pessimistic management view has on marketing performance and long-term results.\nOriginality/value: Reliable and valid scales, applicable to the hotel sector and useful both for researchers and managers, are provided to measure the tendency to innovate, perceived technological turbulence and company performance. Knowledge regarding innovation is expanded, including a critical factor to increase business profits and competitiveness in uncertain environments. The model proposed is tested in a sector where there is little empirical evidence about the effect of innovation on performance.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
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