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Understanding laborers' behavioral diversities in multinational construction projects using integrated simulation approach
|
[
"International construction",
"Project management",
"Simulation"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Favorable investment policies have encouraged an increasing number of construction companies to explore overseas markets, especially in developing regions such as Middle East and Africa (Swaine, 2015). Projects in these regions are usually multinational and cross-culture projects (MCPs).\n2. Literature review: Human behavior is the response of individuals to internal and external stimuli (affecting factors) (Greene, 2017). Studies on construction laborer behaviors (production behaviors only, behaviors in other aspects, e.g. safety, are not included) can be divided into three categories by research methods: survey-based, model-based and simulation-based study.\n3. Research methodology: The research steps of this study are shown in Figure 1.\n4. Results: 4.1 The architecture\n5. Case study: 5.1 Project background\n6. Discussion: Based on previous contents, the proposed ABM-SD approach has two features:\n7. Conclusion: This study adopts and integrated simulation approach to reveal MLs' behavioral diversities and evaluate the impacts on MCPs. First, the relationships between affecting factors of laborer behaviors, laborer performance and PP are investigated; then an integrated ABM-SD model is developed following a set of implementation methods. In the ABM-SD model, ABM models MLs' behaviors and computes individual performance and SD aggregates individual data of ABM, evaluates project deviations which are again read by ABM for adjusting project plans.\n",
"role": "user"
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{
"content": "Purpose: Employing multi-type laborers (MLs) is common in multinational and cross-culture projects (MPCs). Different attributes of MLs can lead to uncertain and dynamic laborer behaviors (i.e. behavioral diversities), which may cause project deviations. Previous studies do not consider the uncertainties or dynamics of behaviors adequately or they only provide general suggestions. The purpose of this paper is to combine system dynamics (SD) and agent-based modeling (ABM) to build an integrated model. The proposed ABM-SD can gain better understanding of MLs' behavioral diversities, reveal the associated impacts and improve project management.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Based on extensively review in construction labor management and computer simulation, architecture is built to depict the relationships between the affecting factors of MLs' behaviors, MLs' behavioral diversities and project performance. Second, conceptual structures of the ABM-SD model are developed. Third, methods to implement the model in practice are introduced, focusing on data collection and model structure adjustment. Finally, the model is tested in a case study.\nFindings: Different ML groups have distinctive behaviors which constantly change through interactions between MLs, engineers and external environment. Inadequate consideration of the diversities can result in inaccurate estimation of productivity, work quality and absenteeism, causing severe project deviations such as schedule delay, cost overrun and high absenteeism. On the other hand, using the ABM-SD model, the root causes of project deviations are analyzed from the perspective of MLs' behavioral diversities and the optimization of labor management can significantly improve project performance.\nResearch limitations/implications: This paper supplements previous studies because the ABM-SD model takes fully use of the strength of simulation of solving uncertain and dynamic problems and combines both qualitative and quantitative findings in existing studies of labor management. Besides, the ABM-SD model is also a practical management tool to better monitor laborer behaviors and forecast the impacts. The limitation is mainly about the small scale of the case study. However, the ABM-SD model already demonstrates the mechanism about how MLs' different behaviors affect a project, which fulfill the aim of the study.\nPractical implications: The ABM-SD model can simulate MLs' behavioral diversities and produce reliable estimations of project performance. It also allows to optimize management plans. Furthermore, The ABM-SD model is adjustable based on specific project conditions, which make it applicable for different tasks, different laborer compositions and even different projects. Thus, the ABM-SD model can be a practical tool for engineers in MCPs.\nOriginality/value: SD and ABM are applied to study behaviors with well-known benefits in both separated and integrated manner. However, few studies use the approach to investigate MLs' behaviors in MCPs. Hence, the proposed ABM-SD model is an original attempt to improve the laborer management level in MCPs.\n",
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Individual determinants of brand affect: the role of the personality traits of extraversion and openness to experience
|
[
"Personality",
"Brand loyalty"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: An executive summary for managers and executive readers can be found at the end of this article.\n1. Introduction: Brand affect and brand loyalty are central aspects in brand management (Chaudhuri and Holbrook, 2001). It has been shown that brands are valuable intangible assets (Rao et al., 2004; Srivastava et al., 1998). Brand equity, defined as the marketing effects or outcomes that accrue to a product with its brand name compared with those that would accrue if the same product did not have the brand name (e.g. Aaker, 1991; Ailawadi et al., 2003; Keller, 2003) influences consumer-level constructs such as attitudes, awareness, image, and knowledge and company related outcomes like market share, prices, revenues and cash flow (Ailawadi et al., 2003). Hence, there is great interest on how brand equity is formed and how it drives loyalty and firm performance.In this context, affective responses to brands are of central importance. It has been shown that brand affect is a strong driver of brand loyalty (Chaudhuri and Holbrook, 2001). Brands that make the customer \"happy\", \"joyful\" or \"affectionate\" cause a stronger attitudinal commitment and purchase loyalty.In this paper we investigate two drivers of brand affect: Hedonic value and personality traits. We hypothesize that hedonic value (defined as the pleasure potential of a product class) influences brand affect. We also hypothesize that two personality traits (extraversion and openness to experience) influence the perceived hedonic value of a product and brand affect. Finally, we relate brand affect to attitudinal and purchase loyalty.In the following sections we develop the theory and hypotheses and present the results of two empirical studies.\n2. Personality traits, hedonic value, and brand affect: The past 15 years have seen a revitalization of personality scholarship (Funder, 2001) after decades of disparate theories and equivocal findings. This resurgence was facilitated in part by the emergence of a consensus understanding that traits are well organized within five broad domains (i.e. the \"Five-Factor Model\" or \"Big Five\" (Goldberg, 1990)) comprising Extraversion, Neuroticism, Openness to Experience (or Intellect), Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness. These five domains encompass numerous narrower, more context-specific facets in a hierarchy of individual differences (John and Srivastava, 1999; McCrae, 2004) and have been identified in numerous empirical studies (Tupes and Christal, 1992) constituting the pattern of traits across individuals and are considered the fundamental dimensions of personality (McCrae and John, 1992). Numerous researchers from many traditions were able to replicate the findings, thereby sustaining the theory of five basic dimensions of personality. This structure emerges across observers (e.g. self- and peer-reports), across methodologies (questionnaires and lexical inventories), across the lifespan, across languages and cultures (John and Srivastava, 1999; McCrae, 2004; Mooradian and Swan, 2006; Saucier and Ostendorf, 1999).In marketing research, personality traits have been adopted to study a variety of emotional responses, such as emotions and customer satisfaction (e.g. Matzler et al., 2005; Mooradian and Olver, 1997) and ad-evoked feelings (e.g. Mooradian, 1996). In this study, the focus is on two personality traits that are expected to be positively related to hedonic values in consumption and to brand affect: Extraversion and Openness to experience.Openness to experience (which often has been labeled as intellect) is related to active imagination, aesthetic sensitivity, attentiveness to inner feelings, preference for variety, intellectual curiosity, and independence of judgment (Costa and McCrae, 1992). Individuals with high scores on openness are curious about both inner and outer worlds, and they are willing to entertain novel ideas and unconventional values, and they experience both positive and negative emotions more keenly than do closed individuals (Costa and McCrae, 1992). Highly open people display intellectual curiosity, creativity, flexible thinking, and culture (Dingman, 1990). The facets of openness are related to fantasy, aesthetics, feelings, actions, ideas and values.The concept of hedonic value reflects the experiential paradigm in consumer behavior theory, which - in contrast to the information-processing paradigm - pursues the more subjective, emotional, aesthetic and symbolic aspects of consumption (Holbrook and Hirschmann, 1982; Mano and Oliver, 1993; Chaudhuri and Holbrook, 2001). Chaudhuri and Holbrook (2001) define hedonic value as the pleasure potential of a product, whereas utilitarian value is conceptualized as the ability of a product to perform functions in the everyday life of a consumer. Products with a high pleasure potential provide nontangible, symbolic benefits and are likely to hold a greater potential for evoking positive emotions in a consumer.Due to the higher tendency of open individuals to be curious about both inner and outer worlds, to have experientially richer lives, to experience both negative and positive emotions more keenly than closed individuals, it can be assumed that they perceive and experience hedonic values of products stronger than individuals who score low on openness. The link between openness and hedonic value has also been hypothesized by Olver and Mooradian (2003). However, they found no empirical evidence in their study on personality and value priorities of students. The lack of a significant relationship in their study could be attributed to the fact that they measured value priorities in general and not values in a specific situation. As our study focuses on hedonic value in a specific consumption situation, values could have a stronger meaning to the consumer than value priorities in general.Individuals who score high on openness may also be more open to affective responses to brands and perceive and experience brand-related affect stronger than closed individuals. Therefore, it is hypothesized that:H1. The personality trait openness is positively related to the hedonic value of a product and brand affect.\n3. Study: Sample\n4. Discussion and conclusion: It has been shown that the two personality traits openness and extraversion are positively related to the perceived hedonic value of a product. Consistent with previous studies in psychology and consistent with studies in the context of ad-evoked feelings (Mooradian, 1996) and customer satisfaction (Matzler et al., 2005; Mooradian and Olver, 1997) it has been shown that extraversion is positively related to positive affective responses. It has been found that extraverts perceive stronger hedonic values of a product, which is related to brand affect. Hence, a positive indirect relationship between extraversion and brand affect has been found. The hypothesized relationship between openness to experience and hedonic value and brand affect has been confirmed empirically. The results of this study, therefore contribute to the literature in personality psychology and affective responses in consumer behavior. It has been demonstrated that enduring characteristics of the individuals, i.e. extraversion and openness are related to central constructs in marketing. These findings are of interest to marketers who want to affectively bond their customers and to create brand loyalty. The results suggest that customers who score high on extraversion and openness respond stronger to affective stimuli. As a consequence, these findings could be of relevance to market segmentation and targeting.Future studies should try to replicate these findings with larger samples, other product categories and include other personality traits of the big five that could be related to hedonic or utilitarian values sought (e.g. conscientiousness) and negative emotions (neuroticism). In the context of brand trust, the personality trait agreeableness could be of interest, as studies have shown that people who score high on this personality trait tend to trust more than individuals with low scores on this trait (Mooradian et al., 2006). Extraversion which is strongly related to pleasant relationship with others could be of relevance to the study of brand communities (Algesheimer et al., 2005).\n",
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"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship among two personality traits (extraversion and openness), hedonic value, brand affect and loyalty. It argues that individual differences account for differences in the values sought by the consumer and in the formation of brand affect and loyalty.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Two samples are drawn (running shoes and mobile phone users) and the effect of personality traits on the other constructs have been tested using the Partial Least Squares approach (PLS) to structural equation modeling.\nFindings: - It was found that extraversion and openness are positively related to hedonic product value and that the personality traits directly (openness) and indirectly (extraversion, via hedonic value) influence brand affect which in turn drives attitudinal and purchase loyalty.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The paper introduces personality as determinants of perceived value and brand affect. Future studies should aim at including the other personality traits of the Big-Five (Neuroticism, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness) as possible determinants and utilitarian value as dependent variables.\nPractical implications: - Combined with lifestyle segmentation approaches, personality variables can be useful to determine which market segments seek hedonic values and which tend more to experience high levels of brand affect, which in turn leads to higher loyalty. The results suggest that customers who score high on extraversion and openness respond stronger to affective stimuli. As a consequence, these findings are of relevance to market segmentation and targeting.\nOriginality/value: - Affective responses to brands are of central importance to brand management as they strongly drive brand loyalty. In this study we investigate the role of two personality traits (extraversion and openness) as antecedents of hedonic value sought by the consumer and brand affect, which have been neglected so far.\n",
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Forecasting construction output: a comparison of artificial neural network and Box-Jenkins model
|
[
"Construction industry",
"Modelling",
"Forecasting",
"Box-Jenkins",
"Neural net",
"Construction output"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The construction industry has a pivotal role in the economic development process of any nation. Previous studies have demonstrated that there is a link between the construction industry and the economy. The findings of quantitative studies have revealed that a positive relationship exist between the growth of the construction industry and the economy (Han and Ofori, 2001; Chiang et al., 2015). In addition, Chan (2002) found that changes in the economic climate leads to fluctuations in construction industry's output (hereafter termed as construction output). This is a cyclic process (i.e. changes in economy affects construction sector and vice versa). This is because the demand for construction industry's product are largely derived demand. Hence, sustained growth of the construction sector could be a component for stimulating economic success.\nConstruction output forecasting techniques: a review: Despite the importance of construction output forecast, there have been relatively limited studies published in this field when compared with construction cost forecasting. This can be attributed to the shortage of quantitative data in several countries. For instance, the non-robustness of the data collection process affects the quality of the available statistical data on the construction industry of Kenya (K\nModels for forecasting construction output: The two constructs \"prediction\" and \"forecast\" are used interchangeably in literature. Saffo (2007) advocates that the main difference between both terms is the logic that guides the process of forecasting; thus, the process of generating forecast must be objective. This will ensure that the process of computing forecast is replicable. Also, the accuracy of the models can be evaluated.\nResults: Implementation of ARIMA model\nDiscussion: As mentioned in the introduction and literature review section, construction output forecasting is an important tool for forward planning of the construction industry. The present study was designed to assess the predictive capability of ARIMA and ANN models in construction output forecast research. On the overall (i.e. for the four series), the NNAR model outperformed the ARIMA model based on the MAPE values. These results are consistent with findings of earlier studies which compared ANN with classical models (Goh, 1996, 1998). Another possible explanation for the accuracy of the NNAR model may be linked to the ability of ANN to capture non-linear characteristics in data. However, the ARIMA model produced improved out-of-sample forecast in the others sector, this is due to the fairly linear characteristics exhibited in the series.\nConclusion: The main goal of the current study was to determine the predictive accuracy of two types of univariate time-series models. The ARIMA and NNAR models were fitted to four different time-series data representing sectorial and total construction output. The out-of-sample forecast between the first quarter of 2013 and third quarter of 2014 provided a basis for assessing the predictive performance of these two models.\n",
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"content": "Purpose: Fluctuations in construction output has an adverse effect on the construction industry and the economy due to its strong linkage. Developing reliable and accurate predictive models is vital to implementing effective response strategies to mitigate the impact of such fluctuations. The purpose of this paper is to compare the accuracy of two univariate forecast models, i.e. Box-Jenkins (autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA)) and Neural Network Autoregressive (NNAR).\nDesign/methodology/approach: Four quarterly time-series data on the construction output of Hong Kong were collected (1983Q1-2014Q4). The collected data were divided into two parts. The first part was fitted to the model, while the other was used to evaluate the predictive accuracy of the developed models.\nFindings: The NNAR model can provide reliable and accurate forecast of total, private and \"others\" construction output for the medium term. In addition, the NNAR model outperforms the ARIMA model, in terms of accuracy.\nResearch limitations/implications: The applicability of the NNAR model to the construction industry of other countries could be further explored. The main limitation of artificial intelligence models is the lack of explanatory capability.\nPractical implications: The NNAR model could be used as a tool for accurately predicting future patterns in construction output. This is vital for the sustained growth of the construction industry and the economy.\nOriginality/value: This is the first study to apply the NNAR model to construction output forecasting research.\n",
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A wavelet technique for the study of economic socio-political situations in a textual analysis framework
|
[
"Textual data",
"Correspondence analysis",
"K-means classification",
"Socio-political situations",
"Wavelet thresholding"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Arab countries in transition (including Egypt, Jordan, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia and Yemen) are going through a delicate social, economic and political situation, where some have been severely affected by the spontaneous revolts due especially to the high unemployment, precariousness and lack of economic opportunities. Even, there have been since that some political advances marked by ending dictatorship, the structural weaknesses of their economic systems have not yet been corrected, especially in front of the numerous conflicts that characterize the region.\n2. Literature review: Previously, economic socio-political relations has been analyzed in several occasions and using different statistical methods. For example, Jaunky (2013) demonstrated the positive effect of democracy on economic development for 28 countries of Sub-Saharan Africa in a panel data framework. In the same context, Hadhek and Kefi (2012) investigated the relationship between democracy, investment and economic growth using a sample of 11 countries from the MENA region during the period 2000-2009. The results of their dynamic panel model highlighted a positive interaction between democracy and economic growth. Within the same lines, Anyiwe and Oziegbe (2006) compared the effects of both democracy and military regimes on the level of economic growth for the case of Nigeria using a regression analysis. The results showed that most of the economic growth variables used indicates better performance during democracy compared to military regimes. Additionally, Sweidan (2016) studied the relation between political instability and economic growth in Jordan using econometric techniques during the period 1967-2009. He found that events such as wars and terrorist attacks have significantly influenced negatively the economic growth as well as the real government expenditures of the country. Similarly, Hechmy (2016) explored the opposite relationship between political instability and economic growth besides to other macroeconomic variables for the Tunisian case over the period 1970-2014. Furthermore, Kijkul (2013) showed that there is a negative endogenous link between political instability and Thailand economic growth. Indeed, political instability prevents economic growth and a fall in economic growth may spark political instability. In the same year, Dridi (2013) evaluated the impacts of corruption on different determinants of economic growth for both developed and developing. Using a sample of 26 developing countries and an observation period extending from 1996 to 2013, Haj Fraj and Lachhab (2015) explained the causes and consequences of corruption on different socio-economic levels for the case of developing countries. Moreover, Abdelkader (2015) demonstrated a positive effect of the level of democracy on economic growth in Egypt and a negative impact of uncertainty on economic growth using a time series data from 1972 to 2013. Matta et al. (2016) proved also a negative effect of The Arab Spring on Tunisia's aggregate economy using a panel data from 1990 to 2013.\n3. Methodology of research: 3.1 Correspondence analysis\n4. Data analysis: 4.1 Data collection\n5. Results: 5.1 Correspondence analysis results\n6. Conclusion: In this paper we show the effectiveness of the joint use of correspondence analysis and wavelet thresholding in textual data analysis, when we are interested in socio-political situations of Tunisia before and after the revolution. By removing lexical noise from the contingency table, we were able to improve the rate of inertia explained by the first factorial plan resulting from the correspondence analysis. Indeed, after applying the thresholding technique we have succeeded in minimizing the loss of information and synthesizing, with a small number of axes, a maximum rate of the information contained in the initial table. A better quality of representation of the factorial plan and a better exploitation of the classification results using the k-means method are also realized. Furthermore, the proximities observed on the factorial plan, leaded to valuable interpretations that validate the mainly economic notions that characterized Tunisia during the studied period. In this context, a stable situation is seen before the revolution (determined by the observation of groups of words that reflect a positive sense such as better, advancement and good) and a disturbing one is seen after the revolution (determined by the observation of groups of words that reflect a negative sense such as inflation, degradation, deficit, strike and difficulty).\n",
"role": "user"
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"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to apply the wavelet thresholding technique in order to analyze economic socio-political situations in Tunisia using textual data sets. This technique is used to remove noise from contingency table. A comparative study is done on correspondence analysis and classification results (using k-means algorithm) before and after denoising.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Textual data set is collected from an electronic newspaper that offers actual economic news about Tunisia. Both the hard and the soft-thresholding techniques are applied based on various Daubechies wavelets with different vanishing moments.\nFindings: The results obtained have proved the effectiveness of wavelet denoising method in textual data analysis. On one hand, this technique allowed reducing the loss of information generated by correspondence analysis, ensured a better quality of representation of the factorial plan, neglected the interest of lemmatization in textual analysis and improved the results of classification by k-means algorithm. On the other hand, the proximities provided by the factorial visualization validate the economic situation of Tunisia during the studied period showing mainly a stable situation before the revolution and a deteriorated one after the revolution.\nOriginality/value: The results are the first to analyze economic socio-political relations using textual data. The originality of this paper comes also from the joint use of correspondence analysis and wavelet thresholding in textual data analysis.\n",
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Scale purification: state-of-the-art review and guidelines
|
[
"Reliability",
"Validity",
"Scale development",
"Scale validation",
"Parsimony",
"Scale purification"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Hospitality research has evolved into a largely empiricism-driven discipline (Morosan et al., 2014), in which survey methods are often used for data collection, and regression or structural equation modeling for data analysis (Assaf et al., 2016; Kock et al., 2016). Among the challenges of applying such methods in the social sciences is that most constructs used in empirical models are operationalized as latent variables, thus, they represent \"phenomena of theoretical interest which cannot be directly observed and have to be assessed by manifest measures which are observable\" (Diamantopoulos et al., 2008, p. 1204). The latent nature of phenomena studied in hospitality research creates challenges for measurement (Hwang and Seo, 2016). As a consequence, a structured and comprehensive process of developing measurement models (referred to as \"scales\" for brevity in this article) is essential (Liu and Arendt, 2016; Pijls et al., 2017). Although scale purification - the justified removal of items from multi-item scales - has been acknowledged across disciplines as an important step toward creation of any scale (Churchill, 1979; Hardesty and Bearden, 2004; Homburg et al., 2015), researchers have noted that \"there is little discussion of how to apply [criteria] to make decisions about which items to omit to purify the scale\" (MacKenzie et al., 2011, p. 311). Additionally, while such criteria exist for unidimensional scales, we found virtually no attempt to develop such criteria for higher-order (i.e. multidimensional) scales (Jarvis et al., 2003).\nDeveloping a dualistic taxonomy of scale purification through criterion type and quality lens: Criterion type\nA systematic approach of purifying scales: Unidimensional scales\nMethodology: The developed framework enables us to analyze the current state of purifying scales of multi dimensional constructs in the hospitality literature. In a first step, a sample of articles was identified that serves as the basis for the analysis. In this step, we focused on two journals, which are generally considered the most influential journals in hospitality[3]: International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management (IJCHM) and International Journal of Hospitality Management (IJHM). To represent current practice, the analysis was further limited to the most recent (prior to October 2017) published five issues of each of these journals. As this research is about scale purification, only those articles were included that made use of multi-item scales. To identify such articles, the first author evaluated for each of the articles whether or not to include it and, in case of doubt, consulted the other authors (cf. Durach et al., 2017). Particularly, editorials, case studies and articles that applied other types of unrelated methods were excluded, but also quantitative studies that exclusively used single-item scales. This yielded 154 (= 94 [IJCHM] + 60 [IJHM]) articles. For each journal, 30 of these articles were randomly selected for further analysis. This allowed us to have two sub-samples that are comparable in size and that are each simultaneously large enough to be analyzed and recent enough to allow inference to the current methodological state in hospitality, as methodological standards tend to change over time. Thus, this step led to a sample of 60 articles to be considered. In a second step, the identified articles were independently coded by the second and third authors, hereby using a coding scheme. This scheme was based on the two frameworks for uni- and multidimensional scale purification described before and allowed coders to identify methods that were used in the respective articles. In addition, it was evaluated whether the article used uni- or multidimensional constructs and whether it was reported that scale purification was applied. The coding scheme also explicitly urged coders to evaluate whether the article should actually belong to the sample. The coders initially applied the coding scheme to a limited number of articles. To avoid any inconsistency, this step ensured that pending issues could be resolved, and the decision-making process between the coders be aligned before the actual coding process started. Differences among coders were resolved through discussions among all three authors.\nResults: The analysis of the hospitality literature allows us to make several observations. A first observation is that a group of authors do not report the criteria they used to make scale purification decisions. Particularly, in several cases the explanation was vague, simply referring to \"statistical analysis results\" rather than specifying the type of statistics used to drop items. Importantly and potentially concerning, various studies selected a subset of the original scale items without justifying this selection. In many of these incidents of implicit scale purification, the omission of items was not highlighted explicitly. Thus, the omission was only revealed after we compared the reported item list with the original study that the examined papers referred to. In those cases where the reporting makes a details analysis possible, the results indicate that scale purification decisions are almost exclusively justified based on statistical criteria for reliability (nine instances) and validity (seven instances) that relate to the item-factor unit of analysis. In specific, authors in hospitality turn out to report low factor loadings and factor cross-loadings as their dominating scale purification criteria. In addition, only one of the articles of our sample used multidimensional scales and in this single case cross-loading items were removed, too. It becomes apparent that parsimony is rarely reported on to justify the removal of scale items. Arguably, parsimony plays an implicit role in any such decision. The discrepancy between parsimonious measurement and explicitly reporting the motivation why the number of items should be reduced, therefore, comes with a bit of surprise. Interestingly, we also identified several articles that reported statistical results which should have led to scale purification, e.g. very low factor loadings. However, these results did not lead, without providing any justification, to scale purification although this would arguably have been the right decision. Finally, only very few articles took judgmental criteria into consideration. These results can be interpreted as a potential cause of concern, as the unilateral domination of statistical criteria might be helpful to improve the empirical measurement properties but at the same time could harm the theoretical meaning of empirical findings.\nDiscussion: Conclusions\n",
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"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to identify scale purification criteria for both uni- and multidimensional reflective scales and apply these criteria to an evaluation of the methodological status quo of the hospitality literature.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Based on a literature review, the authors develop a taxonomy of statistical and judgmental criteria across scale levels, from which best practices are derived. Recent publications in leading hospitality journals are then evaluated based on these scale purification steps.\nFindings: The authors uncover a lack of transparency when reporting scale purification practices. Moreover, methodological steps are often entirely omitted or insufficiently followed, especially when it comes to judgmental scale purification practices.\nResearch limitations/implications: The authors focus on reflective scales in the hospitality discipline. Methodological traditions in other fields might lead to different results if the chosen approach was to be repeated there.\nPractical implications: The authors provide a set of suggestions that will help researchers in hospitality and adjacent disciplines to greater consensus and consistency of application regarding the methodological steps when carrying out scale purification in reflective scales.\nOriginality/value: Application of scale purification in hospitality research has been scarce. The authors extend existing research and provide the most comprehensive study so far of present and best scale purification practices, using both statistical and judgmental criteria.\n",
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Foreign or domestic: who provides better customer service?
|
[
"Country of origin",
"Service competency",
"Service evaluations",
"Service recovery",
"Services offshoring"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Services offshoring as a business process has experienced tremendous growth in the past two decades. Offshoring (also called offshore outsourcing) is defined as moving business processes to locations outside of the focal firm's country of origin (COO) (Tate et al., 2009). Although, still growing fast with an estimated size of $90 billion per annum in 2011 (Palugod and Palugod, 2011), the offshoring industry has been facing newer challenges in the past few years. Some have been concerned that because domestic customer service is considered much better than outsourced foreign customer service, relying on outsourced services can reduce long-term customer satisfaction and may affect the firm performance in the long term (Shah et al., 2006). Such notions have led firms such as, Delta and United Airlines, to reestablish their domestic customer service call centers (Rust and Huang, 2012).\nConceptual background: Kumar et al. (2009) suggest that offshoring of service jobs from Western countries to culturally dissimilar countries like India has increased from about 1.5 million in 2003 to 4.1 million in 2008. While improvements in skilled labor (e.g. ability to speak English), technology and industrial/political environment in countries such as India and China have certainly aided services offshoring by American firms, it is unlikely that firms would continue to offshore if service evaluations were as negative, as suggested by extant academic literature (Hahn et al., 2009).\nMethodology: To study the impact of COO, CSE competence and service recovery on service satisfaction, we conducted three studies. The first study focused on only the first hypothesis, i.e. the impact of COO and CSE competence on customer satisfaction. The second study was part replication study; however, this time we also studied the impact of service recovery. The second study also improved on the realism of the first study by using realistic recordings of service encounters rather than just scenarios read by respondents. Finally, the third study used the similar procedures and stimuli as the second study by using additional independent variables and collecting data from non-student sample. We used experimental design across the three studies to control factors that we are investigating. Similar to correlational research, experimental research explores relationships between different variables. In addition to this, experimental research allowed us to obtain stronger evidence to be able to make causal interpretations by controlling extraneous variables.\nStudy 1: Participants and design\nStudy 2: Method\nStudy 3: Method\nGeneral discussion and implications: These findings provide several important insights in terms of theory and practice. First, the COO theory has so far been driven by the idea of signaling. Researchers believe that in the absence of quality/performance cues, consumers use COO as a proxy for quality (e.g. Han, 1989). The corollary to that theory is that when quality/performance cues are present, COO should not affect consumer behavior. This implies that if two services/products are exactly equal on all performance dimensions, there should be no impact of COO on customer satisfaction. In all the three experiments, we did not find support for that idea. It seems that even when services are exactly the same, consumers take COO into account when making decisions. This suggests that the current COO literature needs updating. The three studies in the paper suggest that the COO cue works more like a signal for quality expectations than for actual quality.\nLimitations and future research: Like all research this study also has certain limitations that need to be kept in mind while interpreting the findings. The first limitation is that the research was conducted in an experimental laboratory setting, which always introduces a level of non-realism. We did try to minimize the non-realism aspect in the second study by introducing a cover story that led the respondents to believe that they were actually listening to an actual service encounter. Future research might collect data from actual call centers (offshored and domestic) and compare consumers' evaluations for competent and incompetent CSEs to further increase external validity. Especially, an investigation into ethnic diversity in US call centers and perceptions of such into customer evaluations of CSEs would be interesting.\n",
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},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of customer service employees' (CSEs) competence and service recovery outcomes on service evaluations of foreign and domestic CSEs.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Three experiments were conducted to test and validate the proposed hypotheses. The participants were told a cover story that they were either listening to (Study 2) or reading (Studies 1 and 3) a real conversation between a customer service representative of a bank and a customer and the authors wanted their views about the service encounter. While country of origin (COO) and competency were common independent variables across three studies, Study 2 included service recovery with a full refund and Study 3 had both full and partial refund and apology offered or not.\nFindings: Results from three experiments show that while competent CSEs are evaluated the same, regardless of their COO, the domestic CSE is evaluated more negatively than the foreign CSE when both are incompetent. The authors also find that when competent CSEs deliver no service recovery, the foreign CSE evaluations are significantly lower than the domestic one. Study 3 results show that this effect is mediated by participants' ethnocentric beliefs.\nResearch limitations/implications: For implications, this study provides a deeper understanding of the role of COO in services contexts. Future researchers can utilize the findings to investigate the important role that expectations play in determining service excellence and how it affects the COO effect.\nPractical implications: The paper provides managers in both offshoring client and provider firms with an understanding of the effects of offshoring on employee evaluations. It discusses the relevance/irrelevance of COO on the customer evaluations of service employees.\nOriginality/value: The study investigates an under researched phenomenon - offshoring of services. This paper is one of the few looking at the role of different interaction factors, such as competence, recovery on service evaluations.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Critical perspectives in diversity and equality management
|
[
"Gender",
"Equal opportunities",
"Employment"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: The economics and politics of organization development, and the implications for management development systems and structures are important features that need to be critically evaluated as Europe moves towards greater democratization, liberalization and integration with global economies. Diversity initiatives are particularly relevant to an understanding of European management initiatives on account of the new enlarged Europe and Europe's relationships and economic networks with the international economy. Within this enlargement debate, there is also a need to consider how the myriad of European feminism(s) and policy development initiatives in equality debates are translated and communicated within and across organizations and the global community.\nIdentity, organizations, transformations: The papers in this special issue have a uniting theme that transcends organization and nation boundaries, that is, one of understanding the socially located identity and subject positions of men and women doing diversity. In respect of gender and diversity, theorising capacities for reflecting on workplace injustices cannot be easily achieved through a binary logic and require intersecting differences to be articulated. As Adkins (2002, p. 26) has argued:The politics of identity are not only at the heart of workplace politics but also of the labour process and the organization of production.. The significance of issues of identity at work mean that a politics of deconstruction (for example of the hetero/homo binary) is now best suited to the task of addressing workplace struggles.This is especially true in terms of Bendl et al's arguments for injecting a queer lens into organization and management theorising.In respect of identity politics and place, commentators in this special issue have shown that exploring career histories and narratives of women and men in a particular socio-cultural and political location has an important bearing on gender and diversity work identities, constructions, an ultimately in organization development priorities. The case of Portugal and Denmark provide empirical evidence which shows how diversity theorising is a fluid and contested context, and shaped by intersecting power relations and organization processes, including individual identity position, organization cultural practices and the dynamics of diversity salient theme in particular countries. We would argue that positioning debates about diversity and difference and the politics of place and location are areas that need to taken up by gender and diversity scholars globally.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to draw conceptual links between the papers in this special issue, arguing that diversity and equality research is located within varying socio-political, socio-demographic and geo-political contexts and should therefore be seen as fluid and subject to ongoing reformation.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This paper provides a thematic and analytical review of six papers from the Gender, Diversity and Management track of the European Academy of Management Conference, held at HEC, Paris in May 2007.\nFindings: - The paper draws out themes that transcend organisation and nation boundaries, showing how socio-cultural and political location has an important bearing on gender and diversity work identities, constructions and ultimately, organisation development priorities.\nPractical implications: - The paper seeks to encapsulate contemporary thinking in the discipline of equality and diversity management with specific focus on its interaction with the externalities of region, power, politics and society.\nOriginality/value: - The paper contributes to the developing discourse of employment-based diversity research in the international arena. It highlights the limitations of a fixed perspective of identity and difference, stressing the need to account for positionality in scholarly research.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Recycling cooperation and buying status: Effects of pure and competitive altruism on sustainable behaviors
|
[
"Recycling",
"Sustainable behaviors",
"Altruism type",
"Evolutionary altruism",
"Green buying"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Sustainable behaviors are deliberative actions aimed at conserving the environment and reducing the present and future negative impacts of consumption (Corral-Verdugo et al., 2011; Wang et al., 2017). The EUR2.5tn total market for sustainable goods shows that consumers care about sustainability and are willing to pay for brands committed to sustainable actions (Follows and Jobber, 2000; Grove et al., 1996; Nielsen, 2015; Schlegelmilch et al., 1996; Unilever, 2017). However, many consumers still fail to engage in sustainable behaviors (Barbarossa and Pelsmacker, 2016; Kidwell et al., 2013; Prothero et al., 2010), underscoring the importance of academic work that can better explain the motivations to adopt different sustainable behaviors.\nLiterature review and hypotheses: We conducted a systematic literature review to search several online scientific databases and identify empirical studies examining how altruism types are related to sustainable behaviors (for the detailed methodological procedure, see Appendix 1). Table I shows systematic research examining the effects of altruism types on sustainable behaviors. To reiterate, studies have explored either recycling or green buying, but not both together. In addition, findings are mixed in that some suggest that pure altruism motivates recycling (Onel and Mukherjee, 2017), while others suggest that competitive altruism is the motivator (Ewing, 2001; Whitley et al., 2018). Likewise, there is lack of agreement on what motivates green buying, with evidence that both pure and competitive altruism motivate this behavior (Barbarossa and Pelsmacker, 2016; Elliott, 2013; Puska et al., 2018). Therefore, further investigation is needed to understand how pure and competitive altruism influence sustainable behavior (Lundblad and Davies, 2016).\nOverview of the studies: We conducted three studies to test our hypotheses. In Study 1, our objective was to understand whether consumers associate pure or competitive altruism with specific sustainable behaviors. We tested H1 predicting that recycling is related to pure altruism and green buying is related to competitive altruism. We found that consumers in general (without specific identity goals activation) associate pure altruism with recycling but associate competitive altruism with both recycling and green buying, which could generate mixed insights regarding sustainable behavior motivation. To better identify motivations for specific sustainable behaviors, we undertook Studies 2 and 3 to examine identity goals as moderating the effect. We tested our prediction that when altruism type matches salient identity goals, consumers are more likely to engage in specific sustainable behaviors. Specifically, Study 2 examines identity goals (collectivistic vs individualistic) as moderating the motives for recycling and green buying (H2). We propose that when individualistic goals are salient, pure altruism will motivate recycling (H2a), and when collectivistic goals are salient, competitive altruism will motivate green buying (H2b). Study 3 further supports H2, H2a and H2b by analyzing how priming specific motives and identity goals can increase sustainable behaviors. Findings show that pure altruism motives combined with individualistic identity goals can increase recycling behaviors; competitive altruism motives combined with collectivistic identity goals can increase green buying behaviors, consistent with our theory.\nStudy 1: altruism types and sustainable behaviors: We conducted Study 1 to test our prediction that altruism types will determine whether consumers recycle or buy green (H1). We designed the study to show how consumers justify recycling and green buying when they have no conscious active goal. Having no conscious goals is important because consumers use conscious strategies aligned with their goals. For example, if the goal is to lose weight, they purchase low-calorie foods (for a full discussion, see Laran, 2016; Laran et al., 2016.) We tested our prediction by asking consumers to evaluate recycling or green buying scenarios to investigate whether pure or competitive altruism motivated the sustainable behaviors. Thus, Study 1 participants reported their associations between recycling and green buying and pure and competitive altruism but were unaware of any goal pursuit association.\nStudy 2: the moderating role of identity goals: Our objective in Study 2 was to test our prediction that identity goals change motivation for recycling and green buying (H2). As in Study 1, we used an experimental design aimed to avoid a conscious goal pursuit (Laran, 2016; Laran et al., 2016). Thus, we analyzed pure versus competitive altruism motives leading to recycling or green buying, moderated by individualistic and collectivistic goals.\nStudy 3: priming motives and identity goals to increase sustainable behaviors: We conducted Study 3 to additionally test H2, H2a and H2b and show how sustainable behaviors are increased when pure and competitive altruism are combined with identity goals. In particular, we tested whether we could effectively prime pure altruism and individualistic goals to increase consumers' recycling intentions and whether we could prime competitive altruism and collectivistic goals to enhance green buying.\nGeneral discussion: Theoretical implications\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This study aims to reconcile previous research that has provided mixed results regarding motivation for sustainable behaviors: pure altruism (cooperation) or competitive altruism (status). Drawing on evolutionary altruism and identity-based motivation, the authors propose that a match between pure (competitive) altruism and individualistic (collectivistic) identity goals enhance consumers' motivations to engage in recycling (green buying).\nDesign/methodology/approach: Three experimental studies show how pure and competitive altruism are associated with specific sustainable consumption (Study 1) and how altruism types should be matched with identity goals to motivate sustainable consumption (Studies 2 and 3).\nFindings: Study 1 shows that pure altruism is associated with recycling but not with green buying. Studies 2 and 3 show that pure (competitive) altruism and individualistic (collectivistic) goals lead to higher recycling (green buying) intentions.\nResearch limitations/implications: The present research extends previous findings by showing that pure and competitive are indeed associated with specific sustainable behaviors. The authors suggest that the interaction between motives and identity goals can lead to a greater impact on recycling and green buying intentions.\nPractical implications: Public policymakers and companies will benefit by better understanding how specific combinations of altruism types and identity goals can foster recycling or green buying intentions.\nOriginality/value: This research is the first to show how matches between pure and competitive altruism types and individualistic and collectivistic identity goals affect consumers' motivations to engage in recycling and green buying.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Towards interconnecting the Nordic identity federations
|
[
"Trust",
"Higher education",
"Corporate identity"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: This paper outlines considerations for trust management between established national identity federations in education and research. Whereas internet traffic has well-defined protocols like BGP for managing traffic exchange, and PKI has done work on bridges and cross-certification of certificate authorities, there is not much work available on trust management for federations. However, federated identity cannot establish trust - it can only communicate it (Windley, 2005, p. 130). Thus, in an identity federation, trust establishment is, in the first place, a policy issue, not a technical one.Previous work in interconnecting identity federations has been done in the eduroam confederation for roaming network access (Wierenga and Florio, 2005), in interconnecting the E-Authentication federation of the US government and in the inCommon federation of the US higher education in the US (Rotman, 2006). In the private sector, project Fidelity has demonstrated the interconnection four teleoperator-centred CoTs (circle of trust) (de Quinto and Medina, 2006).Users in national federations need access to services in other countries. The federation between national federations (cross-federation, or CoCoT - Circle of CoTs as dubbed by Liberty Alliance) enables an end user to have the same easy way of accessing services abroad as he or she has inside a national federation. For service providers, this results in more efficient use of existing resources and for home organisations it can both reduce the institutions' workload and increase what resources its users may access.A reason for looking at the Nordic area is that we are all covered by the same European Union (EU) regulations, and we also have our common Nordic culture and history. Kalmar Union, a union of the Nordic countries from 1397 to 1520, provided inspiration and the name for our work. This chapter is a short introduction to the current Nordic identity federations and the regulatory environment.1.1 Nordic identity federations\n2. Issues in the policy of a cross-federation: The different national federations in the Nordic area, and elsewhere in Europe, have different polices and organisational and technical structures. Preliminary comparisons of these policies[1,2,3,4,5] indicate that the similarities far outnumber the differences. Furthermore, many of the differences appear to be caused by chance rather than by choice. We have compared the Finnish (Haka) and Norwegian (Feide) policies, and find no obstacles that would hinder a cross-federation. The Swedish and Danish federations that are being set up have draft policies that seem to be compatible with such a federation.Therefore, the remaining obstacles for achieving a cross-federation of different national federations appear to lie mostly in the policy area. Many potential problems have arisen from legislation that has been passed in recent years concerning privacy and security, not only because the legislation in its provisions limits possible actions, but perhaps even more because the number of issues that have to be sorted out and analysed with regard to legislation and policy has sharply increased. The know-how necessary to accomplish this is not normally found in abundance in the environments that develop such systems as identity federations, in sharp contrast to technological know-how. This means that the obstacles to building systems no longer primarily exist as technological obstacles, but more to the policy implications that the systems will have and the surrounding paperwork.As the technology used by the different national federations becomes more and more standardized, the technological challenges in making cross-federations become fewer. The same can be said for the actual policy-barriers, since more and more legislation in this area is passed within the EU. Therefore, the remaining obstacles therefore seem to be lack of legislative know-how, and due to this lack of know-how, lack of sound information on which decision makers can base their decisions. The result of this lack of certainty is an increase of risk. We believe that the positive effects of continuing the efforts towards cross-federation outweigh these risks.This chapter presents the issues we have found relevant for the policy of a cross-federation and how we plan to cover them in the charter of the Kalmar Union.2.1 Choice of organisational model\n3. Further work: As noted earlier, we lack accepted and well-known procedures for assessing levels of assurance across federations. There is work to be done on the semantic interoperability of attributes, as definitions and regulations for the same attribute may differ from federation to federation.It is important to follow the EU work on eID (electronic identity) and identity management requirements, both for legislation (as it is enacted in each country), guidelines and 'best practice\". The work done with the Kalmar Union charter is valid only within a European context. For non-European federations to join, those federations would need to do an assessment of their legal context as it relates to the European Union and European Economic Area. The level of complexity in privacy and liability legislation will influence how complicated it is to implement cross-federation for different regions.The role of data processor varies with different legal interpretations of EU legislation. Each participating federation must provide a clearing house, with the minimum being a list of contact points and a statement on their policy with regard to data processing.With regard to user consent, we need to collect operational experience and do more user testing to find the best way to inform users.The Liberty Alliance work on crossing circles of trust has provided valuable input, and is something to follow as more environments gain operational experience with cross-federations.\n4. Conclusion: As the technology used in federated identity management becomes more and more standardised, the technological challenges in making cross-federations become fewer. Therefore, the remaining obstacles seem to be missing legislative know-how, causing lack of sound information for decision makers.For this paper, we compared policies of existing academic identity federations and found more similarities than differences. In this paper, we presented the key issues for a policy of a cross-federation. Based on this work, we continue establishing the Kalmar Union, a cross-federation of the Nordic academic identity federations.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to outline considerations for trust management between established national identity federations in education and research. It also aims to discuss policy issues related to cross-federation and to compare existing academic identity federations. The paper seeks to investigate Nordic national federations and to introduce the Kalmar Union as a means of interconnecting the Nordic federations.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper discusses various issues in the policy of a cross-federation, and suggests further work for developing the Kalmar Union Charter.\nFindings: - The paper finds that the technology used in federated identity management becomes more and more standardised, the technological challenges in making cross-federations become fewer. Therefore, the remaining obstacles seem to be missing legislative know-how, causing lack of sound information for decision makers. Thus, in an identity federation, trust establishment is, in the first place, a policy issue, not a technical one.\nOriginality/value: - In recent years, several identity federations have been established in higher education around the world. Existing federations have a national scope, but the need for cross-border services has led to the first interconnects of national federations. The Kalmar Union has been established as a cross-federation of the Nordic academic identity federations.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Interactive effects of personal and organizational resources on frontline bank employees' job outcomes: The mediating role of person-job fit
|
[
"Banking",
"Turnover intentions",
"Customer orientation",
"Frontline employees",
"Person-job fit",
"Service technology"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: As boundary spanners, frontline employees serve as a critical link between an organization's internal operations and external customers. They play a crucial role in the implementation of organizational strategies (Brown et al., 2002) which ultimately impact an organization's performance (Menon and Dube, 2004). Since seamless implementation of organizational strategies requires well-performing frontline employees who want to remain in their organizations, it is imperative to provide them with requisite organizational resources (cf. Babakus et al., 2003; Bakker et al., 2004) that affect their job outcomes (Salanova et al., 2006).\nConceptual framework and hypotheses: Research model\nMethod: Sample and procedure\nResults: Measurement results\nDiscussion: To improve frontline employees' performance and retain well-performing employees are crucial for banks in today's competitive banking milieu. In this study, we developed a parsimonious model to investigate the mediating role of P-J fit on the impact of two organizational resources (training and service technology) and a personal resource (CO) on frontline employees' job performance and turnover intentions. In the process, we also examined the moderating role of CO on the effect of organizational resources on frontline employees' perception of P-J fit and tested competing hypotheses based on the precepts of the supplementary and complementary fit theories as promulgated in the P-E fit paradigm (Bretz and Judge, 1994).\nLimitations and future research directions: This study has some limitations and offers potential areas for future research. First, the study has specifically focussed on frontline employees of a particular retail bank. The generalizability of our results should be further established via studies across other retail banks and in other service sectors.\nConcluding remarks: On a concluding note, we have to reiterate that organizational resources of training and service technology distally impact frontline employees' job performance through a more proximal construct, perception of P-J fit. In other words, training and service technology lead to enhanced job performance by virtue of the level of perceived P-J fit which fully mediates the effect of training on turnover intentions. It is also noteworthy to indicate that the personal resource of CO's effects on job performance and turnover intentions are both direct as well as through P-J fit. The insights gained in this study can potentially provide a more solid theoretical foundation for managerial decisions. We hope that our study will inspire other researchers to pursue these and other relevant issues in the future. Such research, on one hand, can further contribute to the generalizability of findings and, on the other hand, can facilitate managerial decisions.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the mediating role of person-job (P-J) fit on the impact of organizational resources (training and service technology), and a personal resource (customer orientation) on frontline bank employees' job performance and turnover intentions.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A large-scale survey of 530 frontline employees of a national bank in New Zealand serves as the study setting.\nFindings: Among others, results show that P-J fit fully mediates the impact of training on turnover intentions and job performance.\nResearch limitations/implications: The cross-sectional nature of the study does not allow causal inferences. Therefore, future studies should adopt longitudinal designs.\nPractical implications: Management should be careful in planning and providing organizational resources to frontline employees to enhance their perception of P-J fit. Also investing in the recruitment and selection of customer-oriented frontline employees would be a prudent course of action.\nOriginality/value: Empirical research in the banking services literature pertaining to the mediating role of P-J fit is scarce. There is also a lack of research regarding the interaction between personal and organizational resources resulting in complementary or supplementary effects on frontline employees' fit perceptions. This study fills in the void in both areas.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Social Media use and value creation in the digital landscape: a dynamic-capabilities perspective
|
[
"Social Media use",
"Dynamic capabilities",
"Customer Engagement",
"Organizational Readiness"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Digital technologies are dramatically changing markets, business environments and marketing communication strategies (Foltean et al., 2019). Digitalization has transformed the way organizations and customers interact and exchange value, creating new avenues for interaction and collaboration with the market. While increasing digitalization can create opportunities for business, it also presents significant challenges. Managers face complex and rapidly changing markets and lack the specific knowledge necessary to understand these changes and how to cope with them (Leeflang et al., 2014). To meet these challenges, firms should understand how to use digital technologies strategically and what capabilities they must acquire to respond quickly to market needs, transforming their value creation process (Chanias et al., 2019; Quinton et al., 2018).Social Media use is particularly important in the current digital landscape, and it is recognized as a major component of a digital transformation strategy (Galindo-Martin et al., 2019; Torres and Augusto, 2019). These tools are considered as future service technologies (Kristensson et al., 2019) that will dramatically change the value creation process. Social Media tools are defined as \"a group of Internet based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0 technology, and allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content\" (Kaplan and Haenlin, 2010, p. 61). Social Media use has already completely transformed the way customers interact with firms. Organizations are realizing that these technologies can be powerful enablers of customer relationship management (CRM) and are integrating Social Media into existing CRM systems to better engage customers (Choudhury and Harrigan, 2014). Social CRM appear thus as technology-enabled strategy enabled by Social Media tools and designed to engage customers in collaborative interactions that create mutual value (Greenberg, 2010; Trainor, 2012).Dynamic capabilities theory provides an ideal lens to examine the process of value creation in the current digital economy, characterized by quick and dramatic structural change. This theory has been widely used in prior research to explain how firms can innovate in turbulent markets and generate business value with the use of information technology (IT) (Eloranta and Turunen, 2015; Wang et al., 2013). Dynamic capabilities theory seems particularly appropriate to examining social media use (Harrigan et al., 2015) because customer needs and preferences are constantly changing in the current environment, requiring firms to adapt by building information-based capabilities to personalize their offerings. While Social Media can clearly help firms to reinvent customer relationships, fostering development of relevant firm capabilities, research has not yet clarified the specific process of creating value with these tools (Wu, 2016). Understanding of the organizational conditions needed to harness the full potential they can offer remains limited, and firms are finding challenging to generate real profit from Social Media use (Kunz et al., 2017; Piskorski, 2011). As digitalization continues to evolve, firms must understand how to use Social Media strategically to create real value.While Social Media are relevant to all sectors, use of these tools is transformative in the hospitality industry (Diffley et al., 2018). In the current digital environment, Social Media have become a strategic imperative for hotels, enabling them to access their geographically dispersed potential customers directly and to monitor customer reviews and respond proactively to them. Social Media have proven to be a key tool in fostering Customer Engagement and Customer Experiences (Diffley et al., 2018; Tajvidi and Karami, 2017). Despite the growing relevance of Social Media in this sector, there is a lack of research examining empirically its impact on hotels' performance (Palacios-Marques et al., 2015). Although prior research has devoted significant effort to conceptualizing the Social Media phenomenon, the internal antecedents of its use or its specific impact on firm capabilities and value creation remain underexplored (Foltean et al., 2019; Wang and Kim, 2017).While successful Social Media adoption requires deep understanding of the strategic capabilities involved in this process, many managers lack this specific knowledge (Foltean et al., 2019). Assuming that one of the main challenges firms face in the current digital landscape is to understand the real impact of Social Media use on their performance (Foltean et al., 2019; Leeflang et al., 2014) the purpose of our study is to examine this phenomenon empirically. We draw on the dynamic capabilities perspective to address the following research questions: (RQ1) What are the main capabilities enabled by Social Media use? (RQ2) What chain of effects leads to better performance when using Social Media? Our analysis aims to identify the specific pathways through which Social Media use enhances value creation. In fact, we seek to determine empirically whether Social Media use affects performance directly or whether this effect is mediated entirely by firm capabilities. The proposed research model is tested on a primary dataset of 212 hotels using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) techniques.This study makes novel and relevant contributions to the literature by responding to recent calls for additional empirical research to demonstrate the impact of Social Media use on value creation in the new digital landscape. Our first contribution to Social Media literature is to propose a conceptual model, drawing on the dynamic capabilities perspective, to examine how Social Media use leads to a better Organizational Performance enhancing firm capabilities. Second, by empirically testing the proposed model, our results confirm the mediating role of Social CRM Capabilities and Customer Engagement Capabilities in the process of value creation with Social Media. The findings provide a holistic understanding of the chain of effects that leads to better performance when using Social Media. Third, the results highlight the key role of Organizational Readiness, including significant organizational factors, as a basic prerequisite to benefitting from Social Media use. The findings also have significant implications for managers in describing how to strategically implement these digital tools to enhance sales and profitability.The paper is organized as follows. First, we present the theoretical background and develop the research model and hypotheses. Next, we describe the research method and the empirical results. We conclude with a discussion of the results, implications for theory and practice, limitations and directions for future research.\n2. Theoretical background: 2.1 Social Media use and value creation\n3. Research model and hypotheses: 3.1 Organizational and technological resources\n4. Research methods and results: 4.1 Data collection\n5. Discussion and implications: In the current digital landscape, Social Media tools are transforming the way firms relate to their markets, creating a new world of possibilities for improving relationships with customers. The rapid growth of Social Media has added an additional complex and multi-faceted dimension to customer management strategies in hotels. Implementing these technologies has become a priority for companies, but most are not yet exploiting these technologies' full potential. Prior research has failed to explain the specific path to value creation through Social Media use and the specific relevance of organizational factors in this process. By building on dynamic capabilities theory, our study seeks to fill this gap. This is the first empirical study to examine how hotels develop IT-based capabilities using Social Media tools and how these dynamic capabilities create business value in the current digital environment. The findings demonstrate how Social Media use combined with Organizational Readiness leads to development of Social CRM and Customer Engagement capabilities that enable value creation through improved Organizational Performance.Based on customer knowledge management, Social CRM Capabilities enable firms to personalize their offerings to respond to changing customer needs. Social CRM Capabilities, in turn, enhance Customer Engagement Capabilities, involving customers in collaborative conversations that promote WOM behaviors and recommendations. By building these dynamic capabilities, firms create real value, which translates into better Organizational Performance. In fact, since the direct impact of Social Media use on performance was not significant, our results confirm the key role played by two specific capabilities (Social CRM and Customer Engagement) in effective mediation of the process of creating value through Social Media use. These tools must be used as instruments to enhance firm capabilities that contribute subsequently to improving firm performance. 5.1 Theoretical implications\n6. Conclusions: This study contributes novel insight into how Social Media use helps firms to develop IT-based capabilities and improve Organizational Performance. In current digital markets, one of the main challenges firms face is how to implement Social Media tools properly to expand firm capabilities and improve customer relationships. Building on dynamic capabilities theory, our results illustrate the process of creating value with Social Media use in service firms, highlighting the role of Social CRM and Customer Engagement Capabilities as key mediators in this process. By using SEM on a sample of 212 hotels, our study reveals the specific pathway through which Social Media use translates into better performance. Given the significance of Social Media for reinventing customer relationships in current changing markets, the study provides empirical justification and a conceptual framework to help firms seize the opportunities that Social Media tools can offer.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Although Social Media use has become all-pervasive, previous research has failed to explain how to use Social Media tools strategically to create business value in today's increasingly digital landscapes. Adopting a dynamic capabilities perspective, this paper empirically examines the specific process through which Social Media use translates into better performance and the capabilities involved in this process.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A research model is proposed that includes both antecedents and consequences of Social Media use. Existing research was examined to derive the research hypotheses, which were tested using SEM methodology on a sample of 212 hotels.\nFindings: The results show that Social Media use does not exert significant direct impact on organizational performance. Rather, the findings confirm the mediating role played by Social CRM and Customer Engagement capabilities in the value creation process.\nPractical implications: The results demonstrate how Social Media tools should be implemented and managed to generate business value in hotels. Implications yield interesting insights for hotel managers\nOriginality/value: This study is a first attempt to analyze empirically the real impact of digital media technologies, particularly Social Media use, drawing on the dynamic capabilities perspective and focusing on service firms (hotels). Including the variable \"Organizational Readiness\" as a basic prerequisite to benefit from Social Media use enhances the study's novelty and contribution.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Tackling the challenges of reducing and managing food waste in Mumbai restaurants
|
[
"Restaurants",
"Surplus food",
"Food wastage",
"Mitigation of wastages"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Food plays a central role in our lives, not only providing fuel, nutrients and sustenance, nor merely being central to many of our social interactions, but also feeding into to our sense of identity (White et al., 2009). However, across the world one-third of all the food produced is wasted which amounts to a staggering $400 billion annually (Nixon, 2015). Food waste has attracted the attention of researchers, the media, politicians and others, largely because of its far-reaching effects on the economy and the environment (Buzby et al., 2014). Food wastage and food losses combined together constitute the issue at hand resulting in food shortage across the world besides other negative implications (Lipinski et al., 2013). This issue is fast assuming grave dimensions in India. This study examines food waste in restaurants, providing data and insights with a case study on Mumbai city, to appraise the operational efficiency of the system and contributes to understanding of food waste dynamics. Through in-depth interviews of 63 restaurant owners/managers, the paper also explores the strategies adopted by restaurants in Mumbai to reduce food waste and dispose of leftover food and recommends ways to reduce waste amounts.\nFood loss and food waste: According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) (2016), roughly one-third of the food produced in the world for human consumption every year, approximately 1.3 billion tons, gets lost or wasted. Food losses and waste amount to roughly US$ 680 billion in industrialized countries and US$ 310 billion in developing countries (FAO, 2016). Studies have pointed out repeatedly that the proportion of food wasted in India is almost one-third the amount of its annual production. Around 67 million tons of food is wasted in India every year, which has a value of more than more than US$14 billion (Haq, 2016). Statistics provided by the United Nations Development Program states that India wastes 40 percent of the food it produces.\nResearch design: Data collection and analysis\nLimitations of the study: Limitations in qualitative research encompass weaknesses that potentially affect the outcome of the study (Brutus et al., 2013). The sample size chosen is not fully representative of every restaurant in Mumbai and the whole of India. The restaurant owners/managers may not have truthfully answered all questions. Any level of dishonesty could have affected the findings of a study (Shalvi and De Dreu, 2014). The participants might have the fear that the authorities would take cognizance of some of the practices that they are following and would have been guarded in their responses. There would always be an apprehension that the identities would not be kept confidential. The researcher's bias, the tone of voice, or appearance could affect participants' perception of the interview questions leading to biased responses (Smith and Noble, 2014).\nFindings and interpretations: Although the different restaurants used for the purpose of this study adopt different practices about food waste and surplus food management, some common threads have been observed (Figure 1).\nDiscussions and Implications: The causes of food waste in restaurants are numerous and diverse. Food losses and waste are currently at the heart of academic debates, civil society initiatives and political agendas (Falasconi et al., 2015). A number of strategic challenges arise from the observations and inferences outlined in the previous section. Waste management and effective waste disposal practices are measures that have become essential for restaurants not only to reduce wastage of resources but also to ensure an economic business. Restaurants also need to have more complete information about various platforms for effective disposal of surplus food and recycling options and in particular about the processes. Restaurants need to adopt strategies to translate the vision of zero food loss and wastage of food into concrete action. As per this study, the hospitality sector is not keen on government interference to reduce avoidable food waste and would rather solve the issue at their level and through their associations. There is opposition to taxes on avoidable food waste. The larger establishments are also frustrated by the subjective valuations adopted by food administration inspectors and resent the fact they have to frequently bribe these inspectors.\nConclusion: This paper has analyzed the food waste in Mumbai restaurants, attempted to assess the operational efficiency of the system and given recommendations to minimize food waste. Mumbai restaurants do recognize the need to have a scientific approach for the treatment of their surpluses and mitigation of the same. The true solution lies in creating heightened levels of awareness in the restaurant industry about correct waste management practices and stringent measures need to be taken to ensure that these are adequately followed. Ad hoc and sporadic efforts would not be sustainable. Every restaurant needs to work harder to monitor and minimize food wastage, for the sake of the community, planet and the bottom line, though some do have a good grip on it. Following the observation that there is a weak association between waste prevention attitudes and behaviors there could be enormous gains between pro-environmental behaviors and values. It is just a matter of finding the strategy that works for the restaurant. The restaurateurs affirm that the solution to Mumbai's restaurant waste management lies in micro management (and a laudable initiative by one of the restaurants is the \"public fridge\") rather than large scale plans. While this may be true, there is also a need for the government to amend and strictly enforce the laws on the same. The Indian Government should also speed up research in nanotechnology to invent eco-friendly and healthy food preservation applications to preserve food for longer periods of time and to keep farm produce fresh.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Around 67 million tons of food is wasted in India every year, which has a value of more than US$14 billion (Haq, 2016). The purpose of this paper is to concentrate on one major source to which the current massive proportion of wastage can be attributed: restaurants. It investigates the statistics, the problem at large, how the restaurants are handling it and recommends ways to better manage the issue.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A qualitative inquiry has been used. The research population for this study consisted of 63 restaurant owners across Mumbai city and its suburbs. In-depth discussions were held with these restaurant owners/managers in various matters of interest to this study.\nFindings: The group of restaurateurs opined that the solution to Mumbai's restaurants waste management lies in micro management rather than large scale plans. In total, 75 percent of the restaurants have 10-20 percent extra preparation. High-end fine-dining restaurants make even more additional preparations and are the ones more receptive to participating and also sensitive toward importance of waste management. Several of the restaurant owners claim that they can estimate the requirements on specific days of the week. In all, 18 percent of the restaurants surveyed claimed to have a complete dispose of policy. Majority of the restaurants have a clear policy to distribute the surplus food among their staff. Several other innovative strategies were shared.\nResearch limitations/implications: The restaurant owners/mangers may not have truthfully answered all questions. The participants might have the fear that the authorities would take cognizance of some of the practices that they are following and would have been guarded in their responses. There would always be a fear that the identities would not be kept confidential.\nPractical implications: India as a country has been agriculture based for centuries and characterized by massive food production. Yet, people face rampant starvation and malnourishment. This arises to a large extent due to the colossal amounts of food wasted at marriages, restaurants and even by destruction of crops.\nOriginality/value: The restaurant industry is of critical importance to the Indian economy and while research in India has focused on overall food wastage, studies on restaurant food waste are lacking.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Intellectual capital disclosure: high-tech versus traditional sector companies
|
[
"Intellectual capital",
"Intangible assets",
"Disclosure"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Although the academic and business literature during the past decade has recognized the growing importance of intellectual capital (IC), little progress has been made in accounting for IC in the financial statements of firms (International Federation of Accountants - IFAC, 1998; Lev, 2001; Kannan and Aulbur, 2004; Guthrie and Yongvanich, 2004). Academicians, standard setting bodies, and the business community have argued that traditional accounting standards are inadequate to account for IC (IFAC, 1998; Lev, 2001; Kannan and Aulbur, 2004; Guthrie and Yongvanich, 2004). Accordingly, reporting on IC has been relegated to narrative disclosures in the annual reports of firms.This study compares the level of intellectual capital disclosure (ICD) of firms in the high technology and traditional sectors of the economy. In connection with this study, the author developed an IC model based on an integration of the resource-based view (RBV) of the firm, knowledge management, and IC literature. The model, which is called the RBV IC model, contains five components: human capital, intellectual property, organizational capital, customer capital and supplier capital. As discussed in detail below, the data support the hypothesis that US high-technology companies (HTCs) have a higher level of ICD than traditional sector companies (TSCs).\nThe intellectual capital construct: Intellectual capital\nThe RBV IC model: The purpose of this study is to compare the level of ICD between US firms in the high technology and the traditional manufacturing sectors of the economy. The RBV theory of the firm is inescapably intertwined with the IC construct. Many of the definitions and concepts found in the RBV literature can be linked directly to those adopted in the IC literature. The RBV Intellectual Model has been developed to define the IC categories to be evaluated in this study.RBV intellectual capital model\nMethodology: Sample selection\nResults: The data confirmed that for both the 2000 and 2004 fiscal year HTCs had a significantly higher level of ICD than TSCs for each category of the RBV IC Model with the exception of supplier capital. Additionally, HTCs had a higher level of disclosure of their aggregate IC than TSCs in both 2000 and 2004.Customer capital\nConclusions: The research data supports that HTCs provide a higher level of ICD than TSCs. Both in fiscal years 2004 and 2000, HTCs had a higher level of ICD than TSCs in every category of the RBV IC Model with the exception of supplier capital. As discussed above, HTCs may be motivated to provide disclosures of their IC in the narrative portion of their annual reports due to the failure of the financial accounting model to account for the same in the financial statements. Since HTCs rely more heavily on IC than TSCs, and the accounting model adequately accounts for the assets used by firms in the traditional sectors of the economy, it was predicted that HTCs would have a higher level of ICD than TSCs. The data supported the hypothesis.As previously discussed, with regard to supplier capital the data were inconclusive. Possible explanations for the inability to establish a significant difference in the level of disclosure of supplier capital between TSCs and HTCs would be that:* each place the same value on the importance of supplier capital to the success of the firm;* relative to other categories of IC, TSCs place a higher value on the importance of supplier capital to the success of the firm than other categories of IC;* relative to other categories of IC, HTCs place a lower value on the importance of supplier capital to the success of the firm than other categories of IC; or* relative to other categories of IC, HTCs disclose supplier capital at a lower level to protect the confidentiality of the data in order to maintain their competitive advantage in the marketplace.Additional research should be undertaken to explain why supplier capital was the only IC category in the RBV IC model for which a consistent difference in the level of disclosure between HTCs and TSCs did not exist.As with any study, there are limitations to this study. Content analysis requires the use of a list of terms that represent the attribute being measured. At least, three limitations exist when a fixed list of terms is used in performing content analysis. First, words used by firms to refer to IC may vary from those used in the study. Second, the context in which a word or phrase is used in a document may give it a different meaning than that contemplated when included on a list of words or phrases to denote IC. The effect may be that a word or phrase used in a context different than that anticipated may result in an overstatement of the level of ICD. Third, the words or phrases used by the business community to denote IC are in a constant state of change. The acceptance by the academic community of a word or phrase as referring to IC may lag behind the rate of adoption in the business or investment community. This result would be an understatement in the content analysis study of the level of ICD.Annual reports for fiscal years 2000 and 2004 were selected for this study. Fiscal year 2004 was selected because it was the most recent fiscal year available at the time that data were gathered for this study. Fiscal year 2000 was selected because it was the period that immediately preceded the position paper issued by the US Financial Accounting Standards Board encouraging firms to voluntarily disclose information about their intangibles and IC (FASB, 2001). The comparison of the level of disclosure by HTCs and TSCs in 2000 may be influenced by the dot com bust during that period. That event may have led high-tech companies to increase the level of their ICD in an effort to mitigate the effect of the decline in dot com stocks.The methodology employed in this study assumed that frequency of the use of words or phrases alone is an indicator of the level of ICD. The study did not seek to qualitatively evaluate the disclosure. Nor was an effort made to make a subjective determination that the use of a word or phrase included on the list of terms as an ICD in fact constituted such a disclosure. Although this method is consistent with that employed by other studies in the field and allows for the analysis of the annual reports of a large sample size, it adopts frequency of occurrence as the exclusive measure of the level of disclosure. While this methodology removes the subjectivity that would be required in a study that is more qualitative in nature, it entails the risk of including in the frequency of disclosure the use of a word or phrase in a manner that does not actually involve an ICD.Given the limited research on the relationship between IC and accounting practices, procedures and disclosures, much research remains to be done in this field. Included in the traditional annual report of most firms is a letter by the President or Chairman of the Board to the shareholders. The President's letter usually discusses the firm's performance during the period covered by the annual report, the strategic plan of the firm, the industry and economic factors that may influence the performance and future of the firm, and the outlook of the firm. Given the importance placed on the President's letter by management, analysts, investors and potential investors, a study comparing the level of ICD in the President's letter of HTCs and TSCs would provide additional insight into the issues addressed in this study.The content analysis studies that have been conducted in the IC field to date use frequency of disclosure as the measure of the level of ICD. This method of measuring the level of disclosure may result in firms with larger annual reports having a higher level of disclosure then other firms simply due to the size of the annual report. In order to address this issue, the measure of the level of disclosure could be the percentage or proportion of the document devoted to ICDs. A methodology using a proportionate measure of disclosure would provide another approach to measure a firm's level of ICD. This study could be replicated using a proportionate measurement approach as a means of testing the frequency of disclosure measurement used in studies to date.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this study is to compare the level of intellectual capital disclosure (ICD) of firms in the high technology and traditional sectors of the economy.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - In order to provide a framework to evaluate the level of disclosure of the different categories of intellectual capital (IC), the author develops an IC model based on an integration of the resource-based view (RBV) of the firm, the knowledge management, and IC literature. The model is called the RBV IC model. Content analysis was conducted using the SEC Form 10-K annual reports of 143 high-technology companies (HTCs) and 141 traditional sector companies (TSCs) US publicly traded firms for fiscal year 2000 and 2004. The components of IC as delineated in the RBV IC model are the subject of the analysis with the frequency of disclosure being used as the measure of disclosure.\nFindings: - HTCs had a higher frequency of disclosure of customer capital, organizational capital, human capital, and intellectual property than TSCs. Regarding supplier capital, the data were inconclusive. HTCs had an overall higher level of ICD than TSCs both in fiscal years 2000 and 2004.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The frequency of the use of words or phrases alone is used as the measure of the level of ICD.\nOriginality/value: - This is the first study to compare the level of ICD of high tech and traditional sector US publicly traded companies. The results have significant implications for setting standards of disclosure in that it supports the argument that high-tech companies may be providing higher levels of ICD because of the failure (actual or perceived) of the traditional accounting model to provide value relevant information about a company's IC.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The effect of workplace diversity management in a highly male-dominated culture
|
[
"Performance",
"Organizational commitment",
"Diversity management",
"Male-dominated culture"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Interest in diversity management has increased in both academics and practice as a strategy to improve organizational competitiveness by creating an inclusive organizational environment that values employees' differences and accepts people as they are. With this increased interest, research has indicated that effective diversity management is a critical predictor of positive employee outcomes, such as better performance and more job satisfaction, in western countries such as the USA (e.g. Choi and Rainey, 2010; Pitts, 2009). In Asian countries, on the other hand, relatively less attention has been given to diversity management because of the misconception that the study of diversity is less relevant, as most Asian countries are categorized as homogeneous countries (Cho and Mor Barak, 2008).\nThe cultural context: The male-dominated culture in Korea, which is affected by the Confucian tradition of emphasizing respect for seniority and male dominance, has strongly affected organizational customs and cultural assumptions in the workplace and at home. In the workplace, there is a perception among employees and employers that newly hired female workers will quit after they get married and become pregnant (Cho and Mor Barak, 2008). Even though married and pregnant workers can keep working, this stereotypical perception affects their activities and promotion, and traditionally most have become housewives.\nHypotheses: Diversity and diversity management\nDesign of the study: Sample and sampling procedures\nResults: Descriptive statistics and instrument reliability\nConclusions and implications: Conclusions\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to, first, examine gender differences in response to the presence of diversity management and in the level of organizational commitment, second, to investigate the influence of diversity management practices on organizational commitment, and third, to examine the relationships among gender, diversity management, organizational commitment, and job performance in a more highly male-dominated culture.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Based on a review of the literature, this empirical study uses a survey and statistical analysis, including t-tests and regressions, to test the hypotheses.\nFindings: The major findings are as follows: first, female workers reported a more favorable perception of diversity management practices than did male workers. However, there was no difference between female and male workers in organizational commitment. Second, diversity management was positively and significantly related to organizational commitment. Finally, the results show that gender was not related to in-role performance, while diversity management and organizational commitment were positively related to in-role performance.\nOriginality/value: The significance of this study lies in its investigation of the effect of diversity management on employees' attitude and behavior and the gender differences in the perception of diversity management and organizational commitment in a highly male-dominated society. In addition, since Korean companies have become more performance oriented (House et al., 2004), finding the positive relationship between diversity management practices and job performance can also suggest one way for all organizations to increase their employees' task performance for their continuous development.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
G-RAM framework for software risk assessment and mitigation strategies in organisations
|
[
"IT security",
"IT governance",
"IT risk assessment",
"Software vulnerability"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In recent times, security breaches from cyber attacks are on the rise, and they pose a significant threat to daily business operations in organisations. Hackers often exploit publicly disclosed vulnerabilities to penetrate into IT systems, thereby leading to severe financial losses in organisations (Roumani et al., 2016; Telang and Wattal, 2007). So, firms regularly invest in security technologies (Chen et al., 2011) and frame restrictive organisational policies to minimise breaches (Singh et al., 2014; Werlinger et al., 2009). Because precise analysis and timely forecasting of vulnerabilities are critical for businesses who use application software in their IT systems, this calls for an urgent need to examine how such growth phenomenon behaves in reality.\nLiterature review: A vulnerability is a fault in the software/system that can be exploited by an attacker to gain access to the information asset, physical asset, or network (CVE, 2017). Technically, they are imperfections in the software code due to programming loopholes that the developers left unnoticed. Comparing different types of software bugs with vulnerabilities of multiple severity levels do not show significant correlations (Munaiah et al., 2017). This observation clearly indicates that bugs and vulnerabilities are two fundamentally dissimilar issues. Estimation and prediction of vulnerabilities assist in IT risk assessment (Baskerville and Stage, 1996; Fedra, 2008; Rainer et al., 1991; Schmidt et al., 2001; Spears and Barki, 2010). Similarly, correlated risk diversification enables efficient IT risk mitigation and planning (Chen et al., 2011; Wallace and Keil, 2004; Willcocks et al., 1999). Sometimes physical and IT security management need integration to cope with environmental changes (Hwangkwon, 2011). Katsumata et al. (2010) present a cybersecurity risk management methodology to improve decision-making. Liu et al. (2012) provide a literature review on various software vulnerability discovery techniques. Vulnerability estimation can employ machine learning (Nguyen et al., 2015; Rahimi and Zargham, 2013), text-mining with codes (Scandariato et al., 2014), and topic models (Neuhaus and Zimmermann, 2010). However, such techniques do not need a vulnerability disclosure database to work with. Life-cycle analysis examines discovery, patch, and exploit time (Frei et al., 2006, 2010). We review the current Information Security (InfoSec) literature on vulnerabilities through the following methodological lenses - empirical vulnerability discovery, econometric techniques. and software diversity.\nProposed G-RAM framework: Theoretical foundation\nMethodology: Our G-RAM framework consists of two sub-modules: risk assessment and risk mitigation. For risk assessment, we adopted an econometric technique to fit the vulnerability data available from NVD. We converted vulnerability time-series into compounded growth and then implemented suitable GARCH technique for estimation and forecasting. For risk mitigation, we performed mean-variance optimisation with the same growth data so that our G-RAM framework is a complete empirical study.\nData: We have used public vulnerability data from the NVD. NVD reports of October 2017 show overall 95,531 vulnerabilities. We downloaded the CVE entries for top six software vendor firms - Microsoft, Apple, Cisco, Adobe, Google, and Mozilla based on the overall vulnerability count in NVD from January 1999 to December 2016.\nResults: We have used R Version 3.2.4 to perform the empirical econometric analysis and MATLAB 2015a to perform the empirical experiments for optimisation in our study.\nDiscussion and research synthesis: This study attempts to model software vulnerability as a non-linear longitudinal and temporal process using GARCH. We propose a framework that empirically estimates and predicts the vulnerability growth for future time periods. Specifically, applying the G-RAM framework will help the IT manager to plan for software procurement based on prevention, detection, and response services (White et al., 2004). Forecasting the growth of vulnerabilities is essential for firms to assess and protect from future cyber risks. This finding of our study resonates with the previous research in the financial markets where price volatility is forecasted using GARCH to hedge future business risks (Engle, 1982; Rainer et al., 1991; Schmidt et al., 2001). This study also discovers heavy tails in the vulnerability distributions indicating non-normality and infers that vulnerability growth clusters with time. Our outcome matches with the findings of Edwards et al. (2016) and Tang et al. (2017).\nConclusion: Vulnerabilities in software pose a serious challenge for businesses as hackers resort to zero-day exploits, ransomware, and malware-based attacks. Business organisations need to mitigate such cyber threats:\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Malicious attackers frequently breach information systems by exploiting disclosed software vulnerabilities. Knowledge of these vulnerabilities over time is essential to decide the use of software products by organisations. The purpose of this paper is to propose a novel G-RAM framework for business organisations to assess and mitigate risks arising out of software vulnerabilities.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The G-RAM risk assessment module uses GARCH to model vulnerability growth. Using 16-year data across 1999-2016 from the National Vulnerability Database, the authors estimate the model parameters and validate the prediction accuracy. Next, the G-RAM risk mitigation module designs optimal software portfolio using Markowitz's mean-variance optimisation for a given IT budget and preference.\nFindings: Based on an empirical analysis, this study establishes that vulnerability follows a non-linear, time-dependent, heteroskedastic growth pattern. Further, efficient software combinations are proposed that optimise correlated risk. The study also reports the empirical evidence of a shift in efficient frontier of software configurations with time.\nResearch limitations/implications: Existing assumption of independent and identically distributed residuals after vulnerability function fitting is incorrect. This study applies GARCH technique to measure volatility clustering and mean reversal. The risk (or volatility) represented by the instantaneous variance is dependent on the immediately previous one, as well as on the unconditional variance of the entire vulnerability growth process.\nPractical implications: The volatility-based estimation of vulnerability growth is a risk assessment mechanism. Next, the portfolio analysis acts as a risk mitigation activity. Results from this study can decide patch management cycle needed for each software - individual or group patching. G-RAM also ranks them into a 2x2 risk-return matrix to ensure that the correlated risk is diversified. Finally the paper helps the business firms to decide what to purchase and what to avoid.\nOriginality/value: Contrary to the existing techniques which either analyse with statistical distributions or linear econometric methods, this study establishes that vulnerability growth follows a non-linear, time-dependent, heteroskedastic pattern. The paper also links software risk assessment to IT governance and strategic business objectives. To the authors' knowledge, this is the first study in IT security to examine and forecast volatility, and further design risk-optimal software portfolios.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Development of an auditing framework by integrating ISO 9001 principles within auditing
|
[
"Integration",
"Management tools",
"ISO principles",
"Quality auditing"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction, problem identification and rationale: The Great Man-made River Authority (GMRA) in Libya manages and operates Pre-stressed Concrete Cylinder Pipelines (PCCP) as a part of the Great Man-made River Project, which has been in operation since 1990. This pipeline carries water from Sahara's Southern aquifers to the northern urban coastal area and provides 70 percent of the Libyan population with water. The pipeline consists of approximately 4,000 km of PCCP sized from 1.6 to 4.0 meter diameter and approximately 980 wells producing approximately 5.0m cubic meters of water per day. The pipeline of this project was designed to carry water for at least 50 years without problems, but actually it has experienced many technical failures in 1999, 2000, 2002 and 2003, 2012 and 2013 (Abuazza et al., 2007).\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Limitations of ISO 9001 quality audits\n3. Research methodology: 3.1 Sample selected\n4. Results: Prior to analyzing the audit findings and their causes that were resulted from the application of the proposed PAF, it was significant to consider the results of the previous internal audits and certification audit.\n5. Discussion and data analysis: 5.1 Auditing of conformance\n6. Evaluation of the output of data analysis and the contribution of this research: 6.1 What are the added value, new, generic and indicatives that organizations attain from this research?\n7. Conclusion: This research is focused on how to utilize ISO 9001 in a way that helps the organizations to audit the conformance, performance, RM and improvement in combination. In this way, the auditing approach will be changed from ISO 9001 elements to ISO 9001 principles by integrating the most appropriate tools that are related to these principles severally and collectively. To attain this objective, an auditing framework was developed by the authors of this study.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to develop an auditing framework which would assist the organizations that experience difficulties with the current ISO 9001 quality audits to achieve their planned objectives with regard to their auditing of conformance, performance, risk management (RM) and improvement collectively.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A literature review was conducted to develop a conceptual audit framework (CAF). Subsequently, a preliminary audit framework (PAF) was developed. It includes the questions that are based on the CAF and connected with the complaints of the concerned organization. This PAF was thoroughly tested and validated by performing 11 internal audits, 2 management reviews (MR) and 3 workshops.\nFindings: Applying this PAF indicated that in order to help organizations to audit their performance, RM and improvement collectively, they need to: change their audit approach from ISO elements to ISO principles, integrate the tools that are related to ISO 9001 Principles within the audit's phases, perform pre-audits in the form of self-auditing, induce auditors to learn all tools to determine the ideal tools for particular situation, audit each department in combination with its internal customer, involve their auditors in problem solving, perform MR prior to closing the audit and analyze the results of audits with their causes by using one of the appropriate qualitative methods, such as analysis by themes. Finally, an auditing framework was developed to meet these needs. It includes the PAF's questions that led to the discovery of chronic and systematic audit findings. It enhances any ISO 9001 Quality Auditing Questionnaires Checklist.\nOriginality/value: This study enhances the role of auditors to include risk identification, problem solving and data analysis by development of an auditing framework that is based on ISO 9001 Principles rather than clauses.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Informal economy and spatial mobility: are informal workers economic refugees?
|
[
"Informal economy",
"Migration",
"Self-selection"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: Two prominent features of developing economies are labor movements and informal activities. In particular, informality represents a large share of working force in Latin America and Africa, affecting the earnings structure as well as inducing labor market distortions in these countries (Bargain and Kwenda, 2011). For example, in Brazil, taking into account self-employment and non-registered employees, informal workers accounted for approximately 50 percent of total employment in 2002 (Carneiro and Henley, 2001; Ulyssea, 2006). In this paper, we study informal workers migrants' profile in Brazil with special attention to their education level and unobserved abilities. Using data on residence, birth place and years of education from the ECINF (Informal Urban Economy Survey), we investigate the migration decision of informal labor workers. Results show evidence of a negative selection of migrants considering their observable characteristics, while they corroborate a positive selection of ability or unobservable characteristics of informal worker migrants. Our analysis suggests that informal workers migrants behave as economic refugees in the same spirit of refugees in the international migration literature (Reubens, 1983; Borjas, 1987).\n2 Empirical analysis: 2.1 Data and description of variables\n3 Probability of migration: In this section, we estimate the migration probability of an informal sector worker using a binary choice model according to the following probit equation: Equation 1 where M\n4 Conclusion: This paper analyzes the migration decision of workers engaged in informal activities in Brazil. Due to a lack of employment opportunities in the formal sector and long unemployment periods many workers may be forced to join the informal sector to earn a living. A worker's talent and education level are key to his migration decision. We observe a negative and significant effect of education on informal worker's decision to migrate and the probability of migration is increasing on the agent's ability and wage differentials. The often precarious conditions of the informal labor market force workers to migrate as their last opportunity to improve their well-being. In this context, informal workers could be considered economic refugees in the same spirit of political refugees in the international migration literature.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The paper aims to focus the attention on a particular segment of the labor market - informal workers. Despite a large literature on migration, interesting and relevant questions remain to be studied. The paper investigates whether informal workers could be compared to political refugees in terms of their performance in the source and in the destination economies. The paper estimates the effects of wage differentials, education and other personal and labor market controls on the probability of migration.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper studies empirically the probability of migration of workers engaged in informal activities in Brazil using a binary choice model (probit) with particular attention to the self-selection problem of migrants. The paper uses data from the Informal Urban Economy Survey (IBGE).\nFindings: The results show that the probability of migration of informal workers is negatively related to a worker's education level. The paper finds that the probability of migration is increasing in the ability bias and in wage differentials. The results bring new evidence regarding the possibility of negative selection of migrants considering their observable characteristics, while it corroborates a positive selection of ability or unobservable characteristics of informal worker migrants. The paper presents evidence that less-educated workers are more likely to migrate and show that informal workers migrants behave as economic refugees.\nOriginality/value: To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first paper to study the migration of workers engaged in informal activities.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
How corporate governance and ownership affect banks' risk-taking in the MENA countries?
|
[
"Banks",
"Corporate governance",
"Ownership",
"Risk taking",
"Property rights"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Current governance practices are based on the principle that corporate governance mechanisms are designed to protect shareholders' interests through the control of managers' decisions (Becht et al., 2011; Mehran et al., 2011; Srivastav and Hagendorff, 2016). Under shareholder-oriented governance (SOG), it is expected that banks take on a higher level of risk with the aim of maximising their profits and in turn the returns for shareholders, thereby increasing their probability of financial distress. Moreover, such gambles have historically been linked to long-term economic growth (Barro, 1991; De Long and Summers, 1991). Nevertheless, in the case of the banking sector, the recent financial crisis showed the need to control bank dealings such as these more effectively by improving corporate governance mechanisms (Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, 2014; Federal Reserve System et al., 2010). At the same time, Garriga (2017) shows that in countries which delay applying prudential regulations, banks are less cautious. Thus, it seems necessary to design new governance control mechanisms which take the interests of other stakeholders into consideration so as to lower the chances of failure more effectively (Srivastav and Hagendorff, 2016). At the same time, it is necessary to consider country-level governance and regulation because a macro governance framework can act as a substitute for corporate governance at the firm level (Berglof, 2011; Safiullah and Shamsuddin, 2018). Recently, Haque (2019) investigates how ownership structure and bank regulations influence risk taking in the Middle East and North African (MENA) region. However, little is known about the interaction between either firm- or country-level dimensions.\n2. Related literature and hypotheses development: Corporate governance at the bank level\n3. Data and methodology: The sample\n4. Results: Table V presents the regression results of different estimated models using the GMM. Our results show that CGFL has a significant and negative impact on the risk taking measured by Z-score. This result is consistent with H1, supporting that under-SOG banks accept a higher level of risk to maximise the profits and returns for shareholders. This implies that shareholders' objectives have clout in managers' incentives and the governance structures try to protect the formers' interests (Srivastav and Hagendorff, 2016). This finding is in accordance with Hassan and Mollah (2018), who found that corporate governance is the main driving force for risk taking in Islamic banks. The results suggest that good governance acting in the interests of shareholders could lead to excessive risk taking. The results also show that both banks with considerable government stakes and those with similarly institutional investor stakes are significant, supporting H2 and H4. This result is consistent with the fact that, in these kinds of banks, managers' decisions are influenced by political interests, have a greater moral hazard and a poorer loan quality, thus increasing the level of risk taking. These findings agree with previous empirical research, which found a higher level of risk taking in government-owned banks (La Porta et al., 2002; Iannotta et al., 2007; Eichler and Sobanski, 2012; Srairi, 2013; Zheng et al., 2017). At the same time, from Model 2, we observed that institutional investors have a positive influence on risk taking, in line with George et al. (2005). Finally, family ownership has not been significant, despite the sign being in line with H3.\n5. Robustness: In order to check the robustness of our findings, we included Table VII to cover the global financial crisis period. This has had a significant impact on the banking industry's worldwide levels of risk taking and has perhaps affected the significance of the explanatory variables. We can see that the models are almost exactly the same and the variables remain significant, showing the importance of these factors to explain risk taking, regardless of the period considered.\n6. Conclusions: The main conclusions of this study are of great interest to supervisors, stakeholders and corporate governance researchers wishing to learn about the effect of corporate governance and regulation on the level of risk taken by banks. Overall, our study contributes to the existing literature, combining bank- and country-level corporate governance, shareholder protection and ownership and their effects on financial stability.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between corporate governance and risk-taking behaviour of banks operating in the Middle East and North African (MENA) countries.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In doing so, the authors use a data set covering 165 banks located in 13 MENA countries over the period 2005-2012 and apply dynamic panel data methodology.\nFindings: The results show that good governance acting in the interests of shareholders could lead to excessive risk taking; in this sense, a conflict of interest between the stakeholders, interested in the solvency of the financial system, and shareholders, trying to maximise their benefit, may occur. The greater risk can be reinforced by the governance of the country and a strong macro governance framework can incentivise a higher risk exposure in banks, showing the influence of bank regulation and law enforcement on the risks taken by banks.\nOriginality/value: To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first paper showing that corporate governance is relevant for explaining risk taking at the country and bank levels in MENA countries.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Three strategic frameworks
|
[
"Strategic management",
"Competitive strategy",
"Strategic choices"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: During my years of involvement with business strategy as a University lecturer and as a consultant I have developed 3 strategic frameworks that have been found useful both when decisions are being made and when strategies are being implemented. I explain them here in the hope that others will find them useful as well.\nFramework 1 - Opposing forces: Opposing forces can be thought of as a dynamic and problem solving approach to advantages and disadvantages in which the pros and cons of a strategy are seen as forces to be managed so as to maximise the added value of a company rather than as two lists of items that are compared with each other to see what the net benefits are. An example may help to explain the nature of the opposing forces approach:-A firm is considering expanding its market share by a strategy of product improvements and aggressive marketing in order to raise its sales and profits in a relatively slow growth market. One of the potential disadvantages of this strategy is that competitors may react strongly to their loss of market share and cause the competitive position of the firm to weaken in the future. However, instead of just accepting this as a potential disadvantage or risk of the strategy that needs to be weighed against the potential benefits, the opposing forces method requires managers to think of ways of managing their strategy so as to reduce the potential disadvantages and to maximise the benefits to their company. If, for instance, it is felt that some or all of the competitors are likely to react strongly to the firm's proposed expansionary strategy and create difficulties for it then the management could decide to have a less aggressive strategy if it is thought likely that this would considerably reduce the risk of hostile reactions. They could do this by setting the price of their products at a higher level than is needed to make adequate profit margins or they could spend less on product improvements or on advertising the product. Although these actions would mean that sales and profits would probably be lower in the short term than they could have been with a more expansionary strategy, in the longer term profits would benefit if the competitors do not respond aggressively because they do not experience a sharp reduction in their market shares, sales and profits. Other potential disadvantages of increasing the market share and size of the firm include problems with controlling a larger firm and lower levels of motivation due to the workforce feeling less important within a larger firm or to their dislike of the organizational changes that will be needed. But if these disadvantages are treated as opposing forces that need to be managed then they could be considerably reduced or even inverted into advantages for the firm. For instance, the growth of the firm could be used as a trigger to improve the way that delegation is managed so that problems that had worsened as the firm had grown, such as misunderstandings over responsibilities, inadequate communications and conflicts between departments, could be reduced. Similarly, the potential problems with motivation could be tackled by reconsidering the firm's policy towards motivating the employees. If little thought had previously been given to this issue then it is possible that motivation could improve rather than decline as the company grows.Opposing forces has at its heart the idea that for any force pushing in one direction there will be other forces pushing against it in the opposite direction and that management should take account of both these sets of forces and manage them so as to try to maximise the added value of the company. One of the benefits of this approach is that it helps to surface problems with a strategy that may not otherwise have been thought of because it requires managers to seek out forces that could oppose a strategic proposition. For instance, allowing a greater degree of employee participation in decision making may seem to be a good way of improving information flows, exposing and solving problems and enhancing employee motivation by creating a sense of ownership of decisions. But a potential difficulty (i.e. opposing force) with greater participation is that it will inevitably change the nature of power relations between management and their staff and this could create problems for the managers. For instance, the employees could try to gain more power than the management want them to have, or the management may have difficulty coping with employees questioning their decisions to a greater extent than they have done previously. Thinking in terms of opposing forces would help management to anticipate these potential difficulties and enable them to be more prepared for them when they occur. Highlighting that conflicting forces are in the nature of things also helps to avoid situations in which thinking is dominated by either the advantages or the disadvantages of a strategy. This can happen, for instance, when a powerful and persuasive person gives a number of good reasons for adopting a proposed strategy but says little about the potential difficulties associated with it. Use of the opposing forces framework would require the surfacing of problems and risks so that they can be taken into consideration and ways found of managing them so that they can be attenuated or inverted into advantages.\nFramework 2 - Managing forces: Any strategy, whether it be improving the competitive advantages of a company's products, entering a foreign market, setting a new strategic vision, changing suppliers or acquiring another company will be affected by numerous forces that should be taken into consideration both at the decision making stage and when a strategy is being implemented. However, given the number of these forces it is easy to overlook some of them or to be unaware of their significance. The prime purpose of the managing forces framework is to help ensure that managers take account of these forces in their strategy making, but in addition to this it also gives some guidance as to how these forces can be managed. 11 forces have been identified and these are listed below together with an aid memoire in the form of the acronym \"TOPHAILORS\". In order to provide an insight into how this framework can be used an example is given of its use in the context of setting a new strategic vision. Further information about these forces is provided after the 3 frameworks have been explained.The \"TOPHAILORS\" forces\nFramework 3 - Competitive advantage as \"perceived differential value\": Examining the extent to which a firm's products create perceived differential value for customers focuses managers' thoughts on key determinants of the competitiveness and profitability of a firm's products. \"Differential value\" focuses attention on how a firm's products add more value for customers than its competitors, in other words it directs management's thoughts to ensuring that there are reasons why customers would want to buy their firm's products rather than those of the competitors. Differential value is an absolutely crucial component of competitiveness and can be created in many ways such as through better quality, greater reliability, more product features, the aesthetic appeal of a product, its environmental friendliness and the ease with which it can be used. However, competitive advantage will usually not just depend upon the existence of differentiating characteristics, it will also depend upon whether a product possesses \"hurdle factors\", i.e. things that customers expect a product to possess before they will consider whether or not they will buy it. For instance, a product may have some attractive distinguishing features, but if customers have come to expect certain product attributes as standard and the product does not possess some of these then many potential customers will not buy it.The word \"perceived\" serves to ensure that managers give priority to customers' perceptions of their firm's products and that they do not assume that their own or their employees' views reflect those of their customers. It is not uncommon for a firm to add features to a product that those in the firm, especially the technical staff, think are very useful but that the customers have little need for and which therefore add little to the product's competitive advantage. If the additional features increase the costs of production and this requires the price of the product to be raised then it is possible that \"improving\" a product could even reduce its competitive advantage. The word \"perceived\" also serves to remind managers that customer perceptions are not only influenced by the actual characteristics of a product but also by the way in which it is marketed. Brand management is perhaps the best example of how marketing can affect people's perceptions of a product but, at a more prosaic level, just advertising in appropriate magazines, newspapers and journals can have a major impact on the sales of a firm's products.Although creating a competitive advantage is essential, firms also need to make adequate profits. The word \"value\" therefore serves a dual purpose, it focuses attention on the need for a firm's products to create differential value, and it also requires managers to examine the effectiveness with which the products of their firm add value for it. Doing this is much more than just an accounting exercise, important though this is. Management need to continuously seek ways of improving the efficiency of operations so as to sustain or improve their firm's competitiveness and profitability.\nMore about the \"TOPHAILORS\" forces: Time\n",
"role": "user"
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{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to explain three frameworks that can be used to aid strategic decision making and the implementation of strategies.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Dissatisfaction with existing approaches to strategic management, e.g. Michael Porter's models and SWOT analysis, led me to seek for alternatives. Of particular value in this search were ideas from post-modernism and quantum mechanics which triggered the notion of opposing forces. From opposing forces I developed the idea of managing forces. Having generated this shell of an idea I then set about deciding what forces would be the most suitable to use - and this took quite a while. Once the managing forces framework had been developed I was then able to test it out in my consultancy work and with business students. Perceived differential value arose out of a desire to simplify Porter's model of competitive advantage whilst at the same time creating a model that was more powerful in that it highlights the importance of perceptions, differential value (e.g. a product may be a cost leader but not possess differential value as far as the customers are concerned) and profits.\nFindings: - The frameworks have been found to be extremely useful in surfacing many of the issues that need to be taken account of in strategic decision making and the implementation of strategies.\nPracticality: - The frameworks have been designed to be readily usable by both business people and business students.\nOriginality/value: - The managing forces framework (which incorporates opposing forces) brings more strategic issues to the attention of managers than any other business model and it also encourages a dynamic, creative and problem-solving approach to strategic management. The perceived differential value framework focuses attention on vital components of a successful strategy.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Creating public value through smart technologies and strategies: From digital services to artificial intelligence and beyond
|
[
"Artificial intelligence",
"Social media",
"Open data",
"Public management",
"Blockchain",
"Open government",
"Smart technologies",
"Smart government"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Governments around the world are attempting to create value using emerging, disruptive and smart technologies and strategies. Different public agencies are advancing in the implementation of smart technologies in public sector management across different policy domains and government functions. However, the impact of technologies to foster public value creation using open data and transparency websites, crowdsourcing and participation platforms, smart city sensors, or social media technologies, among others, remains broadly unexplored from the perspective of public sector management. At the same time, the future it is not clear and there is the potential of a variety of pitfalls, opportunities and threats derived from the implementation of smart technologies. Hence, this paper, and the rest of this special issue, is oriented to emphasize implications for public management (including the potential emergence of post-new public management (NPM) approaches) of smart technologies and how and why they might produce a difference in the process of value creation in public services within a context of big, linked and open data, oriented to develop smarter governments.\nThe evolution of information and communication technologies and the generation of public value: In the last few decades, different technologies have resulted in multiple models of value creation in the public sector. Since the turn of the century, ICTs and the internet have increasingly attracted the interest of scholarly research and professional practice into public sector management. This section presents a selection of issues that play a central role in the interconnection of smart technologies, public value and the improvement of public sector management, including the relationships between government and citizens. This implies understanding ICTs not only as a toolkit to achieve managerial objectives or improve organizational functions, but also as a research object that itself deserves interest in order to understand the dynamics of power, conflict or collaboration, both inside and outside public sector organizations (Fountain, 2001; Gil-Garcia, 2012a; Scholl, 2009; Yildiz, 2007). This reality has become increasingly noticeable as a result of the generalization of public web portals or the digitalization of administrative processes and, more recently, with the adoption of a new wave of technological innovations such as crowdsourcing participatory platforms and social media, mobile devices, sensors, APPs, big and open data, etc. (Charalabidis and Loukis, 2012; Chourabi et al., 2012; Chun et al., 2010; Criado and Ruvalcaba-Gomez, 2018; Criado and Villodre, 2018; Gil-Garcia et al., 2016; Harrison et al., 2012; Jaeger and Bertot, 2010; Levine and Prietula, 2013). Therefore, the process of public value generation based on ICTs is not just a direct result of technological diffusion. It also depends on the characteristics of certain dominant public management paradigms in a specific context and time.\nSmart technologies and strategies in action: international examples and studies: The articles of this special issue illustrate different dimensions and areas of value creation in the public sector using smart technologies and strategies during the last stage. Articles of this volume provide a general understanding of emerging topics in the field of digital government regarding smart technologies and strategies from different areas of interest, including a diverse range of theoretical and conceptual approaches, methodological lenses, data sources and methods and perspectives about the implications of results. Each article gives a particular taste of the actual research about ICTs in government and public value, including open data and governance, smart cities, technologies for transparency and accountability, social media technologies and digital service delivery. In our perspective, they produce a broad picture of this research field and provide ideas and conclusions that may be useful both for scholars and managers in public sector organizations. Therefore, our interest here is to look at the implications of these studies for public sector management research and practice, and their interconnection based on their contributions to public value generation. In other words, they open up the discussion about disruptive technologies that are reaching the public sector management agenda, and how to understand the public value creation process derived from their implementation.\nSmart government? Towards a comprehensive perspective to promote public value through the use of emergent technologies and strategies: This article explores different ideas regarding the generation of public value with smart technologies and strategies. Recently, the nature, size and scope of the opportunities facing digital governments have changed, whereas many of the traditional challenges of ICTs in the public sector have persisted (Dawes, 2013; Gil-Garcia and Helbig, 2006; Gil-Garcia and Pardo, 2005). Governments face complex socio-technical problems and, in response, they have developed strategies based on the innovative use of sophisticated ICTs to create public value (Gil-Garcia et al., 2015). As mentioned above, there are several dimensions in the field of digital government: websites and government portals, open data and government platforms, social media technologies and networks, transparency and participation; and smart cities, among others. Therefore, there are probably many routes to integrate these issues into a single phenomenon and research object, facilitating a better understanding of its nature and implications, including the professional practice of public management and administration (Ospina and Dodge, 2005; Perry, 2012). Here, we suggest using the term smart government as a theoretical and conceptual approach to identify and analyze diverse issues and topics regarding digital government at different layers. In other words, smart government is a concept encompassing different dimensions related to digital government, both traditional and emerging trends, converging to create value for government and society.\nConcluding remarks: This article attempts to start a conversation about the role of smart technologies and strategies in current innovations and the creation of public value. Understanding smart technologies and their corresponding strategies from a public management perspective was the objective of this article and the rest of the special issue. This article has illustrated the process of change in public value generation over time, as a result of different public management paradigms (from traditional public administration to NPM), but also different types of technologies (from mainframes to websites and social media). More recently, the notion of smart governance denotes that there might be a new and transformative public management perspective. This approach is rooted in the potential of the latest smart technologies and strategies to transform the (inter)mediation processes between public administrations and the citizenry to better understand and solve societal problems. Therefore, this stage is expected to have a significant impact in the (co)production of public services and the delivery of public value and different dimensions of public management. The empirical evidence of the articles of this special issue supports this conclusion; that open and collaborative innovation processes developed under this emergent technological wave could become encouraging transformative practices in the public sector.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to introduce the special issue about generation of public value through smart technologies and strategies. The key argument is that smart technologies have the potential to foster co-creation of public services and the generation of public value in management processes, based on the collaborative, social and horizontal nature of these smart technologies. Understanding these processes from a public management perspective is the purpose of this paper and the rest of the special issue.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The approach to this paper is a theoretical and conceptual review, whereas practical implications both for scholars and practitioners arise from the review of the literature and the conceptual approximation to the notion of smartness in technologies and government. This approach is rooted in the potential of the latest smart technologies and strategies to transform public administrations and to better understand and cope societal problems.\nFindings: The conceptual and theoretical perspective of this paper offers ideas for future developments. The content of this paper shows that new smart technologies and strategies will shape, and will be shaped by, the future of public organizations and management. This paper illustrates the process of change in public value generation over time, as a result of different public management paradigms (from traditional public administration to new public management), but also different types of technologies (from mainframes to websites and social media and beyond). The empirical evidence of the articles of this special issue supports this conclusion; that open and collaborative innovation processes developed under this emergent technological wave could become encouraging transformative practices in the public sector.\nResearch limitations/implications: The theoretical and conceptual nature of this paper needs further empirical research to validate some of the discussed assumptions and ideas.\nOriginality/value: Although this paper is oriented to present the main contents of the special issue, it also provides an original approach to the theme of public value generation using smart technologies and strategies in public sector management.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Contribution of immigrant employees to international marketing standardisation strategies selection: An exploratory study
|
[
"European Union",
"New Zealand",
"Immigration",
"Immigrants",
"Employees",
"Standardization"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: When conducting international business operations, firms can acquire assistance from external sources (e.g. government trading organisations) and/or internal sources (e.g. immigrant effects). An immigrant effect represents the assistance from a firm's immigrant employees (IE), or employers, when it conducts business in the immigrants' country of origin market (Hyde and Chung, 2002). The former effect is more often used in marketing and business management (Gould, 1994; Enderwick and Akoorie, 1994), which is the focus of this study. It is suggested that immigrants' knowledge about their birthplace is particularly significant in a number of key aspects, including market environment, market information, legal regulations, business contacts and languages (Gould, 1994; Ramaseshan and Patton, 1994; Rauch, 1999; Saxenian, 2000; Harcourt, 2003).Probably due to its importance to a country's economy (Peters, 2002; Department of Labour, 2005; Gregory, 2005), research concerning the contribution of immigrants has become an emerging research theme recently (Gould, 1994; Ramaseshan and Patton, 1994; Rauch, 1999; Chung and Enderwick, 2001; Chung, 2002; Rauch and Trindade, 2002; Wagner et al., 2002). It is suggested that the choice of IE is likely to be affected by organizational, product and environmental factors. It is also proposed that IE can influence a firm's selection of international marketing strategies in a host market. Most of the available literature on this subject has focused on immigrants from non-Western developing countries and few studies have focused on IE from developed countries such as the EU. As the contributions of immigrants from the EU region are increasingly important to the economy of many host countries including New Zealand (Department of Labour, 2005; Gregory, 2005), it seems appropriate to explore this issue further. The EU is the largest source region of immigrants, which contributes more than 30 percent of total immigrants to New Zealand (Department of Labour, 2005). This exploratory study seeks to provide some insights on this new research theme by uncovering some possible contributions of IE from the EU region. The profile of firms which have, and those which have not, employed IE to assist or manage their marketing activities in the EU region will be highlighted. In this study, factors such as organisational, product-related, environmental, market entry mode and international marketing strategies will be examined.\nMethodology: This study employed a postal survey to collect its primary data. The sampling frame was 233 firms while the total number of usable questionnaires returned was 77 firms (response rate=33 percent). In total the respondent firms operated in 11 EU country markets (Table I). The IE are from three countries, including Germany, Italy, and the UK. Only 10 percent of respondents surveyed hired IE to assist or manage their firms' marketing activities, suggesting that this strategy is still in its infancy stage of development. As indicated, immigrants from the EU region have made up the largest proportion of all immigrants to New Zealand (Department of Labour, 2005).In this study, IE are defined as those who recently emigrated from their country of origin and have business knowledge of both their country of origin and resident country. They were hired to assist to design a marketing programme for their country of origin market. Firm size was measured by the number of full-time employees (Erramilli and Rao, 1993). A firm's international business experience was measured by the number of years in international business, the number of countries in which it has had continuous business operations and the number of years it has operated in the host markets (Cavusgil et al., 1993). The market entry mode factor was measured by whether a firm has used FDI (e.g. marketing subsidiaries), or a non-FDI (e.g. exporting), mode to serve the host market (IE's country of origin) markets. Product type was measured under one of the three categories; consumer non-durables, consumer durables and industrial products (Boddewyn and Grosse, 1995). Marketing environmental variables were determined by a group of items (e.g. political, legal, competitive) (Cavusgil et al., 1993; Baalbaki and Malhotra, 1993; Cavusgil and Zou, 1994; Zou and Cavusgil, 2002). The environmentally-related factors were measured by the differences, or similarities, between the home and host markets (1=very similar; 5=very different) (Table I).Marketing programme elements were measured by a five-point scale (1=very similar; 5=very different) (Baalbaki and Malhotra, 1993; Cavusgil et al., 1993; Chung, 2003; Theodosiou and Leonidou, 2003). The measurement of the programme elements allows a comparison of a firm's product being marketed at home vis-a-vis host markets (Table I).\nFindings: Organisational factors\nConclusions: As discussed, research that focused on IE from the EU in the marketing standardisation strategies is still in its developmental stage. In this commentary, the profile of firms which have hired IE from the EU region was analysed and discussed. In general, some of these findings were not consistent with earlier studies that focused on IE from non-Western developing countries. As such, the relationships proposed in this commentary need to be verified by future studies. Specifically future research should consider the following; First, future research should examine statistically the relationships proposed in this study. In order to perform this task successfully, their sample size needs to be enlarged and they should include more firms that have used IE. These studies should also focus on firms that are based in countries which have adopted a similar immigration policy to New Zealand's (e.g. Australia, Canada, USA, South Africa). Second, the samples reported in this study are mainly from large developed EU countries. Future studies should include other EU countries such as central and east European countries that have recently jointed the EU.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - Previous studies on the contribution of immigrant employees (IE) have mainly focused on immigrants from non-Western industrialised countries. Few studies have explored the contribution of immigrants from the European Union (EU). The purpose of this commentary is to present the outcomes of a recent study on immigrant employees from the EU region.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This paper examines the experience of 77 New Zealand firms operating in 11 EU markets. Only 10 percent of the firms investigated hired IE to assist or manage their firms' marketing activities in the EU region, suggesting employment of IE is still in its infancy stage. The EU is the largest immigrant source region, which contributes more than 30 percent of total immigrants to New Zealand in 2005. This study uncovers the profile of firms which have, or have not, utilised such a strategy.\nFindings: - It was found that, at present, the users of IE are larger in size, equipped with higher international business experience, FDI mode users and operate more in the consumer durable and industrial product sectors. Among marketing environmental factors examined, competitive environment accounted for the most variation. The extent of standardisation difference of price and place was the highest.\nOriginality/value: - The findings of this study imply that the choice of IE from the EU region might relate to a firm's size, international business experience, market entry mode selection, product type and host market environment and characteristics (e.g. market size). IE might also have contributed to a firm's choice of pricing and place standardisation strategy. However, these relationships need to be verified by future research.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Implementing open innovation: conceptual design of an integrated ICT platform
|
[
"Open innovation",
"Inbound",
"Conceptual design",
"ICT platform"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Over time, open innovation (OI) strategy was considered a \"must\" for many firms in different industries. Therefore, research on OI has gained incredible momentum and the scientific literature has begun to analyse OI from different perspectives, encompassing multiple and heterogeneous viewpoints, representations, theories, contexts, levels of analysis and even research methodologies. One of the most promising perspectives proposed in the extant literature interprets OI as a macro-process (West and Bogers, 2013; Slowiski and Sagal, 2010), where three key processes (sometimes also labelled as modes) can be differentiated (Enkel et al., 2009; Gassmann and Enkel, 2004):\n2. Theoretical background: Despite the potential benefits of openness, firms have encountered difficulties in successfully carrying out OI initiatives (Huston and Sakkab, 2006; Sarker et al., 2012) because significant internal supporting resources are needed to unlock OI's potential (Chesbrough and Garman, 2009). As an important resource with a great penetration in the OI context, ICT provides the conditions for OI deployment (Cui et al., 2015; Dodgson et al., 2006) and indeed has been shown to positively influence the adoption of OI (Verbano et al., 2015; Chiaroni et al., 2011). For example, firms rely on online communities to actively search for potential external knowledge (Di Gangi and Wasko, 2009), and the virtual environment of knowledge transfer and integration is supported by collaborative innovation systems or communication tools (Zammuto et al., 2007). However, although these examples show how the phenomenal advances in ICT have rendered organizational boundaries so porous that knowledge can be easily transferred inward and outward (Whelan et al., 2012), limited research has theoretically modelled and empirically tested on how firms can mobilize their ICT resources to support OI (Cui et al., 2015). In the following, we will review the literature regarding ICT in OI, focusing on the outside-in OI process. Specifically, we analyse the inbound OI literature to deeply understand the underlying processes, whose implementation is facilitated by the support of ICT tools.\n3. Research objective and methodology: 3.1 Research objective\n4. Results and analysis: 4.1 Platform's conceptual design\n5. Discussion and conclusion: Information and communication technologies provide firms with unprecedented tools to support their OI processes, in that they provide new enabling factors for generating, sharing, retrieving and storing data, information or knowledge that could dramatically impact how organizations manage their boundaries (Bogers et al., 2016). However, although OI is deeply affected by ICT, many are the aspects and questions that ICT poses when used to support firms in managing knowledge coming from external partners (Awazu et al., 2009; Cui et al., 2015). One specific aspect that remains scarcely investigated in the extant literature on the topic is the role of ICT platforms in enabling the connectivity and collaboration between different actors. Therefore, this is felt in the scientific community as a compelling gap which should feed the next research agenda on OI (Bogers et al., 2016). Nevertheless, also firms are more and more interested in using ICT to support OI processes. For example, this is the case of Leonardo Defence Unit, a firm operating in the military sector, with whom we started two years ago, a collaboration project to implement a platform which could support its inbound OI processes: although Leonardo Defence Unit has been so far rather closed, its strategy aiming at operating in the civilian market by means of dual-purpose technologies and hence its necessity to manage a larger portfolio of technologies and types of knowledge determined the necessity to make its boundaries more porous. Therefore, its managers felt it was necessary an ICT tool which could support them in managing the inbound OI process: this is the starting point of the research in which Leonardo Defence Unit asked for our intervention and specifically to develop a platform which could support its inbound OI process. Given that existing platforms such as Innocentive and NineSigma are focused on specific aspects and given that we could not find platforms reported in the literature which could support the whole OI inbound process, the project in Leonardo Defence Unit was challenging from two points of view: on the one hand, while covering the above scientific gap, it could add to the extant literature, and on the other, it could help the firm to achieve its objectives supporting collaboration projects and connectivity with the external partners by means of a specifically designed platform. Also, the access to Leonardo Defence Unit at the organization's invitation gave us the possibility to fruitfully understand the organization.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The aim of this paper is to develop the conceptual design of an information and communication technologies (ICT) platform supporting the inbound open innovation (OI) process within the technological developments business unit of Leonardo Defence Systems.\nDesign/methodology/approach: After a preliminary phase concerning the context analysis, methodology includes three main steps: conceptualization of functions; preliminary design; and conceptual design of the system/SW architecture. In each of these phases, the authors tried to merge evidence from the scientific literature with empirical insight emerging from the field.\nFindings: Results report the conceptual design proposal for an integrated ICT platform supporting the OI. It includes the conceptualization of main functions, the preliminary design deriving from use cases and the proposal for the overall system architecture and data model.\nResearch limitations/implications: The research focuses only on the conceptual design phase; at this stage, the platform has not been still implemented or tested. Also, generalizability concerns may arise from the single-application context.\nPractical implications: The outcoming conceptual design can be useful for firms that open their boundaries to external partners, as well as for software developers which could draw on it. Firms approaching similar OI challenges can re-contextualize the platform to their own setting.\nOriginality/value: Originality of this research relies on the attempt to show how ICT can support firms in their OI processes and, secondly, to support firms aiming to create a positive environment that encourages people at leveraging existing external technological opportunities and sources of knowledge. In so doing, a systematic design approach to the definition of the conceptual proposal is also pursued.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Experiencing microfinance: Effects on poor women entrepreneurs' livelihood strategies
|
[
"Africa",
"Poverty",
"Microfinance",
"Livelihood strategies",
"Micro entrepreneurship",
"Poor women entrepreneurs"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Helms (2006) claims that worldwide, three billion poor lack access to loans and financial services. This presents a problem for promoting enterprise which is generally agreed to be a good mechanism for reducing poverty (Agyapong, 2010) and socio-economic development (Maas and Herrington, 2011). However, microfinance offers a solution for alleviating some of the poverty-related problems that characterise much of Africa. Microfinance has a particular ideological appeal in contrast to aid and charity, because it is deemed to help the poor to help themselves. Furthermore, it seems to offer a longer term mechanism, rather than the short-term fix of gift aid. There is now considerable evidence that it can work at enabling some of the poor to improve their livelihoods (Hulme and Moore, 2007). Yet some observers are critical of grander claims that the new world of microenterprise finance has the potential to do in finance what the green revolution has done in agriculture (Buckley, 1997). It has also been noted that it may not be a universal solution for all (Van Rooyen et al., 2012). Indeed, particular disadvantaged and impoverished groups, such as rural women, seem to benefit less from microfinance (Kabeer, 2005). Our research objective is to try to establish if this is so, and why this arises. There is already a strong literature that looks at the supply side of microfinancing, for example Noruwa and Emeka (2012), but the explanations have been somewhat ambiguous, even ambivalent (Bandiera et al., 2013). Certainly there is evidence of the limited reach of microfinance into remoter areas (Acha, 2012). Our study extends this work by examining the experiences of most disadvantaged borrowers or potential users of microfinance.\n2. Poor women entrepreneurs in rural Nigeria: This paper first contextualises the research problem by framing it in what is already known about the topic. Many microfinance schemes target women because they are seen as particularly disadvantaged (Brana, 2013). The underpinning and unproblematised logic is that need, and hence demand, for microfinance is high amongst this group (Ssendi and Anderson, 2009). However, many disadvantages of female poverty can be attributed to cultural institutions and practices. Outcomes of poverty can certainly be understood in economic terms; lower education, poorer employment prospects; lower incomes and less capital. For example, Seedhouse et al. (2016, p. 141) explain, \"Nigeria is ranked 118 out of 134 in the Gender Equality index, with women at every educational level earning less than their male counterparts\". Nonetheless, we argue that the causes are cultural, thus prompting us to \"socially\" explore the issues (Anderson, 2015).\n3. Microfinance: Microfinance programmes have become a popular tool to address poverty (Akanji, 2006). The expansion of microfinance is based on the assertion that the poor can pull themselves from poverty through entrepreneurship if given access to credit. However, microfinance assumes the beneficiaries possess sufficient human capital, social capital and other assets for growing their small businesses; so that lack of credit is the main barrier faced by the poor (Taylor, 2011). This seems a problematic assumption, because running even the smallest business calls for abilities, knowledge and competencies (Agyapong et al., 2011). Another issue is the evidence that microfinance may not reach the poorest of the poor (Mahmood et al., 2014; Diochon et al., 2016). In practice, it excludes the very poor from borrowing, failing to target the poorest, most needy applicants (Weiss et al., 2003; Chemin, 2008). Moreover, those who might benefit most from microfinance programmes, the poorest households, lack technical and business skills (Bandiera et al., 2013). Non-income manifestations of poverty, such as education, health and security are overlooked by microfinance programs (Bradley et al., 2012). Shaw (2004) reports how poorer households have low levels of formal education; and that their productivity is often limited by poor health and undernutrition. Financial illiteracy due to lack of education may even make the very poor unable to understand how loans work.\n4. Methods: Our research objective was not to evaluate microfinance, but to try to understand how it was perceived by the poorest. The simplest approach was to ask micro-entrepreneurs living in a very deprived region of Nigeria. One author knew the region well and had useful local contacts. A women's group leader introduced her to some poor ladies at their weekly meeting to explain the study (Maxwell, 2005). This led to some willing respondents and as an introduction to others. In formal terms, this was a purposeful sample (Tiainen and Koivunen, 2006) and used snowballing techniques (Dodd et al., 2013). Participant observations were used to establish background and to identify other, potentially different, respondents to compare with our emergent categories and findings. The participant observations involved attending meetings, listening carefully and attending marketplaces where women went about their businesses.\n5. Data and analyses: 5.1 Poor women, entrepreneurial activities and their family responsibilities\n6. Discussion: Microfinance programmes focus on credit as the solution to poverty. However, in addition to the lack of credit, poor women cope with a variety of difficulties, such as lack of assets and security, little or no support, limited mobility, lack of access to technology with low levels of skills and education. Illiteracy makes the process of borrowing more difficult and importantly, hard to understand. Microfinance processes thus raise intimidating barriers for the poorest. Furthermore, credit is seen as debt and this constitutes a great risk for the poorest and most vulnerable. In the absence of sufficient assets to smooth consumption, shocks such as a lean season and robbery were feared by our respondents. This could lead to irreversible losses, such as asset depletion, reduced nutrient intake or interruption of education that permanently reduces human capital, locking their victims in perpetual poverty (Christiaensen and Subbarao, 2005). Aware that the potential losses are not simply marginal (e.g. having a little less money to spend) but more of a cusp point from which they are unlikely to recover, the poorest were reluctant to take the risks of borrowing from microfinance.\n7. Conclusions: Entrepreneurship as a solution to poverty has highlighted the development of microfinance. However, unrealistic assumptions about rationality and separation between business and family uses may be misleading for understanding how micro enterprises work in the context of extreme poverty and vulnerability. Poor women's income-generating activities are critically different from profit or growth maximum businesses. They focus on supporting and maintaining themselves (Gudeman and Rivera, 1990) and entrepreneurship is simply a way for poor households to make ends meet (Eversole, 2002). The goal for poor women engaging in entrepreneurial activities is to maintain livelihoods and family well-being. Businesses rarely expand, nor is expansion necessarily attractive. As Adaeze explained, \"It is a small business and I manage it myself with the help of my children who assist me in the shop after school\" (Adaeze). \"It is a one-man-business which I run on my own\" (Chinyere). \"Except my children who are still living with me\" (Mary). \"Only my children help me sometimes, as my business is still small\" (Chika). The entrepreneurial activities provide for the subsistence needs of their families. However, the growth potential of these small enterprises to create paid employment, achieve economies of scale, create greater welfare impact is limited. Because many female micro enterprises work at subsistence level, microfinance as a means to alleviate poverty through micro entrepreneurship is not always an appealing solution. Consequently, the contribution of this study is in presenting an alternative approach to understanding microfinance and entrepreneurship amongst Africa's poorest.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to address the problem of why the poorest, most disadvantaged groups such as rural African women, benefit less from microfinance. The authors focus on the perception and experiences of ordinary rural entrepreneurial women on microfinance in a context of extreme poverty and where family responsibility and economic activities are closely intertwined.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors purposefully sampled 15 poor females with small businesses in two Nigerian villages. The key characteristic guiding the sampling was that the respondents had to be poor. The authors held two focus groups and ten interviews to capture their experience and understanding of microfinance. The authors used thematic analysis to establish patterns in the data.\nFindings: For poor entrepreneurial women, a livelihood for survival, putting food on the table and paying school fees are priorities, not business growth. They see microcredit as debt and a great risk that could lead to irreversible losses. Family responsibilities for basic consumption needs of the household can affect their ability to repay loans; perceived dangers of microcredit may outweigh potential benefits.\nResearch limitations/implications: The theories, especially functionalist economic theory, do not take account of microfinance users' experiences.\nPractical implications: Microfinance should be aware that the poorest perceive microcredit differently and should eliminate the intimidating barriers raised to them. Instead of providing a means for the poor to alleviate poverty or coping strategies for them to manage cash flows and risks, microfinance causes fear and anxiety by demanding high rate of return in a very short period of time.\nSocial implications: The very poorest, who should be the beneficiaries of microfinance, are less likely to be able to benefit. The condition of poverty creates different realities for those at the base of the pyramid.\nOriginality/value: This research questions the neoliberal rationality assumptions that microfinance rest on; the paper fills a gap in the literature, i.e. how the potential borrowers themselves living in deep-rooted poverty perceive and experience microfinance.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Strategies of job seekers related to age-related stereotypes
|
[
"Age discrimination",
"Age groups",
"Stereotypes"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: In developed countries, increases in average lifespan (World Health Organization, 2011) and the lifting or increasing of mandatory retirement ages in countries which have/had such requirements (Wood et al., 2008) have widened the age range of adults seeking employment. Both younger and older job seekers may experience barriers to employment based on their age. Even though many countries have instituted legislation to protect against age-related discrimination (e.g. Age Discrimination Act 2004, Australia; Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, USA; Canadian Human Rights Act of 1987, Canada; Employment Equality Age Regulations 2006, UK; General Equal Treatment Act (AGG), 2006, Germany), these laws are unable to account for subtle attitudinal biases against older individuals that may influence hiring decisions. Articles in the popular press have highlighted the difficulties experienced by older workers, who can be viewed as lacking energy or unable to acquire new skills and adapt to change compared to younger workers (Chase, 2011; Peacock, 2012; Rosendorff, 2009). Research has supported the existence of age-related stereotypes (e.g. Cuddy et al., 2005), as well as negative work-related consequences of age-related biases (e.g. Duncan and Loretto, 2004; Rupp et al., 2006).\nAge stereotypes and discrimination: An emerging body of research has demonstrated that younger and older individuals face ageist barriers to entry in many jobs (Rupp et al., 2006). Ageism was defined by Butler (1969) as \"a process of systematic stereotyping and discrimination against people because they are old\" (p. 22). The majority of research about age discrimination has examined the experiences of older employees (Perry and Bouhris, 1998), in part because many of these studies were conducted in the USA and under US law only those 40 years of age or older are protected (Gutman et al., 2011). Older employees have been shown to receive harsher reprimands for poor performance than their younger counterparts (Rupp et al., 2006) and feel they have less access to training and promotion opportunities (Duncan and Loretto, 2004).\nAge identity management strategies: Individuals with stigmatized identities make choices about how they present their identity to others, often with the goal of avoiding prejudice. Although their focus was not age-based bias, these choices are discussed in Stone and Colella's (1996) model of factors affecting treatment of employees with disabilities at work and could be applied to individuals with stigmatized identities in general and older employees specifically. This model argues that stigmatized individuals (e.g. employees with disabilities, older workers) will respond to negative treatment with both reactive and proactive strategies to mitigate harm to themselves. Reactive strategies would be in response to specific discriminatory instances, whereas in this study we are interested in proactive strategies used by job seekers to avoid facing negative treatment. These strategies, such as concealing one's identity or acknowledging one's identity openly, are used to \"modify others' expectancies, override existing stereotypes, and gain approval or acceptance from others\" (Stone and Colella, 1996, p. 387). In basic social cognition terms, individuals may seek ways to make a social category less salient (Brewer, 1988). That is, when a perceiver is confronted with category cues (i.e. indicators of age), it is hard for him/her to ignore an activated category in forming impressions (Brewer, 1988; Fiske and Neuberg, 1990). By using proactive strategies, a job seeker might either lessen category salience or might motivate a decision maker to actively inhibit a category (Bodenhausen and Macrae, 1998). In this way, proactive strategies can reduce the role of category membership (in this case, age) in evaluations. In sum, Stone and Colella's model would contend that older employees may utilize certain proactive strategies as a way of reducing activation of a social category and associated anticipated negative treatment. Research on identity management discusses how these specific strategies may be chosen.\nJob-search competencies and age identity management: Job search competencies may influence the extent to which individuals engage in certain age identity management strategies. Job search competencies are the traits, attributes, skills, and characteristics that individuals need to perform well in a job search (Wanberg et al., 1999). Wanberg and colleagues identified job search self-efficacy, emotion control, and motivation control as three key competencies related to the intensity of an individual's job search that also predict reemployment and reemployment quality. Job search self-efficacy refers to having a strong sense of personal agency with respect to performing job search activities. Individuals low on job search self-efficacy are less likely to look for work as intensely and are more likely to use ineffective job search strategies compared to individuals high on job search self-efficacy. Emotion control refers to skill in overcoming job search-related anxiety and fears. Individuals low in emotion control allow anxiety about finding a job and depression over rejection to interfere with their job search. Motivation control refers to skill in goal setting, environmental management, and sustaining search efforts over time. Motivation control facilitates the job search by enabling individuals to focus their efforts on specific goals and maintaining a persistent search.\nMethod: Participants\nResults: Descriptive statistics\nDiscussion: The goal of this study was to examine how perceptions of age-related bias in the job search process vary across unemployed job seekers of different ages and the ways in which unemployed job seekers approach that process in terms of engagement in identity management strategies and their own job search competencies. Our results suggest that reported experiences of age-related bias vary depending on the age of unemployed job seekers. Further, perceptions of age-related bias and job search competencies are associated with engagement in certain age-related identity management strategies.\nImplications: Theory\nPotential limitations: As in all research, this study has potential limitations. For one, this is a cross-sectional and single-survey study which bears the risk of CMB (Podsakoff et al., 2003). However, the results of the Harmon one-factor test and our pattern of findings indicate that CMB is not likely a problem and the scales were not highly inter-correlated. In addition, the significant interaction between job seeker age and emotional control in predicting engagement in acknowledging strategies suggest that CMB concerns may not be a serious concern because such an interaction may be difficult to visualize for participants and therefore would not influence their responding (Chang et al., 2010; Podsakoff et al., 2003). Further, self-reporting of identity management strategies may be the least problematic (or in some aspects, the only) way of gathering this data in a field setting, as interviewer/recruiter and other second sources (e.g. friend, researcher) would not be able to observe some strategies (e.g. counterfeiting).\nConclusion: In examining the ways in which unemployed job seekers manage their age identity during the job search process, the current research found that individuals employ a variety of identity management strategies, from acknowledging their age openly to concealing their age through use of counterfeiting strategies. Whereas strategies involving openness about one's age were most common across unemployed job seekers of all ages, perceptions of age-related bias and reporting certain job search competencies were related to greater use of distancing strategies. Overall, results indicate that use of age identity management strategies are not specific to anyone age cohort and that certain unemployed job seekers in all age groups will feel the need to hide, downplay, or avoid discussing their age.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Given the increasing diversity in the age of job seekers worldwide and evidence of perceptions of discrimination and stereotypes of job seekers at both ends of the age continuum, the purpose of this paper is to identify how perceptions of age-related bias are connected to age-related identity management strategies of unemployed job seekers.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data were collected from 129 unemployed job-seeking adults who were participants in a career placement service. Participants completed paper-and-pencil surveys about their experiences of age-related bias and engagement in age-related identity management strategies during their job searches.\nFindings: Older job seekers reported greater perceptions of age-related bias in employment settings, and perceptions of bias related to engaging in attempts to counteract stereotypes, mislead or miscue about one's age, and avoid age-related discussions in job searching. Individuals who were less anxious about their job search were less likely to mislead about age or avoid the topic of age, whereas individuals with higher job-search self-efficacy were more likely to acknowledge their age during their job search. Older job seekers higher in emotion control were more likely to acknowledge their age.\nOriginality/value: Little is known about how job seekers attempt to compensate for or avoid age-related bias. The study provides evidence that younger and older job seekers engage in age-related identity management and that job search competencies relate to engagement in particular strategies.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Manufacturing process flexibility revisited
|
[
"Manufacturing industries",
"Operations and production management"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nThe definition and domain of \"Manufacturing Flexibility\": Gerwin's (1987) seminal work added welcome rigor to a concept, manufacturing flexibility, which had gained prominence during the previous decade. The computer age was upon us showing great promise with new software (e.g. CAD, CAM), enhanced machine tools (e.g. CNC, robots, FMS), and expanded manufacturing information systems (e.g. MRP, MRP II). Gerwin (p. 48) aimed to set us on a path to \"the study of manufacturing flexibility on a more scientific basis.\" His work succeeded notably in that regard, firmly placing \"flexibility\" into the set of operations choices and initiating significant scholarly research. He helped us define flexibility, categorize and measure flexibility and its performance, and link different types of flexibility to both operational uncertainties and process design.He defined flexibility as \" ... the ability to respond effectively to changing circumstances\" (p. 39), explaining that \"one manufacturing process is more flexible than another ... if it can handle a wider range of possibilities\" (p. 41). He noted the less time and cost required to implement an alternative, the greater the flexibility. In all, flexibility incorporates the range, achievability and effectiveness (performance and value) of the alternatives.Gerwin believed that the need for flexibility is grounded in the need to cope with uncertainty in the manufacturing environment. Different kinds of uncertainty directly drive the needs for different kinds of flexibility (Table I). Moreover, Gerwin led the way in specifying which aspects of flexibility might not be trade-offs with quality, presaging the whole \"cumulative capabilities\" debate (Ferdows and DeMeyer, 1990). And, he rightly saw that automation might not always lead to increased flexibility, providing an early caution against super-machines and factory \"monuments.\" He suggested that research continue comparing Japanese and Western factories so that we could understand more about \"the 'flexible' factory which attempts to adapt to uncertainty versus the 'proactive' factory which attempts to control it\" (p. 48). Such research has continued, and our scholarly understanding of flexibility has grown since the mid-1980s when Gerwin's paper was published.A number of things have changed since that time, but others have remained much as they were. For example, the kinds of workforce and equipment characteristics that support each type of flexibility are much the same today as when Gerwin outlined them. Workforce multi-skilling and equipment capabilities have advanced over the years, but their advances have been more matters of degree than of kind. Gerwin also cited five \"levels\" at which flexibility can be considered. He mentioned individual machines, the manufacturing function (e.g. forming, assembly), the process for a product or product line, the factory, and the company's factory system. Indeed, manufacturing flexibility at each of these levels remains much as it was. Machines have certainly become more capable and computer-based controls have improved machine and process flexibility, but the character of that flexibility has remained very much the same.\nExtending Gerwin's domain: Other things have changed, however. Today we need to extend Gerwin's \"levels\" to include the company's entire supply chain. For many companies today, manufacturing means managing the supply chain, and any contract manufacturing and outsourcing within it, as much as it means managing one's own factory. While the notion of a supply chain has long been well known, the importance of supply chains and their management has risen significantly in the past 20 years. We now routinely speak of the flexibility of the supply chain (Prater et al., 2001), something that typically was not mentioned then. Such supply chain flexibility can deal effectively with several of the uncertainties that Gerwin identified. In particular, an effective supply chain reduces the uncertainty of materials standards (e.g. conformance quality and functionality), and thus the need for material flexibility, as well as reducing the uncertainty of delivery times, and thus the need for sequencing flexibility. Moreover, supply chain flexibility can aid changeover flexibility. Increased contract manufacturing and outsourcing have limited the exposure of selected manufacturers to the vicissitudes of the market and have helped foster product experimentation. Faster new product ramp-ups and shorter new product development life cycles have resulted, allowing in turn planned, purposeful obsolescence. An effective supply chain reduces a firm's risk and increases its nimbleness (Simchi-Levi et al., 2004).Time-based competition (Stalk and Hout, 1990) and lean manufacturing (Womack et al., 1991) are other critical developments that have flowered since the time Gerwin wrote. Reduced throughput time, for example, makes forecasting easier and this attenuates the need for both mix flexibility and volume flexibility. More attention to preventive maintenance has reduced the need for rerouting flexibility. Factories today are as flexible as they have ever been, but the advent of different thinking about manufacturing and how the manufacturing firm competes has reduced many of the uncertainties that underscored the need for the flexibilities Gerwin identified so well. Further, the new thinking has increased firms' abilities to achieve desirable forms of flexibility, including wide product variety (modification flexibility), location of production (volume flexibility), and rapid introduction of new products (changeover flexibility).\nThe \"Flexible\" vs \"Proactive\" factory: Let us return to Gerwin's (p. 48) contrasting of the \"flexible\" factory (which quickly adapts to realized uncertainty) versus the \"proactive\" one (which controls uncertainty through advance planning). The study of Japanese manufacturing has caused us to question whether trade-offs (e.g. cost vs quality) we thought were axiomatic actually exist. We have learned that improved quality can actually lower costs (Hardie, 1998). In like fashion, the continued study of the Japanese \"flexible\" factory and the Western \"proactive\" factory have led us to question whether being flexible and being proactive are really in conflict.Today, a factory is \"flexible\" in part because it is \"proactive.\" For example, the proactive factory's advances in removing waste, incorporating new technologies, and moving information to where it can be used best (e.g. via ERP systems) have certainly diminished the time and cost of being flexible, and this, per Gerwin, enhances the degree of flexibility in the process. What is more, some supply chain flexibility arises due to \"proactive\" factory management. The proactive, wide-scale sharing of information throughout the supply chain contributes mightily to making a supply chain flexible by controlling the bullwhip effect and other supply dysfunctions, and reducing the time and cost to respond to emerging supply challenges. This complementarity between being proactive and being flexible is captured as well in the notion of \"rigid flexibility\" (Collins and Schmenner, 1993) where the ability to be flexible (e.g. mix flexibility) demands simplicity and discipline (rigidity) in order to make it happen (e.g. re-layout of work areas, less wasted motion and effort, re-engineering jigs and fixtures, following prescribed methods exactly, actual practice with the equipment and materials).\nProduct design for flexibility: Of increasingly greater significance over the past 20 years has been the emphasis on the firm's new product development process in order to design easy to manufacture products of great variety quickly. The result is both a product design and a development process that greatly support manufacturing flexibility.Today, product architectures and modularity create product platforms and product family streams of wide variety in short periods of time. Terms such as \"modular products\" (Ulrich, 1995), \"platform vs derivative products\" (Tatikonda, 1999), and \"mass customization\" (Duray, 2002) have entered our lexicon. Design of the product architecture is key to support current and future product options (Sanderson and Uzumeri, 1997). Appropriate product design has led to assembly lines that can handle multiple products and in nearly random order; fabrication cells that match the pace and mix of such assembly lines; and modular factories. Such appropriate product design reduces uncertainty in many ways. The product variety aspects show in greater mix flexibility, changeover flexibility and modification flexibility, while easier manufacture shows in rerouting flexibility, volume flexibility, material flexibility and sequencing flexibility.Quicker product development cycles have also helped to reduce uncertainty. Today, we talk more about the voice of the customer with some confidence that the design and manufacture of the product can answer that voice swiftly and satisfactorily. Such was much less the case 20 years ago. Prototyping can be accomplished quickly and its resulting information can be incorporated into the product in time to reduce the risk of product obsolescence. Rapid and malleable development processes arise through use of: Concurrent engineering and other multi-functional organizational approaches (Tatikonda and Montoya-Weiss, 2001); short iteration prototyping sequences (Thomke, 2003); \"open innovation\" (von Hippel, 2005), which brings to development what outsourcing does to manufacturing; and \"flexibility within a structure\" (Tatikonda and Rosenthal, 2000), where structured organizational processes purposefully incorporate select flexibility mechanisms so as to guide rapid and responsive development (analogous to \"rigid flexibility\"). Faster development cycles aid all of Gerwin's flexibility types, but particularly mix flexibility, changeover flexibility, modification flexibility and volume flexibility.\nThe flexibility framework: Figure 1 shows graphically what Gerwin discussed and extensions we propose. Uncertainty types [A] are Gerwin's archetypal uncertainties faced by managers, derived from both internal and external factors. They are the impetus for a manufacturing organization to possess various flexibility types [B]. Flexibility mechanisms [C] comprise the tools, management practices and systems that can be used to achieve given flexibility types (e.g. FMS, ERP, design-for-manufacture principles, multi-skilled workers, holding inventory). Different flexibility mechanisms have different abilities to achieve particular flexibility types.Gerwin argued persuasively that flexibility measurement [D] is necessary to characterize and evaluate the uncertainty types, flexibility types and flexibility mechanisms. Without measurement, management is hard-pressed to effectively assess flexibility-related choices, costs, achievability, performance benefits and trade-offs. Flexibility types [B], flexibility mechanisms [C] and flexibility measurement [D] collectively form a firm's operational capabilities with regard to flexibility. These operational capabilities may differ markedly at different operational levels [E], ranging from the individual machine to the entire supply chain. Different operational levels [E] also represent different process contexts. The framework generalizes beyond Gerwin's manufacturing processes to all types of operations processes, including service, electronic, information transactions, new product development and other business processes.The structure of this framework, although not explicitly recognized by Gerwin, follows his contributions. However, today's proactive nature of operations strategy allows a perspective on these relationships in reverse from that originally advanced by Gerwin. Note that arrows a and b in the framework are bilateral, rather than rightward facing. A firm need not simply put in place operational capabilities (flexibility types, mechanisms and measurement) to cope with internally or externally induced uncertainty types. Instead, a firm can act upon its operational capabilities to compete in a marketplace with given uncertainty types. The impetus for flexibility is not simply reactive but proactive, deriving from a desire to mould the choice of competitive arena. Indeed, the uncertainty types need not have a negative connotation because they can be opportunities and competitive differentiators for the firm. Consistent with the resource-based view of the firm (Mills et al., 2003), the flexibility-related operational capabilities are explicit resources and competencies of the firm, and firms should consider these operational capabilities in their strategy process.\nConclusions: We have revisited Gerwin's conceptualization of manufacturing process flexibility and subsequent progress in understanding it[1]. Many of Gerwin's insights have stood the test of time, as witnessed by our flexibility framework (Figure 1). Nevertheless, manufacturing flexibility has a bigger meaning now than it did 20 years ago. It has spread throughout the supply chain and into product development. And, it now encompasses the complementarity of \"flexible\" and \"proactive\" factories. Still, a debate rages currently on nuances of the word \"flexibility,\" introducing agility, adaptiveness, responsiveness and other terms. This debate merits the care and insight Donald Gerwin brought us 20 years ago.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - To provide an update on a paper published in 1987 in IJOPM.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Provides an assessment and update of \"An agenda for research on the flexibility of manufacturing processes\".\nFindings: - Gerwin's seminal work added welcome rigor to a concept, manufacturing flexibility, which had gained prominence during the previous decade. Finds that many of Gerwin's insights have stood the test of time. A number of things have changed since that time, but others have remained much as they were. Machines have become more capable and computer-based controls have improved machine and process flexibility, but the character of that flexibility has remained very much the same.\nOriginality/value: - Revisits Gerwin's conceptualization of manufacturing process flexibility and subsequent progress in understanding it.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Personal and professional leadership in a government agency
|
[
"Leadership",
"Job satisfaction",
"Organizational behaviour",
"Professional education",
"United States of America"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: The examination of leader behaviors has a long history in leadership research. Though different terminology has been used, research consistently identifies two constructs with intuitive resonance - \"concern for task\" and \"concern for people\". These concerns have implications not only for organizational success, but also for individual perceptions of leaders. For example, it may be considered unethical not to be concerned with task-related issues such as setting a vision or coordinating efforts to achieve the vision. Without these efforts, the organization will fail, shareholders will suffer, and employees will lose their jobs. Further, a lack of concern for the people working in an organization should certainly be considered unethical or unjust; especially in light of recent unscrupulous behavior on the part of several organizational leaders and the corporate scandals that resulted. From a research perspective, though, the question of how these two concerns interact has not been adequately addressed.\nThe current research: The study by Mastrangelo and colleagues was unique in that it examined mediated effects of leader behavior (as opposed to additive or multiplicative), and it measured employee perceptions of \"the leadership\" (as opposed to individual supervisors). The current study attempts to extend this line of research in several ways. First, the current study seeks to replicate the mediated findings of Mastrangelo et al. (2004). Second, the current study attempts to extend the model to include the additional outcomes of job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Specifically, we explore whether personal leadership mediates the relationship between professional leadership and these additional outcome measures. Third, the current study examines these characteristics within a single organization that is struggling to enhance employee morale. Unlike Mastrangelo et al. (2004) that examined a sample of 248 responses from individuals across 200 organizations, the current study seeks to examine professional and personal leadership's effect in a single organization and provide practical guidance as to how to enhance willing cooperation, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment through enhancing personal and professional leadership.\nElements of the leadership model: Desired outcomes: willing cooperation, job satisfaction, organizational commitment\nProfessional leadership: Professional leadership encompasses the \"formal\" part of leadership - setting the vision and mission for the organization, creating a process for achieving organizational goals, and aligning processes and procedures, people and infrastructure, to achieve organizational goals. Based on Mastrangelo et al. (2004), our conceptualization of professional leadership includes the elements of direction, process, and coordination. Table I provides a brief summary of each element.Research has shown the importance of having a common purpose (Peters and Austin, 1985) and a process in place to achieve that purpose (Barnard, 1938). Similar to previous studies, we feel employees will be more likely to contribute their efforts towards achieving organizational goals when a clear direction is presented and a process for achieving those goals is in place. The elements of professional leadership have also been shown to enhance job satisfaction (Kotter and Heskett, 1992). Considering the specific elements of leadership - providing a direction, putting a process in place to achieve organizational goals, and coordinating employee efforts with the strategic direction of the organization - it seems logical that job satisfaction would be enhanced. Consider that without direction, coordination, and process employees are likely to experience greater role conflict and role ambiguity, two factors that meta-analytic findings have suggested are antecedents to job dissatisfaction (Jackson and Schuler, 1985). Given that the presence of strong professional leadership will likely reduce role conflict and role ambiguity, it seems likely that job satisfaction will increase. Jackson and Schuler's (1985) meta-analysis also suggested that role conflict and role ambiguity would result in reduced organizational commitment. Similar to job satisfaction, if the presence of professional leadership is able to provide enhanced clarity for employees then it is likely that organizational commitment will be increased (Levine and Moreland, 1990; Postmes et al., 2001). Given the above arguments, the following hypotheses were proposed:H1a, H1b, H1c. Professional leadership (i.e. providing direction, process, and coordination) will be positively related to willing cooperation (H1a), job satisfaction (H1b), and organizational commitment (H1c).\nPersonal leadership: Personal leadership can be thought of as the personal behavior of leaders in performing the responsibilities of professional leadership. Based on Mastrangelo et al. (2004), this includes the elements of expertise, trust, caring, sharing and morals. Table I provides a brief summary of each element.Organizational members must have confidence in the expertise of their leaders, and must trust that the leaders are doing what is best for everyone. Leaders must also demonstrate that they care about organizational members, must share authority and information with organizational members, and must act in a moral way (Mastrangelo et al., 2004). Engaging in these behaviors has been shown to contribute to effective leadership. For instance, empirical work has demonstrated a link between consideration and job satisfaction (Yukl, 2001). Additionally, it has been suggested that organizational level considerations (similar to the way this study is measuring leadership) may be the most appropriate way to examine job satisfaction (Ostroff, 1992). Given the above findings, we expect personal leadership to be related to job satisfaction.Supportive behavior, another construct similar to caring, helps shape the core of considerate behavior (Bowers and Seashore, 1966; Fleishman, 1953; House and Mitchell, 1974; Stogdill, 1974). The key to the perception of \"organizational caring\" by the members of the organization is establishing a collective, systematic attitude of caring. Given this organizational-level focus, we feel that employees are more likely to be committed to their organizations (i.e. report higher levels of organizational commitment) when personal leadership behaviors like caring are high. We also expect that an organization's members are more likely to willingly cooperate when they perceive that the leadership truly cares about them. Given the above arguments, the following hypotheses were proposed:H2a, H2b, H2c. Personal leadership (i.e. demonstrating expertise, trust, caring, sharing and morals) will be positively related to willing cooperation (H2a), job satisfaction (H2b), and organizational commitment (H2c).\nThe relationship between professional and personal leadership: Given that managers should focus on both factors (i.e. the professional and personal relationship), we wanted to further explore how these two factors relate to each other. As previously discussed, past research on additive and multiplicative models has been inconclusive (Yukl, 2001), providing even more reason to examine the relationship between the two factors.Since our focus is the perception of the organization's leadership, we propose that personal leadership mediates the relationship between professional leadership and willing cooperation, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment. We suggest the presence of professional leadership leads to successful leadership-employee interactions, which in turn leads to our proposed outcomes. In essence, when an organization has created a direction that promotes both individual and organizational success; has established a process that values continuous improvement and makes it clear to employees what their role is in helping achieve organizational success; and has coordinated efforts to create strategic alignment between employee activities and organizational outcomes; this will likely lead to perceptions of expertise, trust, caring, sharing, and morality - the components of personal leadership (Mastrangelo et al., 2004).It seems likely that when employees feel the professional side of the organization is in order, it will be easier to make favorable judgments about such things as the expertise of and trust in organizational leadership. Our rationale is that members of the organization interact on a daily basis with the personal side of leadership. It may be the case that through these interactions, individuals judge the level of leader morals, caring, and sharing, and this is how professional leadership truly impacts willing cooperation and other important employee attitudes. In essence, the leadership's professional vision is delivered to the membership through personal and tangible actions and interactions. In this conceptualization, both personal and professional leadership are important, but it is the personal side of leadership that gets the professional message to the organization's members. In effect, the professional message (professional leadership) travels through personal leadership. Therefore, the following hypotheses were proposed:H3a, H3b, H3c. Personal leadership will mediate the relationship between professional leadership and willing cooperation (H3a). This same mediated effect will also be present for job satisfaction (H3b), and organizational commitment (H3c).\nMethod: Participants\nMeasures: General\nResults: Means, standard deviations, and intercorrelations for all measures are reported in Table II. Coefficient alpha estimates are reported along the diagonal. Tables III and IV present the results of our study hypotheses. H1a-1c suggested that professional leadership would be related to the presence of willing cooperation, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment. Table III shows that the data support H1a through H1c and reports detailed information regarding the regression analyses performed. For willing cooperation, the relevant regression weight was (b=0.67), and the overall R2 was 0.33 (F(1,180)=88.34, p < 0.01; standard error of the estimate=0.87), thus supporting H1a. For job satisfaction, the relevant regression weight was (b=0.31), and the overall R2 was 0.10 (F(1,180)=20.04, p < 0.01; standard error of the estimate=0.84), thus supporting H1b. For organizational commitment, the relevant regression weight was (b=0.31), and the overall R2 was 0.19 (F(1,180)=42.09, p < 0.01; standard error of the estimate=0.59), thus supporting H1c.H2a-H2c suggested that personal leadership would be related to the presence of willing cooperation, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment. Table III shows that the data support H2a through H2c and reports detailed information regarding the regression analyses performed. For willing cooperation the relevant regression weight was (b=0.87). The overall R2 was 0.59 (F(1,180)=246.96, p < 0.01; standard error of the estimate=0.69), thus supporting H2a. For job satisfaction the relevant regression weight was (b=0.41). The overall R2 was 0.18 (F(1,180)=39.05, p < 0.01; standard error of the estimate=0.80), thus supporting H2b. For organizational commitment the relevant regression weight was (b=0.39). The overall R2 was 0.30 (F(1,180)=77.05, p < 0.01; standard error of the estimate=0.55), thus supporting H2c.Personal leadership as a mediating variable\nDiscussion: Professional leadership is the \"formal\" part of leadership, which involves providing direction, process, and coordination to the members of an organization for the purpose of attaining the organization's goals. Professional leadership is an essential first step in the leadership process, as the current study results suggest that leaders who rely on the components of professional leadership to establish the mission and vision of the organization are likely to have employees who willingly cooperate, are satisfied with their jobs, and are committed to the organization.Specific to the organization in the current study, the mean rating of professional leadership was exceptionally low, at 1.66 on a five-point scale. This suggests that the organization should focus efforts on enhancing professional leadership. The first practical step is to identify why this is happening - do we have a vision? Is there a clear direction in place? Are leaders coordinating the resources required to successfully pursue company goals? There was some confusion in the current organization about the direction of the organization. Thus, we recommended that the organization begin by clearly defining its mission, vision, and underlying philosophy. Once this was complete, we recommended that the organization ensure the strategic alignment of its resources with its vision. A clear vision is important. However, employees will not be able to attain the vision if the proper resources are not made available to them.Once these are in place, the difficult part is communicating the direction to the employees. Thus, many of our recommendations for practice revolve around proactively communicating where the organization is heading and ensuring that employees understand the benefits of this direction. This involves communicating goals, asking questions of employees to ensure they understand goals, and continually gathering feedback and reactions toward those goals. Communicating the direction of the organization is a difficult process, as employees receive substantial communications throughout the day (e.g. phone calls, e-mails, letters, reports) that take attention away from the organization's direction. It is important, therefore, to engage in continual communications to ensure employees remain on the right track. Engaging in these behaviors should enhance professional leadership, thereby enhancing important outcomes such as satisfaction and commitment.Our findings also suggest that personal leadership is an essential contributor to willing cooperation, job satisfaction and organizational commitment. The current study findings suggest the evaluations organization members make about their organization's leadership contribute to their engaging in willing cooperation, job satisfaction and organizational commitment.Regarding personal leadership, the organization in the current study had a mean rating of 2.11 on a five-point scale. Although higher than the professional leadership rating, perceptions of personal leadership are clearly low. There are a variety of options available to leaders who are attempting to enhance this facet of leadership.For instance, trust is demonstrated through consistent behaviors. Leaders must be consistent with each other, must be consistent over time, and must treat employees consistently. Employees are much more likely to willingly cooperate with a supervisor who they feel has their best interest in mind. If the employee feels that the supervisor is making decisions for the company's best interest, or for personal gain, the employee is less likely to trust that individual.Caring is enhanced by making a conscious effort to be personable to employees, actively listening to employee suggestions, and listening to employees regardless of their position in the organization. In fast paced organizations, engaging in these caring behaviors is often minimized due to time constraints. However, employees are more likely to work hard for a supervisor who they feel cares for them as individuals.Finally, we recommend that supervisors attempt to share decision-making and other authority with employees to the extent the job allows. Be sharing authority with employees, the supervisor is likely to enhance \"buy-in\" and commitment of the employees to decisions that are made in the workplace. These and other behavioral changes should enhance personal leadership.Perhaps the most interesting finding is the mediating effect of personal leadership on the relationship between professional leadership and all of the outcome measures. Similar to findings by Mastrangelo et al. (2004), when employees are confident in the professional leadership of the organization, it may enhance views of personal aspects of leadership (e.g. trust, caring), which in turn may influence outcomes such as commitment and satisfaction. Leaders in our sample organization, therefore, carry an extra burden to build this personal relationship. Therefore, though we would not recommend ignoring the professional aspects of leadership, we would recommend a strong initial focus on personal leadership qualities.Study limitations and implications for future research\n",
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"content": "Purpose: - The aim of this paper is to replicate previous research findings, exploring the mediating effect of personal leadership on professional leadership and willing cooperation, and to extend the leadership model to include job satisfaction and organizational commitment.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Employees from a government agency located in Western New York State completed a survey designed to gather their perceptions of study variables.\nFindings: - Professional and personal leadership are positively related to all three outcomes and personal leadership mediates the effect of professional leadership on all three outcomes.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Limitations include predictor and outcome data both collected from the same respondents and all measures collected via survey. Both of these issues raise concerns with regards to common method bias. Actual performance data were not measured. Future research should examine the impact of leadership behaviors on organization outcomes.\nPractical implications: - Managers should focus on developing both professional leadership (i.e. providing direction, process, and coordination to members) and personal leadership (i.e. demonstrating expertise, trust, caring, sharing and morals) behaviors to enhance employee satisfaction and commitment.\nOriginality/value: - The paper provides confirmatory evidence for the value of the leadership model put forth in the earlier research and extends the model to include other important outcomes. An examination of leader behaviors in a government agency uncovers ways managers can enhance their leadership behaviors.\n",
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Publish or perish
|
[
"Publish",
"Universities",
"Academia",
"Publishing",
"Mandarins"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: \"You need to publish\"Is the catch cry of the university mandarins;If you want regular pay rises,If you want promotion,If you want tenure!\"You need to publish\"They suggest in encouraging tones;If you want conference funding;If you want a lighter teaching load,If you want a future in academia!\"You need to publish\"They tell us sternly;As they load us up with teaching hours,And administrative tasks,And public relations exercises!Publish or perishIs the \"new\" catch cry of the university mandarins;Your department's funding is influenced by it,Your right to teach requires it,Your spot on the academic rat wheel demands it!\n",
"role": "user"
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"content": "Purpose: - This poem aims to present a reflection on a common issue faced by academics around the world namely, the urgency to publish.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This is a fictional poem.\nFindings: - The poet considers how academics are being judged or rewarded by those in university administration. Regardless of how good a teacher they are, unless they have publications they are viewed poorly.\nOriginality/value: - An attempt to summarize the situation many academics are finding themselves in - unless they publish that will be undervalued in the academic workplace.\n",
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Exploring the ZMET methodology in services marketing
|
[
"Interviews",
"Innovation",
"Qualitative research",
"Customer service",
"Higher education",
"Marketing research"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Ostrom et al. (2015) propose that researchers need to have a better understanding of the service experience, including issues associated with value creation, to transform and optimise the way services are delivered. Furthermore, Helkkula (2011) suggests that we need to critically explore the service concept from the perspective of who experiences it. One way of addressing these issues is to adopt an appropriate methodology, which explores in detail customer perceptions and experiences in a service context. This paper argues that by using an alternative qualitative image-based method, namely, the Zaltman metaphor elicitation technique (ZMET), researchers can understand service experiences better. However, ZMET has had only limited use in service research. This paper therefore explains the benefits and practicalities of using ZMET by applying this methodological approach to a student experience context.\nThe use of photographic elicitation by academic researchers: The use of images and photos to aid discussion in interviewing can be regarded as a qualitative projective technique (Foster, 2011). Projective techniques have their roots in psychology and require participants to \"project\" their thoughts onto something or someone (Catterall and Ibbotson, 2000). Examples include sentence completion, word association and commenting on ethical dilemmas/scenarios. Projective techniques encourage participants to have a more open discussion, as \"distance\" is placed between the respondent and the subject matter. This helps to address some of the issues associated with direct questioning in traditional interview techniques, such as a participant's inability to articulate complex, detailed perceptions or experiences (Day, 1989).\nThe prevalence of images in services marketing research: Although not widespread, evidence suggests that images are used as a methodological tool in some services marketing research, particularly when investigating metaphorical perceptions (Shin Rohani et al., 2014). Cederholm (2004) adopted photo elicitation to explore the views of tourists, arguing that the photos facilitated \"can opening\" to enable deeper conversation to take place. Ganassali and Matysiewicz found that using images led to better emotional granularity so that they were able to capture \"deep contextual meanings of consumer experience\" (Ganassali and Matysiewicz, 2018, p. 4). Taking photos one-step further, video usage is also advocated as another method for exploring consumer perceptions of services marketing (Belk and Kozinets, 2005; Belk et al., 2018). Termed \"videography\", the approach can be used in a number of ways such as recording interviews and observations but can also be used by consumers to capture their own experiences (Kozinets and Belk, 2006). However, while photos have had some limited use in services marketing research, these approaches do not go as far as ZMET, which uses a combination of participant led discussion, photo elicitation and interviews organised around a laddering framework to facilitate a rigorous exploration of customer perceptions (Ji and King, 2018).\nAdopting Zaltman metaphor elicitation technique to understand customer service perceptions: Images and photographs form an integral part of ZMET, as participants select their own photos to represent their thoughts and feelings around a brand or product (Zaltman and Coulter, 1995). The photo or image therefore represents a surface \"metaphor\" of their subconscious perceptions (Coulter et al., 2001). Put simply, the picture or image symbolises something else. Zaltman claims that ZMET is successful because \"ZMET is a hybrid methodology grounded in various domains, including verbal and nonverbal communication, visual sociology, visual anthropology, literary criticism, semiotics, mental imagery, cognitive neuroscience and phototherapy\" (Zaltman and Coulter, 1995, p. 47). The technique thus represents a departure from many marketing research tools, as these tend to be verbo-centric, capturing participants' thoughts and feelings through language alone (Catchings-Castello, 2000). Developed by Gerald Zaltman in 1990, ZMET has been licenced commercially to elicit customer insights for large organisations such as Audi, Coca-Cola, Mercedes and many other household names (Zaltman, 2003), particularly in advertising research. Other applications of ZMET can be found in Zaltman's (2012) studies of funeral services, and recently America's economic problems, demonstrating how the technique can potentially be applied to a range of practice-based situations. Beyond the commercial application of ZMET, there are a limited number of studies that have used ZMET in an academic service-based context, an example being Berry et al. (2006) researching service cues and, recently, Ji and King (2018) who explored diners' perceptions in a hospitality setting. Olson et al. (2009) proposed that ZMET can be used to support service innovation, explaining how architects developed a new children's hospital ward used the technique. They found that users identified images associated with a \"container\" metaphor, suggesting that patients and parents felt cut off from the outside world, feeling trapped and isolated in the ward. These \"hidden\" or subconscious associations were used in the development of a new, transformative hospital space, which specifically addressed the needs of the users.\nUnderstanding the Zaltman metaphor elicitation technique process: ZMET has four guiding principles, grounded by several important facts about how the brain functions and how the human mind operates (Zaltman, 2003). Olson et al. (2009) commence with the unconscious mind, exploring unconscious meanings, customers reveal, \"What they don't know they know.\" Second, he argues that images are central \"components\" of the mind and thus the human mind operates visually rather than through words. Third, the brain manipulates these images to create \"meaning patterns\" at a deeper, fundamental level. Finally, using images as metaphors to symbolise an individual's thoughts is the key to unlocking these unconscious meanings. While the studies provide scant detail on how to apply the ZMET process in academic research, Zaltman and Coulter (1995) do however, suggest that a set number of steps should be followed, specific to the ZMET process. Coulter et al. (2001) claim that the four stages are necessary, as they ensure that all the appropriate data is captured. However, as Table II indicates, these stages lack useful guidance on how each stage would work in practice.\nThe interview steps: The use of storytelling: Participants should be encouraged to \"tell their stories\" as it is suggested that people process and record their experiences as narratives (Martin, 2010). Zaltman (2003) argues that this allows the participant to naturally \"open up\" and share their own interpretation of what the image means to them. By means of storytelling, metaphors stimulated by the images, emerge from the conversation. An example below illustrates how a first year student chose an hourglass timer (Figure 4) to represent how she felt about her course:\nMethodological contribution: Our application of ZMET to a service-based study found that initially this can be complex, mainly because there are several steps to comprehend and apply but very limited published guidance on how to conduct a ZMET interview in an academic study. As noted, ZMET is a US patented technique which requires a licence to use the official method for commercial projects. However, as stated by Khoo-Lattimore and Prideaux (2013), this does not restrict its use in academic studies, as the one discussed here. But, even if academics want to use ZMET, there is very little guidance on how to use it, despite the clear advantages of the approach. While some guidance does exist (Coulter and Zaltman, 1994; Zaltman, 2003), we argue that there is nothing published in relation to how this type of visual and verbal data should be analysed thoroughly. That said, we argue that the use of images enabled the interviewer to delve deeper than normal, when compared to \"words alone\" interviews. The main benefit of using the images was that it generated richer dialogue from the interviewee, the participant tended to behave more naturally and was enthusiastic when explaining the image. A further benefit was that the participant did not appear to censor their thoughts, perhaps because the pictures created \"distance\" between the participant and interviewer, as found to be the case with other projective techniques (Foster, 2011). Greater levels of trust were also established which meant that information was revealed when questions were not asked but instead when the participants commented on the images. In sum, the volume of rich information acquired through the ZMET process enabled the researchers to gain a service user perspective as the participants would have experienced it and as seen through their own eyes.\nConclusion: This study has resulted in a comprehensive, rigorous guide for services marketing researchers wanting to adopt ZMET. It has also demonstrated that novel approaches to data collection may emerge from marketing practice. We argue that using the ZMET method to explore perceptions of a service experience, counters \"depth deficit\" (Mulvey and Kavalam, 2010) and thus enables a deeper understanding of customer service experiences, captured in their own words and images. We propose that this is a viable alternative method, which counters depth deficit, when compared to traditional qualitative \"words only\" research approaches. However, the use of the method requires competent interview skills and enough time for both interview and analysis. Further research could help to refine the ZMET method by extending its application to other service settings such as travel, hospitality, banking and retail. Indeed, we argue that this method could be applied to numerous contexts where the research is attempting to expose the subconscious meanings people attach to a phenomenon.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to explore how the Zaltman metaphor elicitation technique (ZMET) can be adopted in services marketing to provide deeper customer experience insights.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper explores how ZMET interviews, which use images selected by the participant to facilitate discussion, can be used by researchers. This paper draws upon a study of 24 student experiences at a UK university.\nFindings: Adopting this qualitative method for services marketing can counter depth deficit when compared to other qualitative approaches, because it is participant led. However, the method requires competent interview skills and time for the interview and analysis. We find that ZMET has not been widely adopted in academia because of its commercial licenced use. The paper illustrates how to use the ZMET process step-by-step.\nResearch limitations/implications: Findings are limited to student experiences. Further research is necessary to understand how researchers could use ZMET in other areas of services marketing.\nPractical implications: This paper provides guidance to researchers on how to use ZMET as a methodological tool. ZMET facilitates a deeper understanding of service experiences through using participant chosen images and thus enabling researchers to uncover subconscious hidden perceptions that other methods may not find.\nOriginality/value: ZMET has been used commercially to gain market insights but has had limited application in service research. Existing studies fail to provide details of how ZMET can be used to access the consumer subconscious. This paper makes a methodological contribution by providing step-by-step guidance on how to apply ZMET to services marketing.\n",
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] |
Benchmarking and performance measurement: a statistical analysis
|
[
"Benchmarking",
"Performance measures",
"Statistical analysis"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: Many emerging business improvement philosophies, approaches and methodologies, such as the learning organisation (Senge, 1990), total quality management (TQM) (Deming, 1986) and knowledge management (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995; Davenport and Prusak, 1998) involve an element of benchmarking and performance measurement (Neely, 1998; Atkinson and Brown, 2001; Lockamy, 1998; Corrigan, 1998). However, these approaches tend to include mainly lag or production measures with little emphasis on lead measures focusing on analysing predictive and future performance comparisons. Hence, most organisations tend to benchmark based on \"hard\" rather than \"soft\" data (Cassell et al., 2001) ignoring non-financial measures such as quality, market share, customer satisfaction, human resources, innovation and learning (Geanuracos, 1994).The current literature raises a number of questions in relation to definitions, implementations and indicators associated with lead benchmarking and performance measurement. For example, how are lead innovative measurement tools and associated components defined in organisations? How can benchmarking and performance measurement be conceptualised, measured, and assessed? What specific metrics are organisations utilising to support the development of lead benchmarking and performance measurement? To what extent do organisations undertake lead benchmarking and what are the outcomes of this process?The aim of this paper is to explore the understanding and application of lead benchmarking and performance measurement as a possible means of achieving increased organisational change. Based on current literature a conceptual model is proposed to capture the key dimensions and indicators of lead benchmarking. Constructs of the model are then used to form research questions which are tested via empirical study. A total of 157 UK organisations responded to the research invitation, these organisations are attempting to employ lead benchmarking for upstream performance measurement.\n2 Benchmarking: Defining benchmarking can be a confusing task as both managers and academics tend to create definitions according to their own perceptions and applications of the technique and philosophy (Fernandez et al., 2001). The growth, diversity and maturity of benchmarking have led to the emergence of numerous definitions; indeed over 42 definitions were found by one source (Heib and Daneva, 1995). The most popular, well-documented definition is that of Camp (1989) who simply states that, \"Benchmarking is the search for industry best practices that will lead to superior performance\". Vaziri (1992) proposes a more definitive view in terms of achieving targets, suggesting that:[...] benchmarking is the process of continually comparing a company's performance on critical customer requirements against that of the best in the industry (direct competitors) or class (companies recognised for their superiority in performing certain functions) to determine what should be improved.Although many definitions exist there is consensus that benchmarking is a structured process to facilitate the improvement of current organisational standards by adopting superior practices. To identify current state of play within organisations benchmarking has been applied in many traditional areas of performance mainly at the output stage. Based on the measurement of lag downstream performance indicators, traditional benchmarking has been useful in aiding incremental and anticipated planned changes within organisations, a point outlined by Yasin (2002) \"benchmarking is a managerial technique to identify performance gaps and improve operational performance\". However, for benchmarking to be fully developed revolutionary and unanticipated change must also be considered. Increasingly benchmarking is occurring at the input, process stage where lead benchmarks of performance are readily identified at initial project stages. The development of \"balanced\", \"multi-dimensional\" and \"multi-facet\" performance measurement frameworks emphasize non-financial, external and future looking performance measures that are proactive and preventive in nature. These measures help anticipate and impact future desired results (Manoochehri, 1999) for business improvement, market stability and exploitation of knowledge resources which in turn increase organisational competitive advantage.\n3 Research methodology: To gain a strong understanding of the benchmarking process the researchers conducted an extensive review of current literature. Identifying the constructs of lead benchmarking enabled a conceptual model to be created, this model is shown in Figure 1.The figure shows that upstream organisational activities play a key role in lead benchmarks and that associated lead benchmarking indicators reflect knowledge and learning as opposed to traditional resource measurements. There was insufficient information in the literature to explain how basic variables such as organisational size and sector may affect lead benchmarking and its conceptualization. Therefore, taking the advice of Remenyi et al. (1999) the researchers have used the variables shown as the basic building blocks for further study. By adopting a critically reflective, empirical research approach the effects of the variables can be explored using statistical techniques.The key research questions to be answered by empirical investigation are:RQ1. How is lead benchmarking and performance measurement defined in organisations?RQ2. What approaches are organisations using to develop lead benchmarking and performance measurement?RQ3. What measures are organisations using and intending to use to show the effectiveness of lead benchmarking and performance measurement?Given the exploratory nature of the research questions a large-scale survey research methodology was adopted (Remenyi et al., 1999). Organisations to participate in the study were selected from UK quality centre lists. It was anticipated that organisations involved in other business improvement activities such as TQM would be more likely to have an understanding of emerging measurement approach such as lead benchmarking. A questionnaire was developed guided by the variables outlined on the conceptual model (Figure 1). To formulate questions exploratory research including literary review and preliminary semi-structured interviews (Easterby-Smith et al., 2002) with a number of informed individuals, including management consultants and practicing managers was undertaken. Therefore, each question had been derived from a triangulation of case data, previous questionnaires and semi-structured interviews in line with the suggestion of Remenyi et al. (1999). Pilot testing of the questionnaire was developed using a two-phase approach (Babbie, 2001). Firstly, a hard copy of the questionnaire was pre-piloted within ten organisations and with ten academics working in related disciplines, each with extensive benchmarking and performance measurement experience. This led to improvements in the overall questionnaire structure, layout, wording and terminology, sequencing of questions, and the addition of questions. The second phase of the pilot testing involved a blackbox study of the computerised self-administered questionnaire, within ten organisations. This enabled various cliches, errors in spelling and numbering, graphics and font size, navigation problems and page layout to be amended.A final version of the computerised e-mail notification self-administered questionnaire was developed. The questionnaire was divided into ten main sections of interest, in this paper due to size constraints, the main focus of the analysis is based solely on elements from Sections 1 and 2 relating to organisational demographics and some of the questions from Sections 5 and 6 of the questionnaire dealing explicitly with lead benchmarking and performance measurement. The questionnaire used a combination of 49 closed questions and one main open comment section at the end. The questionnaire was designed using DreamWeaver MX. The survey was analysed using a Statistical Package for Social Science Version 11 software package. Descriptive statistics, which involved the use of frequency tables, charts and cross tabulations, and demographic comparisons using kh2 tests and one-way ANOVA tests between and within groups were utlised. Owing to lack of space only the main responses are shown in the resultant findings.In total 800 questionnaires were sent with 157 usable returns, a response rate of 19.6 per cent. This is an acceptable response rate considering response rates for e-mail notification surveys vary from a very low of 6 per cent (Tse et al., 1995) to a high of 75 per cent (Kiesler and Sproull, 1986).\n4 Results and discussion: 4.1 Organisational demographics\n5 Conclusions and recommendations: This aim of this paper was to explore the understanding and use of lead benchmarking and performance measurement as an emerging approach to business improvement. By defining benchmarking and developing a conceptual model, as shown in Figure 1, the idea of dimensions composed of indicators was a useful way of exploring the different aspects of the field and enabled the respondent organisations to see the breadth and depth of this area of study (Sarkis, 2001).From the empirical results obtained regarding current use of benchmarking there is an indication that across all organisation sizes more focus is placed on operational issues than strategic issues. Firstly, it is suggested that these results show that lead benchmarking and performance measurement are an emergent and indeed novel area of business improvement and have some way to go before being fully legitimised as a strategic initiative in many organisations. Secondly, there is an overarching tendency to identify business improvement initiatives in general as being focused primarily on improving operational efficiency (Bessant and Caffyn, 1997). This tendency limits the effectiveness and sustainability of such initiatives (Leonard and McAdam, 2003). Thus, there is a challenge to those involved in lead benchmarking and performance measurement to stress the strategic effectiveness of such approaches.The location of lead benchmarking and performance measurement was clearly identified as being upstream in the organisation. Key dimensions included new product development and customers, thus supporting the conceptualisation in Figure 1. Moreover, upstream locations are more likely to be strategic. It can also be concluded that larger organisations are more likely to strategically implement and make effective use of lead benchmarking and performance measures in comparison to smaller organisations. It is suggested that the reasons for this effect may be twofold. Firstly, larger organisations have more resources and skills than smaller organisations in relation to experimenting with lead benchmarking and performance measures. Thus, larger organisations can more fully explore lead benchmarking and performance measurement without a large risk factor (McAdam, 2000). Secondly, and related to the first point, small organisations traditionally lag behind larger organisations in implementing new initiatives due to the innate bias in the literature that suggests large private sector organisations try it first and then public and small sector organisations come second (Kouzmin et al., 1999; Ghobadian and Gallear, 1997). In addition, as benchmarking is generally both expensive and time consuming: a firm (especially an SME) usually does not have enough resources to start a benchmarking project (Massa and Testa, 2004). However, there is no innate reason precluding smaller organisations from adopting lead benchmarking and performance measurement approaches to a degree within their resource and skills capabilities. The results on expected future use are consistent with the rest of the data and give cause for optimism that lead benchmarking and performance measurement is firmly on the future agendas of large and small organisations.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to explore the theoretical understanding and practical application of lead benchmarking and performance measurement as a way to achieve organisational change.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper combines a theory building/theory testing approach. Based on literary findings a conceptual model has been postulated to identify constructs associated with upstream performance measurement and lead benchmarking. A selection of research questions are posed and tested via empirical study. The survey instrument was distributed to 800 UK organisations which resulted in 157 responses.\nFindings: - Results from the empirical research indicate that new lead, forward looking, predictive benchmarks need to be developed to support lead benchmarking and performance measurement activities. Furthermore, it was found that currently larger organisations are more likely to adopt these practices, with considerable variation across organisational sectors.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The empirical research achieved a 19.6 per cent response rate. While this is adequate to report statistical representation, further data collection would be beneficial for industry generalisations.\nPractical implications: - Many organisations struggle to grasp metric measurement for lead benchmarking. This paper may provide insight into key factors to be considered for lead benchmarking uptake.\nOriginality/value: - This paper builds on current literature and develops a conceptual model which is then tested via empirical research. This is a novel approach in the area of lead benchmarking.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Spanning information behaviour across the stages of a learning task: Where do personality and approach to studying matter?
|
[
"Personality",
"Learning",
"Students",
"Approach to studying",
"Inquiry",
"Information behaviour"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Nigel Ford (1979, 1986) was one of the first to acknowledge the importance of individual differences in learning-related information behaviour. Following Nigel's pioneering work, a large body of research has identified how various affective, motivational or cognitive differences play out as we interact with information (Bawden and Robinson, 2011; Ford, 2004). In conjunction with the general emphasis in information research, however, the earlier work has largely focused on information seeking. A holistic conception of learning-related information behaviour would include the whole process from information need to information use. Inspired by Nigel and building on his work, this study will explore the role of personality and approaches to studying on students' learning-related information behaviour in inquiry projects, spanning their inquiry from task construction to task completion.\n2. Aim of the study and research questions: The aim of the study was to explore whether and how high school students' self-reported learning-related information behaviour could be associated with their personality traits and approaches to studying. Of particular interest was to investigate their behaviour at different stages of an inquiry learning task: task construction, task performance and task completion (Tanni and Sormunen, 2008).\n3. Theoretical framework: Ford's (2004) model of learning-related information behaviour forms the overall framework of the study. The model highlights the complexity of information behaviour in a learning context, as influenced by cognitive and affective processes. Ford (2004, p. 184) has defined learning-related information behaviour as: \"Those activities a person may engage in when, for the purposes of learning, identifying his or her own needs for information, searching for and selecting such information from multiple independent information sources, and using or transferring that information\". In a school context, a typical task that involves learning-related information behaviour is inquiry learning. This is a cognitively demanding task where the learner constructs meaning from independently retrieved information sources and present his/her conclusions in form of a product such as an essay (Tanni and Sormunen, 2008). A reading-to-write task requires the learner to take on two concurrent roles: the one of a reader building meaning from a text and the one of a writer building meaning for a product, such as a text (Spivey, 1997, p. 136).\n4. Literature review: 4.1 Openness to experience, conscientiousness and negative emotionality: influence on learning-related information behaviour\n5. Method: Data were gathered in October-November 2011 in three senior high schools in Tampere, Finland by the use of three questionnaires. The respondents were 219 students of whom 34 per cent (n=75) were male, and 66 per cent (n=144) female. In all, 30 per cent (n=65) of the respondents were first year students, 27 per cent (n=58) were second year students, 38 per cent (n=84) were third year students and 5 per cent (n=12) fourth year students. The questionnaires measuring personality, approaches to studying and learning-related information behaviour, respectively, are presented below.\n6. Results: 6.1 Relationship between personality and approaches to studying\n7. Discussion: In the following we will discuss the findings trait by trait. We will begin by exploring how personality traits played out at the three stages of the inquiry process (task construction, task performance and task completion), and then move on to discuss the results pertaining to approaches to studying. It should be kept in mind that our results are based on self-report on questionnaires. The connection between traits and behaviour is, however, for the sake of simplicity presented as they would occur in actuality.\n8. Conclusions: The study set out to explore whether personality traits and study approaches would be influential on learning-related information behaviour in inquiry tasks. It was found that individual differences had a stronger impact than high school grade on information behaviour. Findings from previous studies (e.g. Heinstrom, 2002, 2005; Stokes and Urquhart, 2011) on university students' information behaviour were largely confirmed among senior high school students operating in a structured environment with more outspoken requirements on information behaviour. This underlines the importance of considering individual differences in learning-related information behaviour.\n",
"role": "user"
},
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"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of personality (intellectual curiosity, conscientiousness and negative emotionality) and approach to studying (deep, strategic and surface) on students' learning-related information behaviour in inquiry tasks.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data were collected from 219 senior high school students with the use of three questionnaires.\nFindings: The findings showed that students' individual traits influenced different aspects of their learning-related information behaviour from information need to information use.\nResearch limitations/implications: The results were based on survey data. Reliability issues with the scales are discussed. In future research qualitative data would enrich the understanding of the phenomena.\nPractical implications: The results are informative for teachers and librarians who guide students in inquiry tasks.\nOriginality/value: The study spanned learning-related information behaviour across the whole inquiry process: from task construction through task performance to task completion. The findings showed that individual traits were particularly influential at the task completion stage, that is on information use.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Creativity and economic growth: theory, measures, and potentials for Morocco
|
[
"Economic development",
"Emerging markets",
"Measurement",
"Intangible assets"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: The current era of globalization is dominated by the rise of investments in intangible capital rather than tangible capital - the ascendance of creativity over plant and equipment. This brief paper is motivated by the possibility that emerging market economies such as Morocco might take greater advantage of new tools and policies designed for this new era.\nSection 1: the rise of creativity: The development of the global internet economy\nSection 2: measurement principles: Private intangible measurement principles\nSection 3: creativity is not just about technology: Success in the new global economy does not necessarily require cutting-edge technological wizardry. Let us consider the billions of dollars in revenues that arose from the imagination of J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter book series. In the mid-1990s, Rowling was a single mother on welfare in Scotland. Within a dozen years, she netted hundreds of millions of pounds. Her Harry Potter series sold about 400 million books worldwide, and the film series based on the books had worldwide box office earnings of nearly $8 billion. Tens of millions of children and adolescents around the world learned they could read a book series with more than a million words.\nSection 4: cultural enhancement: As culture rises in economic importance, cultural enhancement has multiple benefits, not only to national economics but also to national pride. The animations of Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli, which celebrate Japanese traditions and cultural traits, have been successful around the world and have increased interest in and respect for Japan. The restaurant elBulli not only brought culinary innovation to the world in a variety of forms, but it also elevated Catalan cuisine and increased interest in Spanish foods. British bands and singers such as the Beatles and Adele not only have earned huge sums through record sales and performances, but they have continued to shine a light on British music traditions. Similarly, Cirque du Soleil blended Montreal street performance with storytelling and created a whole new variety of entertainment.\nSection 5: opportunities for Morocco: Morocco already possesses a strong international brand. Blessed by its climate, a crossroads location, and a unique history, Morocco has a culture that is internationally attractive, as can be seen from its appeal to tourists. Increasingly, tourism can be seen not only as a source of revenue but as a marker of amenities. And amenities form the basis for creative economies - they feed creators.\n",
"role": "user"
},
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"content": "Purpose: The current era of globalization is dominated by the rise of investments in intangible capital rather than tangible capital - the ascendance of creativity over plant and equipment. This brief paper is motivated by the possibility that emerging market economies such as Morocco might take greater advantage of new tools and policies designed for this new era. The paper aims to discuss these issues.\nDesign/methodology/approach: To begin, the author discusses the transformation of the global economy and the consequences of the transformed global economy for economic thinking and measurement. The author refers to both old and new literature on the measurement of intangible investment and capital.\nFindings: Then, the author discusses the rising role of creativity and cultural difference in the development of these new economic forces, using the example of the Harry Potter book series.\nOriginality/value: The author then considers how cultural enhancement serves multiple purposes for a nation. Finally, the author turns to some of the possible implications of these economic forces for Morocco, stressing that these implications are speculative.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Capability perspective on business network formation: Empirical evidence from the wastewater treatment industry
|
[
"Water industry",
"Water treatment",
"Water supply and waste systems",
"Centralized control",
"Decentralized control"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: Practitioners and academics alike increasingly recognize that innovations no longer rely on one single company alone, but rather originate from joint efforts of multiple companies that cooperate in business networks (Chesbourgh, 2003; Moller, 2010). A typical illustration of this is the wastewater treatment industry. Confronted with water scarcity, population growth or shrinkage, re-investment requirements and public budget constraints, along with the emergence of innovations in sanitary markets, the wastewater treatment industry might innovate large-scale on-site wastewater treatment approaches (Guest et al., 2009; Hegger et al., 2007; Larsen et al., 2009). The term on-site wastewater treatment refers to domestic wastewater being cleaned directly in-house in reasonably small wastewater process equipment. The treated wastewater is reused as service water for toilets, washing machines and agriculture; in some cases, even as drinking water. The notion of large-scale refers to an on-site system being installed in every household instead of there being one sewage system, with a wastewater plant planned and built for an urban area comprising a few thousand households.The success of large-scale on-site wastewater treatment is rather uncertain, since it depends not only on one single company but also the joint efforts of multiple companies creating a new business network that would innovate, manufacture and maintain these systems. The empirical purpose of this article is to shed some light onto the future development of the wastewater treatment industry. From a theoretical perspective, two well-established theoretical concepts are relied upon, namely business networks and capabilities (Collis, 1994; Hakansson and Ford, 2002). This article investigates the intentional formation of business network for large-scale on-site wastewater treatment based on these theoretical concepts.Our contribution to the theory-building of the formation of business networks is twofold. The first involves existing attention on business networks that have evolved organically being shifted to those that have been developed intentionally. In other words, it is assumed that the business network for large-scale on-site wastewater treatment does not evolve organically, but is driven intentionally. The second contribution refers to combining business networks with the perspective of capabilities (Moller and Svahn, 2003). This is in line with the recent call for a variety of research approaches to be employed on the networks of firms and strategic nets (Moller et al., 2005). The empirical evidence used is derived from multiple sources of data obtained from the European wastewater industry.The article is organized in such a way that the second section develops the conceptual framework whilst the third describes the research methodology. The fourth section, which discusses the results, is followed by a discussion of theoretical and managerial implications.\n2 Conceptual framework: 2.1 Business networks\n3 Research methodology: The research methodology involved two components: carrying out a series of interviews and setting up a focus group. A total of 47 in-depth interviews, between 45 and 90 minutes in duration, were first conducted with industrial and technological experts as well as management teams (e.g. top managers, marketing and sales managers) between the years 2008-2010. The creation of new business networks occurs in a relatively \"unstructured\" manner, so the aim here was to uncover the perceptions of the individual network actors. The following analysis and mapping of these perceptions reveal the interpretation and comprehension of the managers, thus forming a basis for understanding the mechanisms behind the formation of the network (Moller, 2010; Weick, 1979).The interviews were semi-structured around the transformation of the business network; the interviewer was consistent, using the \"narrative approach\" (Miles and Huberman, 1994). Interviewees were asked for additional comments at the end of each interview, which allowed the formations and capabilities of the business networks to emerge inductively from fieldwork. The primary data from the interviews was substantiated by secondary data such as annual reports and press releases from actors in the European wastewater industry, along with documentation and additional information provided during the interviews. All of the data provided during the interviews was transcribed, coded and recoded. The interviewees reviewed their transcripts in order to strengthen and construct validity (Eisenhardt, 1989). The reviews not only provided more detailed background information but also eliminated some of the bias normally associated with interviews.The insight gained from the interviews was deepened through a focus group: the individual interviews reveal a variety of opinions on the formation of business networks, whereas the focus group aims at bringing the variety of opinions towards a common understanding. The focus group, composed of 20 participants from different European companies and research institutes, was brought together for a period of two days. The expectation was that the interaction arising between the research teams and companies within such a focus group would produce rich data and valuable insight into the common understanding of the formation of business networks. The internal high face validity of focus groups is stressed; it is argued here that it is in such settings that people open up and share insight that they may not necessarily reveal in individual interviews. The focus group was, for the most part, moderately structured (Morgan, 1988). The format allowed the participants to give their opinion of the pre-established empirical findings produced in the individual interviews.The structure necessary for providing a common understanding of the formation of business networks was maintained in the focus group (Morgan, 1988). The previous findings were validated in the first session, which lasted for two and a half hours. In the following session, which lasted between two and four hours, participants were asked to describe potential markets for on-site treatment systems, technological roadmaps and the formation of business networks. This provided additional indications of the way in which the actors comprehend both the opportunities and the threats that emerge from changes in the business environments and innovations surfacing in market niches, the way in which they seize these opportunities and threats and, finally, how they expect to reconfigure their operational capabilities.Using an iterative-grounded theory (Orton, 1997) the common understandings of the formation of business networks were analyzed and the capabilities of interest identified; an iterative specification was used of the alignments and barriers between the existing capabilities and those required. The iterative specification of capabilities uses the description given previously of dynamic and operational capabilities across company and network levels. The proposed subdivision into dynamic or operational capabilities at company and network levels, moreover, provided helpful guidance in analyzing the field data in this study. In line with iterative-grounded theory, figures, graphs and tables for each common understanding of the formation of business networks were developed, including tracking the alignments and barriers related to the dynamic and operational capabilities necessary for forming business networks (Miles and Huberman, 1994). Several of the graphs and tables derived are used to substantiate our findings and are presented in the next section.\n4 Results: The results reported in this section do not reveal the personal opinions of the interviewees and workshop participants: the common understanding derived pertaining to the formation of business networks is instead presented. The existing business networks are described first, followed by a concise description of potential scenarios for the formation of business networks. The section ends with a discussion of the alignments and barriers between the capability requirements and the capabilities present in existing business networks.4.1 Description of existing business networks in wastewater treatment systems\n5 Discussion: 5.1 Theoretical implications\n",
"role": "user"
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"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to investigate the intentional formation of business networks in the wastewater industry. It enriches the theory-building of the formation of business networks by drawing on theoretical contributions to business networks and capabilities. The paper describes, assesses and predicts scenarios relevant to the formation of business networks in the wastewater industry.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The research methodology employed is based on multiple sources of data in a multi-method design, interpreting potential scenarios of business networks.\nFindings: - The findings reveal that water scarcity, population growth and economic constrains jeopardize existing business networks in the wastewater industry. Two potential scenarios: re-inventing the centralized system through on-site systems for mass-markets; and expanding on-site systems into mass-markets seem realizable. A comparison of the two scenarios suggests that the first scenario is in a superior position to utilize the business opportunities offered.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Research limitations arise from the qualitative nature of the research undertaken.\nPractical implications: - Capability alignments and barriers suggest that the re-inventing the centralized system through on-site systems for mass-markets scenario, is the most suitable for implementation. The knowledge gained allows managers to outline a specific approach for developing the capabilities required, in order to take advantage of the alignments and overcome the barriers that may exist.\nOriginality/value: - The paper highlights that building theories of business networks may benefit from combining the formation of business networks with dynamic and operational capabilities.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Macroeconomic factors, firm characteristics and financial performance: A study of selected quoted manufacturing firms in Nigeria
|
[
"Nigeria",
"Financial performance",
"Manufacturing firms",
"Firm characteristics",
"Macroeconomic"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Background of the study: Micro and macroeconomic factors affect the performance of a firm. Microeconomic factors exist within the company and under the control of management; they include product, organizational culture, leadership, manufacturing (quality), demand and factors of production (Broadstock et al., 2011; Adidu and Olanye, 2006). Macroeconomic factors exist outside the company and not under the control of management; they include social, environmental, political conditions, suppliers, competitors, government regulations and policies (Adidu and Olanye, 2006). Key economic factors include the Consumer Price Index (CPI), unemployment, gross domestic product (GDP), stock market index, corporate tax rate and interest rates (World Bank Group, 2015; Broadstock et al., 2011). These factors (i.e. macro) can pose a positive or negative threat to the performance of a firm. While micro factors are within the control of management, the macro factors are beyond the control of management (Dioha et al., 2018).\n2. Statement of the problem: Firms make several operational and strategic decisions which are usually moderated by the macroeconomic environment; these include financing decision, investing decision and operational decision (Owolabi, 2017). Thus, performance is often gauged from stability in the macro economy, such as exchange rate and inflation rate fluctuations, the CPI, level of government expenditure, interest rates, among others. However, macroeconomic volatility is much higher in developing countries than developed ones (Owolabi, 2017). For instance, the Nigerian economy has shown volatility in exchange rate, inflation, interest rate, among several others (Agu et al., 2014; Ogbole et al., 2011). Analysts opine that growth in the manufacturing sector is hindered negatively from high lending rates, which invariably is responsible for high cost of production (Rasheed, 2010).\n3. Objective of the study: The main objective of the study is to explore the interrelationship between macroeconomic factors, firm characteristics and financial performance of quoted manufacturing firms in Nigeria. The study intends to achieve the following specific objectives:\n4. Review of related literature: 4.1 Conceptual framework\n5. Methodology: 5.1 Research design\n6. Data analysis: 6.1 Descriptive statistics and model results\n7. Conclusion and recommendations: 7.1 Conclusion\n",
"role": "user"
},
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"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the interrelationship between macroeconomic factors, firm characteristics and financial performance of quoted manufacturing firms in Nigeria. Specifically, the study investigates the effect of interest rate, inflation rate, exchange rate and the gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate, while the firm characteristics were size, leverage and liquidity. The dependent variable financial performance is measured as return on assets (ROA).\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study used the ex post facto research design. The population comprised all quoted manufacturing firms on the Nigerian Stock Exchange. The sample was restricted to companies in the consumer goods sector, selected using non-probability sampling method. The study used multiple linear regression as the method of validating the hypotheses.\nFindings: The study finds no significant effect for interest rate and exchange rate, but a significant effect for inflation rate and GDP growth rate on ROA. Second, the firm characteristics showed that firm size, leverage and liquidity were significant.\nPractical implications: The study has implications for regulators and policy makers in formulating policy decisions. In addition, managers may better understand the interplay between macroeconomic factors, firm characteristics and profitability of firms.\nOriginality/value: Few studies have addressed the interplay of macroeconomic factors and firm characteristics in determining the profitability of manufacturing firms in the country and developing countries in general.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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The evolution of services marketing, hospitality marketing and building the constituency model for hospitality marketing
|
[
"Hospitality services",
"Hospitality education",
"Services marketing"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Hospitality researchers are constantly involved with reviewing past research efforts and suggesting future research directions. Categorizing and synthesizing extant research is the first step towards integrating research endeavors and allowing new bodies of research to be constructed (Runyan and Droge, 2008). The hospitality industry is one of the world's largest in terms of global revenue and employment opportunities (Statista, 2014). While hospitality is a type of service, hospitality is unique enough to warrant its own field of study. Despite some evidence as to the importance of services marketing in the context of hospitality curriculums (Solnet et al., 2010), very little research exists that aims to better use the content of services in hospitality management and education (Solnet, 2012). It is argued that academics jump too readily into hospitality as merely a form of services marketing, with little consideration for the true relevance and implications of the concept of hospitality to the international hospitality industry (Hemmington, 2007). There is a need for more research and conceptualization regarding hospitality and marketing research (Morosan et al., 2014). It is therefore important to examine how services marketing research, which is evolving at a far greater pace, can inform hospitality marketing research. The dearth of domain specific hospitality marketing theory is both evidence and cause of an increasing disconnect between marketing research and the overall framework of hospitality marketing research (Line and Runyan, 2012).\n2. Evolution of services marketing: The development of service-oriented concepts and models began with Shostack's (1977) seminal article promoting service marketing as an acceptable field of research that separated it from product-based marketing. In other words, there was the development of semi-controllable factors of people (employees, customers), physical evidence (facility, uniforms, equipment) and process (flow of activities, level of customer involvement), which were said to differentiate products from services marketing. This then led to the identification of the four characteristics of services: intangibility, heterogeneity, inseparability and perishability (Fisk et al., 1993). The seminal articles \"Building a New Academic Field: The Case of Services Marketing\" (Berry and Parasuraman, 1993) and \"Tracking the Evolution of the Services Marketing Literature\" (Fisk et al., 1993) were the first to officially recognize \"services marketing\" as a discipline.\n3. Evolution of hospitality marketing: Despite the connection between hospitality marketing and service marketing, to date, there is no prior research that integrates service concepts, theories and principles into the hospitality literature (Kandampully et al., 2014). Hospitality researchers face the fundamental problem of how the epistemological aspects of the field can be developed and strengthened as hospitality has been difficult to define (Taylor and Edgar, 1996). An early definition of hospitality refers to the relationship between guest and host, the interactivity between guest and host, the blend of tangible and intangible factors and the host provides for the guests security, psychological and physiological comfort (King, 1995). More recently, hospitality was defined as a contemporaneous human exchange, which is voluntarily entered into, designed to enhance the mutual wellbeing of the parties concerned through the provision of accommodation, food and drink (Brotherton, 1999). Hospitality was further defined by Pizam and Shani (2009) as four approaches:\n4. Hospitality pedagogy: Over the past few decades, the hospitality domain has spawned into journals and research consortia. A knowledge domain is a particular field of study that creates a common ground and a sense of development of a common identity by affirming its purpose and value to members and stakeholders (Wenger et al., 2002). The evolution of the hospitality domain is considered a major contribution to the knowledge, advancement and distinction as a field (Jogaratnam et al., 2005). Hospitality is a field and scholars impact and shape the research and practice in the hospitality industry (Hu and Racherla, 2008). In addition, academia is a major driving force in setting the direction of hospitality as a field. The core functions of academics to the hospitality field are to facilitate knowledge in the field and to provide ideas for innovations through research and consulting (Ottenbacher et al., 2009).\n5. Constituency model for hospitality marketing: Based on an extensive literature review and examination of textbook content, there is a gap between the content that is discussed in hospitality marketing and services marketing. Most notably, hospitality marketing has far less content that focuses on interactional and internal marketing elements. Therefore, using the same lines of reasoning that led to the development of the services marketing triangle, the current research offers the constituency model of hospitality marketing (Figure 2).\n6. Internal marketing: Internal marketing is vital in the hospitality industry (Akroush et al., 2013) as firms implement the marketing concept through frontline employees (Donavan et al., 2004). Internal marketing is a set of employee-friendly managerial behaviors that have internal and external consequences (Harrison-Walker, 2001) where human resource polices with marketing can have beneficial impacts on employee behaviors, attitudes and organizational outcomes (Bansal et al., 2001). In other words, internal marketing involves research, communication and responses between levels of management and line level employees (Lings, 2004). The human element in hospitality is critical to organizational performance. Therefore, the academic literature needs to better operationalize the relatedness of human resources, internal marketing and strategy (Kusluvan et al., 2010). Hospitality organizations that embrace internal marketing practices can have greater competitive advantage, profits and market share (O'Reilly and Pfeffer, 2000). Only recently has internal marketing and branding gained importance for both academics and practitioners in the hospitality industry (Erkmen and Hancer, 2015). As such, the planning, implementation and control of the internal marketing activities may be important in providing a hospitality firm with competitive advantage.\n7. Interactional marketing: A key tenant of hospitality is the provision of friendly and generous hospitality (Teng, 2011). Interactional marketing happens between the employees and the clients (Gronroos, 1996) with a particular focus on interactivity, connectively, and ongoing relationships (Vargo and Lusch, 2004). As Brotherton (1999) details, the emphasis on the human exchange element is particularly relevant to the distinction of the hospitality sector (Kandampully et al., 2014). As the main distinctive characteristic of hospitality is the interactional relationship (Lashley, 2008; Hemmington, 2007) to gain competitive advantage, frontline employees can be used as operant resources to co-create customer experiences (Shaw et al., 2011). It is therefore critical to understand the competencies required by frontline hospitality employees for effective guest engagement (Bharwani and Jauhari, 2013). In other words, frontline employees should develop a level of engagement with the role of host and with the guest that goes beyond what is traditional for the service sector (Baum, 2006). In addition, with the acceptance and widespread use of technology, the internet and social media, firms also need to consider information technology in terms of customer interactions (Kandampully et al., 2015). And while interactions are a key component for hospitality research, interactional marketing is noticeable missing from hospitality marketing models and textbooks. In a sampling of service marketing textbooks, interactional elements occurred on 925 pages compared with only 54 pages in hospitality textbooks.\n8. External marketing: Anything that communicates to the customer before or after the service delivery can be viewed as part of the external marketing function (Zeithaml and Bitner, 1996). External marketing involves blending integrated marketing communication elements (e.g. advertising, public relations and social media initiatives) in a mutually reinforcing fashion. As previously stated, a fundamental difference between services marketing and hospitality marketing is the needs of the customer (Hemmington, 2007) where the experiences created by management and frontline providers lie at the heart of hospitality (Teng, 2011).\n9. Theoretical implications: The hospitality industry is one of the largest revenue generators in the world, one of the largest employers in the world and has dedicated journals and an increasing number of hospitality specific academic programs. As such, it is important to examine how services marketing can inform hospitality marketing, research and pedagogy. Very little research reviews and integrates the services marketing theories and principles into the hospitality literature (Kandampully et al., 2014). The lack of hospitality specific marketing theory was the impetus for developing the constituency model especially given the call for this type of research. Many of the hospitality marketing textbooks focus largely on external marketing concepts and slight over the interactional and internal marketing functions. However, hospitality management can differ from other services in the high amount of hospitableness and the high proportion of frontline employee interactions that require genuine care and hospitableness. The literature supports that given the high human and hospitable component that characterizes the hospitality industry that internal and interactional marketing components need to be incorporated more clearly into the hospitality marketing literature.\n10. Practical implications: The development of the constituency model possesses managerial relevance, as it more representatively encompasses hospitality marketing theory and practice. As such, it seeks to be useful to the constituents of firms, management, and employees in detailing the components involved with hospitality marketing: external, interactional and internal marketing combined with the planning, implementation and control functions. Hospitality specific examples and explanations of each component are offered that may provide useful to managers in structuring their internal and interactional marketing components based on their specific target markets. From a pedagogical perspective, the constituency model provides a relevant and responsive framework that can better prepare students as managers and provides a theoretical framework in which to gain long-term value through the educational process. To reiterate, the purpose of this article is not to be critical of current hospitality marketing literature or current hospitality marketing pedagogy, but rather to offer the constituency model that more closely encompasses the dominant thought in services marketing and reflects the distinctiveness of hospitality by more thoroughly incorporating the internal and interactional marketing components. The extant body of services marketing literature has a much greater focus on interactional and internal marketing topics than does the current body of hospitality marketing literature. Due to the heavy human component of hospitality offerings, the employees are often the most critical marketing tool in most (if not all) hospitality operations. The hospitality literature does contain some very good studies related to the use of employees as marketing tools, but such articles are often not considered marketing studies under the current dominant paradigm in our field. Perhaps a paradigm shift is warranted?\n11. Limitations and future research: Regarding pedagogy, as with any academic course, there will always be a trade-off between breadth and depth of topic coverage. Through the most recent literature reviews (Dev et al., 2010; Line and Runyan, 2012; Morosan et al., 2014), the hospitality literature and textbooks focus much more of their content on external marketing. Services marketing courses typically provide substantive coverage of internal and interactional concepts, but interestingly, these concepts are more germane to the hospitality industry than most other service sectors. With this trade-off in mind, hospitality educators are encouraged to consider greater coverage of internal and interactional marketing topics given that entry-level management positions encompass more of these functions than external marketing functions. This is not to say that one course can necessarily encapsulate all the interactional, internal and external hospitality marketing components, but rather to encourage discussion and improvement in pedagogy by refining the contents to more accurately reflect the specifics of hospitable, interactional service between the guest and the frontline service provider.\n12. Conclusion: Based upon the gap between services marketing and hospitality marketing literature and models, this research sought to build a new model for hospitality marketing. The constituency model of hospitality marketing conceptualizes hospitality marketing activities as internal, interactional and external. In addition, each activity incorporates the functions of planning, implementation and control. We hope this model provides benefit to hospitality researchers in theory development, students and academics in hospitality pedagogy and to practitioners in the hospitality industry.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to synthesize the services marketing and hospitality marketing literature, identify a gap in hospitality specific marketing models and develop the constituency model for hospitality marketing.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study is a research through extensive review of relevant literature in hospitality marketing and services marketing.\nFindings: This paper presents the constituency model of hospitality marketing which conceptualizes hospitality marketing activities as being predominately either external marketing (links between management and target market segments), interactional marketing (links between frontline providers and target market segments) or internal marketing (links between management and frontline providers). According to this model, each of these three areas has planning, implementation and control functions.\nResearch limitations/implications: Builds upon the hospitality literature by presenting the constituency model.\nPractical implications: Practitioners, marketers and academics in the field of hospitality will find this useful in guiding the future growth of hospitality marketing literature and related pedagogy. The aim of this paper is to stimulate dialogue regarding the dominant paradigm in the field.\nOriginality/value: This research examines the hospitality and services marketing and presents a new model for hospitality marketing.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
CGIJ review
|
[
"Clinical effectiveness",
"Continuous quality improvement",
"Clinical error",
"Governance structures",
"Human factors",
"Safety and clinical error"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nDanger! Healthcare professionals at work!: Primum non nocere, to do no harm, has long been considered the basis of all medical ethics. Physicians and other health professionals must strive to do good, or act with beneficence, but above all they must act with non-maleficence, or in a way that will do no harm to patients.\nUsing audit to improve outcomes of emergency surgery: Emergency surgery is inherently risky. The healthcare problems requiring immediate surgical intervention are likely to be life threatening. Therefore, surgery is often an immediate attempt at a life-saving procedure that may or may not be successful. No wonder that 80 per cent of all surgical fatalities occur among patients undergoing emergency operations.\nThe handwriting is on the wall for handwritten notes: Doctors are often renowned for their illegible scrawls, which may be the reason prescriptions are now printed rather than hand-written. However, illegible writing continues to be an issue in operation notes. These, commonly referred to as \"op notes,\" are written by the surgeon to provide legal documentation about the surgery and to instruct medical and nursing staff about postoperative care. Precise written information about operative procedures, drugs administered, blood loss, timing or difficulty of different stages of the procedure and materials and methods used to close incisions are all vital pieces of information required for the on-going care of postoperative patients.\nCatching the black dog early: Winston Churchill famously spoke of his lifelong depression as the \"black dog\". A modern analysis of his writing and comments of his contemporaries provide a tentative diagnosis of bi-polar disorder. However some historians believe that the black dog may have enabled Churchill to see the reality of approaching conflict at a time when the British government was advocating for compromise. His understanding that even the darkest days do not last forever may have enabled him to encourage the British people to embrace hope in the midst of war.\nPlus ca change: In 1998 the Bristol Enquiry was commissioned to investigate appalling instances of poor governance at Bristol Royal Infirmary in the 1980s and 1990s. Reports were written and lessons learned and we all breathed a sigh of relief and thought \"never again\". However, the Francis report has once again drawn the nation's attention to poor practices during the first decades of the twenty-first century at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust. Similarities between the findings of the two reports include the exposure of a culture of secrecy and defensiveness where poor care, even appallingly poor care became institutionalised and began to be seen as \"the norm\".\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this review is to enable readers of the journal to gain a quick over-view of articles published in this issue.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A review of articles published within this issue of CGIJ with added commentary.\nFindings: Clinical governance continues to be an important issue in contemporary healthcare and the concept is being applied to many different facets of healthcare provision.\nOriginality/value: The originality value is that CGIJ is the only Emerald journal containing this type of review section.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Disclosure of the Laffer economic effect in property valuations to fair value
|
[
"Laffer curve",
"Property valuation",
"Fair value",
"Deferred income tax",
"Optimal taxation rate",
"Whole life costing"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: A crucial question in public finance is the optimal taxation rate that maximizes revenue (the arithmetic effect) and does not function as the threshold for appropriate economic growth (the economic effect). Laffer (2004) was the first to discuss the idea of two effects of tax rates on revenue: the arithmetic effect and the economic effect. This argument suggests that reduced tax rate policies provide reduced tax revenues, but the physical capital remaining in the market has a positive impact on economic growth with a knock-on effect on tax revenue. In the same manner, Ireland (1994) suggested that tax cuts might produce state deficits in the short term, but in the long term, the aggregate output of this tax decrease enhances welfare, and consequently, the tax base is extended. The bell-shaped representation of the Laffer curve indicates that there are two tax ratios, which produce the same tax revenue, and a peak, where the revenue outcome is maximized. Questions arise about whether this simple analysis of the tax effect on the economy has a basis in real economic conditions and whether the Laffer curve effect occurs in different taxation policies.\nA property investment model and taxation: In this paper, we consider a one-sector economy, a housing market that consumes and produces physical capital. The housing market consists of two integrated markets, existing properties and Poterba's et al. (1991) flow of new property assets. To preserve equilibrium, the housing returns must be the same as for other assets, while the same is considered for an individual property:(1)\nIncome tax, property tax, and deferred tax liability: Tax authorities use the net cash flow results to estimate the tax payable to the state. When an asset is acquired the initial cash flow is usually negative. If this investment fails to deliver profits, the original negative cash flow might not be recovered. However, the state will continue to calculate a payable tax based on positive net cash flow for each period. On the other hand, company reports periodic results based on net profit or accrual basis, which is different than the net cash flow.\nTax revenue in an asset model: In this section, a simulation of the hypothetical acquisition of an asset at time t with a lifespan of 50 years and the terminal value, which is 10 percent of the acquisition price net any acquisition cost, is illustrated. For simplicity, the asset has stable maintenance and operation costs during the lifespan of the asset. In the same manner, the revenues from the asset remain stable during the operation period, in order to maintain an unbiased tax effect. The asset is completely financed with equity. To calculate the cost of equity, the risk premium is set at 6 percent, and the risk-free rate is set at 2 percent. The cost of debt during the same period is calculated from a 3 percent credit spread and 4 percent interest. Finally, the growth rate is set at 10 percent and inflation at 2 percent.\nConclusion: This research examined income and property taxation under the fair value principle and a deferred income tax. Part of the taxable income of the asset is deferred for future use, based on IAS temporary differences reported between taxable cash flow and profit. To calculate the property tax, the carrying amount of the asset is used as a taxable base. Following the proposed step-by-step procedure, the disclosure standards encapsulate the economic effect of variations in taxation. Tax revenues from alternating income tax ratios follow the Laffer curve principle. High income tax rates re-class the deferred income tax from liabilities to assets, which lowers the taxation revenue in the long run. The results of the income tax policies have a long-term profile and yield through the maturity of the property asset. However, the property tax has a more straightforward effect on tax revenues. Therefore, the optimal rate for the income tax is lower when a property tax is present. The property tax can be used as an alternative to the income tax but not the opposite. A mixture of both taxes provides the best results, but the property tax is more efficient in the short run, whereas the alterations in the income tax are visible in the long run.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to study the effect of income and property taxes on property assets through the application of fair value accounting and deferred income tax standards.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This approach is based on the whole life costing model that accounts for the initial expenses, operation and maintenance costs, future revenues, and residual value.\nFindings: Formulating a step-by-step accounting procedure based on fair valuation and temporary differences in taxation, this paper shows the existence of the Laffer curve and thus elucidates the economic effect of the taxes and fully discloses the asset's fair value. The optimal taxation rate is lower when a property tax and an income tax are both present, as the the marginal gain from both taxes is constantly decreasing, due to the changes in the fair value of the asset, and even has a negative effect in the case of the income tax.\nPractical implications: Accounting techniques, which combine market-based assumptions, financial valuation techniques based on discounted fair value models, and standard International Financial Reporting Standards disclosures, prove to be an unbiased proxy for the optimal taxation rate.\nOriginality/value: This study demonstrates a practical tool for policy makers who are trying to define macroeconomic policies on property taxation. Moreover, this approach can be used as an evaluation model for individual investors who wish to measure the future prospects from a property investment under taxation uncertainties.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Recommendations for supplier innovation evaluation from literature and practice
|
[
"Innovation",
"Purchasing",
"Case study"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Suppliers are increasingly regarded as initiators of innovation (Klioutch and Leker, 2011) and are an important source of product and process innovation (Azadegan and Dooley, 2010). By means of supplier innovation, companies can improve cost, quality, and timeliness of their products (Azadegan et al., 2008). Suppliers are a huge source of innovation, mostly associated with comparatively low risk and faster payoffs (Lynch and Rogers, 2007). According to a survey of the consultancy Ernst\n2. Literature review: In the following the term supplier innovation is defined. Afterward the state of research about supplier innovation evaluation, related evaluation literature, and recommendations about supplier innovation evaluation in literature are presented.\n3. Case study: In the following, supplier innovation evaluation is presented from a practical perspective. First, the research methodology of the case study is introduced. Second, the identified company approaches and a cross-company comparison are presented.\n4. Conceptual findings: After the examination of supplier innovation evaluation from a practical perspective, our results are discussed in relation to the theoretical aspects of the evaluation situation as well as the evaluation and selection process in order to provide recommendations. Specifically, a systematic approach with defined qualitative criteria and methods within a pre-selection is missing in practice.\n5. Discussion and implications: Based on our results, we discuss the evaluation procedure for supplier innovation evaluation to highlight necessary actions. Furthermore, we present some managerial and theoretical implications.\n6. Conclusion and outlook: This paper focusses on supplier innovation evaluation. For this purpose, the topic has been examined from an empirical and theoretical perspective. Recommendations for supplier innovation evaluation have been developed. The research provides a structured insight into the special situation of supplier innovation evaluation. It is useful to assess the advantageousness of relevant supplier innovation in relation to the old supplier product or process before realization. Alternative supplier innovations should be considered if they exist. We suggest creating an interdisciplinary evaluation team depending on the innovation. Therefore, qualitative and quantitative evaluation criteria have to be determined. On the one hand, innovation criteria should be considered which take the subproduct character into account. On the other hand, companies should capture the consequences of a supplier innovation by means of supplier evaluation criteria in order to consider the external source of innovation. Decisions should be made on the basis of results of the applied innovation evaluation methods. A pre-selection consisting of qualitative and semi-quantitative methods should be conducted to handle a higher number of supplier innovations and to consider both qualitative and quantitative criteria. Furthermore, a detailed selection with profitability analysis should be applied.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Companies have to assess the benefit of supplier innovation before realization. The specific situation of supplier innovation differs from conventional innovation evaluation because a supplier innovation refers to a subproduct for which the supplier is responsible. To date, supplier innovation evaluation has not been comprehensively discussed in the literature. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to focus on how supplier innovation should be evaluated.\nDesign/methodology/approach: For this purpose, a case study based on expert interviews has been conducted to identify how supplier innovation is evaluated in practice. On the basis of the empirical findings the specific situation of supplier innovation is discussed in relation to theoretical basics about the object, objective, time, reference, person, recipient, criteria, and methods of evaluation as well as the evaluation and selection process.\nFindings: Results are recommendations for the special situation of supplier innovation evaluation before their realization in the purchasing company.\nResearch limitations/implications: Based on the recommendations, a systematic and comprehensive approach with evaluation criteria and methods should be developed. Future research should address useful evaluation criteria and methods.\nPractical implications: Managers can use the recommendations to evaluate supplier innovation in practice and to establish a systematic evaluation and selection process for supplier innovation.\nOriginality/value: The research findings contribute to the literature about innovation management and supplier management research by providing insights into the special situation of supplier innovation evaluation; in particular, this is the first paper which provides a systematic and comprehensive discussion about supplier innovation evaluation.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Effective performance management of local governments in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan
|
[
"Local government",
"Service delivery",
"Performance management systems",
"E-governance",
"Performance management in developing countries"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Performance management in public sector is one of the key tenets of \"new public management\" (NPM). Performance management is defined as \"a system that generates performance information through strategic planning and performance measurement routines and that connects this information to decision venues, where, ideally, the information influences a range of possible decisions\" (Moynihan, 2008, p. 5). Effective performance management, therefore, requires measurement, incorporation and use of performance data (Van Dooren et al., 2015, p. 7). Public sector organizations in the developed world have been using performance management systems since at least the 1990s (Williams, 2003). Abundance of literature is also available about such systems in the context of developed countries (Brown, 2005; Mazerolle et al., 2007; Hvidman and Andersen, 2013; Bianchi and Xavier, 2017). There are concerns about the actual impact and efficacy of such systems (Radin, 2006; Frederickson and Frederickson, 2006; Fryer et al., 2009). However, it is still widely accepted that some level of performance management in the public sector especially of local governments is necessary for improving service delivery to the citizens (Berman and Wang, 2001; Melkers and Willoughby, 2005; Ma, 2017).\n2. The performance management framework: 2.1 Organizational setup\n3. Impact of the system: 3.1 Drastic improvement in the quality of polio vaccination campaigns in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa\n4. Discussion: 4.1 Effective use of performance information\n5. Conclusion: In conclusion, in this paper we have discussed a pioneering system of quantified performance management of local governments that has been introduced in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. The system is being used to monitor and effectively manage the performance of all 25 local governments of the province. The focus of this system has been maintained on the management of performance and not just collection of performance data. To achieve this, a multi-pronged strategy has been evolved. First, rigorous analysis of performance data is given prime importance. Then using latest ICTs, the collected data have been directly linked to decision dashboards for local and provincial supervisors facilitating analytical decision making. Furthermore, the data have also been used to ensure the effective accountability of performance of government officials.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Effective performance management of local governments is essential for efficient service delivery to the citizens. This is especially true for developing countries where performance management of public sector is severely lacking. The purpose of this paper is to discuss a pioneering and effective performance management framework that has been implemented in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper outlines the design and implementation of the system in light of relevant research work. Latest digital technologies including smartphone applications and social media have been used to make the system effective and responsive to the needs of the citizens and sustainable in the long term.\nFindings: The impact of the system includes a drastic reduction in polio infection cases by 90 percent in the province and the successful completion of one of the biggest afforestation campaigns in the world in recent years. In addition, noteworthy improvements in public health, education and municipal services have also been achieved through this system in a province that has a population of 30.5 m.\nResearch limitations/implications: The paper uses field data to highlight the positive impact of the system which has been operational for more than two years now.\nPractical implications: The strong positive impact of the system supports the case for implementation of similar public sector reforms in other developing countries.\nSocial implications: The implementation of the system has resulted in significant improvements in social sector service delivery.\nOriginality/value: There is very limited literature available on successful performance management reforms in the public sector of the developing world. Therefore, this case study can be a very important resource.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
What does appropriate performance reporting for political decision makers require? Empirical evidence from Switzerland
|
[
"Performance (public administration)",
"Public administration",
"Performance appraisal",
"Reports",
"Switzerland"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: This article focuses on the question of what accounts for appropriate performance reports in the context of the new public management (NPM), and how they can deliver the information to politicians they need. Therefore, the results of an empirical study in Switzerland will be presented. Before that, we will shortly introduce the relevance of performance reporting as a part of the NPM, and for political decision making, followed by a very brief description of the Swiss context. After explaining the research question and design, we will present the empirical results, applying the framework of report recipients, purposes, content, form, and timing. Finally, there is a summary and some conclusions.Performance management and information\nEmpirical analysis of performance reporting requirements in Switzerland: Research question and design\nConclusions: Public organizations need specific information systems (Bretschneider, 1990). Earlier, Fountain et al. (2004) suggested 16 criteria for external reports on performance information. Inter alia, they advocate that performance information \"should be presented at different (layers) of reporting (...) to allow specific users to find the appropriate and desired level of detailed performance information (...). Reported performance information should be aggregated or disaggregated based on the needs and interests of the intended users\" (Fountain et al., 2004, p. 63f.).Results show which essential components of appropriate performance reporting have to be considered in detail: appropriateness of a report depends on who the recipient of the report is, on the institutional purposes pursued, on the reported content, as well as on formal and time-related aspects.Basically, reporting requirements depend only to a small extent on the institutional or functional roles of political decision makers within the performance contracting process. However, a distinction can be made between the members of governments and parliaments. The latter desire comprehensive information, they are more interested in outcomes and willing to invest more time in reading the reports than are members of government. Those require shorter, more focused reports, with essential, not comprehensive information. Furthermore, parliamentarians appreciate an independent audit of the reports, as well as an electronic delivery. Both are in contrast to the government members' opinion.Taking into account distinct roles of the parliament in the performance contracting process, those who are integrated in it co-operatively are more satisfied with the content and desire less detailed information. Parliamentarians who just approve the contracts, are rather unsatisfied and expect a comprehensive coverage, while disliking inter-cantonal agency rankings. Those members of parliaments who are only informed about the contracts are unsatisfied about getting the \"right\" information and their steering opportunities, they are rather sceptical about the applying the reports for output-oriented management.However, some general conclusions can be drawn from the research. Concerning the content side of the reports, they are expected to contain general (strategic) as well as well as detailed (operational) information. Surprisingly, outcome rather than output indicators are demanded, especially by parliamentarians. There is, also, a need for \"early warning indicators\" of long-term threats, and extra-ordinary incidents. An integration with strategic policy planning is welcome, as is a structure of the reports according to the logic of the balanced scorecard.Formally, a homogenous reporting format across government should be realized. Reports are expected to be well visualized and to contain the most relevant indicators. Changes and deviations should be commented. Reports should be printed, additional electronic publication would be accepted. They should not be longer than ten pages and must contain a summary. There can be interpretations, recommendations, but no rankings of agencies. On the other hand, benchmarks would be favoured. However, external revision is considered to be necessary.Regarding time-related aspects, the assumption is confirmed that political decision makers have very little time to deal with the reports. Reporting has to be as up to date as possible. Parliaments demand a one-year or two-year rhythm; governments require annual or even semi-annual reports. If unexpected incidents occur, reporting should take place immediately.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to focus on the question of what accounts for appropriate performance reports in the context of the new public management (NPM), and how they can deliver the information they need to politicians.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The study is based on a survey of members of cantonal and federal members of governments and parliaments, where performance contracting has been introduced; 454 questionnaires answered.\nFindings: - The results of the study reflect the distinct roles of the parliament in the performance contracting process. On the content side of the reports, they are expected to contain general as well as detailed information. Outcome rather than output indicators are demanded, especially by parliamentarians. There is, also, a need for \"early warning indicators\" of long-term threats, and extra-ordinary incidents. Formally, a homogeneous reporting format across government should be realized. Reports are expected to be well visualized and to contain the most relevant indicators. Changes and deviations should be commented on. Reports should be printed, additional electronic publication would be accepted; external revision is considered to be necessary. Regarding time-related aspects, the assumption is confirmed that political decision makers have very little time to deal with the reports. Reporting has to be as up to date as possible. Parliaments demand a one- or two-year rhythm; governments require annual or even semi-annual reports.\nOriginality/value: - Up to now, public management research has addressed the issue of appropriate performance reporting insufficiently, despite the fact that the central concept of outcomes is a political concept. The research question answered in this paper - what the essential components of appropriate performance reports under NPM conditions, and how should they be characterized in order to give politicians the performance information they need, provides some public management research in a Swiss context.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
A case study on adoptive management innovation in China
|
[
"Case study",
"Innovation process",
"Innovation implementation",
"Adoption decision",
"Adoptive management innovation"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Under the conditions of increased global competition, technological change, fast-changing market situations and continuous customer demand for quality services, innovation has been regarded as a main source of competitive advantage and economic growth (Ekvall and Arvonen, 1994; Howell and Higgins, 1990; Tushman and O'Reilly, 2002; Damanpour and Schneider, 2006). As a stream of action involving a series of activities that create and diffuse new useful products, innovation is motivated by opportunities for value creation resulting from novel technologies, new needs, fresh links between existing technologies and needs, or tensions and gaps between various components of current systems (Dahmen, 1970; Hughes, 1983; Schumpeter, 1950). Schumpeter first emphasized the positive impact of innovation on economic development and defined innovation in his famous work The Theory of Economic Development in 1912 as new combinations of new products, new production methods, new forms of organization, new markets, and new sources of supply. Henceforward, innovation research has attracted extensive attention from both scholars and practitioners, which becomes a hot research theme over almost a hundred years.\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Definition of adoptive management innovation\n3. Method: 3.1 The case study\n4. Findings: Figure 1 shows the data structure of our findings. It depicts the two main phases or sub-processes of adoption decision and implementation in the process of adoptive management innovation and their first-order activities or categories (e.g. analyzed symptoms of \"large company disease\", realized the application of 3G and reorganization of the whole telecoms industry, searched for a solution, focused on efficiency management, initiatively evaluated efficiency management, investigated into the causes for low efficiency) and second-order themes (e.g. problems identification, innovation perception, attitude formation, problems diagnoses, innovation revision, proposal evaluation and selection, preparation for implementation, overall implementation, and solidification). This section will discuss the findings by exploring deeply into each phase of the whole efficiency management process that could be assembled into two general and interlinked sub-processes of adoption decision and implementation.\n5. Discussion: 5.1 The framework of adoptive management innovation process\n6. Conclusion: This paper addresses how management practices successfully implemented somewhere else, namely adoptive management innovation, have been introduced into Chinese firms and then effectively implemented, or investigates key activities of the generative mechanism through which an adoptive management innovation occurs. Based on existing literatures on management innovation and the nature of adoptive management innovation, we set up a two-subprocess framework of adoptive management innovation by adopting an exploratory case study on organizational efficiency management innovation of Jiangxi Mobile in China. The findings offer many valuable insights for further research in how to explore the generative mechanism of changes or innovations in special context of China and hold important implications for management practices.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to address how management practices successfully implemented somewhere else, namely adoptive management innovation, have been introduced into Chinese firms and then effectively implemented, or to investigate key activities of the generative mechanism through which an adoptive management innovation occurs.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Since the purpose of management innovation is to utilize organizational resources more efficiently and further their goals, with little intention to pursue differentiation and without any protection from patent, adoptive management innovation has been prevailing around China and even the whole world. Based on the conception of what makes adoptive management innovation unique, this paper attempts to investigate the case of the Organizational Efficiency Management of Jiangxi Mobile in China to identify key activities of adoptive management innovation and develop a two-interlinked-subprocess framework of adoption decision and implementation, aiming to offer suggestions for firms in adopting new management practices.\nFindings: The results indicate that adoption of existing management practices or methods from somewhere else is a more complex and logical process rather than a simple one of knowledge transferring. It needs to integrate existing practices into new organizational context and establish their innovative value during implementation. One core element of the process framework is the emphasis on activities of problem diagnoses and realization of the fitness between management practices adopted and the new organizational context, and another one is the sequence of activities in the whole process.\nResearch limitations/implications: This research is constrained by at least three limitations. First, the authors' findings for the two-subprocess framework of adoptive management innovation need to be further confirmed for more organizations. Second, little attention has been paid to relative advantages of different sequence of activities. Third, when focusing on adoptive management innovation from a process perspective, this research does not address problems such as why some managers pursue innovative opportunities by introducing new practices, how contextual elements, internal elements, and top management teams affect management innovation, or how the performance of adoptive management innovation could be improved in China.\nOriginality/value: The findings offer some valuable insights for further research in how to explore the generative mechanism of organizational changes or innovations in China and hold important implications for management practices.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Development and validation of financial well-being related scales
|
[
"Scale development",
"Consumer credit",
"Indebtedness",
"Financial well-being",
"Financial preparedness for emergency"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: A growing consensus among academic experts and policymakers is that finances are the ultimate measure of success for individuals' overall well-being (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, 2015; Netemeyer et al., 2017). A society that faces financial constraints also faces profound consequences for its overall welfare. The state of living in financial instability, in poverty, or having financial problems has a detrimental impact for single individuals, their families and society collectively. Financial vulnerability reduces cognitive capacity (Mani et al., 2013) and seriously distresses workers' productivity (Brown, 1999). The lack of \"financial well-being\" (FWB) leads individuals to live precariously, affects their economic mobility and may transform a small financial problem into an ongoing financial constraint (Gennetian and Shafir, 2015).\nThe concept and measures of FWB: There have been recent calls for a standardized concept and measures of FWB. FWB is a multifaceted concept that encompasses several dimensions: control over day-to-day, month-to-month finances, the capacity to absorb a financial shock, the capability to meet financial goals and financial freedom (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, 2015). It is defined as \"the perception of being able to sustain current and anticipated desirable living standards and financial freedom\" (Bruggen et al., 2017, p. 229). One of the noteworthy aspects of FWB is that it is not inherently allied to low income only, but to a set of several conditions that any individual should achieve in pursing FWB[1]. Thus, although low-income people may be more susceptible to a lack of FWB, it does not mean that they necessarily lack FWB if they are able to maintain themselves with whatever income they have. On the other hand, even a highly educated and high-income individual may be susceptible to a lack of FWB if an incident renders the individual unable to make ends meet.\nScale development and validation procedure: No studies in the literature have provided scales that could be applied to assess the FWB driver of financial preparedness for emergency and the obstacles to FWB, namely, beliefs of credit limits as additional income and risky indebtedness behaviour. This section describes the procedures for scale development and validation of the three self-reported behavioural measures created for assessing these constructs.\nDiscussion, limitations and future research: FWB is a topic of increasing relevance for academia and society. The proposal of new scales for measuring key elements of FWB is an important contribution to the growing body of literature. Here we conceptually distinguish amongst three constructs (i.e. financial preparedness for emergency, beliefs of credit limit as additional income and risky indebtedness behaviour) and propose three new parsimonious valid and reliable scales that could be used as a complement of financial indicators, both in research and practice, in order to assess the minimum conditions necessary to cope with a financial shock; individuals' mistaken beliefs that credit limits are part of their income; and the risky ways in which individuals act or conduct themselves that can bring on hazardous indebtedness.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to develop valid and reliable scales for assessing a driver and two obstacles potentially related to financial well-being (FWB): financial preparedness for emergency, beliefs of credit limits as additional income and risky indebtedness behaviour.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The scales were developed from scratch across six studies, employing a two-step methodology, which encompassed both qualitative (e.g. focus group, interviews) and quantitative (i.e. online surveys) data collection. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were employed to test and validate the proposed scales.\nFindings: This study provides a set of three parsimonious, self-reported behavioural measures that could be employed in conjunction with objective economic indicators to identify individuals who are financially ill prepared and potential candidates for delinquency. The three proposed scales achieved satisfactory levels of reliability and convergent and discriminant validity.\nResearch limitations/implications: The resulting scales still need to be tested for predictive validity and in different consumer groups. The scales were validated in a single culture population (Brazil, a country that presents extraordinarily high credit card interest rates), and they should be tested cross-culturally in countries with different economic and credit policies.\nOriginality/value: The literature on FWB has traditionally employed objective financial indicators as an attempt to measure the concept of FWB and its elements. Self-reported behavioural measures of such constructs are scant to the point of being non-existent for some elements. This study is the first to offer scales for measuring the elements of financial preparedness for emergency, beliefs of credit limits as additional income and risky indebtedness behaviour.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Benchmarking manufacturing industries based on green practices
|
[
"Structural equation modelling",
"Benchmarking",
"Cluster analysis",
"Confirmatory factor analysis",
"Exploratory factor analysis",
"Green practices"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The initiation of increasing industrialization and globalization has put pressure on Indian organizations to increase the incorporation of green manufacturing (GM) practices in their operations (Govindan et al., 2015). Growing pressure from government and society has also forced the organizations to become more environmentally benign (Singh et al., 2013). Organizations are pursuing many internal programs to reach the goal of environmental reliability of their products, processes and services. GM deals with green principles that are associated to the methods of development for producing products from theoretical design to the final delivery to customers, and finally to the end-of-life disposal, that satisfy environmental standards and customer requirements. Earlier manufacturing organizations viewed GM practices as expansive and economically unfeasible (Madu, 2012). However, now, several organizations have started to view GM as a competitive strategic perspective. More and more organizations view GM implementation as a competitive strategy and are developing GM strategies for their entire supply chain. This integrated perspective where environmental activities are considered throughout the entire supply chain of a product is named as GM. The various terms like environmentally conscious manufacturing (ECM), GM, environmentally benign manufacturing, environmentally responsible manufacturing, clean manufacturing, sustainable production and sustainable manufacturing has emerged during 1987-1997 (Sangwan and Mittal, 2015). The authors have found that there is lot of ambiguity in the use of these terms and proposed that GM must be defined in a simple and general way as designing, manufacturing, delivering and disposing products that have minimum negative impact on environment and society and are economically feasible throughout the entire supply chain including end of life. This definition is used throughout this paper to define the scope of sustainability in manufacturing environment.\n2. Literature review: During last three decades, GM practices have been implemented by the organizations; first because of coercive factors like government regulations and later on to gain competitive advantages. The various factors motivating organizations to adopt GM practices are government regulations, organizational policies, availability of greener technologies, incentives in the form of tax exemptions, competitive advantage, etc. (Mittal and Sangwan, 2014). The traditional financial PMs do not justify the important intangible benefits provided by GM practices (Sangwan, 2006). Therefore, proper PMs derived from organizational objectives and reflecting the non-financial advantages are necessary to provide GM as a substitute option.\n3. Methodology: The initial steps of methodology used in this study are taken from Singh et al. (2013). According to that, first of all performance indicators/variables are identified by literature review and discussion held with practitioners. Next, a questionnaire is developed and at last, data were collected from different sectors of Indian manufacturing industries to validate the performance indicators/variables. Figure 1 shows the outline of the methodological steps followed throughout this paper.\n4. Results and discussion: The results after the implementation of all above method of validity testing (EFA and CFA model), SEM model with hypothesis testing and cluster analysis with benchmarking performance of different sectors and sizes has been shown in this section and discussed from the perspective of Indian manufacturing sector.\n5. Conclusions: This paper develops a statistically reliable and valid model of GM PMs for benchmarking. For this, first of all, 93 variables/indictors for GM have been identified from literature review and discussion with practitioners. These indicators belong to strategic, tactical and operational issues of the organization. To confirm the grouping of indicators and proportion of model, EFA by using ML and PR has been done. In this process, 48 variables were removed and the remaining 45 variables were grouped into seven factors. These seven PM factors were named PRD, COT, EMT, LOD, BFT, VEM, and TMC. CFA and SEM had been done to validate the model. Hypothesis testing affirmed that motivated top management and PRD performance is responsible for good performance of organization in EMT, vendor management, LOD. They are also responsible for the reduction of costs of organization and benefits.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to develop a statistically reliable and valid model of performance measures (PMs) to observe the environmental behavior of different enterprises; second, at benchmarking the enterprises based on their green practices.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A PM model has been proposed using an empirical analysis of manufacturing industry. The developed model has been tested using structural equation modeling technique. The level of green manufacturing (GM) performance in different sectors and sizes of Indian manufacturing industry has been studied and benchmarked using hierarchical cluster analysis with one-way ANOVA.\nFindings: The results indicate that top management commitment and product design are the root PMs for the success of GM practices. It has been found that chemical, automotive, food and pharmaceutical industries are the high performing sectors. It has also been found that large scale enterprises are performing better than medium-sized enterprises which are doing better than small and micro enterprises in GM practices.\nResearch limitations/implications: The indicators/variables in questionnaire are subjective in nature and collected data are from Indian manufacturing organizations only.\nPractical implications: The governments, trade bodies and NGOs can use the proposed model for measurement of green performance of any manufacturing industry. The benchmarking can be used by the different policy influencing and making agencies to develop future policies for the improvement. The industry can also use the benchmarking for its peer performance improvement.\nOriginality/value: The major novelty of the paper is benchmarking the green performance of manufacturing industries based on the different sectors and sizes using empirical investigation. The level of GM performance in different sectors and sizes of industries has been studied and benchmarked using hierarchical cluster analysis with one-way ANOVA.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Old fossils and accounting history
|
[
"Accounting history",
"Accounting historians",
"Accounting research"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nOld fossils and accounting history: Digging up dinosaurs from accounting's pastThose useless, time wasting retro wanderersIn their pursuits, so indulgent to the lastSuch remote unorthodox philosophersHeeded only by others of their same castMere obscure, almost counterfeit \"researchers\"With no merit towards us explaining whyThe accountant exists just to do or dieSoftly, quietly accounting technicistsHistorians comprise your world's explorersSearching beyond the concerns of pragmatistsThey are more than antiquity's admirersFunctioning as our discipline's archivistsBoth as explicators and interpretersStill striving to unearth how we came to doAll those \"modern\" practices held dear by you\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This poem aims to present a satirical critique and a defence of the role of accounting historians.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The approach takes the form of traditional Italian ottava rima poetic form of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. This features eight-line stanzas with six, 11-syllable (hendecasyllable) lines of alternating rhymes, concluding with a rhyming couplet.\nFindings: - The work explores common stereotypes and misconceptions about accounting historians and addresses these by explaining the value of the accounting historian in providing \"insights into accounting's present and future through its past\".\nOriginality/value: - By using a poetic form developed around the time (and place) of the \"birth\" of double entry accounting, there is a resonance of form with theme, given the focus on the endeavours of accounting historians.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Value, profit and risk: accounting and the resource-based view of the firm
|
[
"Resources",
"Risk management",
"Labour",
"Competitive advantage"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: To what extent is strategy framed in accounting terms and what role do accounting numbers and techniques play in setting strategy? In both cases the answer is probably not enough, in view of the potential contribution on offer from accounting generally, and from critical accounting in particular. In recent years, the resource-based view (RBV) of the firm, has achieved widespread dissemination in academic literature and management practice (Acedo et al., 2006). It explains competitive advantage, or delivery of sustained above-normal returns (Peteraf, 1993) or economic profit (Barney, 2001), in terms of firms' bundles of resources (Amit and Schoemaker, 1993; Rumelt, 1984), which are valuable, rare, inimitable and non-substitutable (VRIN) (Barney, 2001, emphasis added). A theory linking asset value and abnormal returns is therefore required. Because the RBV literature has placed these issues at the centre of its agenda, its neglect of the accounting literature all the more surprising.If the strategy literature has neglected accounting, it is also fair to say that accounting has neglected strategy. Where concerned with valuation, accountants often employ theoretical stances at variance with the Neo-classical mainstream strategy literature (Bryer, 1994, 1999; Macve, 1999; Mouck, 1994; Tinker, 1980, 2004; Toms, 2006a, 2009; Toms and Bowman, 2010)[1]. A common approach of critical accounting is to begin with the restrictive assumptions of marginalist Neo-classical economics and argue that they possess logical inconsistencies, for example the tautological approach to asset valuation implied by the Cambridge controversies (Tinker, 1980), privilege interest groups (Tinker et al. 1982), or are not useful because the total social product is either not recognised (Mayston, 1992) or ignored (Milne, 1991), and neglect the social \"essence\" beneath the surface of market relationships (Tinker, 1984, p. 61, 1980, p. 158). As a consequence, much of the critical accounting literature has abandoned economic discourse, including the Classical and Marxian Schools. With limited exceptions, deductive model building has become unfashionable, even though, as will be demonstrated below, it has the potential to overcome some weaknesses of the Neo-classical School and its accounting applications. As a consequence, there are unresolved questions in accounting and strategy. First, what is the nature of value, and a theoretically consistent measure of sustained competitive advantage (SCA)? Second, can an operationalisable theory of risk be developed for the purposes of managerial decision making?In addressing these questions the paper will advance an agenda for strategy, and accounting. It will address them by developing an integrated theory of value, profit, and risk. In section two the relevant literature is reviewed under three headings. First, the salient features of the RBV are analysed. Second classical theories of value are considered. Finally, the accounting literature is discussed, insofar as it reflects the former two aspects. Section three develops a new conceptual framework, linking profit, value and risk as a basis for a theory of SCA. It will be shown how the labour theory of value (LTV) can be extended to include risk and be used to modify the neo-classical capital asset pricing model (CAPM). It will do so by linking both to the underlying labour process. It will demonstrate how profit and asset value can be consistently linked by cost structures. It will show how value creation of value can be differentiated from the rent. In the fourth section, the implications are discussed, first for accounting theory, with particular reference to the Cambridge controversies, and second by comparison with similar approaches in the strategy literature. A final section draws conclusions.\n2. Strategy, value theory and accounting: Strategy and the RBV as a theory of value\n3. Conceptual framework: Theoretical dimensions\n4. Discussion: Implications for accounting theory: the Cambridge controversies revisited\n5. Conclusion: A common theory of value for accounting and strategy is appealing for a number of reasons. First, the strategy literature, and especially the RBV, places emphasis on the role of human capital in the creation of competitive advantage, which at the same time poses problems for accountants in terms of total business and intangible asset valuation. Second, both disciplines have an interest in understanding the meaning of normal profit and its adjustment for risk where it impacts on performance or investment decisions. Third, both disciplines are interested in how, once made, profits are appropriated. A situation where a firm is more efficient than competitors, but whose surplus is appropriated by insiders rather than distributed to shareholders would not necessarily meet the strategists' understanding of SCA. Accountants similarly are concerned with controls which prevent misappropriation of resources that ultimately are shareholders' property. Thus, a theory of value also needs to be one of accountability.Accordingly, the theory developed above has attempted to integrate these elements to the mutual benefit of accounting and strategy. The contribution of the paper is a theory of SCA, asset valuation and accountability using a consistent theory of value. The argument above has accepted the main assumptions of the RBV. It has also argued for the inclusion of labour process theory, asymmetric information, extension of Ricardian rent using Marx's two categories of differential rent, and the analysis of risk, in the proposed RVRR. The combination of these elements shows that a resource-based theory must unite the process and content elements of strategy, through simultaneous interaction of labour management, the determinants of SCA and relations with capital markets. It has shown that by utilising the RVRR as a substitute for the CAPM, so that the employment of human resource creates value, but the value creation process is itself risky from the perspective of the monitoring employer and outside investor, a consistent theory of value can be applied to explain SCA. The theory also explains that the roots of competitive advantage lie in the labour process, but with the corollary that maximizing the associated investment in tacit knowledge and associated difficult to replicate assets is potentially inconsistent with maximizing the value of shareholder's investments. Without the links, advocated above, to LTV, labour process theory and mechanisms of accountability, the RBV remains merely a view and not a theory, because it lacks a consistent basis for asset valuation and cannot explain systematic variations in profit.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to argue that the principal components of the Resource-Based View (RBV) as a theory of sustained competitive advantage are not a sufficient basis for a complete and consistent theory of firm behaviour. Two missing elements are value theory and accountability mechanisms.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper proposes a link between value theory and accountability using a Resource Value-Resource Risk perspective as an alternative to the Capital Asset Pricing Model. The link operates first from the labour process, where value is created but is imperfectly observable by intra-firm mechanisms of organizational control and outside governance arrangements without incurring monitoring costs. Second, it operates through contractual arrangements which impose fixed cost structures on activities with variable revenues.\nFindings: - The paper thereby explains how value originates in risky and difficult to monitor productive processes and is transmitted as rents to organizational and capital market constituents. It then reviews recent contributions to the RBV, arguing that the proposed new approach overcomes gaps inherent in the alternatives, and thus offers a more complete and integrated view of firm behaviour.\nOriginality/value: - The RBV can become a coherent theory of firm behaviour, if it adopts and can integrate the labour theory of value, associated measures of risk arising from the labour process and mechanisms of accountability.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Disaster management: findings from a systematic review
|
[
"Disasters",
"Risk management",
"Defence sector"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The literature about disaster management is becoming wide and more and more spread on different journals. Even a cursory review of literature would identify that scholars of disaster management claim different theoretical foundations and argue different theoretical frameworks. The definition of disaster management is also fuzzy and disagreed on.For the purposes of the present literature review, disaster management has been defined as the body of policy and administrative decisions, the operational activities, the actors and technologies that pertain to the various stages of a disaster at all levels.The present paper aims to contribute to the existing knowledge on disaster management by reviewing its literature, through a systematic review methodology that has been used in the medical sciences over the last 15 years (Tranfield et al., 2002). This research does not focus on a specific hazard or issue related to disaster management, but aims to define the state of the art of the discipline. In this view, the paper will present both the descriptive analysis and the thematic analysis. The structure of the paper is as follows: first, the literature review methodology is presented; second, the descriptive findings are described; third, a state of the art about disaster management is argued through content analysis. Finally, conclusions about the findings, limitations found during the research, and issues for further research are presented.\n2. Methodology: A systematic review differs radically from the traditional narrative literature reviews. Narrative reviews often lack rigour, are susceptible to researchers' bias (Mulrow, 1994) and can lack a means for making sense of what the collection of studies reviewed is saying. Researchers in medical sciences would claim that narrative reviews have a modest level of evidence and they are not a genuine piece of investigatory science. On the contrary a systematic review is a research methodology characterised as being a pragmatic, transparent, and reproducible manner of analysing existing literature (Cook et al., 1997; Cooper, 1998). In fact it clearly specifies how the researcher carried on the review, what type of records (documents, papers, books, etc.) he/she reviewed, and where those records were found. This allows other researchers to fully replicate the review. The main goal of a systematic review is to make sense of a mass of often contradictory evidence in order to help both academics and practitioners to improve their decision-making and practice, narrowing the knowing-doing gap that exists between research and practice.A systematic review (Tranfield et al., 2002) involves five stages:1. planning the review;2. identifying and evaluating studies;3. extracting and synthesising data;4. reporting descriptive and thematic findings; and5. utilising the findings in order to inform research and practice.Stages (1), (2) and (3) are briefly presented in this paragraph; the descriptive and thematic findings obtained in stage (4) and the content of stage (5) are discussed in the following sections.Stage (1), planning of the review, includes different phases:1. the constitution of a panel of experts that will inform the process and assess the findings;2. the mapping of the field of investigation in order to identify the bodies of literature relevant to the topic; and3. the formalisation of a review protocol that will enable other researchers to replicate the review.For the present Systematic Review, in phase (1) faculty members of Politecnico di Milano who are involved in the PROMETEO project[1] and practitioners from civil defence and civil protection were selected as review panel. Regarding phase (2), the map of the disaster management field was defined with the help of the review panel and the following areas of investigation were identified:1. the theoretical framework used in disaster management;2. phases of the general process of disaster management;3. actors involved and responsibilities within disaster management; and4. technology and information as resources for disaster management.This map of the field has had a critical role during the review process, since it has facilitated the identification of those studies that were out of or within the scope of the topic being investigated. The review protocol developed in stage (3) detailed how the literature review should be conducted by the research team. The protocol should include the different sources that are going to be used for identifying relevant studies, the intended search strategy, the specific criteria for including and excluding studies, the criteria for assessing the quality of the studies selected, and any other information that would allow someone else to reproduce the review. For the purpose of the present Systematic Review the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) electronic database was the main source for identifying studies on disaster management and only published peer-reviewed papers were used as documents, excluding books and un-published papers or reports. The SSCI database allowed above all the identification of a list of journals dealing with disaster management. The full papers were downloaded from CILEA and EBSCO databases or directly from the web site of the journal.For the selection of relevant studies, the research team used two different sets of criteria: one set of inclusion and exclusion criteria (Table I); and another set of quality assessment criteria (based on methodology or research design, contribution to theory or implication for practise, generalisability of findings). The information collected from each selected study was:* Reference details, like as author(s), journal name, year, etc.* Methodology, distinguishing between theoretical or empirical.* Country, which refers either to the country where the case study was developed in the case of empirical study or to the country where the author is affiliated in the case of theoretical study.* Perspective, which could be any of the areas identified during the mapping the field exercise.Once the search process has been carried out and the relevant studies have been selected, two separate analyses of the information obtained can be produced, namely: a descriptive and a thematic analysis. The descriptive analysis helps to clarify the main characteristics of the field that is under investigation (methodologies used, classification of countries and evolution of the key words, etc.). The thematic analysis consists on synthesising the main outcomes extracted from the literature and its main purpose is to inform future research and practice.\n3. Descriptive analysis: The descriptive analysis aims at providing an overview of the characteristics of the field. The papers from the systematic review are collected in Table II together with their peculiarities. In detail the papers are recorded by:* The year of publication within the period 1980-2006.* The country of origin according to the affiliation of the first author.* The focus of the paper according to four clusters: theoretical framework; phases of disaster management process; actors involved into the process; and technology and information.* The phases of the disaster management process that were investigated within the paper.In the following each issue is briefly discussed.Figure 1 shows the number of papers that were included according to the inclusion criteria within the period 1980-2006. The evolution clarifies that disaster management is a relatively recent issue and that the large part of studies were published within the period 1997-2005. The figure related to year 2006 is partial because the systematic review terminated on June 2006. The highest number of publications was in the year 2003 and after that year the number decreases quickly. Probably authors were focusing to other issues about civil defence. It would be relevant to clarify this argument reviewing the table of content of the more relevant journals about disaster management after 2003.Figure 2 shows the provenience of the selected papers according to the country of affiliation of the first author. This is relevant in order to understand how heterogeneous are the cultural backgrounds of the studies and the authors. The results are peculiar and nevertheless not surprising; they allow the gathering of at least two conclusions. First, the large part of studies come from the USA and the European Union (EU). Less research comes from Asia despite the tremendous attention that countries such as Japan and India pay to disaster management because of the high frequency and magnitude of earthquake and tsunami. Second, the authors could prefer to share the main results of their investigations with a national audience preferring national journals instead of international ones. This could be relevant in terms of knowledge sharing and cross-fertilisation about disaster management across the different countries. This argument is strengthened by the lack of papers that discuss knowledge management or performance management.Figure 3 shows the classification of the included papers according to the content. The classification is based on four different clusters of content: theoretical framework; phases of disaster management process; actors involved into the process; and technology and information. The findings clarify that the large proportion of papers deal with the phases of the disaster management process, formalising different sequence (please, see the next thematic analysis). Relevant attention was paid also to the discussion about which are the actors who are involved in the disaster management network and what role they should play. One-third of the selected papers deal with issues that are related to the information management process and the information and communication technologies that should be adopted to improve actual performance. Fewer papers cope with the design of a theoretical framework for the disaster management discipline.Figure 4 shows which phases of the disaster management process - that is, according to Figure 3 the most frequent content of selected papers - are more investigated. The results show that the phases related to strategy and response got more attention than the others. It is relevant to be precise that the phase of learning received modest attention. This result should be connected to the lack of specific studies about performance management and knowledge management. The risk is that the network of actors that is responsible for disaster management does not learn from the past practice and does not improve time after time. Surely further research on these issues should be recommended.\n4. Thematic analysis: The thematic analysis is as follows: review of the theoretical framework; phases of the process of disaster management; actors involved and responsibilities; and technology and information as resources for disaster management. The previous structure meets the map of the field came from the panel of experts.4.1. Theoretical framework\n5. Conclusions: The systematic review of the literature has revealed the peculiarities and the gaps in the knowledge on disaster management and number of subject areas that could be researched further. In particular the combination of a descriptive and thematic analysis informed the \"state of the art\" and suggested some implications for both the scholars and the practitioners who operate in the field of disaster management. For instance the descriptive analysis has suggested some conclusions:* The number of papers related to the disaster management process has decreased in the last years and contributions to the literature are focusing to other issue although several gaps still remain in the understanding of disaster management theory.* The large part of contributions comes from the USA and Canada, while the contributions from the EU and Asia are still modest: a shortcoming could be the polarisation of the general theoretical background and a limited enrichment of the theory.* The contributions to the literature focus on the identification of the various phases of the disaster management process, while papers on organisational issues, such as network management and meta-organisations (e.g. the incident command system framework) are uncommon.* Within the general framework of disaster management the phases more investigated are the ones related to the strategy, the mitigation, the response and the recovery, while only a few papers dealt with other more specific phases such as learning. A serious risk for practitioners in disaster management is to miss the opportunity of build adequate knowledge management systems and improve performance time after time.The descriptive analysis remarked on main areas for further research: performance management and knowledge management. Despite the fact that the incident command system framework introduced those as areas of relevance, there is a scarcity of studies that cope with the formalisation of a performance management system and key performance indicators. Without measuring the performance in term of effectiveness (timeliness and quality) and efficiency (cost) it is difficult to understand how value for money is the current practice of disaster management and to promote improvements. The same could be argued about the lack of procedure for knowledge management and knowledge sharing.These conclusions might not be surprising or unexpected; however, these notions about the field have never been tested before through such a rigorous review of the literature. Systematic reviews are not a panacea, they have proved their value in the medical context, but they still need to be experimented in the management field in order to improve them. This methodology can help researchers to create knowledge in a different way building on each other's work and doing so to improve the knowledge in disaster management. A complete understanding of the state of the art of the literature could help practitioners in their decision-making processes and progressively inform research.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The paper aims to discuss a systematic review of the literature about disaster management within the period 1980-2006.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The research protocol is based on the methodology that is commonly used in healthcare for analysing the literature and provides a state-of-art medical discipline. The paper presents both a descriptive analysis and a thematic analysis in order to provide a state-of-art of international literature. The research protocol is provided in order to make transparent the review process.\nFindings: - The descriptive analysis highlights the peculiarities of the literature in terms of attention paid during the years, country of provenience and clusters of content of the selected papers. The thematic analysis deepens the content of the papers formalising the state of art.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The review considered only academic journals and peer-reviewed published papers, excluding working papers and books.\nPractical implications: - Through both the analyses the authors argue for scholars in disaster management specific streams for further research and for providing practitioners with a state of art of disaster management discipline.\nOriginality/value: - The paper is original and is aimed at translating to the disaster management discipline the methodology of the systematic review commonly used in healthcare disciplines.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Post-crisis developments in international financial markets
|
[
"Economic conditions",
"Financial markets",
"Recession"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Patents are likely to attract the interest of slick investors, from hedge funds and private-equity firms to venture capitalists and even distressed-debt funds. What was once viewed as a stodgy legal asset is fast becoming a sought-after financial one.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to investigate what affected the post-crisis developments in international financial markets with special reference to current innovations in the financial industry.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper revisits banks failures in recession years occurred in presence of a huge unprecedented guarantee programmes worth 16.4 per cent of gross domestic product in a median advanced economy.\nFindings: - Financial markets are indispensable despite finance's risks are everyone's because banks rely both directly and indirectly on taxpayers' support. Still the finance industry enables more trade to take place than would otherwise occur. The rally after crisis is driven by liquidity. In this context, special attention is paid to the situation on the gold market. The paper underscores that the dollar declinism is overblown. Still the situation with shifting and reorganising the world demand stays open.\nOriginality/value: - The paper adds insight into post-crisis developments in international financial markets.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Greenhouse gas reporting quality in the oil and gas industry: A longitudinal study using the typology of "search", "experience" and "credence" information
|
[
"Content analysis",
"Greenhouse gas",
"Sustainability reporting quality",
"Oil and gas industry"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Corporate disclosure on climate change and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is an increasingly important aspect of sustainability disclosure. A growing body of legislation mandates companies to report on their GHG emissions while a number of investor initiatives encourage climate-related disclosure by companies. Companies are required to disclose GHG emissions from installations regulated under emissions trading schemes (ETS) such as the EU ETS, the Tokyo ETS and the New Zealand ETS. In addition to ETS, governments in France, Japan, Canada and the USA have introduced legislation mandating mainly large or polluting companies in these regions to report on GHG emissions (Kauffmann et al., 2012). Prominent investor initiatives which encourage GHG disclosure include the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), the CERES' Investor Network on Climate Risk (INCR) and the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC).\nGHG disclosure studies: Only a few studies have focused exclusively on climate change or GHG emissions reporting. While some of the existing studies consider the organisational factors which determine whether companies report on climate change (Freedman and Jaggi, 2005; Prado-Lorenzo et al., 2009; Stanny and Ely, 2008) fewer studies assess the quality of GHG information reported (Freedman and Jaggi, 2009; Kolk et al., 2008; Rankin et al., 2011). Stanny and Ely (2008) and Kolk et al. (2008) examined the particular case of climate change disclosure by companies under the CDP. Kolk et al. (2008) found that the rate of response to the CDP questionnaire was high with 77 per cent of FT 500 companies responding in 2007. However, on deeper analysis of CDP disclosures Kolk et al. (2008) noted that the lack of disclosure on the type and meaning of emissions data reported made it difficult even for experienced climate change analysts to make sense of what was reported. Stanny and Ely (2008) focused on the non-respondents to the CDP questionnaire considering only whether companies had responded or not without delving deeper into the quality of disclosures.\nTheoretical perspectives: Theoretical perspectives on GHG reporting\nMethodology: Data and sample\nResults and discussion: Descriptive statistics\nConclusions: It is apparent that during the period 1998-2010 there has been increasing focus on the issue of climate change in the international arena as scientific evidence linking anthropogenic GHGs with changes in global climate has mounted. At the same time the number of reporting guidelines and standards for GHG reporting has also increased. Companies do appear to be moving towards adopting best practices for sustainability reporting as they increasingly use external guidelines to prepare reports. This is as predicted by the business case argument. However, from the results of this study, adoption of guidelines alone does not result in better quality reporting. Despite increasing pressure, we observe that the quality of GHG reporting by companies in a sector with a major climate impact, has not increased significantly. This is an indication that companies can maintain legitimacy without significantly improving reporting quality. From the analysis, we observe that there are different qualities of information in sustainability reports and that \"search\" information is generally of higher quality compared to \"experience\" and \"credence\" information. Thus if companies have been able to maintain legitimacy on climate change then perhaps providing good quality \"search\" information is sufficient from the perspective of the companies. Provision of good quality quantitative data may not be necessary for legitimacy since this information cannot in any case be verified by report readers. From a business perspective, companies may not invest significantly to improve reporting quality since legitimacy can be maintained even with lower quality reports. The findings of our study support the idea that regulation is especially needed to improve the quality of \"experience\" and \"credence\" information in sustainability reports. We have seen that particularly for this type of information, quality is low and has not improved over a significant period of time. In addition even though \"search\" information is generally of higher quality, regulation may still be required to ensure that specific information is included, as observed in the case of third party assurance.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the evolution of greenhouse gas (GHG) reporting quality and to determine whether the evolution of reporting quality is linked with the type of information reported based on the \"search\", \"experience\", and \"credence\" typology.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The method is based on the content analysis of GHG reporting in 245 sustainability reports by 45 oil and gas companies between 1998 and 2010. The content analysis disclosure index developed links GHG reporting requirements with seven quality dimensions. The information associated with each item on the content analysis index is classified as \"search\", \"experience\" or \"credence\". Statistical analysis is used to determine whether any significant change occurred in either overall GHG reporting quality or in the quality of reporting in any of the individual dimensions of quality over the period of the study.\nFindings: GHG reporting quality has not improved significantly between 1998 and 2010. The quality of reporting is not the same in each of the seven dimensions of quality and this can be explained by information typology.\nOriginality/value: This paper provides the first longitudinal analysis of the quality of GHG reporting. The methodology developed advances current measures of reporting quality by linking reporting requirements with particular quality dimensions. The results show that the type of information is important in terms of quality evolution and that this can dictate the measures required to improve quality.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Dynamic capability, knowledge, learning, and firm performance
|
[
"Dynamic capabilities",
"Knowledge resources",
"Learning mechanisms",
"Performance",
"Learning",
"Learning processes",
"Organizational performance",
"Knowledge management"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The chain store model can be applied to a large variety of activities and plays an important role in developing a new business. In the case of a fast-food restaurant chain, the head office applies a central management system, develops standard methods of operating and practices, and offers a standard menu throughout the restaurants within the chain. Although store managers operate these chain restaurants using a standard management system, the question remains \"Why do store managers in the same chain restaurant perform differently?\" Recently, researchers have begun to use the dynamic-capability theory to address this question (e.g. Zott, 2003).Dynamic capabilities are a firm's ability to rapidly integrate and reconfigure resources to match a changing environment (Teece et al., 1997; Eisenhardt and Martin, 2000). The dynamic capability view is an extension of the resource-based view (RBV). The RBV is used to explain that a firm accumulates valuable resources to achieve competitive advantage. However, in a changing environment, accumulating only resources is insufficient for maintaining competitive advantage.A firm needs to reconfigure its resources into dynamic capabilities if it wants to achieve competitive advantage. The concept of dynamic capabilities has been extensively examined to determine if it leads to a difference in performance between firms (Zott, 2003). However, they were mainly theoretical and conceptual studies, and scant studies empirically addressed how firms develop dynamic capabilities (Cepeda and Vera, 2007).The literature on dynamic capability emphasizes the key roles of both knowledge resources and learning mechanisms. The knowledge resource is a critical strategic resource that has a high propensity for contributing to obtaining competitive advantage (Grant, 1996). Prior research has indicated that knowledge resources lead to the development of dynamic capabilities (Griffith et al., 2006; Liao et al., 2009), and that learning is the process of using these knowledge resources (Heijden, 2004). Learning mechanisms improve dynamic capabilities and offer an insight into the evolution of dynamic capabilities (Zott, 2003; Zollo and Winter, 2002).The above indicates that dynamic capabilities, knowledge resources and learning mechanisms are related positively to each other. However, empirical research investigating the interrelationships between these three concepts remains scarce. In an attempt to close this gap in our understanding, we investigated how knowledge resources and learning mechanisms influence dynamic capabilities. Moreover, this paper also examines the role of the learning mechanisms as mediator variables between knowledge resources and dynamic capabilities. Without a learning mechanism, knowledge resources might not be effectively translated into dynamic capabilities. The influence of the learning mechanisms provides insight into how dynamic capabilities work from a process perspective. Figure 1 illustrates the conceptual framework. The present research contributes to the existing knowledge by integrating the dynamic capability view, knowledge management and the organizational learning theory. It examines these relationships in an empirical context.The next section develops the theoretical foundation for our hypotheses. We then describe the study method and the results, which is followed by a discussion of our findings.\nConceptual model and hypotheses: Dynamic capabilities focus on the capability to constantly integrate and reconfigure resources in order to gain competitive advantage under a changing environment (Teece et al., 1997). The term \"dynamic\" refers to the capability to regenerate competences that correspond with the changing environment; the term \"capability\" emphasizes on the adaptation, integration, and reconfiguration of both internal and external organizational resources in response to the changing environment (Teece et al., 1997).The link between dynamic capabilities and knowledge resources has been widely discussed (Prieto and Easterby-Smith, 2006). Verona and Ravasi (2003) state that dynamic capabilities are composed of creating, obtaining, integrating, and redeploying knowledge resources. Wang et al. (2007) indicate that knowledge-based dynamic capabilities include knowledge absorption, knowledge creation, knowledge storage, and knowledge application. Knowledge resources can facilitate the capability of integrating and reconfiguring knowledge resources, thereby gaining competitive advantage (Prieto and Easterby-Smith, 2006). The above shows that dynamic capabilities can be viewed as knowledge-based dynamic capabilities with the ability to absorb, create, store, and apply knowledge resources to respond to the changing environment.Organizational learning is a process of exploring new knowledge resources and internalizing employees' experiences into the organization (Heijden, 2004). Organizational learning is routine-based (Levitt and March, 1988). For example, repeated practice is the learning process that allows organizations to remember a routine (Argote, 1990). Learning mechanisms show that a firm can establish regular activities, and that the characteristics of these activities can help members of the organization to effectively gather and apply knowledge resources (Popper and Lipshitz, 1998). Through the process of creating new knowledge from prior knowledge resources in the organization, individual behavior may change, respond to the changing environment and enhance performance (Slater and Narver, 1995).Dynamic capabilities and performance\nMethodology: In order to examine the behavior of store managers based on their individual dynamic capability in a chain business, we chose a group of store managers from a leading fast-food restaurant chain in Taiwan. With the assistance of the firm's headquarters, we conducted a questionnaire survey during the firm's annual meeting for their store managers. The respondents were guaranteed that all their answers would be anonymous. Of the 170 subjects, 132 questionnaires were usable, resulting in a 77.6 percent response rate. The participants were 27.3 percent male and 72.7 percent female. Of these, 56.1 percent were below 30 years, and 37.1 percent were 31-40 years, 80.9 percent had a university degree and 16.0 percent had a high school education.Measures\nResults: Table I provides descriptive information concerning the means, standard deviations, and correlation for the variables used in this study.The hypothesized models were tested by a structural equation model using AMOS 7.0., and the results are shown in Table II. The conceptual model, the structural parameter estimates of which are shown in Part A of Table II, demonstrated an acceptable fit with the data (chi-square=255.11, df=176, p<0.001; GFI=0.85, CFI=0.94, NFI=0.83, RMSEA=0.06). Overall, the empirical results supported our conceptual model.Direct effect\nDiscussion: Although the literature suggests a positive relationship between knowledge resources, learning mechanisms, and dynamic capabilities, to date little research has analyzed those relationships together in a single model and in an empirical manner. In the present study we conceptualized and empirically tested the relationships between knowledge resources, learning mechanisms, dynamic capabilities, and performance in the restaurants of a fast-food chain. In addition, we investigated how dynamic capabilities work from a process perceptive by examining the mediation effect of the learning mechanisms. This study makes the following contributions to the literature.First, our findings indicated that knowledge-based dynamic capabilities facilitate and promote a store's performance. This finding is consistent with prior research that found that dynamic capabilities enable firms to reconfigure their knowledge resources both quickly and effectively in response to a changing environment (e.g. Griffith et al., 2006; Wang et al., 2007; Morgan et al., 2009). Although in prior research it is often assumed that there is a link between dynamic capabilities and firm performance, scant attention has been paid on conducting empirical investigations (Newbert, 2007). Our results confirm that absorption, storage and the application of knowledge resources have a positive influence on a store's performance.Second, knowledge resources are critical drivers of dynamic capabilities.The integration of knowledge resources and dynamic capabilities illustrates how a firm's knowledge resources affect the conversion of these resources into capabilities. Customer-related and competitor-related knowledge resources have a positive effect on dynamic capabilities, and highlight the importance of fully understanding customers and competitors when adapting to a changing environment.Third, our findings demonstrate that a learning mechanism is an important mediator of the impact of knowledge resources on dynamic capabilities. This result is consistent with prior research (e.g. Easterby-Smith and Prieto, 2007). Although a firm may possess knowledge resources, it cannot reap the benefits of these resources if it cannot effectively employ a learning mechanism. In other words, learning mechanisms are crucial for developing dynamic capabilities. Knowledge resources are a necessary component, but by themselves are insufficient to develop enhanced dynamic capabilities. Our findings show that the mediation effect of the learning mechanism indicates the existence of a mechanism that intervenes significantly between knowledge resources and dynamic capabilities.In addition, as a result of the increasing practical value of the dynamic-capabilities theory, future research could attempt to survey those types of firms that rarely have been subject to an empirically investigation (Barreto, 2010). In the present study we used a sample of a chain of fast-food restaurants in Taiwan, a context which the empirical literature lacks especially.Managerial implications\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This paper seeks to apply the dynamic capability framework to explore why store managers within the same chain of restaurants perform differently. Specifically, this paper argues that knowledge resources and learning mechanisms are critical to the development of dynamic capabilities.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The approach takes the form of an empirical data analysis. Hypotheses are tested on 132 store managers in a leading fast-food restaurant chain in Taiwan.\nFindings: - The findings indicate that dynamic capabilities increase store performance, and that both knowledge resources and learning mechanisms have a positive effect on dynamic capabilities. In addition, the effect of knowledge resources on dynamic capabilities is partially mediated by the type of learning mechanism.\nPractical implications: - Store managers must be able to develop dynamic capabilities if they are to deal with the rapidly changing environment they are facing. Knowledge resources and learning mechanisms both improve the development of dynamic capabilities.\nOriginality/value: - This paper conceptualizes and empirically tests the relationships between knowledge resources, learning mechanisms, dynamic capabilities, and performance in the restaurants of a fast-food chain. In addition, this paper investigates how dynamic capabilities work from a process perceptive by examining the mediation effect of the learning mechanisms.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Identification of factors influencing the rise of cesarean sections rates in Pakistan, using MCDM
|
[
"Pakistan",
"MCDM",
"Cesarean section",
"Medical factors",
"Non-medical factors"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Cesarean section is an important procedure that is used when the mother's or the baby's life is in danger, but there has been a significant increase in cesarean section rates. Both developed and developing countries are facing this problem. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the cesarean section rates must be within the range of 5-15 percent. Most countries have exceeded this standard. The need for a cesarean section can be divided into medical and non-medical factors. Cesarean section is usually demanded by patients in most developed countries without a medical reason, just to avoid the pain of normal delivery (Nazir, 2015). Likewise, deceptive practices by doctors, for monetary motivating forces, is additionally setting off the increase in cesarean area. An increase in the cesarean section rate has also been observed in Pakistan. The cesarean section rate has reached 27.94 percent in Pakistan (Karim et al., 2011). This means that the rate of cesarean section in Pakistan has crossed the range that is identified by the WHO. It can be observed from different studies that the rate of cesarean sections has increased rapidly in the last two decades. Surprisingly, this increase in cesarean sections occurs not only in developing countries but also in developed countries, like the USA, and most of the European countries. The increase in cesarean sections from 1990 to 2014 in different countries can be seen in Table I. The data have been taken from \"Highest Cesarean Section Rates by Country\" (McCulloch, 2016).\n2. Literature review: Cesarean section is considered as a surgical interference performed by a physician in order to make sure that the mother's or baby's life is not endangered (Mishra and Ramanathan, 2002). There are various circumstances under which cesarean sections are considered a necessity. According to Baskett and McMillen (1981), cesarean sections are considered a necessity under conditions such as breech presentation, dystocia, previous cesarean sections and doubted fetal compromise. In a research by Cai et al. (1998), execution of cesarean section was related to complications in pregnancy, obesity of mother, age of the mother (tendency of cesarean section rises with increase in age). Along with these medical reasons, non-medical reasons, such as the patient's or the doctor's preference, also contribute to the rise of cesarean sections. According to Murray and Elston (2005), private health care institutions tend to have a higher rate of cesarean sections. McFarlin (2004) concluded that cesarean sections are now conducted without any medical necessity. Furthermore, cesarean sections are also linked to emotional and physical health perils, compared to vaginal births. Belizan et al. (2007) claimed that cesarean sections are at a higher risk of future medical problems as compared to vaginal deliveries. The findings of Perveen (2011) show that a cesarean section in the first pregnancy can lead to severe outcomes for the mother during the second pregnancy. Torkan et al., studied the psychological effects of the delivery method: they claim that the patients who undergo cesarean sections are at a higher risk of post-delivery depression than those who undergo normal delivery (Torkan et al., 2005).\n3. Methodology: A number of studies have been performed on the rising rates of cesarean sections. Different researchers have used different methods for determining or recognizing the factors that are responsible for ascending the rate in cesarean sections. These studies helped us to understand those methods and to know about the factors that may be considered responsible for the increase in cesarean section rates.\n4. Results and analysis: All the steps of DEMATEL are applied on 29 matrices for medical factors as well as for non-medical factors, and the threshold value obtained for medical category is \"-2.12693,\" and for non-medical category, the value of threshold is \"3.95013417.\"\n5. Discussion: In this research, the medical factors are further divided into eight factors. The umbilical cord prolapse and age of mother are considered the most important medical factors and net causers because of the high values of (r+c) and positive values of (r-c) as compared to the other factors that have negative values of (r-c).\n6. Conclusion: Cesarean section is a well-known concept in the modern world. It is an important surgical intervention and is considered to be very essential in the cases of existing as well as potential medical problems to the mother or baby, but there are many disadvantages of cesarean sections when it is performed unnecessarily. The aim of this study is to identify the critical factors that are responsible for the rise in cesarean section rates. The factors are categorized under the medical and non-medical factors, and the MCDM technique, called DEMATEL, is used. The results show that in medical factors, the umbilical cord prolapse and age of mother are the most important reasons due to which it becomes necessary for the obstetricians to perform cesarean sections. The result also shows that in non-medical factors, private hospitals, patient's preference toward cesarean section and the rural areas are the most important factors. It means that in Pakistan, the number of private hospitals has increased and they are providing good health care, but not working under the rules and regulations set by the government. The doctors in private hospitals are performing unnecessary cesarean sections of the women in order to fulfill the demands of private hospital's owners. In addition to this, it is also found that, nowadays, most of the women prefer to give birth through cesarean section in order to eliminate the pain of normal vaginal deliveries. Moreover, it is also recognized from this study that the poor conditions of hospitals and the unavailability of doctors are still the problems in rural areas. Moreover, the people are not aware of the disadvantages and other complications of the cesarean sections. The Government of Pakistan along with the cooperation of obstetricians should review the rules and regulations, and they should implement it effectively.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The rate of cesarean sections has been rapidly increased in the last few decades in all the developing as well as developed countries. The rate of cesarean sections determined by the World Health Organization has been crossed by many countries, like Brazil, India, China, USA, Australia, etc. Similarly, this rate has also increased in Pakistan. The purpose of this paper is to explore and identify the factors that are responsible for the rising rate of cesarean sections in Pakistan.\nDesign/methodology/approach: These factors are categorized under medical and non-medical factors. The medical factors include the obesity of mother, age of mother, weight of the baby, umbilical cord prolapse, fetal distress, abnormal presentation, dystocia and failure to progress. The non-medical factors include financial incentives of doctors, time convenience for doctors, high tolerance to surgery, patient's preference toward cesarean section, private hospitals, public hospitals, income status of patients, rural areas, urban areas and the education of patients. To identify the critical factors, data have been collected and a multi-criteria decision-making technique, called Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory, is used.\nFindings: The result shows that the medical factors that are responsible for the rise in the rate of cesarean sections are umbilical cord prolapse, age of mother and obesity of mother. On the other hand, the non-medical factors that are the reasons for the increase in cesarean sections are the large number of private hospitals and the unethical acts of the doctors in these hospitals, preference of patients, and either the unavailability of doctors or poor conditions of hospitals in rural areas.\nOriginality/value: Cesarean section is an important surgical intervention and is considered to be very essential in the cases of existing as well as potential medical problems to the mother or the baby. Cesarean section is also performed for non-medical reasons. In Pakistan, the number of private hospitals has increased and these hospitals provide good health care. However, these hospitals do not work under the rules and regulations set by the government. The doctors in private hospitals perform unnecessary cesarean sections in order to fulfill the demands of private hospital's owners. In addition to this, it is also found that, nowadays, most women prefer to give birth through cesarean section in order to eliminate the pain of normal vaginal delivery.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Theories into practice: a content analysis of anti-smoking websites
|
[
"Public health",
"Behaviour modification",
"Tobacco"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: After decades of national and statewide efforts to combat smoking, anti-smoking practitioners and researchers have begun to understand how the internet poses both challenges and opportunities for anti-smoking advocacy (Evers, 2006). While several recent studies have revealed an abundance of pro-smoking messages online (Ribisl, 2003; Ribisl et al., 2003), only a few have examined the availability of messages aimed at helping people to either avoid or quit smoking (Bock et al., 2004; Paek et al., 2009). To study this area of internet content, the following analysis examines how many and what kinds of anti-smoking websites are available to US internet users. In particular, it investigates the extent to which anti-smoking websites encourage anti-smoking behaviors through strategies that have been informed by scientifically tested theories of behavior change.\nThe internet as a useful tool for health promotion and intervention: Using the internet in health promotion has become an increasingly widespread and popular practice (Evers, 2006). Approximately 81 percent of internet users look for health information online, and two-thirds of them have searched for information about a specific disease or medical problem (Fox and Jones, 2009). Of those, 60 percent reported that the health information they found online influenced a decision about how to deal with an illness or condition (Fox and Jones, 2009). With respect to smoking, about 7 percent of adult US internet users have had experience searching for information on how to quit smoking. Women (10 percent) are twice as likely to search for such information than men (5 percent), and the age group most likely to do so is young adults between ages 18 and 29 (11 percent) (Fox, 2006). This proportion is quite substantial considering that about 20 percent of adults in the USA smoked in 2007 (Pleis et al., 2008).Now that health communication researchers are learning to take advantage of the internet as a health promotion tool, they have begun to explore the following: available health content (McMillan, 1999); effectiveness of that content (e.g. Bock et al., 2004); difficulties in understanding online health information (Friedman and Tanner, 2007); and the roles of interactivity in improving comprehension and attitudes toward health content (Lustria, 2009). Such studies focus mainly on how the internet's unique features, such as interactivity and the networking of social support, make it a useful medium for health promotion.But the internet can also provide various channels for negative influences on people's health behavior. For example, in the context of smoking, the internet enables tobacco companies to sidestep legal regulations that have for years restricted tobacco marketing in specific locales and in the mass media of print and broadcasting. Addressing this issue, several recent studies have called for further investigation of the regulatory guidelines for pro-smoking messages on the internet. In particular, they suggest exploring whether online pro-smoking messages that target youths either can or should be regulated as strictly as they are in other media (Hong and Cody, 2002; Ribisl, 2003; Ribisl et al., 2003). Supporting this recommendation, Duke et al. (2009) found that, from 2000 to 2004, adolescents' exposure to pro-tobacco messages online increased from 22 to 33 percent while it was declining in all other mass media channels such as TV/movies (decrease from 90 to 81 percent) and newspapers/magazines (decrease from 66 to 50 percent).If we acknowledge how the internet has enabled tobacco companies to enhance their marketing capabilities, we also need to understand how it can enhance tobacco control efforts. One notable way it can do so is by enabling more precise tailoring and dissemination of anti-smoking messages to different types of target audiences, particularly people at different stages of quitting. Only a few studies have analyzed anti-smoking websites to determine how much they tailor their prevention and cessation messages to specific audiences and make use of the internet's unique features. For example, Paek et al. (2009) analyzed US and South Korean anti-smoking websites and compared their different cultural characteristics and their culturally tailored uses of health promotion strategies. In another study that content-analyzed 46 smoking cessation websites to assess their usability and readability, Bock et al. (2004) found that some websites did not fully exploit internet features such as interactivity. Supplementing those studies, the current study investigates how extensively anti-smoking websites make use of intervention strategies that are informed by prominent, scientifically tested theories of behavior change.\nExamining anti-smoking websites for their use of behavior change theories: Health communication scholars have increasingly tried to integrate behavioral theory with health promotion practice. To advance this endeavor, behavior change theories provide a framework that can both identify critical predictors of specific behaviors and inform interventions that affect those behaviors (Fishbein and Cappella, 2006; Glanz et al., 2002; Leventhal et al., 2007; Slater, 1999). Many empirical studies have applied theoretical concepts drawn from well-established theories to test their effects on various health behaviors. But health communication researchers have only begun to explore the extent to which certain theories have been put into practice by campaigners and others whose purpose is to communicate about health issues.As several researchers have suggested, one way to explore this question is to perform content analysis of health messages. Such studies have shown that few existing campaigns seem to have been directly informed by theories of behavior change. For example, in a content analysis of anti-drug public service announcements, Stephenson (2002) and Stephenson and Quick (2005) found that less than half of the PSAs they examined reflected the influence of scientifically tested theories. In the smoking context, only a handful of studies have examined the content of anti-smoking ads, and most of those focus predominantly on topics such as the perceived risks of smoking, or on persuasive appeals and executional styles (e.g. Beaudoin, 2002). However, there is one study that examined the application of health behavior change theories and their relevant concepts. Focusing on anti-smoking ads, Cohen et al. (2007) found that 61 percent of the ads presented the benefits of not smoking, while 17 percent presented perceived barriers.To further explore how online anti-smoking advocates have used behavior change theories, the following analysis examines anti-smoking websites to determine whether they have been informed by four theories that have proven influential in the scientific study of health beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors. These theories are the health belief model, social cognitive theory, the theory of reasoned action/theory of planned behavior, and the transtheoretical model. These theories have been found to be effective across various health contexts, and researchers have recommended their use in the development of intervention strategies (e.g. Cohen et al., 2007; Doshi et al., 2003; Slater, 2006). To establish the context for the current study's content analysis, the following sections describe each theory.Health belief model (HBM)\nMethods: Sample\nResults: Descriptive statistics\nDiscussion: Despite the internet's ever increasing popularity as a health promotion and intervention tool, there has been very little research on the prevalence and strategies of anti-smoking websites. This study examined the extent to which anti-smoking websites use specific intervention strategies guided by four prominent behavior change theories that are known to be effective: the health belief model (HBM), the theory of reasoned action/theory of planned behavior (TRA/TPB), the transtheoretical model (TTM), and social cognitive theory (SCT). Some studies have analyzed anti-smoking campaigns in terms of advertising content (Goldman and Glantz, 1998), persuasive appeals (Beaudoin, 2002), and website usability (Bock et al., 2004). But few studies have examined how online anti-smoking campaigns use intervention strategies that have been informed by scientifically tested theories. Adopting the schema developed by Doshi et al. (2003), our analysis provides a more comprehensive account of these uses.First and foremost, the anti-smoking websites examined in this study seemed to focus more on providing general information rather than developing theory-based intervention strategies. Almost all the websites examined provided general knowledge and guidelines about smoking, while the most dominantly used theory was the health belief model, with about 50 percent of its components used.This finding is consistent with that of Doshi et al. (2003), who determined that physical activity websites provided general knowledge and guidance but developed very few intervention strategies based on the predominant behavior change theories. In addition, it is discouraging to find that only one-third of the anti-smoking websites use either the transtheoretical model or social cognitive theory. The transtheoretical model is known to be particularly effective in informing smoking interventions (Slater, 1999), while social cognitive theory is a comprehensive theory that can integrate multiple approaches to behavior change (Bandura, 2004; Fishbein and Cappella, 2006). Specifically, the anti-smoking websites rarely used the strategies of self-efficacy, subjective norm, and self-monitoring. This finding about websites is consistent with a recent content-analytic study of anti-smoking campaigns on television. Cohen et al. (2007) found that anti-smoking TV ads tended to focus more heavily on the severity of harm than on self-efficacy and subjective norm. Similarly, our findings indicate that perceived risk of smoking (55.2 percent) is more prevalent than self-efficacy (9 percent) and subjective norm (1.5 percent).But anti-smoking websites might be more effective if they were to use these two strategies. Health communication research has demonstrated significant associations between individuals' own smoking behavior and their subjective norm, which refers to the perception that others who are important to them think they should not smoke (Pechmann and Reibling, 2000). This significant association also exists for self-efficacy, which refers to smokers' belief that they can either stop smoking or resist peer pressure to take up the habit in the first place (Siegel, 2002; Wakefield et al., 2006). Deploying these concepts to influence internet users' behavior may improve anti-smoking websites' ability to achieve their intended goals.On the other hand, as we expected, our findings suggest that smoking cessation websites tended to use health behavior change theories more than smoking prevention websites did. This was particularly true of the health belief model. But at the same time, we should note that smoking cessation websites did not use more affective and behavioral strategies than prevention websites did. Studies have found that smoking cessation programs are more effective when they use emotional and behavioral strategies, and when they incorporate stage-specific interventions, which could be informed by the transtheoretical model (Dijkstra et al., 1998; Perz et al., 1996). Smoking cessation websites would likely become more effective if they were to employ these strategies more frequently and saliently, particularly in their efforts to tailor anti-smoking messages to target audiences at different stages of the quitting process.Limitations and directions for future research\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This study aims to examine the extent to which anti-smoking websites use intervention strategies that have been informed by four prominent theories of health-related behavior change: the health belief model, the theory of reasoned action/theory of planned behavior, the transtheoretical model, and social cognitive theory.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Content analysis was applied to 67 unique and independent anti-smoking websites to determine their use of 20 intervention strategies based on the four theories.\nFindings: - The findings reveal that anti-smoking websites used the health belief model the most and social cognitive theory the least. In addition, websites devoted to smoking cessation used these theories more extensively than websites devoted to smoking prevention.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The sample size is somewhat small, which may result in lack of sufficient statistical power. Also, the analysis may have overlooked some important intervention strategies that are particularly effective for smoking intervention programs.\nPractical implications: - Anti-smoking website designers should take more advantage of the internet as a health promotion medium and use more intervention strategies that have been informed by scientifically tested theories of behavior change, particularly with respect to affective and behavioral strategies.\nOriginality/value: - This study contributes to current knowledge about which kinds of anti-smoking messages are available online and how extensively they employ theory-based intervention strategies.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The inclusion of competitor information in the three-factor theory of customer satisfaction
|
[
"Customer satisfaction",
"Asymmetric effect",
"Competitor information",
"Hotel attributes"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Starting with Kano et al. (1984), most of the academics have agreed that product attributes may asymmetrically impact on customer satisfaction. To date, asymmetric relationship has been demonstrated in various research settings, such as tourist destinations (Alegre and Garau, 2011), hotel animation programmes (Mikulic and Prebezac, 2011b), festivals (Velikova et al., 2017) and restaurants (Back, 2012). These studies classified product attributes as the basic, performance and excitement factors by using company's own information. This \"absolute\" method principally does not consider or evaluate competitors' performance. However, in highly competitive marketplaces, rather than just provide high customer satisfaction, companies should aim to deliver superior customer satisfaction than their competitors. Thus, just the classification of product attributes provides limited information to the managers in their decisions, which may result in misleading managerial actions. Therefore, traditional methods need to be improved by giving consideration to competitors' information.\n2. The three-factor theory of customer satisfaction and its improvement: Kano et al. (1984) proposed a categorisation of product attributes in five groups according to their varying impacts on customer satisfaction, namely: the basic (must be), performance (one-dimensional), excitement (attractive), reverse and indifference factors. The academics generally take the first three factors into account in their studies. Thus, the classification is known as the three-factor theory of customer satisfaction. Basic factors generate dissatisfaction, if not presented. However, they do not lead to satisfaction, if fulfilled. This is mainly because, these factors are considered as the minimum requirements of a product by the customers. In contrast to basic factors, excitement factors increase satisfaction when delivered. But they do not lead to dissatisfaction when they are not delivered, as these factors are unexpected and surprising for the customers. Thus, basic and excitement factors asymmetrically affect customer satisfaction. Performance factors may create high satisfaction when performances are high. However, low performances may create dissatisfaction. The influences of performance factors on customer satisfaction are linear (Matzler et al., 2004; Matzler and Sauerwein, 2002). In the following sub-sections, the leading issues in the three-factor theory of customer satisfaction literature are presented.\n3. Proposal of asymmetric impact competitor analysis: This study offers AICA, which considers both a focal company's product attributes' asymmetric influences on customer satisfaction and its competitor's performance in relation to the same attributes. To include competitor performance to the AICA, the author of this study was inspired from the attempts made on IPA approach for the inclusion of competitor information, which are explained below.\n4. Method: With the aim of demonstrating the empirical application of the proposed method, data belonging to a multinational tour operator's customer satisfaction survey were used in this study. The target market of the tour operator, which is located in Antalya, Turkey, consists of the Russian Federation and eastern European countries. Each year, subject tour operator collects data from its customers by a systematic sampling method. During the transfers from hotel to airport, in every transportation vehicle, tourists who are selected depending on their pre-determined seat numbers are requested to fill the questionnaire that is prepared in Russian language. Collected questionnaires represent approximately 20 per cent of the tour operator's total customers.\n5. Results: As explained in the methodological description of AICA, PRCA was performed first. To conduct PRCA, attributes' scores belonging to focal hotel were re-coded as follows: one dummy variable that shows the effect of attribute's low performance was obtained by the use of its lowest value. Another dummy variable reflecting attribute's high performance was obtained by the use of its highest value. The empty cells of the dummy variables were assigned the value of 0, as they were defined as average satisfaction and comprised a reference group. Based on this re-coding, two dummy variables were obtained for each attribute. Then, a multiple regression analysis was performed by using the overall satisfaction as dependent variable and dummy variables as independent variables. As a result, two regression coefficients were obtained for each attribute that quantify their effects on overall satisfaction at low and high performance levels. Second, an IA index was calculated for each attribute by using equations from one to four as explained in the description of AICA section. Table I reflects the penalty, reward and IA indexes and the classification of the attributes.\n6. Conclusion: 6.1 Theoretical contributions\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The three-factor theory of customer satisfaction suggests that product attributes may have an asymmetric effect on customer satisfaction. Although this relationship has been demonstrated in many different settings, the main drawback of previous research is the lack of information about competitors. This study aims to propose asymmetric impact competitor analysis (AICA) for addressing this shortcoming.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The proposed method is conducted by using both impact asymmetry index and relative performance value of each product attribute. While the former is derived by penalty-reward contrast analysis, the latter is obtained by the comparison of the focal company's performance with competitor's performance.\nFindings: The paper shows the application of AICA by using data belonging to two competing hotels. Results offered different strategies for each hotel attribute.\nOriginality/value: AICA considers both asymmetric effects of attributes on customer satisfaction and competitor information related to same attributes. The proposed method also suggests the strategies for each attribute depending on the quadrant it is located.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Tail events in the FX markets since 1740
|
[
"Risk management",
"Economic history",
"Exchange-rate volatility",
"Fat-tailed distributions"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Financial institutions rely heavily on a wide range of quantitative methodologies and tools to manage and stress test financial risks where the related frequency distributions of asset-price movements are derived on the basis of historical data. However, recently, Haldane (2009) has highlighted the so-called \"small-sample problem\" in quantitative financial risk management that emerge from the use of fairly short data sets covering at best the most recent decades or so. This implies a risk of underestimating the probability and magnitude of \"tail events\" related to currency crises, changes of monetary regimes, banking crises, debt crises, severe stock-market collapses, wars, episodes of high inflation or hyperinflation etc.\n2. Review of related literature: Our paper relates most closely to the literature on the volatility and distribution of nominal exchange-rate changes. The main part of this literature is based on data sets covering only the most recent decades (cf. e.g. the survey in de Vries, 1994). Only a few papers have studied nominal exchange-rate behaviour based on monthly or quarterly data sets spanning several centuries. de Vries (2001) has studied the volatility of the nominal exchange rate between the Dutch guilders (NLG) and British pounds (GBP) based on monthly data for the period 1766-2000. Bernholz et al. (1985) study nominal exchange-rate behaviour under inflationary conditions in 17 historical cases from the period 1703-1981. Some of the cases are based on monthly exchange rates, but most are based on annual exchange-rate data. Craighead (2010) takes a brief view on the volatility in the nominal exchange rate between the US dollar and the GBP across time and monetary regimes based on monthly data over the period 1794-2005. However, the focus is on the behaviour of the real exchange rate.\n3. The data set: Recently, Norges Bank and Sveriges Riksbank have published comprehensive collections of historical monetary statistics including long-span time series on monthly nominal exchange rates, cf. Eitrheim et al. (2004) and Edvinsson et al. (2010). Combined with Rubow (1918), Wilcke (1929), Friis and Glamann (1958) and Denzel (1999) as well as exchange-rate data from National Bureau Economic Research Macrohistory Database, the Danish Central Bureau of Statistics (Statistics Denmark) and the Danish central bank (Danmarks Nationalbank), we were able to construct quarterly average nominal exchange-rate series for ten European exchange-rate pairs spanning the period 1740q1-2012q4.\n4. Stylised facts on the empirical distribution of exchange-rate changes: For the full sample period 1740-2012, we can compile 1091 quarter-on-quarter percentage changes in the nominal exchange rate for each currency pair. A range of summary statistics is shown in Table II.\n5. Marginal versus simultaneous historical distributions: In this paper, we have so far only looked at the marginal (or \"unconditional\") historical distribution of changes in each exchange-rate pair in isolation, and naturally, simultaneous historical distributions of nominal exchange-rate changes would be of even greater interest from a risk-management perspective.\n6. Final remarks and scope for further research: The most recent global financial crisis since 2007-2008 has once again reminded us of the critical importance of taking into account the infrequent occurrence of severe negative shocks in relation to risk assessments. The analysis in this paper has clearly illustrated the risk of seriously underestimating the probability and magnitude of tail events when frequency distributions of nominal exchange-rate changes are assumed fixed and assessed on the basis of fairly short historical data samples without taking into account the possibility of structural breaks.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the extent of the so-called \"small-sample problem\" within quantitative exchange-rate risk management.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors take a closer look at the frequency distribution of nominal price changes in the European foreign exchange markets.\nFindings: The analysis clearly illustrates the risk of seriously underestimating the probability and magnitude of tail events when frequency distributions are derived from fairly short data samples.\nPractical implications: The authors suggest that financial institutions and regulators should have an eye for the long-term historical perspective when designing sensitivity tests or \"worst case\" scenarios in relation to risk assessments and stress tests.\nOriginality/value: The authors add to the literature by analysing the distribution of nominal exchange-rate fluctuations on the basis of a unique quarterly data set for ten European exchange-rate pairs covering a time span of 273 years constructed by the authors. To the best of the authors' knowledge this is the first study on nominal exchange-rate changes for a large number of exchange-rate pairs based on quarterly data spanning almost three centuries.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Effective training for first-line managers: An emphasis on soft skills is important
|
[
"Soft skills",
"Management training",
"First-line managers",
"Private training providers"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIs the training appropriate?: Successful training and development is critical if an organization is to remain competitive. Management training is especially important in this respect. Both new and established managers alike need relevant guidance to acquire and hone essential skills.\nThe critical nature of non-technical skills: Where FLMs are concerned, the latter are arguably most crucial. In times where collaboration is invariably viewed as king, new managers must acquire the non-technical skills needed to successfully work with and manage people. Training and development is a proven way of enhancing interpersonal and other so-called soft skills.\nIdentifying core soft skills: It does not help that determining which soft skills FLMs should acquire has not been adequately addressed in the literature. Evaluation of existing PTP training programs is problematical as a result.\nWhy training programs can be inadequate: Next move was to ascertain to what extent current FLM programs offered by PTPs in the UK covered the best practice soft skills. Examination of course content during 2011 revealed considerable difference in emphasis. For instance, self-management and \"teamwork\" accordingly figured in 32 and 31 of the 45 FLM courses scrutinized. This contrasts with \"planning and organizing\", which featured in just 12.\nIs provision changing for the better?: Similar research was conducted four years later to ascertain if and where training provision had evolved. Would PTPs have addressed their earlier course shortcomings?\nComment: The review is based on \"Training of new managers: why are we kidding ourselves?\" by Yeardley (2017). Training of new managers is a critical yet seemingly neglected task. Program content delivered by external training providers is often too advanced for those just embarking on a management career. This raises concerns about individuals progressing toward the middle management phase while lacking some fundamental skills and capabilities.\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: Current training programs offered by external providers in the UK are not equipping new managers with the non-technical skills needed to effectively work with and manage people. The focus instead tends toward capabilities appropriate to more experienced managers. It is therefore critical to identify core soft skills and ensure that training courses place significant emphasis on communication, interaction, and teamwork. Providers must also factor in the growing significance of technology for younger management recruits. Regular monitoring of programs is essential to make sure that content remains appropriate as culture evolves.\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"
}
] |
Statistical modeling and probabilistic composition in the prediction of the customer lifetime value
|
[
"Customer profiling",
"Marketing",
"Benchmarking",
"Modelling",
"Knowledge management",
"Brazil"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: New data management technologies offer information covering such a large set of variables from which to choose that combining evaluations becomes a crucial subject. This is even more important in the marketing sector, where customization increasingly depends on evaluation of customers in an individual basis. New approaches to combine variables into customer's value scores have been developed in different articles, like Schmittlein et al. (1987), Reinartz and Kumar (2002), Gupta and Lehmann (2003), Fader et al. (2005a, b) and Wubben and Wangenhein (2006). Benchmarking customers' evaluations methodologies becomes then a very important subject.This paper contributes with the analysis of the development and application of methodologies for the determination of customer value exploring a data base of individual transactions of supermarkets network costumers. According to Blanchard et al. (2008), in this sector of activity, technology of information is one of the segments where benchmarking is being more successfully employed. Blanchard et al. (2008) discuss in detail processes of benchmarking this segment. Similar reports were recently provided by Fink (2006) and Maguire et al. (2007).This kind of analysis provides also insight on how organizations can become more customer focused. As pointed, for instance, by Bartley et al. (2007), this is an important aspect on developing a culture of focus on the customer.The concept of customer lifetime value (CLV) is the basis of the methodologies here employed. CLV may be defined as the present value of the total margin of contribution of the customer to the firm's profit along all the time of such customer's relationship with that firm from now on. Stochastic models have been developed to predict CLV taking into account the chance of future random events such as the customer migrating to a competitor or, by any other reason, no longer using the services or products of the firm.This stochastic approach combines two parallel prediction models: the first predicts the number of months along which the customer will be active and the second predicts the average amount of expenditures in each purchase. The product of these two measures: number of purchases and average value of each purchase, eventually completed by the information on the margin of contribution of sales income to profit, will provide the prediction of CLV.Here, a simple probabilistic approach to combine data on recency, frequency, and monetary (RFM) value of past transactions is compared to CLV prediction based on fitting stochastic models. The alternative evaluation approach is based on computing probabilities of maximizing, as well as measures of importance to the firm such as RFM value, measures of fidelity such as the number of products bought, the number of stores visited and the amount spent.On the basis of their predicted CLV and on the basis of these less-structured alternative measures, the customers are divided into classes of individual importance. Indices of concordance of these classifications with the classification on the basis of the total value spent by the costumer in the next year are then created to compare the two approaches.The study is based on the analysis of data on transactions of a cohort of customers of a Brazilian supermarkets network. Data of two years purchases of customers receiving the network fidelity card in the month of December of 2003 are employed in the parameters estimation and model validation process. The data of the first year are used to estimate the parameters in a calibration stage. The data of the second year are then used to verify the fit, in a confirmatory stage.Section 2 offers a brief review of the literature on the combination of multiple indicators to generate global evaluations. Section 3 describes the stochastic models adopted to fit the two series, of time and value of the transactions, to predict CLV. Section 4 presents the approach based on the probabilistic transformation. In Section 5, the data analysis is developed. A final section presents comments on the main findings and possible future developments.\n2 Background for the research: Determining the best practices in evaluation is a great challenge. To evaluate such an object, multiple attributes must be measured and these measurements must be combined in some way. Traditional indicators based on previous final results and traditional forms of combining indicators into global evaluations based on static relations have been frequently criticized through the last decades. Unahabhokha et al. (2007) list a series of factors that led models based on the prediction of future performance like those of Epstein and Westbrook (2001) and Leandri (2001) to be preferable. But even models employing prediction techniques are subject to proper criticism.The ability in systematically modeling the imprecision of the evaluations and deriving probabilistic conclusions are the most important aspects to be taken into account when evaluating prediction models. In fact, there is always some amount of subjectivity in deriving preference for any kind of attribute and the lack of information on the degree of uncertainty in uncertain classifications considerably impairs the use of predictive indicators.Here, the analysis is centered on the modeling of uncertainty in prediction models. Two alternative approaches for that consist of, starting with more structured statistical models, estimating parameters of their statistical distributions or, relinquishing structure, modeling only the distributions of the variables of interest.In both these approaches, predictions are derived for future outcomes depending on the variables modeled. In the case studied below, these outcomes relate to the value spent by different costumers. In the first case, the individual behavior of each customer will be statistically modeled. In the second case, only the distribution of variables measured on each customer will be modeled.The paradigm for this second approach, based on fuzzy sets theory (Zadeh, 1965, 1978), is set by the transformation into probabilities of being ranked first, proposed in Sant'Anna and Sant'Anna (2001). It starts by ranking according to the different particular criteria to be combined. The imprecision in such rankings is modeled by considering the ranks as midpoints of statistical distributions determined by adding stochastic disturbances to them. In the fuzzy sets approach, this corresponds to assigning membership functions. Finally, probabilities of attaining the first position are computed. These probabilities are combined into global measures without the need of modeling the relations between the criteria.The approach based on modeling the statistical relations between the variables was set by Schmittlein et al. (1987), by modeling the series of transaction times of the customer with a negative binomial distribution and the termination rate with a Pareto model. Complementing this model with a statistical model for the amount spent, CLV models are the main line of development of this approach.\n3 Models for CLV measurement: CLV models do not depend on any mechanism to forecast social or psychological behavior. They employ the same quantitative concepts already explored in simple heuristics based on RFM value.Monetary value refers to the expected amount of money spent in each transaction or time interval. Frequency is the number of purchases in a time interval. Recency may be defined as the time of the most recent purchase. Hughes (2005) shows that the answer to market actions follows much more recency than any other variable.Before the introduction of the techniques of CLV modeling, it was already common weighting these three variables to generate scores of customers' relationships. The RFM approach includes also fitting regression models employing these and other variables to predict the income to be received from each customer or the probability of answer to catalog mail sales efforts, for instance.Many recent studies compare such scoring models with CLV metrics. Reinartz and Kumar (2003) employed data of three cohorts in business to consumer activities and data from a high-technology firm in business to business to analyze that. They claim that, taking the future into account, CLV models provide a better identification of more profitable customers.For CLV measurement, it is specially important to determine the point of passage from the stage of an active customer to that of a lost client. In businesses like health insurance, where there is a contractual link, the end of the relationship is easily determined. If there is no such contractual term, as in the case here studied, it is not possible to determine the end of the relationship with certainty. It becomes then necessary some model to approximately determine the basis of active clients.Different time horizons are employed in the analyses of customers' value. Reinartz and Kumar (2003) determine it in a finite time span: customer value in the next three years, for instance. Others, like Fader et al. (2005b) and Gupta and Lehmann (2003), prefer the infinite time approach. Here, to validate the model, predictions of next year expenditures will be considered.To model the monetary value of transactions, the Gamma/Gamma model of Colombo and Jiang (1999), employed also by Fader et al. (2005b), will be investigated here also. Gupta and Lehmann (2005) suggest taking into account the possibility of increasing value of the margin of contribution along time. In the present study, the constancy assumption is evaluated.Generally, separate models are developed for acquisition, retention and margin. Reinartz et al. (2005) capture retention and acquisition in the same model. Fader et al. (2005b) employ a model to describe recency and frequency and leave acquisition out of the model. The same is done here.Schmittlein et al. (1987) proposed the first stochastic model for prediction of the frequency of future purchases, the Pareto/NBD model. This model describes the flow of future transactions by modeling the unobserved termination as a Pareto time model (exponential-gamma mixture) and the flow of purchases of an active customer as an NBD counting model (Poisson-gamma mixture). The implementation of this approach is limited by the difficulty of estimation of its parameters. This model is theoretically discussed, for instance, by Balasubramanian et al. (1998) and Dipak and Singh (2002). Practical implementations are in Reinartz and Kumar (2000), Schmittlein and Peterson (1994) and Fader et al. (2005b).Fader et al. (2004) developed the BG/BB model, which is going to be tested here, as a simplification of the Pareto/NBD model. It is easier to implement because it treats time as a discrete parameter. Fader et al. (2005a) developed the BG/NBD model as a closer alternative to the Pareto/NBD model. This last model lacks yet a suitable expression for the value of the discounted expected number of future transactions (DET), which is an essential measure to the computation of CLV.To fit a BG/BB model, from each customer only three informations are needed: the number of months, x, in which purchases were made, the last month in which purchases were registered, m, and the total number of months, n, for which the possibility of purchasing was considered. This makes this model more resistant to the influence of outliers than alternatives with a continuous time parameter.By fitting this model, at least three important measures are offered to management: the probability of each customer remaining active at each future time, the expected amount of months of activity in any future time interval and the DET. This last measure is combined with the expected monthly monetary value derived from the adjustment of the Gamma/Gamma model to predict the CLV.3.1 Modeling the transactions times\n4 Combination of probabilistic evaluations: The probabilistic approach will combine the probabilities of being the best or not being the worst customer in a sample of fixed sized formed by a value representing the evaluated customer contribution and values representing customers in uniformly spread contribution levels. These probabilities are computed according to two sets of three criteria each. The first includes the RFM variables. The second includes the average ticket of the previous year together with the total number of products bought and the total number of stores of the network visited by the customer along the year.4.1 Membership functions and composition rules\n5 Case study: The database analyzed was formed by the registers, for 5,025 customers acquired in December 2003, of their purchases during the following 24 months. First, an exploratory analysis was done of the 5,025 vectors of values of the first year and, separately, of those 4,268 customers in the sample with transactions also in the second year. Ten variables were considered: outcome generated: sum of the monetary value of all purchases of the year; frequency: number of days with purchases; monthly frequency: number of months with at least one purchase; average ticket: outcome generated/frequency; monthly outcome: outcome generated/monthly frequency; inactivity: number of days from the day of the last purchase of the year to the end of the year; recency: last month of the year with at least one purchase; products: quantity of distinct products bought along the year; stores: quantity of distinct stores of the network visited during the year; interpurchases time: average time between successive transactions, for those customers with more than one purchase during the year. This last subset consisted of 4,533 customers in the first year and 3,909 in the second.5.1 Exploratory analysis\n6 Conclusions: The analysis developed provided strong empirical support for the strategy of measuring customer's value by modeling transaction times and value spent as two independent stochastic processes. Statistical evidence was raised on the quality of the predictions generated by the mixed model for the expenditures of one year ahead. The predictions produced were successfully employed to rank and classify the customers.Some of the patterns found in this study provide empirical confirmation of results that theoretically should be expected. For instance, the higher values of the Pearson correlations coefficients relating vectors of predicted and observed expenditures.The results obtained show also clearly the effectiveness of the RFM approach. A second consequence of the excellent performance of the stochastic model as a predictor for next year expenditures is the confirmation of the adequacy of this approach.Another confirmation obtained was that of the advantage of employing the products of the probabilities instead of the minimum between them. On the other hand, the improvement obtained by considering ranks instead of the numerical results of the probabilistic computations and the high correlations obtained by means of the ranks transformation is a promising pattern that asks for further confirmation.Other interesting new result asking for further investigation is that provided by the absence of influence of disregarding differences in the extremes. This suggests that extreme expenditures are reliable: almost inactive customers tend to remain inactive and high expenditures may be taken as permanent without large error.Summarizing, benchmarking the methods results in a clear recommendation to follow the stochastic model prediction approach. It also recommends following a classic choice of RFM value variables.These results are valid for a particular supermarkets network in a Brazilian city. The inner consistency of the results, nevertheless, and the coherence of the results obtained with what was expected of the approach taken, strongly encourage its application to other places and sectors of activity.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - Data mining registers of transactions allows for benchmarking customer's evaluation strategies. The purpose of this paper is to provide information on the application of different approaches to explore this kind of data.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Traditionally, heuristics based on variables such as recency, frequency, and monetary (RFM) value of transactions are used to determine the best customers. In this paper, a new form of directly combining the values of these variables is compared to an approach based on fitting a stochastic model. This last model is a mixture of a model for the number of transactions and another for the value spent. The new direct form of evaluation is based on computing the joint probability of maximizing quality indicators.\nFindings: - Good fit of the different models tested to the series of individual data as well as coherent predictions are registered. Patterns found provide empirical confirmation of results that theoretically should be expected.\nResearch limitations/implications: - These results are valid for a particular supermarkets network in a Brazilian city. The inner consistency of the results, nevertheless, and the coherence of the results obtained with what was expected, encourage application to other places and sectors of activity.\nPractical implications: - The results obtained show clearly the effectiveness of the approach based on RFM value measurement.\nOriginality/value: - The models studied are applied for the first time for the kind of data treated, where determination of which customers remain active is a problem of special interest.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Social business process management: Assessing the state of the art and outlining a research agenda
|
[
"Business process management",
"Social BPM research agenda",
"Social BPM state-of-art",
"Social business process management",
"Social software"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Business processes enable organizations to model and execute repetitive and structured tasks for producing their services and products, and due to this, they have a key role in achieving organizational goals. Recognizing their relevance, organizations are assessing and adopting practices for managing their business processes as part of their operational performance, as well as for having a mechanism to more efficiently adapt their operations to changes in the business environment. Such practices are known as business process management (BPM). In particular, BPM enables to optimize process execution, to analyze process performance, to document process activities, and to check compliance of process execution. A definition of BPM is provided below:Business Process Management (BPM) includes concepts, methods, and techniques to support the design, administration, configuration, enactment, and analysis of business processes.Weske (2008)\n2. Methodology: The research work was guided by the following three research questions:\n3. Applying SS techniques to BPM: As it was mentioned, SS follows three principles - social production, weak ties and collective decisions. Two main types of SS are social media and SN. Social media combine social production and weak ties, while SN establish weak ties and facilitates collective decisions (Keller et al., 2015). Based on such principles, the integration of SS techniques with BPM confronts the hierarchical model of BPM as defined by Taylor (1983). In particular, the application of SS enables an organization to define processes that do not strictly follow a hierarchical line and to stimulate actors to embark on the use of SS as an incentive for them to qualify within a scheme of rewards and to participate in a collaborative environment. As opposed to this model, in many BPMSs, users have a limited understanding of the processes in which they participate, missing contextual information, like ignoring other actors involved in the process, results of previous executions and lessons learnt from them (Bazan, 2015).\n4. Social BPM to allow flexibility in business process execution: Social BPM can be considered a mechanism to support the needed flexibility many times required in business processes. Several techniques applied in SS can be considered as a shortcut for producing more flexible business processes. As discussed below, there are already approaches for managing some flexibility in business processes, like \"case handling.\" However, the flexibility referred here requires a different approach, one that can consider changes from the conceptualization of the business process, to the process activities, and not from the data and case management perspectives only.\n5. Social BPM for knowledge management and process discovery: Beyond the existing strategies and approaches to model and deploy business processes, knowledge management around business processes and the identification of ad hoc processes for obtaining a model and an executable version of them, is still an important aspect of BPM.\n6. Discussion and results: Findings of this work allow identifying and sorting scientific contributions related to Social BPM as an approach to leverage on interactions between business process actors aiming at enriching business processes with tacit and unstructured knowledge. Based on our findings, mainly on the number of papers obtained from the conducted searches and the analysis carried out, we argue that there is scarce research on the area. Most related work refer to two approaches for integrating social aspects into BPM: those socializing business processes and those atomizing activities so to associate them to micro-services orchestrated by BPMS solutions.\n7. Conclusions: This paper presented a systematic review of the state of the art on Social BPM. The work was conducted based on the definitions and vision of Social BPM provided by related work. Our findings propose three areas to analyze related works, which in addition, are the identified lines for pursuing and encouraging further research: Social BPM and Social Software, Social BPM to flex and discover PN, and Social BPM as a new paradigm because of IT globalization.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to assess the state of the art of social business process management (Social BPM), explaining applied approaches, existing tools and challenges and to propose a research agenda for encouraging further development of the area.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The methodology comprises a qualitative analysis using secondary data. The approach relies on searches of scientific papers conducted in well-known databases, identifying research work related to Social BPM solutions and those contributing with social characteristics to BPM. Based on the identified papers, the authors selected the most relevant and the latest publications, and categorized their contributions and findings based on open and selective coding. In total, the analysis is based on 51 papers that were selected and analyzed in depth.\nFindings: Main results show that there are several studies investigating modeling approaches for socializing process activities and for capturing implicit knowledge possessed and used by process actors, enabling to add some kind of flexibility to business processes. However, despite the proven interest in the area, there are not yet adequate tools providing effective solutions for Social BPM. Based on our findings, the authors propose a research agenda comprising three main lines: contributions of social software (SS) to Social BPM, Social BPM as a mechanism for adding flexibility to and for discovering new business processes and Social BPM for enhancing business processes with the use of new technologies. The authors also identify relevant problems for each line.\nPractical implications: Some SS tools, like wikis, enable managing social aspects in executing business processes and can be used to coordinate simple business processes. Despite they are commonly used, they are not yet mature tools supporting Social BPM and more efficient tools are yet to appear. The lack of tools preclude organizations from benefitting from implicit knowledge owned by and shared among business process actors, which could contribute to better-informed decisions related to organizational processes. In addition, more research is needed for considering Social BPM as an approach for organizations to benefit from the adoption of new technologies in their business processes.\nOriginality/value: The paper assesses the state of the art in Social BPM, an incipient area in research and practice. The area can be defined as the intersection of two bigger areas highly relevant for organizations; on the one hand, the management and execution of business processes; and on the other hand, the use of social software, including social media tools, for leveraging on implicit knowledge shared by business process actors to improving efficiency of business processes.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The role of compliance for organisational change: Qualitative evidence from German SMEs
|
[
"Compliance",
"Change management",
"Employee performance",
"Employee acceptance",
"In-depth interviews"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Firms do not necessarily act like responsible corporate citizens. Current scandals deliver some shameful evidence on that issue. Siemens employees carried suitcases loaded with cash across international borders for paying bribes to foreign officials (Youngman, 2013). Wal-Mart's senior managers have been embroiled in using illegal bribery and corruption actions to secure the firm's expansion for many years (Sethi, 2014). Volkswagen's emission scandal marks a temporal climax in terms of the potential of technical manipulation (Rhodes, 2016). These and many other published incidents caused an on-going increase of compliance and ethics organisations, such as the Ethics Officer Association, the largest US association of professional ethics and compliance officers. The number of US companies with a successful introduced compliance programme continuously grows and beyond that, some of accepted parts of compliance and ethics programmes have been integrated into US legislation (Walker, 2006). According to revealed scandals ranging from illegal US political campaign involvements right up to bribing international officials, the US Congress responded to these by passing the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act legislation, which in short determines, that companies have to keep correct accounts and books in a particular way (Boedecker, 2011).\nLiterature review: According to the inextricable link between the introduction of compliance codes as our context of focus and organisational change we, first, have to refer to Lewin (1947) who is often erroneously attributed (Cummings et al., 2016) to have developed the famous three steps model of change management (unfreezing - moving - refreezing). Yet, this (or his) legacy persists. Lewin (1947) mentioned that the change of a force field requires an examination of overall circumstances. For changing a social equilibrium, the total social field has to be considered, which includes groups involved, their relationships, and their value systems. The association of the entire social field has to be studied and rearranged so that social occurrences flow variously. Affecting an organisation by making a change means attempting to burst a current social custom. Social habits are commonly sensed as barriers to change. Moreover, it can be seen as the inner defence against change. Therefore, additional forces are required for coping with resistance, breaking with customs, and finally unfreezing the social habit.\nResults: As for active acceptance, it was very impressive that most of the participants - in fact, 10 out of 12 - accepted the system in an active way, finding it meaningful. Nine of these agreed on the usefulness and necessity of the programme. They often mentioned similar statements such as \"clean rules\", or \"avoiding wrongdoing\". Moreover, three participants acknowledged the reality of the event by referring to existing external developments. Most of the participants dealt with it in a positive way - especially in later stages of the introduction process. During the conversations, participants repeated several times similar statements such as \"over time\" and \"after a while\" and wanted to make clear that this was not the case in earlier stages of the process. Actively accepting a new situation means also involving participants into the introduction phase (Xu et al., 2016), which actually only applied to one participant. Therefore, the results illustrate a very low two-way communication and involvement - especially at the earlier stages. Despite several statements associated with the meaningfulness of the system, only three participants felt calm and confident with the new processes. Table III provides insides into anchor examples that were assigned to active acceptance. In the following, we will present the results in an aggregated manner in order to obtain some glimpses into the status quo of perceptions across all respondents. With this in mind, we detached the presentation of results from individual responses to allow a more macroscopic viewpoint. To facilitate the reading and to increase the richness of information we provide telling anchor examples that explicate and illustrate this status quo.\nDiscussion: The most conspicuous area of passively accepting the situation was one-way communication and no involvement. This illustrates the most important result of this work. As a further result of no involvement, a lack of understanding mostly occurred in earlier stages of the compliance system introduction phase, which is represented by a high number of corresponding statements regarding incomprehension. Furthermore, this also caused angry attitudes regarding non-acceptance of the newly introduced system. Nevertheless, most of the participants find the system meaningful and necessary, and thus expressed accepting the programme in an active way. Passive and non-accepting attitudes transformed into active, accepting attitudes - especially in later stages of the project. Over time - and particularly by attending online-trainings - people's knowledge and experience increased, so they could deal with it in a more positive way. Recommending ideas and expressing concerns were possible mainly in later stages of the implementation, or after the compliance programme was finally introduced.\nConclusions: As a recommendation for practicing managers, we argue that introduced compliance and ethics programmes must be individualised, attractive, easy to handle; and most importantly it must improve processes to achieve efficiency and to increase business results. A compliance and ethics programme must be applicable to the entire value chain of a company. As our major contribution, employees must be involved in earlier stages of the process - but also during the whole implementation phases. Managers as well as employees must form and create simple visions which are easy to understand and communicate.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Fuelled by the latest scandals at Siemens, VW or Walmart, there is a lively debate on the role of compliance and ethics programmes. Unlike large corporations, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) arguably tend to underestimate their significance and lag behind. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to shed light on the process of introducing compliance codes and its effects on employee acceptance and performance.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In line with the qualitative methodology, the authors conducted 12 in-depth interviews with German SME employees which the authors evaluated with the qualitative content analysis.\nFindings: As for the major contribution, results indicate the emergence of a lack of understanding, anger, anxiety and operational performance losses - both at the individual and the corporate level - especially when employees feel uninvolved in the initial introduction stadium.\nOriginality/value: Practicing managers may benefit from the recommendation to facilitate staff involvement at earlier stages. As for theory advancement, the authors draw on Kotter's (2007) long surviving \"Eight Steps Change Management Model\" and find significant support for shifting the spotlight of attention towards the first four phases. The authors discuss the original value of the research, admit limitations and illuminate some promising future research trajectories.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Developing organizational practices of ecological sustainability: A learning perspective
|
[
"Corporate social responsibility",
"Ecology",
"Learning"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: With the growing interest in corporate social responsibility, organizations since the early 1990s have been seeking to develop practices and policies that are more ecological, sustainable and socially responsible (Business for Social Responsibility, 2006). Yet despite prevalent business usage of \"sustainability\" rhetoric, critics have argued that the overall impact has been unremarkable in achieving real goals of sustainable practice within organizations (Daley and Cobb, 1989; Dobbin, 1999; Henderson, 2002). Levels of understanding and genuine commitment to ecological ideals range widely across and within companies, as apparently does internal resistance (Hemingway and Maclagan, 2004; McWilliams et al., 2006). In fact, critics such as Bakan (2004) have charged opportunism and naivete in the rhetoric and interests of the whole corporate social responsibility movement. Yet other commentators, reporting impacts of initiatives such as the United Nations' Global Compact forum (Kell, 2003; Waddock, 2003), have claimed that organizations are indeed changing to become more ecological and ethical in practice, although practice ranges considerably in scope and intent. Clearly there is lack of consensus about the implementation of ecological practices in organizations.\nWhat is \"ecological sustainability\"?: Sustainability has come to represent everything from economic development to environmental science. In the present argument, \"ecological sustainability\" refers to both social and environmental responsibility, ranging from issues of human rights to viability of local communities and conservation of natural resources. Working from literatures of environmental science, social responsibility and human ecology, Lange (2001) has developed ten principles of ecological sustainability that suggest interwoven considerations for organizational practice:* using renewable energy by shifting energy sources from coal, oil and gas to solar power, direct or indirect, water and wind;* eliminating waste from production involves taking greater responsibility for the whole life cycle of products as well as toxic effluent;* restoring and conserving biodiversity understands that health of societies and ecosystems rests on rich variation (Hawken, 1993); and* adopting biomimicry using tools and technology to mimic natural processes - small scale, integrated in renewable cycles, and adaptable to the community level.All of these strive to reduce the negative impact of \"footprint\" (amount of land required to produce the resources and assimilate the waste of a population) on the interdependent webs of social and biological activity: \"treading lightly\". Other principles include:* ensuring meaningful, fairly paid work in decent conditions;* contributing to growth of holistic urban communities;* contributing to reduce cities' ecological footprint through integration of a diversity of activities and amenities in each neighborhood;* encouraging zero-emission industry;* renewing neglected and unsafe areas (Todd and Todd, 1994); and* incorporating restorative economy: building collective self-reliance and integrating commerce and technology into existing biological systems, focusing on the organization and local community's internal resources and bioregion.By way of synthesis, four themes can be identified running throughout these principles. The first is an attitude: a sense of personal ethical responsibility for restoring healthier communities and eco-systems. The others are action: practices of renewal or involving minimal resources and waste in production and life activity; interconnectivity or acting with awareness of one's relatedness to others in local, global and biological webs and the impact of one's actions on them; and promoting local well-being, as nested within what Bohm (1980) calls the whole, implicate order.Sustainability practices in organizations - CSR\nPossibilities for learning sustainability in organizations: hopeful examples: The remainder of this discussion draws upon findings of two studies conducted recently to explore organizational development of ecological sustainability. This discussion does not aim to present a full research report of these studies, but to compare salient findings from them to examine the learning dimensions in implementing sustainability practices. Therefore the examination reported in this article is guided by two questions:1. What learning in particular is involved in developing practices of ecological sustainability in organizations?2. How might this learning be fostered by organizational leaders?Methods\nEmergence and ecological learning - an approach to organizational leadership: These elements appear to be aligned with the principles of sustainability and CSR developed by ecological writers: a sense of personal ethical responsibility for restoring healthier communities and eco-systems, practices of renewal involving minimal resources and waste, interconnectivity or acting with awareness of one's relatedness to others, and promoting local well-being in one's surrounding environments and communities (Hawken, 1993; Todd and Todd, 1994; Lange, 2001). When we return to the challenges documented in organizations trying to apply these principles to practice, a recurring theme has been that concepts often fail to penetrate the organization's operations due to lack of understanding, employee and customer buy-in, or resolution of contradictions between ecological principles and the bottom line (Canadian Business for Social Responsibility, 2001; L'Etang, 1995; Nattrass and Altomare, 2002; Willard, 2005). These problems are related to implementation approaches that stop at public relations activity or policies issued top-down from senior management. Recent discussions of mobilizing CSR and sustainability practices in organizations has stressed the need for much greater attention to learning (Davidson and Hatt, 2005; Kell, 2003; Waddock, 2003).Continuous learning throughout the organization was a theme in the organizational examples described earlier. The strategies used by leaders to foster this learning are remarkably consistent with ecological models of learning derived from complexity science, the study of adaptive, self-organizing systems. From ecological and complexity theory orientations, learning is defined as expansion of capacity for \"more sophisticated, more flexible, and more creative action\" (Davis et al., 2000). The focus is emergence: this ecological view of learning observes how complex adaptive wholes emerge from the non-linear improvisations among micro-elements of a system (Johnson, 2001). Emergence arises from processes of interconnection, recursion, renewal and self-organization.The important task for leaders interested in promoting learning, from this ecological perspective, is to enable emergence. That is, leaders can help encourage the sorts of ongoing, decentralized, creative improvisation among organizational elements that can lead to unintended but generative possibilities. This is essentially what leaders in the preceding organizational examples appeared to be doing. They began by mobilizing commitment (including attracting like-minded staff and customers) to sustainability principles, and emphasized this focus wherever possible in operations and policy-making. Then they created many opportunities for employee interaction with one another and with customers and the local community's organizations, and they encouraged employee experimentation with products and sustainability initiatives. These leaders valued employees', customers' and the local community's knowledge related to sustainability, they solicited ideas from these sources, and they encouraged questions and challenges. Hartley (2002) shows how in such organizational processes of fundamental cultural change, particularly where leaders must enable cross-organizational interconnections and partnerships, effective leadership emphasizes responsiveness, understanding of the organization's potential impact on other organizations, and active outreach to build relationships.Complexity science teaches that emergence requires conditions of diversity, decentralised organization, redundancy (overlap among individuals created through shared focus, language or activity), frequent opportunities for informal interaction, focus, and feedback (Fenwick, 2001; Davis and Sumara, 2005). Conditions for emergence do not necessarily occur spontaneously, but can be induced by an educator or leader. Davis et al. (2000) have been exploring approaches for educators in schools, and some of these hold applicability for organizational leaders. For example, leaders can foreground difference and its difficulties: they can even introduce difference, to disturb and unsettle what is taken-for-inevitable. Leaders can prompt frequent, informal interaction across different levels of an organization by modeling its importance, creating occasions for it, and posing questions mobilizing learners to gather. Leaders can also promote decentralised organization: different nodes of control that communicate and cooperate. Effective leaders already tend to promote feedback within a system, feedback that attends a group to healthy directions and to negative loops that threaten to kill a system. The more loops for feedback that are created, according to complexity theory, the more that parts of an organization become attuned and interconnected with one other, with their central purposes, and with external environments and organizations. Leaders can encourage individuals and units to create feedback routines for their own initiatives and everyday practices. In the organizations described earlier, these routines included informal conversation gatherings with employee and customer groups, talks with community leaders, development of outcomes indicators by employees to measure the sustainability practices valued most in the organization (such as supplier assessments, garbage audits, and customer), and regular outcomes assessment using these indicators. Overall, to enable emergence in an ecological model of organizational learning, leaders employ open-ended design but not control. They amplify difference, promote connectivity (by creating opportunities and physical spaces conducive to frequent interaction), help attune participants to their interconnections, and encourage improvisation rather than closure, while maintaining a clear focus.Ultimately what matters is how individuals learn to attune to the people and elements surrounding them with a greater sense of connection and mutual responsibility (Davidson and Hatt, 2005). Ecological models of learning maintain that individuals learn this through participation in co-emergent systems where possibilities are always expanding (Davis and Sumara, 2005). Of particular interest to this discussion is the consonance between these conditions for emergence promoted by models of ecological learning and the characteristics noted earlier in business organizations that had successfully integrated principles of sustainability. Leaders promoting development of ecological sustainability practices throughout their organizations appeared to have enabled conditions of emergence within the organization, opening spaces and promoting everyday activities where individuals could experience the interconnection, face-to-face diversity, expansion and invention of ecological systems.\nConclusion and implications: This article began by showing that organizational practices of ecological sustainability, as explained in both environmental literature and corporate social responsibility, can be represented by the four themes of ethical responsibility, renewal, interconnectivity and local well-being. Three central questions guided the discussion. The first was: how are practices of social responsibility and ecological sustainability developed and maintained in organizations? Clearly learning and education play a central role. Here it has been argued that organizations achieving a degree of success in navigating these contradictions not only placed a central focus on personal responsibility for ecological action, but also developed two characteristics:1. emphasis on education; and2. a systemic structure of emergence (diversity, decentralization, connectivity, etc.).To address the second question - What learning in particular is involved in developing practices of ecological sustainability in organizations? - the discussion has argued that learning occurs on various levels. Knowledge of ecological sustainability, its purposes and benefits to the organization, needs to be communicated to employees and customers, and to be clear and consistent among managers. Capacities for focusing and prioritizing ecological initiatives, for actively involving staff and stakeholders in developing and adapting everyday practices, and for implementing them throughout organizational operations, need to be generated. Strategies for classifying and prioritizing stakeholders with conflicting agendas are useful. Personal responsibility and genuine commitment to ecological action needs to be promoted at all organizational levels including management and staff.But for organizational leaders the most relevant question might be the third: how might this learning be fostered? Examples from organizations reveal that leaders foster learning of ecological sustainability through modeling and communicating their commitment in everyday action, through opening opportunities and actively encouraging personal staff involvement in designing pet projects and approaches, through promoting everyday improvisation, and through creating conditions and incentives that foster diverse networks connecting staff with external stakeholders. Among employees, opportunities to instigate and take responsibility for personal projects of ecological practices appear to generate enthusiasm for learning. Focus on measurement is important, but a greater focus on everyday improvisation and adaptation appears to sustain momentum and prevent ecological practices from becoming static. Multiple opportunities for interaction on paid time acts as formal recognition that such interactions are important. Among relations with external stakeholders, active cultivation of diverse networks helps generate new ideas, questions and perspectives. In particular, the fostering of personal encounters and relationships among individual employees and representatives of community, suppliers, and clients for information sharing and response helped to generate new practices, raise useful questions, and motivate employees' commitment. Overall this discussion pointed to two main lessons for more effective organizational development of ecological sustainability practice. First, that emphasis should be placed on educating workers and customers in ways that make sense to them, within their own communities and immediate interests. Second, that sustainability is learned through everyday practice and interaction, as people share, question, tinker with and invent sustainability approaches: a phenomenon that some describe as emergence, a central part of learning in an ecological model (Davis and Sumara, 2005; Lange, 2001).Clearly although many challenges compromise efforts to incorporate practices of ecological sustainability in today's organizations trying to survive and compete in global markets, sufficient examples exist to inspire leaders and organizational developers to continue pressing for change. In small businesses enacting these four themes of sustainability, activities echo what complexity science shows to be the conditions for emergence in complex adaptive systems: promoting diversity, decentralised decision-making, connectivity, enabling constraints, feedback and learning. But beyond these conditions, a key factor is a central ethical commitment: a shared responsibility to promote ecological sustainability. Leaders alone will not convert attitudes to this commitment, but a focus on learning can help foster understanding and active participation in sustainable practices within and among work organizations.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This article aims to discuss issues and strategies of developing practices of ecological sustainability in organizations. Three questions guide the discussion: how are practices of social responsibility and ecological sustainability developed and maintained in organizations? What learning in particular is involved in developing practices of ecological sustainability in organizations? How might this learning be fostered by organizational leaders?\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The article draws from literatures in ecology, ecological learning and corporate social responsibility to describe the nature of ecological sustainability, intents and approaches of organizations developing it, and their challenges. Case examples drawn from studies of small business are examined to explore successful strategies of developing practices of ecological sustainability. These examples are analysed from a learning perspective.\nFindings: - Challenges that hinder adoption of ecological sustainability practice include low stakeholder understanding and support, low management focus and strategy, and insufficient cost-benefit analysis. Organizations confronted these challenges by emphasizing education and enabling conditions that fostered learning in everyday action (decentralization, diversity, connections, shared focus, constraints, and feedback).\nResearch limitations/implications: - The discussion shifts the emphasis from corporate social responsibility (CSR) - which has become a broad, contested area of multiple meanings - to ecological sustainability, and shifts the focus from measurement and reporting (prominent in CSR literature) to learning.\nPractical implications: - Strategies are suggested for organizational leaders to enable conditions for learning that support practices of ecological sustainability.\nOriginality/value: - With the learning perspective, and particularly with the focus on ecological learning models based in complexity science, the article demonstrates a unique link between learning approaches and practices of ecological sustainability.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
The joint effects of personality and supervisory career mentoring in predicting occupational commitment
|
[
"Careers",
"Mentoring",
"Personality",
"Motivation (psychology)",
"Employee behavior",
"Commitment"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: There has been an increased focus by researchers on the application of social exchange theory to employee-organization linkage (Liden et al., 1997). This social exchange relationship is strongly associated with an employee's contribution in the form of higher commitment and better performance (Shore et al., 2009). Some of the studies also suggest that individual differences play a significant role in defining why these relationships are stronger for some employees than for others (Kamdar et al., 2006; Shore et al., 2009). This study investigated this exchange by integrating theory from the mentoring and cognate literature within the context of the supervisor-subordinate relationship. In contrast to earlier studies that have considered the dyadic interaction from the leader-member exchange based on two-member groups, this study advances the existing body of literature by investigating supervisory mentoring as a focal point of the dyadic developmental relationship. To address this, the study adopted the framework suggested by various theorists who advocated that situations interact with dispositions to influence behavior (Bowers, 1973; Mischel, 1968).\nLiterature review and development of hypotheses: SCM\nThis study: Linking SCM and OC\nMethod: Participants\nResults: Discriminant validity results\nDiscussion: In this study, we conceptualized a two-way interaction of personality dispositions and SCM to influence OC within the frame of the supervisor-subordinate relationship. In particular, we analyzed the role of SCM support as a predictor of OC given the scarcity of research from the perspective of dyadic development relationships.\n",
"role": "user"
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{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the joint effects of personality (agreeableness and conscientiousness) and perceived supervisory career mentoring (SCM) on occupational commitment (OC) in the Indian context. In addition, the role of SCM support as a predictor of OC was also analyzed.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A cross-sectional survey-based research design was adopted using data from 121 employees of public and private sector organizations in North India.\nFindings: The results showed that the relationship between perceived SCM and OC was stronger for employees reporting high levels of agreeableness in contrast to low agreeableness. Further, perceived SCM support was observed as a significant predictor of OC in the Indian context.\nPractical implications: This study suggests that for fostering an occupationally committed workforce, it is critical for supervisory mentors to understand how to deal with employees of different personality traits. Further, supervisory mentors need to be trained and empowered to render vocational support to employees at all levels.\nOriginality/value: The work advances the existing work on mentoring and vocational outcomes by demonstrating the crucial role of supervisory career support and personality interactions in predicting OC.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Exploring the effects of authentic leadership on academic optimism and teacher engagement in Thailand
|
[
"Thailand",
"Asia",
"Authentic leadership",
"Principal",
"Academic optimism",
"Teacher work engagement"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Among alterable school variables, teacher quality has been identified as the most significant predictor of student academic outcomes (Hattie, 2008; Sanders et al., 1997). Indeed, international research conducted across developed and developing nations finds that teacher knowledge, attitudes and classroom practices explain up to 30 percent of the variance in student achievement (Hattie, 2008). This finding has encouraged policymakers across the world to refocus attention on strategies designed to improve the quality of the teaching force (e.g. Akiba et al., 2007; Hanushek, 1995; Hanushek and Rivkin, 2006; Sanders et al., 1997). Unfortunately, accountability policies explicitly designed to increase student achievement (e.g. focus on achievement test results, intensification of school inspection, emphasis on value-added teacher evaluation) can also have the unintended effect of reducing teacher motivation and engagement (Calabrese and Roberts, 2001; Chang, 2009; Finnigan, 2010; Leithwood et al., 2002; Walker and Ko, 2011). Consequently, in societies throughout the world, researchers report that low teacher motivation and commitment threaten the sustainability of education reforms (Glewwe and Kremer, 2006; Leithwood et al., 2002; Sleegers et al., 2014; Walker and Ko, 2011).\nTheoretical perspective: Leadership and education reform in Thailand\nMethod: This study employed a cross-sectional research design to study the relationships indicated in Figure 1. In this section, we present the procedures for scale development, data collection, and data analysis. The methods described in this section were assessed and approved by the Research Ethics Review Board of the university under whose auspices the research was conducted.\nResults: First, we present the results of the model validation. Then we address the research questions related to the practice of authentic leadership by primary school principals and its relationship to teacher academic optimism and work engagement.\nDiscussion: Duignan (2014), proposed that researchers focus on understanding how Authentic School Leadership shapes teacher attitudes and behaviors that contribute to positive school cultures and student learning. Owusu-Bempah and colleagues (2014) highlighted the need for examining Authentic School Leadership outside of the predominantly Western societies in which it has been studied to date. The current study sought to address these challenges in the context of education reforms adopted and implemented in Thailand over the past 20 years. More specifically, our research examined the relationship between authentic school leadership and two important variables that have been associated with positive school learning cultures: teachers' academic optimism and work engagement. In this section of the paper, we review key limitations of the study, place the findings in context, and outline several implications for research and practice.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: In the context of Thailand's progress towards education reform, scholars have identified a lack of effective school-level leadership as an impeding factor. The purpose of this paper is to develop and validate a theoretical model of authentic leadership effects on teacher academic optimism and work engagement. Authentic leadership was considered a suitable model of school leadership in light of Thailand's explicit recognition of the importance of developing the moral capacity of students and emphasis on ethical leadership.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study employed a quantitative cross-sectional survey design. Survey data were obtained from 605 teachers in a nationally representative sample of 182 primary schools. The data were analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling.\nFindings: The results indicated that the model of authentic leadership effects on teachers' academic optimism and work engagement was validated. A moderate relationship was observed between authentic leadership and the dependent measures of teacher attitudes.\nPractical implications: The study identified a potentially important lack of alignment between the espoused values and actions/decisions of school principals in Thailand. When combined with prior research conducted on leadership for educational reform in Thailand, our findings highlight the systemic nature of the problem faced in changing traditional patterns of behavior in Thai schools. More specifically, despite change in the nation's educational goals, human resource management of the nation's school leaders continues to produce administrators and managers rather than leaders, either instructional or moral.\nOriginality/value: The study extends prior studies of school leadership in the context of Thailand's education reform that focused more specifically on principal instructional leadership in Thailand. In addition, this study of authentic school leadership is one of only a few conducted outside of Western societies.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Cross-case analysis of producer-driven marketing channels in Australia
|
[
"Direct marketing",
"Producer owned ventures",
"Alternative distribution channels",
"Case study",
"Feasibility study",
"Transaction costs",
"Uncertainty",
"Australia"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Alternative distribution channels avoid intermediate traders and often connect consumers and food producers through farmers' markets, online or phone ordering and home delivery, collection of seasonal produce called \"box schemes\", farm-gate sales, mobile food shops and producer cooperatives or direct to specialist retailers or wholesalers (Gilg and Battershill, 1998; La Trobe, 2001). Many researchers have focused on alternative distribution channels as economic opportunity for not only the producers, but consumers and the community (Norberg-Hodge et al., 2002; Allen et al., 2003; Appleby et al., 2003; Renting et al., 2003; Lyson and Guptill, 2004). Alternative supply chains are seen as a response to declining farm incomes, and to increasing consumer concerns about the impacts of conventional agriculture on their health, the environment and animal welfare (Allen et al., 2003; Renting et al., 2003).\nMethods: Multiple case studies were selected across a variety of meat types, and distribution channels including to food service distributors who supply restaurants and caterers (Table I). The cases were used to identify common processes, patterns and exceptions across the cases (Yin, 2003). A case study approach enables in-depth investigation in the context of actual enterprise processes and everyday events (Yin, 2003).Cases selected were meat producers on family farms that exhibited a strong culture of market orientation and all cases were operating within a similar market and biophysical context. In all cases the producer had additional labour to support marketing beyond the farm-gate (Table II). All the selected cases differentiated their brand with at least one credence attribute: two producers were claiming to produce pork using \"free range\" husbandry; four producers were claiming \"clean and green\" credentials; three cases were claiming \"stress free\" animal handling; and two producers claimed health benefits associated with grass-fed rather than grain-fed beef.An interview protocol was developed to standardise the questions across cases (Yin, 2003), and enquired about: product qualities and attributes that customers are seeking through these channels; the skills, experience and personal attributes required by producers to manage marketing; the formal and informal mechanisms that maintain consumer trust in a brand promise; the volume of sales that might be achieved; and the impact of value adding and producer-driven marketing on farm profit margins. The interviews took 1-2 hours to conduct and for the purposes of triangulation, both partners were interviewed, with the exception of the Pork 2. One or two processors and/or buyers within four supply chains were interviewed to substantiate the demand for the brand and, albeit indirectly, consumer feedback on eating quality or credence claims. Otherwise, newspaper articles referring to the enterprise and/or the promotional websites were cross-checked with interviews.Interviews were tape-recorded and transcribed between September 2006 and February 2007. Transcripts of the interviews were sent to the informants for corroboration, checking the reliability of the interpretation. A few minor corrections were then made prior to cross-case analysis using NVivo Version 7 software (Bazeley, 2007). Each transcript was coded using a hierarchy of \"nodes\" which are markers of text in this type of software (Bazeley, 2007). The proliferation of nodes was organised into themed sets to gather evidence for propositions (Yin, 2003; Bazeley, 2004). Queries and matrices were used to find relationships between nodes and/or sets. Interpretations were recorded in memos; these were also coded to match newly developed concepts with original data (Bazeley, 2004).\nFindings: Profitability of the cases could be attributed to the entrepreneurial skills evident among the cases studied, which enabled the producer-marketers to solve problems, build supply chain relationships and promote their brand. However, this paper focuses on the economic factors such as the revenues, costs and uncertainties. These factors were compared in retail and direct marketing channels and the critical factors were found to be the price achieved, and the control of various commercialisation costs and negotiation costs (Table III).Factors found not to be significant to the feasibility of changing from solely supplying the mainstream to alternative distribution channels were the quantity sold, and information costs. Quantity sold was not critical where multiple distribution channels were maintained. In each case, the quantity sold under the brand increased over time, and given sufficient time for the brand and customer base to be established was equivalent to the mainstream. Value-adding was found to contribute to maximising the volume sold in three cases. Sales volume through European farmer's markets were less than the mainstream (Verhaegen and van Huylenbroeck, 2001; Ilbery, 2005). Information costs have minimal impact on producer-marketers or mainstream suppliers in well-developed markets (Hobbs, 1997). The meat industry's peak body in Australia, Meat and Livestock Australia, provides regular market reports to enable price discovery and mainstream carcass specifications.Production costs including labour and operational costs were incurred regardless of the marketing channels. However, PDM increases the complexity of husbandry and grazing management largely because the sale of product is staggered across the year. By contrast, management is simplified in mainstream supply where husbandry practices and treatments for the entire flock can be undertaken at the same time and all animals produced each season can be sold over a shorter period of time. Verhaegen and van Huylenbroeck (2001) found that direct marketing could be a distraction from production. However, in the cases studied, partners divided the roles and functions of production, product preparation and marketing, which allowed the primary producer to maintain their focus on product quality and quantity.Price achieved\nConclusion: The cross-case analysis suggested that producer-driven marketing of branded meat was a feasible alternative to supplying generic meat to mainstream buyers in the context of an Australian family-operated farm for the following reasons. Revenues were improved by avoiding the variability in farm-gate prices experienced in the mainstream, capturing the marketing margin as well as gaining a premium through a brand promise of consistently good eating quality and providing information about credence attributes. PDM was also feasible where negotiation costs were minimised, particularly labour requirements to market the product beyond the farm-gate; confirming previous findings that labour costs were critical to profitability (Verhaegen and van Huylenbroeck, 2001; Hardesty and Leff, 2009). Labour costs were reduced through the use of family labour to coordinate the supply chain, sell the products, and in some cases to value-add. Costs per transaction were minimised by increasing the volume sold through selling of bulk packs, attendance at well-patronised farmers' markets and cost-effective brand promotion. The adequacy of the profit gained was reconciled with personal goals, such as farm-based employment for spouses or to support a farming lifestyle.Uncertainty about price and grading are largely avoided by PDM. Uncertainties in PDM cases occurred when out-sourcing processing, retailing unpackaged product and when estimating demand for a perishable product. In PDM enterprises, the management is more complex in relation to husbandry and grazing to continuously supply animals, and in relation to coordination of multiple supply chains.Seasonal production capacity limits the ability of a single family farm to supply a brand all year around. Investigation of effective arrangements to form a brand alliance for meat could resolve this limitation. Also, the sustainability of PDM warrants further investigation to determine the reasons that family farms cease to be involved in alternative channels, and how their PDM experience changes their marketing.Rural development policy in Australia, the USA and Europe already recognises the value of arresting declining farm profits (Francis, 2002; Renting et al., 2003; Lyson and Guptill, 2004). This analysis indicates that governments could assist with information dissemination of the critical financial factors for PDM (Table III), and that the organisers of farmers' markets need to increase visitor numbers to support viable PDM.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of the study was to investigate the feasibility of producer-driven marketing of differentiated meat, in the context of Australian family farms. Producer-driven marketing (PDM) is defined as marketing by farm families of their own produce by developing and managing their own supply chains beyond the farm-gate. Family farms are defined as family operated farms. The framework used compared revenue, costs and uncertainty in various distribution channels.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Six individual case studies were conducted using semi-structured interviews. The interview protocol included enterprise characteristics that contribute to the ongoing viability of the businesses.\nFindings: - PDM was a feasible entry point for new brands and a profitable alternative to supplying generic product to the mainstream when costs were controlled. It is proposed that PDM was feasible in the context of Australian family farms where the distribution channel chosen reduces variability in the farm-gate price, captures the marketing margin and minimises negotiation costs, particularly the labour costs to find a buyer.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The feasibility assessment excluded the cost of acquiring new skills which may be significant. The entrepreneurs interviewed already possessed significant marketing and business skills and experience to produce and market a brand through alternative distribution channels.\nPractical Implications: - Producers can potentially increase farm profitability where household labour and skills are available to market produce beyond the farm-gate. These implications are likely to be relevant in most developed countries, not just Australia.\nOriginality/value: - The phenomenon of producer-driven marketing is relatively novel in Australian agribusiness with no previous analysis of the profitability and long-term viability of such an approach in the Australian context.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Effects on employees' information security abilities by e-learning
|
[
"Data security",
"E‐learning",
"Individual behaviour",
"Employees",
"Training"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: Maintaining information security in an organization requires the commitment of employees at all levels. Without full employee commitment, security mechanisms may be diminished or bypassed entirely (Ward and Smith, 2002; Schneier, 2004; Schultz, 2005). Thomson and von Solms (2006) argue that employees' compliance with an organizational security policy can best be achieved through education and awareness campaigns. Though training and education are generally considered more effective than more formalistic measures such as procedures and controls (Hagen et al., 2008a), studies show that many organizations neglect to provide adequate training (Hagen et al., 2008a, b). A European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA) report gives an overview of training practices in 69 companies in nine European countries. Approximately, 50 percent of the companies used computer-based training (ENISA, 2007).While the most common way to evaluate the effect of Information Security Awareness training is quizzes and/or before and after surveys (ENISA, 2007), our study evaluates and discusses the effect of awareness training using a research design that includes the use of a control group. Our experiment is carried out in the Wilh. Wilhelmsen (WW) Group, a leading maritime industry group that delivers logistics solutions and maritime services worldwide. The effect of their computer-based security training program, named Individual Security Awareness (ISA), was tested. A large part of the program is dedicated to the various aspects of information security. Our study addressed three research questions:RQ1. Did the computer-based program result in improved employee information - security knowledge, awareness, and behavior?RQ2. Did the extent of the training (i.e. the number of modules performed in the program) contribute to the improvement of employees' information security knowledge, awareness, and behavior?RQ3. Why did the program either result in changes or fail to create changes in the employees' security knowledge, awareness, and behavior?Section 2 of this paper presents an introduction to ISA; Section 3 outlines the paper's theoretical framework; Section 4 explains our applied methodology; and Section 5 describes the findings. In Section 6, the findings are discussed according to the theoretical framework. Section 7 discusses the conclusions reached.\n2 The intervention project: Individual Security Awareness (ISA): In the WW Group security (including information security) has recently become a high priority. A corporate security policy was developed and signed by the chief executive managers, user guidelines were developed, and a Corporate Security Forum established. There are no technical restrictions on web surfing, but some restrictions on downloading executable files. In addition, filters are used to reduce spam and malware from e-mail. To raise individual awareness, in March 2008, the WW Group's own academy launched the e-learning program, ISA. ISA consists of six modules, which introduce the following aspects of security:* Module 1: introduction. This module introduces various security and risk issues, defines the risks, and describes the security organization and security responsibilities.* Module 2: information security. This module focuses solely on information security. It defines information security as confidentiality, integrity, and availability, explains the threats that may exist to information security, and shows how employees should handle different classes of information.* Module 3: travel security. This module explains how to deal with the risks that may occur while traveling, such as mugging, street robbery, kidnapping, hotel fires, diseases, accidents, etc.* Module 4: personal security. This module is about being able to take care of yourself, your colleagues, and your family, and discusses ways to deal with risks such as fire, burglary, kidnapping, loss of sensitive information, etc.* Module 5: security of facilities. This module is concerned with the workplace. It is about protecting premises and detecting and preventing unauthorized entry to the premises.* Module 6: internal/external communication. This module is about being aware of what and how you communicate, both internally and externally.Even though only one module focuses solely on information security, information security is included in the other modules, too.ISA gives an overall introduction to security and information security, but does not teach the details on how to for instance separate lure web pages from real web pages, or how to encrypt e-mail, or detect social engineering attacks. It teaches the employees about the risks connected to these issues and other issues. Each employee can access and quit ISA through his/her computer, whenever he or she has time to do so. The ISA e-learning software begins with a vocal introduction, uses pictures, music, and texts to illustrate the risks, and then provides exercises that motivate reflection. There are also multiple-choice tests with immediate feedback, including the correct answers. Users are free to choose whichever module they want to start with. The estimated time to complete one module is 10-15 minutes. Figure 1 shows a screen-shot from Module 2, information security. Here, the employee must choose the appropriate security action to take when leaving documents or a computer in a public place. If the employee makes an incorrect choice, he or she receives corresponding feedback, but can then continue to the subsequent question.Our intervention study includes two evaluations of the ISA e-learning software:1. Evaluation of ISA's effect on employees' information security knowledge, awareness, and behavior.2. Evaluation of the training extent's effect: is there any difference between the employees who completed only Module 1, Modules 1 and 2, and those who completed all six modules?The next section will discuss theories of safety and information security management and the ways that a variety of useful measures may change employees' behavior.\n3 Theoretical framework: information security measures that influence user performance: Individuals' performance with regard to information security may be influenced by a wide range of formal and informal factors: security technologies; formal organizational structures; awareness, values, and norms; and social relations and interactions (Albrechtsen, 2007, 2008; Lund and Aaro, 2004). One potential categorization of information security measures directed at users is shown in Figure 2.Figure 2 shows what is potentially the most effective sequential ordering for use of the categories of intervention measures (based on Rundmo, 1990; Hovden et al., 1992). First, conditions in the working environment should be changed as needed to be appropriate for and conducive to good security-observant behavior. If this improvement proves insufficient, it indicates that the workers need further education. If additional education proves insufficient, it indicates that employees need the kind of information that will influence their attitudes toward information security. If the effect of awareness activities proves unsatisfactory, employers should adopt sanctions and rewards that may modify the employees' behavior. In dealing with employees who may be undesired security risks, a more careful selection of employees is indicated as a final solution. Unqualified employees should be transferred or dismissed, and work tasks should be assigned according to individuals' qualifications. The measures in Figure 2 should be regarded as complementary. Once, the more technological and administrative means have been chosen and changes have been implemented, additional \"softer\" resources can be used if necessary to modify individuals' performance. The higher up a chosen measure is shown in Figure 2, the more likely improvement will occur at the individual level. The following sections provide a synopsis of how a variety of information security measures may influence employee's behavior.3.1 Improving working conditions\n4 Methodology: This section describes and discusses the research method we used for the intervention experiment at WW Group.4.1 Research design, data collection, and statistical analysis\n5 Results: This section first describes the demographic characteristics of the participants and then presents the results of the experiment.5.1 Participants\n6 Discussion: 6.1 Did ISA change employees' information security knowledge, awareness, and behavior in the short-term?\n7 Conclusions: The implementation of ISA in the WW Group provides a large-scale, computer-based and standardized security training that can facilitate employee compliance with the organizations' security policies by raising individual security knowledge and awareness. We conducted an experiment to evaluate ISA's effectiveness in those areas.Our results show that the program had a significant short-term effect on employee security knowledge, awareness and behavior. There were significant differences between the intervention subgroups and that, in order to get the full benefit of the training, all employees should be encouraged to complete the entire program. ISA alone was shown to have a significant effect on improving employee security knowledge and behavior. The combination of the ISA e-learning software with surrounding activities, ISA promotion, and surveys may all have contributed to the observed change in all employees' security awareness, as seen in the changes in the awareness of the control group. Good promotion contributed probably to a high-response rate at the cost of the Hawthorne effect. One lesson learned from the experiment is to discuss research design and questions with physiologists to eliminate any psychological side effects that might occur during such experiments.Finally, it should be noted that the long-term effect has not yet been analyzed, and that individual learning is not the same as organizational learning, where the latter results in a change in common understanding, relations, and interactions. Our intervention study did not use a group-based approach in which employees could share knowledge and experience. Rather, ISA is a tool for raising individual employees' security awareness and, as such, is a good starting point for building a corporate security culture based on common values and attitudes. The experiment showed that ISA itself started some knowledge-sharing processes in the organization.This study has focused on the short-term effects of ISA. We intend to continue with a follow-up study on the long-term effects of the program. In this follow-up study, we will discuss computer-based training compared with human intervention and action research and their effects on organizational learning.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to measure and discuss the effects of an e-learning tool aiming at improving the information security knowledge, awareness, and behaviour of employees.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The intervention study has a pre- and post-assessment of knowledge and attitudes among employees. In total, 1,897 employees responded to a survey before and after the intervention. The population is divided into an intervention group and a control group, where the only thing that separates the groups is participation in the intervention (i.e. the e-learning tool).\nFindings: - The study documents significant short-time improvements in security knowledge, awareness, and behavior of members of the intervention group.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The study looks at short-time effects of the intervention. The paper has done a follow-up study of the long-term effects, which is also submitted to Information Management & Computer Security.\nPractical implications: - The study can document that software that support Information Security Awareness programs have a short-time effect on employees' knowledge, behaviour, and awareness; more interventions studies, following the same principles as presented in this paper, of other user-directed measures are needed, to test and document the effects of different measures.\nOriginality/value: - The paper is innovative in the area of information security research as it shows how the effects of an information security intervention can be measured.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Deconstructing the relationship between mindfulness and leader effectiveness
|
[
"Leadership development",
"Emotional intelligence",
"Mindfulness",
"Organizational leadership",
"ESCI",
"Leadership performance"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Interest in mindfulness - defined by some scholars as both a mental state and as a trait comprising \"a receptive attention to and awareness of present events and experience\" (Brown et al., 2007, p. 212) - has seen a dramatic increase in interest from practitioners and researchers in academic, business, military, and healthcare fields in recent years (Good et al., 2015; Knapton, 2014; Hulsheger et al., 2013; Wolever et al., 2012). For example, the American Mindfulness Research Association reports over 4,700 references to mindfulness research in articles published in academic journals, and the presence of mindfulness-related activity has been reported at 79 percent of US medical schools (Barnes et al., 2016). It is important to note, however, that issues relating to the consistent design of control groups in mindfulness studies remain unresolved, as well as questions relating to standard definitions, and methods of measurement (Toneatto and Nguyen, 2007; Van Dam et al., 2017). In addition, the field of study is lacking a generally accepted theoretical model, measurement scale, and agreement on how mindfulness is defined (Van Dam et al., 2017).\nFramework for understanding the role of mindfulness in the process of behavioral change: The process by which mindfulness may influence leadership effectiveness, while not necessarily linear, can be better understood by examining its effect on neurological changes linked to specific types of behavioral development. As shown in Figure 1, these behaviors are presented in the form of EI competencies (EICs) that have been empirically linked to increased leadership performance by several researchers (Sadri, 2012; Lam and Kirby, 2002; Freshman and Rubino, 2002; Strickland, 2000; Goleman, 1995).\nThe present study: This study was designed with the intention of helping to better understand why, in the absence of conclusive evidence, organizational leaders chose to invest in mindfulness training and practice. Data were obtained through qualitative interviews focused on exploratory research, rather than the development of a new theory that could be generalized to a wider population. Specifically, this study explored aspects of an emerging phenomenon that requires further evidence to be better understood. Therefore, the data collected related to participants' beliefs about how mindfulness influences them internally, and how those internal effects influence behaviors they link to observed improvements to leadership effectiveness.\nMethod: Procedure\nResults: The major themes emerging from data analysis referenced changes to awareness, and development of behaviors contributing to improved leadership effectiveness. The thematic analysis results were identified prior to the ESCI coding of the transcripts and, as a result, themes emerged from a transcript analysis process that was not influenced by the ESCI framework. In addition, there was no EI framework or terminology utilized in the research design. However, for consistency in reporting, and to represent the similarity between the results of thematic and deductive (ESCI) analysis, themes 2, 3, 4, 5, and 7 in Table II are presented using an EI framework.\nDiscussion: All study participants reported that mindfulness contributed to positive, enduring changes to awareness. These changes were described as being the catalyst for conscious development of specific behaviors intended to improve their leadership effectiveness. This topic is referenced in Table II as theme 1 (descriptions of personal transformation). It should also be noted that analysis revealed no evidence of a direct correlation between mindfulness and improved workplace outcomes. Furthermore, analysis of detailed examples implying such a relationship revealed descriptions of a process where mindfulness influenced changes to awareness and behavior that were described as having more directly contributed to specific workplace outcomes and/or benefits.\nConclusions: Limitations\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Recent research implies that leader performance may be enhanced by mindfulness. The purpose of this paper is to present findings that help clarify the process of behavioral development that may be involved, as well as contributing to a better understanding of why leaders attribute improved effectiveness to mindfulness.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data were collected through 42 modified behavioral-event interviews with senior organizational leaders from ten countries. Data analysis was performed using qualitative analysis techniques, and the emotional and social competency inventory (ESCI).\nFindings: Mindfulness is perceived by practitioners as significantly influencing the development of behaviors, and changes to awareness, that they link to improved leadership effectiveness. Mindfulness is also perceived as enhancing cognitive function, and may contribute to the development of emotional intelligence competencies linked to increased leadership performance.\nPractical implications: The results have potential implications for improving the efficacy of leadership development activities specifically through the incorporation of mindfulness and emotional intelligence training activities.\nOriginality/value: To the researcher's knowledge, this is both the first qualitative study to conduct an in-depth analysis exploring the link between mindfulness and improvements in leader effectiveness, and also the first study to examine these relationships using the ESCI as a framework for analysis.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Learning how we learn: Designs and frameworks for online engagement
|
[
"Training",
"Learning",
"Online learning",
"Learning engagement"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nReview: It is perhaps ironic that one of the areas that we as a society have most to still learn about is in fact learning itself. Learning in the traditional sense is for the most part widely understood. The old-fashioned \"chalk and talk\" delivery of high school teachers has for the most part been replaced - and not just because chalk does not work so well on interactive smart boards. Modern teachers are much better drilled in the benefits of student engagement, the utilization of a variety of teaching activities, when to use repetition and when to use pair and group work. In many developed countries, years of comprehensive education policy implementation and the pressure of league tables at a local and national level have professionalized the vocation of teaching.\nInstruct and engage: These and other related questions are covered in the article \"Engaging instructional design and instructor role in online learning environment\" by Arghode et al. (2018). Their focus is the nature of learner engagement in an online context, and what role the instructor plays in terms of the design of their educational frameworks. Instructional design as a topic has mushroomed in recent years as online learning has entered mainstream education, and the key question for the authors is the role of the instructor in this process, and how they can design programs to maximize learner engagement.\nTheory into practice: The theoretical underpinning of their investigation is what constitutes learner engagement. They divide this into four related types of engagement:\nOnline challenge: In addition to learner engagement, there were five other factors that allowed online students to overcome the challenges of online learning and excel in this environment.\nComment: The article \"Engaging instructional design and instructor role in online learning environment\" (2018) by Arghode et al. (2018) is essentially a one-stop shop for anyone seeking to understand best practice in developing and implementing online learning courses. This is online going to become more relevant for learning and development professionals, and for both potential instructional designers and instructors, it is an essential read given the wide net it casts over the best recent research in this area.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to review 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: It is perhaps ironic that one of the areas that we as a society have most to still learn about is in fact learning itself. Learning in the traditional sense is for the most part widely understood. The old-fashioned \"chalk and talk\" delivery of high school teachers has for the most part been replaced - and not just because chalk does not work so well on interactive smart boards. Modern teachers are much better drilled in the benefits of student engagement, the utilization of a variety of teaching activities, when to use repetition and when to use pair and group work. In many developed countries, years of comprehensive education policy implementation and the pressure of league tables at a local and national level have professionalized the vocation of teaching.\nPractical implications:: Provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world's leading organizations.\nOriginality/value: The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Organizational processes for B2B services IMC data quality
|
[
"Organizational culture",
"Relationship marketing",
"Business-to-business marketing",
"Organizational performance",
"Organizational learning",
"Data quality"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: An executive summary for managers and executive readers can be found at the end of this article.\nIntroduction: There is a growing consensus on a global scale that by developing theory and best practice strategies in the domains of integrated marketing communications (IMC) and relationship marketing (Gronroos, 2004), researchers can bring considerable value to both marketers and customers (Chien et al., 2007). The myriad of communication opportunities that advancing media technologies offer and their capabilities for developing unified messaging and tailored contact strategies have placed greater emphasis on bringing together customer information from multiple data touchpoints (Ballantyne and Aitken, 2007; Payne and Frow, 2004; Peltier et al., 2003). Recently, the rise of customer relationship management (CRM) systems combined with the merging of new media and traditional communication channels has dramatically altered the landscape of integrated marketing communications (Hunt et al., 2006; Sharma, 2006; Gronroos, 2004). These changes make IMC a more critical strategic and tactical tool, increasing the need for organizations to better understand how and in what forms IMC should be developed and deployed (Zahay et al., 2012).\nIMC and data quality: Importance of data quality in IMC assessment\nMethod: Background, questionnaire development, and procedure\nResults: To assess dimensionality, the data were first subjected to an orthogonal principal components factor analysis. For the independent variables, as shown in Table II and consistent with expectations, six organizational factors loaded as hypothesized:\nDiscussion and conclusions: This research suggests that one problem with the management and measurement of cross-channel IMC communication is that firms traditionally focus on what comes out of the marketing process, rather than what goes into it. Therefore, it appears that IMC data quality is an under-studied and under-utilized mechanism for understanding successful (and unsuccessful) IMC programs. This exploratory study focused on defining horizontal communication as a key antecedent to IMC data quality. Our findings provide a signal to marketing organizations that want to connect with their customers that data quality must be a strategic priority, with appropriate processes in place to manage data at every touchpoint. This study also indicates that by breaking down communication silos in the form of marketing/IT integration and marketing/IT cooperation, firms can help create and sustain a sound IMC database. In contrast to H4, our results show that superior marketing/IT integration may overcome the effects of any day-to-day conflicts between marketing and IT. At the departmental level, these data show that managerial support is critical to improving IMC data quality as is the sharing of data, a key criterion for organizational learning.\nLimitations and future research: Although our exploratory study advances the IMC data quality literature, much more work needs to be done to fully understand the interplay between various organizational factors, IMC data quality and, ultimately, customer-based metrics. Research is thus needed to investigate whether similar relationships exist outside of financial services and in product-oriented firms. Another limitation is that while our sample size was large enough to accomplish our objective of uncovering and testing the relationship between organizational dimensions and IMC data quality, our work could be strengthened by larger-scale studies that utilize structural equation analyses to develop a richer understanding of the relationship between these and other dimensions and IMC data quality. For example, some of the antecedent organizational variables, such as marketing/IT cooperation, may function as mediators between teamwork and vision and IMC data quality. Similarly, further studies are needed to examine whether IMC data quality mediates the relationship between the organizational variables and customer metrics. Lastly, while we primarily focused on intra-departmental support and data sharing, the relationship between marketing and sales integration, so important in B2B marketing, branding and overall data quality, could also be added to the research agenda. (Blomback and Axelsson, 2007).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The objective of this paper is to investigate IMC metrics in the lens of an institution-wide change management process, and to do so, the authors develop and test an organizational data quality enhancement model.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Qualitative research was conducted, with a follow-on quantitative pre-test. A subsequent, larger-scale quantitative survey resulted in a total of 128 responses, 124 useable. A regression analysis was conducted using the factor scores of the six organizational dimensions as independent variables and overall data quality as the dependent variable.\nFindings: The findings show that overcoming poor IMC data quality requires a corporate culture that reduces cross-functional and departmental divides. The authors also support the idea that horizontally organized learning organizations not only have superior IMC data, but they also achieve higher rates of return on their cross-platform IMC efforts.\nResearch limitations/implications: The research has limitations in terms of substantive generalizability, since it focuses on one industry within the USA. Future research can expand to other industries and expand to a global setting in order to replicate these findings.\nPractical implications: Most improvement seems to be needed in the area of sharing customer data. The findings provide a signal to marketing organizations that want to connect with their customers that data quality must be a strategic priority, with appropriate processes in place to manage data at every touch point.\nOriginality/value: Research is needed that establishes effective methods for measuring the success of data-driven communication efforts to support management.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Taxonomy of literacies
|
[
"Information literacy",
"Literacy",
"Taxonomy",
"Media literacy",
"Digital literacies",
"New literacies"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Digital technologies have transformed what it means to be literate and to experience literacy. In the last three years, 685 articles and books were published related literacy and digital technologies. Each stressed a particular conception of literacy. Of these, 35 different \"types\" of literacy were highlighted ranging from established literacies like computer literacy, information literacy and digital literacy, to newer conceptions like transliteracy, metaliteracy and multimodal literacy. Assimilating the various conceptions of literacy and literacy types is becoming increasingly more complex. Each conception has developed within a particular historical context, by people and organisations with differing backgrounds and motivations. The myriad of different literacies that emerges is perplexing for the uninitiated. There have been previous attempts to classify some aspect literacy landscape (e.g. Addison and Meyers, 2013; McClure, 1994; Spitzer et al., 1998; Bawden, 2001; Savolainen, 2002; Lonsdale and McCurry, 2004). However, with the exception of the information literacy framework created by Addison and Meyers (2013), they are now dated. There is a need for a taxonomy of literacies that reflects more recent developments, one that more comprehensively captures the current literacy landscape and one that might have affordances in the future. This paper develops and illustrates such a taxonomy. Two often-cited perspectives of literacy are described and used as the dimensions of a generic literacy framework:\nOrigins of term \"literacy\": The origins of the term \"literacy\" are relatively recent. Originally coined towards the end of the nineteenth century, it was used to express achievement and possession of what was increasingly seen as a necessary skill (Williams, 1983). Essentially, it focused on people's ability to decode and encode text (Gurak, 2001). From the mid-twentieth century this conception was replaced by one where being literate implied a higher level of cognitive ability, where scholars made judgements about the superiority of one culture above another (Gurak, 2001). It was it was not until the 1970s that the term \"literacy\" per se became prominent in educational discourse (Lankshear and Knobel, 2003). Conceptions of literacy expanded from \"simply\" encoding and decoding printed text to considering reading and writing as a meaning-making activity, with different texts requiring different backgrounds and skills if they are to be properly understood.\nApproach: To comprehensively capture this literacy landscape related directly and indirectly to digital technologies, two literature reviews were conducted. The aim was to identify the diversity of literacy types that relate directly or indirectly to digital technologies, and to identify those conceptions of literacy that are considered key. The first review took place in 2010 and primarily consisted of searching three databases via Proquest: \"Library and Information Science Abstracts\" (LISA), \"Education Resources Information Center\" (ERIC) and \"British Education Index\" for records written in English since 2000 that contained (literacy OR literacies) OR (internet OR Web OR digital OR WWW) in the title or abstract. Potentially relevant documents were retrieved and reviewed. Over the next two years, other key documents were identified by selective backward and forward citation searching to develop a comprehensive understanding of the area. The second literature review took place in 2014 with the aim of updating the review for this paper. The same databases searched again, but the search was slightly modified to ensure more key documents were retrieved[1]. Again, relevant records were identified and the original source reviewed.\nDimensions of literacy: Of the 685 unique records retrieved in 2014, 375 focused on a particular literacy type. The following table summarises the frequency that each literacy type was central to the records retrieved (Table I).\nLiteracy framework: Lankshear and Knobel's (2007) conception of traditional, paradigm and peripheral literacies, and Street's (1984) distinction between autonomous and ideological literacies are two literacy dimensions that could be used to compare and categorise literacies. Taken together, they produce six categories or perspectives of literacy (Table II).\nDiscussion: Lankshear and Knobel's (2007) conception of traditional, paradigm and peripheral literacies, and Street's (1984) distinction between autonomous and ideological literacies, are two dimensions that were found useful when comparing and categorising literacies. As stated above, the boundaries between the six categories or perspectives is best considered blurred or overlapping, rather than fixed and rigid. This raises certain issues. For example, when do paradigm literacies become peripheral literacies? That is, when does new technological stuff[3] and new ethos stuff[4] become not so new? Lankshear and Knobel (2007) have also grappled with this problem. To some extent, the answer lies in the question. What is new now will inevitably become old. A literacy classified as paradigm now will become peripheral later. Peripheral literacies will eventually become traditional literacies. The framework is best perceived as time dependent. Any literacy classification is relative to the time the classification took place. Furthermore, classifying a conception of literacy or a literacy type as autonomous[5] or ideological[6] was also problematic. When authors describe the literacy practices associated with their conception of literacy (aka ideological perspective), it is inevitable that they will also make statements that imply some judgement of those literacy practices observed (aka autonomous perspective). For example, when Lea spoke of the digital literacy practices of the undergraduates she studied, she commented that, \"The sheer breadth of texts and practices which these undergraduates were engaging with was extraordinary\" (Lea, 2009, p. 18). This is not only a comment about undergraduates' literacy practices but could also be viewed as statement about what it is to be someone who is digitally literate. That is, digitally literate undergraduates should use a diversity of digital texts and practices. Ultimately, classifying a particular conception of literacy as being more ideological or autonomous is a matter of judgement based on a thorough understanding of the author's or organisation's intentions.\nConclusion: The previous section has demonstrated that the literacy framework can usefully be used to compare and contrast some prominent literacies that relate directly or indirectly to digital technologies. It has shown a wide variations, particularly in terms of the extent to which they are primarily concerned with new technologies, the extent to which they are essentially about new ways of thinking about literacy, and the extent to which they highlight cognitive abilities as opposed to social practices. Taken together, these literacies can be thought of as:\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Digital technologies have transformed what it means to be literate and to experience literacy. Various literacies have been coined to capture this transformation including established literacies like computer literacy, information literacy, digital literacy, media literacy and internet literacy, to newer conceptions like transliteracy, metaliteracy and multimodal literacy. The purpose of this paper is to assimilate the various conceptions of literacy and literacy types is becoming increasingly more complex. There is a need for a taxonomy of literacies that reflects more recent developments, one that more comprehensively captures the current literacy landscape and one that might have affordances in the future.\nDesign/methodology/approach: \"Library and Information Science Abstracts\" (LISA), \"Education Resources Information Center\" (ERIC) and \"British Education Index\" were searched for documents relating to digital technologies and literacy. Relevant documents were retrieved and reviewed. This was followed by selective backward and forward citation searching and a further review of relevant documents.\nFindings: Based on a review of the literature, two significant dimensions of literacy were identified. These dimensions were used to create a literacy framework to enable the classification of literacies and literacy types, i.e. a taxonomy of literacies. This taxonomy was successfully applied to various prominent literacies and literacy types.\nResearch limitations/implications: The literacy framework was only applied to those literacies and literacy types that are directly or indirectly related to digital technologies.\nOriginality/value: There have been a few attempts to classify some literacy types. When conceived, these classifications comprehensively captured some aspect of the literacy landscape. However, they are now dated and there is a need for a taxonomy of literacies that meets the needs identified above. This paper proposes a taxonomy that meets these criteria.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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When and why does relative leader-member exchange enhance service performance? The roles of self-efficacy, team commitment, and multifoci team-level differentiation
|
[
"Self-efficacy",
"LMX differentiation",
"Relative LMX",
"Team commitment",
"TMX differentiation"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In hospitality services, frontline employees develop numerous relationships at work and exchange resources across different groups and relationships (e.g. supervisors, coworkers, and customers) on any given day (Liden et al., 2000). Among them, the resource exchanges that employees have with their supervisors called leader-member exchange (LMX) profoundly impacts their work attitude and behaviors. Hospitality researchers (Borchgrevink and Boster, 1994, 1997) have long argued for organizations to pay close attention to LMX development. This is because in a hospitality service environment that is guest contact- and labor-intensive, LMX is especially important to reducing employee burnout (Borchgrevink, 1993) and turnover (Chen and Wu, 2017; Lam, 2003; Wang et al., 2017), while improving communication (Borchgrevink and Boster, 1997), organization commitment (Kim et al., 2017), job satisfaction (Borchgrevink and Boster, 1994; Sparrowe, 1994), task performance (Li et al., 2012; Wang, 2016) and organizational citizenship behavior (Zou et al., 2015) of employees. Furthermore, recent evidence in the hospitality literature indicates that LMX is a particularly strong predictor of service outcomes such as customer service behaviors (Chow et al., 2015), innovative behavior in hospitality services (Kim and Koo, 2017), service-oriented organizational citizenship behavior (Cha and Borchgrevink, 2018), service quality (Garg and Dhar, 2014) and extra-role customer service (Garg and Dhar, 2016).\nTheory and hypotheses: When evaluating their relationship with their supervisor, employees instinctively compare themselves with their coworkers' relationship with the same supervisor. For most employees, relative LMX is more meaningful than the level of LMX of themselves, especially if those employees work in a group (Henderson et al., 2008). Working in a group provides employees with a context for social comparison because they inevitably compare themselves with others in their group to evaluate themselves (Henderson et al., 2008). Employees in a workgroup are dependent on one another to complete tasks and often engage in face-to-face interactions in this process. Similarly, employees have daily interactions with the same supervisor, practices and work tasks; thus, they naturally tend to compare themselves with their coworkers to form their self-evaluation (Hu and Liden, 2013).\nModerating roles of leader-member exchange differentiation and team-member exchange differentiation: an optimal distinctiveness perspective: Leader-member exchange differentiation\nModerated mediation effects: Given that RLMX triggers self-efficacy and team commitment, which subsequently is likely to affect customer service behaviors, we posit that the decreased (increased) self-efficacy and team commitment resulting from the negative (positive) interactions between RLMX and LMX differentiation (TMX differentiation) will affect customer service behaviors. Prior studies have considered employee's self-efficacy as a motivation-based mediator that explains how RLMX is related to service performance (Hu and Liden, 2013). Furthermore, drawing upon the norm of reciprocity, this study extends existing research by exploring employee's team commitment as another mediator that explains the effects of RLMX on customer service behaviors. This study also examines LMX differentiation and TMX differentiation as moderators that expand our understanding of the boundary conditions of these processes:\nMethod: Sample and data collection\nResults: Means, standard deviations and correlations among all variables are shown in Table I. A series of confirmatory factor analyses was done using LISREL 8.72 to test the factor structure of three measures of self-efficacy, team commitment and customer service behaviors. Our hypothesized three-factor model exhibited a good fit to the data (kh2 = 276.78, df = 62; SRMR = 0.05, NFI = 0.95; CFI = 96) and had a better fit than alternative two-factor models (self-efficacy/customer service behaviors factor and team commitment factor, Dkh2 = 206.52, Ddf = 2, p < 0.01; self-efficacy/team commitment factor and customer service behaviors factor; Dkh2 = 228.21, Ddf = 2, p < 0.01) and the one-factor model (Dkh2 = 340.38, Ddf = 3, p < 0.01).\nDiscussion: Conclusions\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to examine the mediating roles of self-efficacy and team commitment in linking service employees' relative leader-member exchange (RLMX) with customer service behaviors and also the moderating roles of team-level differentiations in leader-member exchange (LMX) and team-member exchange (TMX) in influencing these mediation processes.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data were collected from 467 customer-contact employees working in hotel restaurants. Hierarchical linear modeling analysis was used to test the mediation hypotheses, and moderated path was used to assess the moderated mediation.\nFindings: Self-efficacy and team-commitment both mediated the relationship between RLMX and customer service behaviors. The differentiations in LMX and TMX significantly interacted with RLMX in predicting self-efficacy and team commitment and also moderated the indirect effects of RLMX on customer service behaviors.\nResearch limitations/implications: Future studies need to incorporate customers' or immediate supervisors' ratings of subordinates' customer service behaviors and replicate the findings in different countries and work settings.\nPractical implications: Hospitality managers should foster a work environment wherein they develop equal quality relationships with their subordinates in a workgroup and promote high-quality relationships among subordinates in the workgroup to improve subordinates' self-efficacy, team commitment and, subsequently, their customer service behaviors.\nOriginality/value: This study incorporates both self-efficacy and team commitment as motivation-based and social exchange-based mediators, respectively, in predicting customer service behavior. It also extends the boundary condition for the mediations by considering the team-level differentiations in both vertical exchange (LMX) and horizontal exchange (TMX).\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Customer service communication with customers with disability
|
[
"Communication",
"Shopping"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Retail shopping is, for most people, part of everyday life. Shopping is essential for meeting our material needs, and we expect to be able to shop as and when we prefer. However, this may not be the case for people with disabilities, for whom barriers encountered when shopping can reduce access to goods and services, as well as hampering enjoyment of social interaction commonly experienced when shopping. People with little or no functional speech, also referred to as having complex communication needs (CCN), encounter particular barriers when shopping, such as difficulty attracting the attention of customer service employees, being patronised by retail employees, or receiving peremptory customer service.\nPeople with complex communication needs: People with CCN experience similar types of disadvantages as people with other disabilities, experiencing high rates of poverty and unemployment, and low levels of participation in education (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2012). The majority of adults experiencing CCN have lived with the impairment since birth and have never developed functional speech, with 20 per cent of people having acquired the impairment later in life (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2003). Acquired CCN is usually the result of degenerative neurological conditions such as Alzheimer's or Parkinson's disease, or because of stroke or acquired brain injury (Speech Pathology Australia, 2010). People with CCN may communicate using a range of augmentative and alternative communication systems (AAC) and may also use limited natural speech. AAC technology includes computerised speech generating devices (SGDs) which generate speech from keyboard or sensory input by the user. People use AAC devices when \"their gestural, spoken, and/or written communication is temporarily or permanently inadequate to meet all of their communication needs\" (Beukelman et al., 2013). The use of AAC is expected to increase amongst those with lifelong CCN and older people with acquired CCN (Light and McNaughton, 2012). With advances in health care, people have been able to live longer with co-morbidities associated with loss of speech, meaning more people than ever are ageing with CCN (Balandin and Morgan, 2001) and need to participate in the life of their communities. Technological innovations in AAC have also contributed to increased use of public environments such as shops by people with CCN (Light and McNaughton, 2014).The ease of use of new technology such as tablets and smartphones for AAC communication across a range of media means people who were previously unable to access the community are now better able. As a result, a growing cohort of AAC users skilled in new AAC technology expects to communicate and to be included within communities of their choice. It is, therefore, perhaps even more important in the face of these demographic changes that retail customer service employees understand how to communicate with AAC users and others with CCN.\nMethodology: In conducting the review, the authors followed the guidelines developed by Schlosser et al. (2007). The first author developed an inclusion checklist which included:\nResults: In total, 12 studies were found that met the inclusion criteria. The majority of studies (eight) that met the criteria were qualitative in design. The remainder (four) used quantitative research or mixed methods. Of the 12 studies, 11 were published in marketing journals. The publication rate during the period 2000-2016 did not indicate a trend towards research into the customer communication experience of people with disability, but remained at a consistently low level with a peak of three publications in 2012.\nPersonal factors: Identity\nEnvironmental factors: Support and relationships\nResults and discussion: By framing research within the ICF (World Health Organization, 2001) contextual categories of environment factors and personal factors, the authors of this review were able to demonstrate that retail customer communication can either construct a disabling environment or facilitate communication access for people with disabilities. Environmental barriers identified in studies included in this review were retail customer service employee communication that ignores, patronises or stereotypes, that does not allow sufficient time for communication and that underestimates the cognitive abilities of people with disabilities. AAC researchers have identified similar barriers are encountered in other environments by people with CCN (Beukelman et al., 2013; Collier et al., 2012), which suggests these and other environmental barriers such as the attitudes of others may prevent communication access for people with CCN when shopping. The authors made brief reference to environmental strategies to remedy poor customer service communication, such as staff training (Baker et al., 2001; Baker, 2006; de Faria et al., 2012; Goodrich and Ramsey, 2012; Walsh, 2009), but considerations of other environmental factors that may contribute to communication access were absent.\nConclusions: The authors of this review used the ICF (World Health Organization, 2001) as an effective framework for analysis of the published literature to better understand the contributors and barriers to communication access for people with CCN when shopping and how those factors impact on social inclusion. The published research included in this review identified communication barriers encountered by people with disabilities in the retail environment were primarily those associated with the behaviour of retail customer service employees, with impacts on the identity, independence and self-orientation of people with disabilities. Whilst this review has confirmed the usefulness of the ICF (World Health Organization, 2001) in analysing the issues that construct disability in the shopping environment, further research is needed to explore communication access for people with CCN when shopping. Whilst advances in the AAC technology have improved communication access for people with CCN, environmental barriers may continue to prevent people from gaining equality of access. Consequently, more needs to be done to identify communication barriers and facilitators within the retail environment and to develop policies and interventions to improve inclusion. The social inclusion objectives of the UNCRPD cannot be met whilst people with CCN are prevented from participation in such a basic activity as shopping.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to review published research on retail customer service communication with people with complex communication needs (CCN) and impacts on their social inclusion.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The researchers searched electronic databases EBSCOHost and Web of Science and found no studies on retail customers with CCN. The search was expanded with the intention of exploring factors affecting people with disability as a group and to locate the experience of people with CCN within findings. Studies found were reviewed by the first author and two external reviewers.\nFindings: Twelve articles met the broadened inclusion criteria. Analysis using the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) found the literature demonstrated some environmental and personal factors that are likely to construct disability in the retail environment for people with CCN. The authors proposed further research to further explore ICF factors not identified in research and to establish links with social inclusion.\nResearch limitations/implications: Further research is needed to understand the role of retail customer service communication in the social inclusion of people with CCN.\nSocial implications: The social inclusion of people with CCN will be assisted by findings on good practice customer service communication.\nOriginality/value: Shopping is rarely considered in social inclusion research. This review discovered an absence of research into the impact of retail customer communication on inclusion of customers with CCN and proposed a framework for further enquiry.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Assessing the influence of work-life balance dimensions among nurses in the healthcare sector
|
[
"Nurses",
"Mediation analysis",
"Work-life balance dimensions",
"Work overload",
"Work satisfaction",
"Work support"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In today's world, most of the organizations experience momentous paradigm shifts in their work environment, demanding increased emphasis on empowered employees possessing higher competencies and multitasking skills to achieve sustained organizational growth. Consequently, every employee often has to encounter the eternal challenge of performing well and requirement to devote larger parts of the day at organization setting, sacrificing demands in their personal and societal life domains. The balancing act of an individual between the three-dimensional aspects of life, namely organizational, societal and personal life is termed as work-life balance (WLB) (Poulose and Sudarsan, 2014). While employees belonging particularly to health sector enjoy potentially strong growth avenues in both international and domestic market, perception of issues pertaining to WLB has also been reported. Nurses working in hospitals have been recognized as one of the largest group of workforce engaged in patient care and the reputation of the hospital depend to a great extent on the effectiveness of the nursing professionals. Their work role involves high mental as well as physical demands owing to excessive workload arising out of lean workforce in most hospitals often requiring night shifts and forfeiture of normal holidays (Greenglass et al., 2001; Garrett and McDaniel, 2001), while responsibilities toward personal, family and social life along with organizational roles are imperatively crucial. The consequences of imbalance between professional and personal allegiances and the ineffective management of life priorities among nurses can manifest as reduced organizational commitment, early employee burnout, increased work stress, intense job dissatisfaction and impaired personal and family life (Aiken et al., 2002; Cho et al., 2006). The present study envisages understanding the influence of WLB on organizational-level factors that relates to work satisfaction among nursing professionals in South India.\n2. Literature review: WLB is a prevalent concept, defined as achieving satisfying experiences in all life domains and it requires personal resources like energy, time and commitment to be well distributed across domains (Kirchmeyer, 2000). In other words, Clark (2000) defines WLB as a state of \"satisfaction and good functioning at work and at home, with a minimum of role conflict.\" The concept of WLB has been measured in distinct ways by different researchers. Initial research in measuring WLB was based on time, strain and behavior-based conflicts in work and family domains (Greenhaus and Beutell, 1985). Later, researchers acclaimed the role of conflict and enrichment in balancing work and life domains (see, e.g. Hayman, 2005; Grzywacz and Carlson, 2007). However, individual's day-to-day experiences revealed that work and life are both sources of gains and encouragement as well as burdens and strains (Barnett, 1998; Barnett and Hyde, 2001).\n3. Methods: 3.1 Procedure\n4. Results: 4.1 Correlation and mediation analyses\n5. Discussions: The major objective of the present investigation was to assess the influence of WLB dimensions on organizational factors, namely work overload and work support and their predictor relationship with work satisfaction particularly among Indian nurses in the healthcare sector. Consistent with the hypotheses formulated for the study and literature (e.g. Grandey et al., 2005; Cortese et al., 2010), the results of the present investigation support the importance of considering work and personal life balance of employees toward enhancing work satisfaction. The results demonstrate moderate mean scores of work overload, WPLS and PLWS in the healthcare sector from both work and family domains. Among WLB dimensions, nurses experienced more strains from work to personal life rather than personal life to work indicating a clear distinction among dimensions of WLB. The results are consistent with studies reported by Netemeyer et al. (1996) that underline conceptual as well as empirical distinction between the WLB dimensions. The results also establish the hypothesis formulated for the study, namely work satisfaction indicated a significant negative relationship with work overload and a positive relationship with work support signifying that augmented work overload and inferior work support may diminish wok satisfaction levels. The findings concur with the findings of Yildirim and Aycan (2008), highlighting adverse impact of work overload and irregular working hours upon employee work satisfaction, and Beutell (2010) advocating importance of support within the work setting for enhanced work satisfaction.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of work-related factors, namely work overload and work support on work-life balance (WLB) dimensions and its significant impact on work satisfaction particularly among South Indian nurses in the healthcare sector.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study was carried out in the healthcare sector comprising of 182 nurses employed in various hospitals located in southern parts of India through a structured questionnaire. The study adopted Barron and Kenny's mediated regression analysis.\nFindings: Work satisfaction showed a significant negative relationship with work overload and a positive relationship with work support. WLB dimensions, namely work to personal life strains, personal life to work strains, work to personal life gains (WPLG) and personal life to work gains mediated the relationships between work support and work satisfaction. However, WPLG mediated the relationships between work overload and work satisfaction.\nPractical implications: The present investigation directed toward the importance of work-personal life balance experienced by the nurses in the healthcare sector imperatively influence both work and personal life domains and the study suggests that support from the organization, superiors and peers can go a long way in helping the incumbents to attain improved organizational outcomes.\nOriginality/value: This study focuses on investigating the mediating role of WLB dimensions in the relationship between organizational-related factors and work satisfaction among nurses in the healthcare sector in South India.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Banking without the banks
|
[
"Financial services",
"Banks",
"Consumer behaviour"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: How significant are the effects of the financial crisis on the future structure of the banking sector?Clearly, the crisis is leading to major changes in the capital, liquidity and accounting regimes for banks. But might the crisis also open up the sector to new competitors on a scale not seen before? Is the distrust of mainstream banks now so deep that ambitious companies in other sectors have an unparalleled opportunity to become major providers of banking services?Opportunities for \"non-banks\" to enter the market have been discussed many times before. A 1994 study for the American Bankers' Roundtable concluded that \"banking is essential to a modern economy; banks are not.\" Commentators have also forecasted that companies from outside banking would use their stronger grasp of information technology and customer service to shake-up financial services, taking lucrative business away from cautious and insular banks.In many markets, retailers were seen as the biggest threat. Their strong brands, marketing know-how, existing store networks and store and loyalty cards offered a potential entry platform. Indeed, in the UK, leading retailers took up the challenge and have now been offering financial services for many years. Marks & Spencer (M&S), the leading clothing, food and household goods retailer, entered the market for financial services as far back as the late 1980s. Tesco and Sainsbury's, then the two largest UK supermarket chains, launched banking services in the mid-1990s.Disruptive value brands such as Virgin and easygroup, that operate across structurally diverse consumer sectors (air travel, music retailing, mobile telephony, hotels) have also seen opportunities in financial services. Virgin Money launched in 1995 with an index tracking unit trust (mutual fund) and has since expanded its range of services. Easymoney, the financial services arm of the easygroup, now offers comparison sites for mortgages, bank accounts, credit cards and personal loans.However, until the crisis, the \"non-banks\" concentrated on a select range of financial services and often operated through partnerships with existing banks. For example, the UK retailers concentrated principally on credit cards and other forms of consumer credit, simple savings accounts and insurance policies that could be sold directly. Tesco and Sainsbury's operated through joint ventures with RBS and HBOS respectively while M&S sold its financial services business to HSBC. Similarly, Virgin Money offers a select range of financial services across lending, savings and insurance. It sold its stake in the innovative \"One Account\" mortgage joint venture with RBS, though it remains an introducer for the business.Nevertheless, the crisis may have extended the opportunities for \"non-banks'. Tesco and Virgin Money in particular appear to be planning a move from niche players in financial services to full-service providers of retail banking. Each has signalled their intention to expand with current accounts and mortgages both being talked about. Tesco bought out RBS's stake in their financial services joint venture and re-named Tesco Personal Finance as Tesco Bank. Virgin Money has announced the purchase of a small regional UK bank to expedite its acquisition of a banking licence and provide a platform for launching a retail banking business.Furthermore, both are ambitious in their visions for retail banking (see Table I). Virgin Money talks of an ambition \"to offer a new kind of bank in the UK - one where everyone benefits\", while Tesco says it will focus on \"being simple, straightforward and rewarding loyalty\".In the wake of the financial crisis and given the stated ambitions of Virgin and Tesco in particular, this paper examines the potential for these \"non-banks\" to expand into UK retail banking. It begins by reviewing their development as players in the financial services sector, along with their expansion plans. Next it analyses their prospects by using a SWOT analysis, before finally offering some conclusions and sobering thoughts for these \"new players\".\nVirgin Money: Development to date\nTesco Bank: Development to date\nAnalysis: Bringing together the profiles of Virgin Money and Tesco Bank, how are we to assess their prospects? An obvious way of structuring the analysis of the non-banks' prospects is through a conventional SWOT framework. However, in terms of applying a SWOT framework to the non-banks' prospects, opportunities and threats lend themselves better to the characteristics of the retail banking market, and strengths and weaknesses to the non-banks themselves. The analysis therefore looks first at the opportunities and threats presented by the market to non-banks. It then considers the non-banks' strengths and weaknesses (see Table II).Opportunities\nConclusions: Before the financial crisis, both Virgin and Tesco had provided financial services for more than a decade. However, both were happy to operate as niche providers. They concentrated on a select range of products, operating through partnerships with existing banks and insurance companies. Neither showed an appetite for directly competing as full-service providers in retail banking and perhaps they were wise to do so.In the wake of the financial crisis, both now harbour ambitions to become full-service retail banks. But are the changes flowing from the financial crisis sufficient to justify such an expansion? Existing banks may be more unpopular, making non-banks more attractive. Nevertheless there is a debit as well as credit side to the post-crisis investment case. Banking is set to be less profitable, making the market less attractive. The biggest challenge for Tesco Bank and Virgin Money as full-service retail banks may be to grow quickly and profitably while at the same time doing banking in a way that is markedly different from the mainstream. Tesco admits that one of the challenges it faces is the industry's \"standard economic model\". The hurdles to overcome on both current accounts and mortgages are high.The pricing of retail banking products in the UK has in some ways been analagous to the famous description of the art of taxation of Jean Baptiste Colbert, French economist and Minister of Finance under King Louis XIV of France:The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest possible amount of feathers with the smallest possible amount of hissing.Existing pricing structures are reinforced by the attachment of UK consumers to \"free\" current account banking, \"free\" credit cards and \"free\" ATM withdrawals. In practice, these attachments to notionally \"free\" banking services acts as a significant barrier to innovation and competition in pricing, and has resulted in significant cross-subsidies between different groups of banking customers.Virgin and Tesco therefore face the challenge of offering current accounts profitably without themselves relying on the same revenue models as existing providers. They also face the challenge of acquiring deposits without either offering unprofitable rates or tempting introductory rates and then reducing them over time. Also in light of their stated \"visions\" for banking, high standards will be expected. Their services will be closely scrutinised by consumer and personal finance journalists, and ranked in the many comparison sites on the internet. Reputationally, Virgin and Tesco are likely to face tougher standards than existing banks.From the perspective of competition and consumer choice, the banking ambitions of Virgin and Tesco are clearly welcome. Indeed for all those who follow developments in banking, it will be fascinating to watch. This is an attempt to do banking without the banks on a scale not seen before. Virgin has already signalled that it is prepared to challenge the \"free-in-credit\" model that dominates personal banking in the UK. But even brands as strong as Tesco and Virgin will find it tough to shake-up a market with habits and structures as entrenched as UK personal banking.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The financial crisis and the subsequent distrust of the existing banks have created an opportunity for new competitors to enter the market for financial services. Organisations from outside banking could use their trusted brands, their stronger grasp of information technology and their stronger customer service ethos to potentially shake-up the provision of financial services and hence to take business away from the \"traditional\" players. This paper aims to examine the potential for these \"non-banks\" to enter and expand into the UK financial services sector and to analyse their prospects, before finally reflecting on how big a challenge they face in entering this market.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper is based on a report entitled \"Tesco Bank and Virgin money: prospects for banking without the banks\" released in 2010, which offers an analysis of the UK market and of the main potential entrants. It presents a much abridged version of the report and has also been revised to provide a more international relevance.\nFindings: - The paper discusses the strengths and weaknesses of the two main potential entrants, Tesco Bank and Virgin Money, and draws conclusions based on some of the challenges that they will face in seeking to enter this market.\nOriginality/value: - The paper is very relevant, given the publicly espoused aspirations of both Tesco Bank and Virgin Money to enter the market for financial services in the UK. It may also have lessons for other new entrants in other countries.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Postponement adoption in manufacturers of tomato-derived products
|
[
"Operations management",
"Customization",
"Food industry",
"Postponement",
"Tomato-derived products"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In today's global economy, firms are facing a wide array of uncertain factors that affect the business environment and the way of doing business, such as rapid advances in computing and information technologies, volatile customer taste, fierce competition within and among industries, ever-shortening product life cycle (Shahin and Azar, 2013; Yang et al., 2014). This requires great organizational flexibility and responsiveness in order to deal with demand complexity and uncertainty. Accordingly, the ability to achieve a balance of benefits and costs of product variety is crucial, and it becomes a challenge (Graman and Magazine, 2006; Zhou et al., 2014).\n2. Postponement practices: The concept of postponement has a long history in the academic literature and in applied practices. Initially the concept was proposed by Alderson (1950) as a way to delay changes in the form, identity, or place of products to the latest possible point of manufacturing and distribution processes. Thus, the delaying of the forward movement of the product was denominated \"time postponement,\" whereas the delay in product differentiation was denominated \"form postponement.\"\n3. Literature review on the application of postponement in food companies: Like many other industries, the food industry also faces the challenge of cost efficiency and product differentiation because since the goods are perishable, quick delivery is vital (Kuo and Chen, 2010; Van Hoek, 1997). Postponement strategy is of major importance to deal with these challenges. Early studies on the postponement feasibility have been found in the food industry supply chain. Morehouse and Bowersox (1995) stated that in the future, about 50 percent of all inventory (in agribusiness) in the supply chain will be kept in a semi-finished state waiting for final processing and packaging based on customer orders.\n4. Research methodology: A qualitative approach was used in this research, and case study was the method adopted. According to Bryman (1989), in qualitative research, the emphasis tends to be on the interpretations of individuals about their environments, their own behaviors, or others. The presentation of results tends to be sensitive to nuances about what people say and the context in which their actions take place. Some researchers have also focussed on key aspects of methodology as defining characteristics of qualitative research (Bryman, 1989; Denzin and Lincoln, 2000; Patton, 2002). These key aspects include: the overall research perspective and the importance of the participants' frames of reference; the flexible nature of research design; the volume and richness of qualitative data; the distinctive approaches to analysis and interpretation; and the kind of outputs that derive from qualitative research. Some other researchers have also adopted the qualitative approach and the case study method in studies on postponement, such as: Chaudhry and Hodge (2012), Feitzinger and Lee (1997), Trentin and Forza (2010), Van Hoek (1997), and Van Hoek et al. (1999b).\n5. Results: The results of the case studies are presented below. The three companies studied were denominated T1, T2, and T3, respectively. They are food companies that produce tomato-derived products (pure, sauce, ketchup, tomato juice, and tomato extract) and are among the six largest companies in this segment in Brazil. Companies T1 and T2 are located in Sao Paulo state and T3 in Goias state. The tomato-derived products represent the main products (70 percent) produced by company T1. In company T2, these products represent 40 percent of its main production, followed by guava. Tomato-derived products represent 30 percent of company T3 production, and its remaining production includes corn and other vegetables. Although in different percentage of production, these three companies produce tomato-derived products, and therefore the adoption of the postponement strategy was analyzed in the production of these products.\n6. Discussion and analysis of results: In the field study, it was observed that both types of postponement (time and form postponement) were present in the companies investigated and that form postponement occurs mainly in the final manufacturing activities. Thus, although Van Hoek (1999) reported that form postponement (in labeling and packaging activities) and time postponement are the main types found in food companies, in the present study it was found that they do not occur only the activities aforementioned. In the food companies investigated, form postponement was also identified as one of the most commonly applied types of postponement in the final manufacturing activity.The assembly postponement was not verified since it is not a common activity in the food industry. A similar process in this segment is the preparation of a blending, a mixture of tomato pulp, and other compounds such as spices, which is considered part of the producing process (final manufacturing) in the food companies studied.\n7. Conclusions: This study sought to deepen the understanding of postponement application, especially in companies in the food industry, a sector in which there has been little research and few publications devoted to this topic. The purpose of this study was to investigate the implementation of postponement in food companies.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the application of postponement strategies in companies that produce tomato-derived products in order to identify the types of postponement adopted by these companies, the implementation process, and the major changes after their adoption.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Three exploratory case studies were carried out in manufacturers of tomato products, where interviews were conducted with general managers in the manufacturing and logistics sectors.\nFindings: The application of time and form postponement was verified in the companies studied, and the implementation of the postponement strategy led to changes in the productive process of tomato-derived products. These changes involved the movement of the decoupling point and the increase in the make-to-order production, which had positive impacts on the businesses.\nResearch limitations/implications: This paper analyzed the application of postponement in a specific sector of the food industry. Future research must analyze the application of this strategy in other segments of the food industry and other sectors as well.\nPractical implications: The information acquired in this can contribute to a more adequate application of postponement in a little-known industry sector.\nOriginality/value: In addition to further discussion on the issue and verification of postponement application in food companies, this research presents information to assist the adoption, use, and consolidation of the postponement strategy.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
A real-time evaluation method for modification priority of data module in civil aircraft technical publications
|
[
"Scheduling",
"Decision support system",
"Action prioritization",
"Multiple-criteria decision making (MCDM)"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Nomenclature\n1. Introduction: Aircraft technical publications (TPs) are a general term of the documents that guarantee the normal use and maintenance business of aircraft. They are the most important technical material delivered to customers along with aircraft and have been widely used on military (Szymanowski et al., 2010) and civilian (Bellenberg et al., 2010) flight vehicles. The civil aircraft technical publications (CATPs) are particularly important for manufacturers, because CATPs involve aircraft inspection, use and maintenance in different states, systems and structures, directly affecting the aircraft's maintenance quality and operation cost. High-level CATPs can improve aircraft's market image and reputation due to their decisive role in airline's economic efficiency.\n2. Maintenance businesses of technical publications: Maintenance is one of two core businesses in TPs, the other one is TPs preparation (Chen, 2013).TPs maintenance, also known as TPs modification, refers to modification activities offered by manufactures to ensure the consistency of TPs documents with aircraft product configuration data after the delivery of original TPs; it is usually activated by customers with new demands due to the changes in market environment, or because some contents of TPs do not meet the practical situation (Chen et al., 2015). A general process of TPs maintenance is shown in Figure 1, and includes the following two stages:\n3. A multi-parameter model of DM modification tasks: Overall indicators of maintenance management (e.g. mean time between failures) for equipment (including civil aircraft) are the basis to determine the equipment criticality and to provide system-level guidelines for the allocation of technical and economic resources (Martinez et al., 2013). Based on the task scheduling theory of real-time systems (Tseng et al., 1996; Labib, 2004; Wang et al., 2004; Remenyte-Prescott and Andrews, 2009), this paper considers different indicators and proposes a multi-parameter DM modification task model to provide the theoretical basis for the proposed priority evaluation method.\n4. Design of task priority table: After the modification model is established, the criteria of priority evaluation need to be set via algorithms. If the slack time of a task is much which means that there is much time left for this maintenance task before its deadline, the priority of this task should be low. And the relative deadline\n5. Evaluation method for the DM modification task: 5.1 Typical tasks\n6. Practical case: According to the S1000D Standard (ASD/AIA, 2005), the update cycle of CATPs generally takes three to six months, 30 days per month. In the beginning of evaluation work, the three parameters are divided into time ranges within one update cycle. If the interval is too small, the number of priority design points in the three-dimensional priority table will increase, then the design work is time-consuming. If the interval is too large, the error in the calculation will be amplified, and the priority evaluation may not be accurate. In fact, the update cycle of the S1000D Standard is only a reference of upper time limit. For the civil aircraft manufacturers, this cycle tends to be shortened to improve customer service and enhance the business execution ability.\n7. Results and analysis: Assume that there are five DM modification tasks, here called sample points (SPs), to be evaluated: m1=m(6.0, 8.6, 8.0), m2=m (2.0, 9.9, 8.6), m3=m(6.7, 17.8, 6.2), m4=m(9.0, 10.0, 8.2) and m5=m (2.0, 5.5, 10.5). Their original coordinates li, dj, ak and their re-defined coordinates i, j, k are together shown in Figure 6. Since all of them cannot be matched with specific points in the table, their PLs should be calculated by using Equation (3) and their PVs should be obtained using interpolation Equation (7).\n8. Priority evaluation system: Based on the method proposed here, this research developed a software system (technical publication maintenance support system) for its practical application. This system has three functions including modification task inquiry, priority order generation and priority order export. With these functions, DM editors can comprehensively understand the status of modification tasks by evaluating and checking modification priority of DMs.\n9. Conclusion: Based on the feature description of the DM modification task and the design of 3D priority table in CATPs, a DM modification priority evaluation method is proposed. Using this method, five modification tasks to be evaluated are sorted by their PVs. This method aims at providing a quantitative evaluation of the modification task priority, and assisting in the revision and decision for DM editors.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present a priority evaluation method for data module (DM) modification tasks based on the thoughts of real-time systems. Tasks in practical cases can be sorted by this method after analyzing their time records. Civil aircraft technical publications (CATPs) are the key technical guarantee for aircraft companies to efficiently operate and service aircraft. Orienting the maintenance business of CATPs, this method regards DM as the research object to help DM editors efficiently finish their time-consuming work.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This method provides a priority order of modification tasks for DM editors by calculating two indicators: priority value (PV) and priority level (PL). Table of task priority must be first designed for certain evaluation work followed by generating PLs and PVs of modification tasks. Then editors can fully understand the urgency of these tasks using the rank orders of these two indicators.\nFindings: This method can be applied into a software system used by CATPs department of aircraft manufacturers. According to the engineers' opinions from a manufacturer in China, it is convenient for the practical application.\nOriginality/value: Availability and rationality are verified by the practical case and a software system. In addition, the originality characterized by a thinking for engineers to quantify the evaluation work of DM modification task priority, and they could also customize this method by taking modification difficulty and other factors into account.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Performance implications of board size, composition and activity: empirical evidence from the Indian banking sector
|
[
"Corporate governance",
"Board of directors",
"Banking",
"Performance",
"Asset quality"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Worldwide attention has recently been drawn to banks' corporate governance practices. Banks serve an important role in a country's economy by intermediating funds from savers and depositors to activities that support enterprises and help to drive economic growth. According to a recent (July 2015) report by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS), governance weaknesses at banks that play a significant role in the financial system can result in the transmission of problems not only across the banking sector but also across the global economy as a whole. Further, the BCBS has called attention to the need to study, understand and improve the corporate governance of financial entities (Andres and Vallelado, 2008). Although the BCBS does not possess any formal authority, its recommendations and standards are accepted and incorporated into banking regulations worldwide. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), in its 2006 policy paper on corporate governance in Asian banks, documented that poor corporate governance in banks can destabilize the entire financial system of any country and pose systematic risks to the real economy.\n2. Literature review and hypothesis development: Agency theory proposed by Jensen and Meckling (1976) is concerned with two major issues, goal congruence between principal and agent and problem of risk sharing between them (Eisenhardt, 1989). If the principal has ways and means to evaluate actions of the agent, agency problem declines (Fama and Jensen, 1983); in the absence of the same, the agent can maximize his/her personal gains such as increasing compensation, indulging in empire building activities and probably waste free cash flows by investing in negative present value projects (overinvest) or foregoing positive present value projects (underinvest). Shareholders can counter these natural tendencies of managers with a combination of costly monitoring and incentives. Stulz (1999) identified six different mechanisms for monitoring management, ranging from an active independent board of directors to stringent disclosure requirements.\n3. Methodology: 3.1 Data sources and selection of sample\n4. Results and discussion: The summary statistics of firm-specific variables are reported in Table I. The summary statistics are reported for five time windows between 2008 and 2012. The mean scores of Tobin's Q for the time windows range from 0.16 to 0.24. The market value of banks seems to be declining across the study period. However, the decline does not seem to be much. If we look at the other performance variables' ROA, then we could observe that the best performance score was in 2012. It was three times higher than that of the remaining year.\n5. Conclusion: Very little empirical literature exists on bank efficiency and corporate governance parameters. To the best of our knowledge, no such research has been conducted in the Asian context. The present study is an endeavour to analyse the effect of board size and activity on the performance and asset quality of banks in emerging economies. As India is an emerging market, its less-developed market structure leads to an environment of general information asymmetry. The banking sector is also considered to be extremely opaque and complex, which results in information asymmetries and intensifies the agency problem. Therefore, we have investigated board size and involvement, and their effect on firm performance and asset quality, where severe information asymmetry exists.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the performance implications of board size, composition and frequency of board meetings on the performance of banks.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The performance of banks is assessed on various parameters such as return on assets (ROA), Tobin's Q, non-performing asset ratio (NPA ratio) and the net write-off ratio (NWO ratio). The effects of changes in board size and composition and frequency of meetings on the performance of banks are investigated using feasible generalized least square (FGLS) estimation of panel data covering a time span of five years concerning 40 banks incorporated in India. Frequency of board meetings is taken as a proxy for board activity and involvement. The authors have also tested for endogeneity issues in the model.\nFindings: A curvilinear relationship was found between the board size and performance of banks. The authors have modelled a cubic form of the relationship for Indian banks. The authors' findings indicate that an increase in board size is associated with better bank performance within both low and high board size ranges. Alternatively, increased board size is negatively associated with bank performance in the intermediate board size range. The study did not find any significant relationship between performance and frequency of board meetings and board composition.\nResearch limitations/implications: The behavioural variables reflecting the involvement of the board have not been incorporated in the model to determine the impact of board involvement on the performance of banks owing to the availability of data. It is hoped that this paper will be useful for major regulatory bodies such as the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA), Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), Company Law Board (CLB) and stock exchanges in India and other emerging economies in devising listing norms and other governance-related aspects.\nOriginality/value: Non-linear relationships between the board size and performance are not normally prevalent in emerging economies, especially in the banking sector. However, such a relationship exists among the Indian banks. This paper is the first of its kind to identify and address the same.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Signaling effects and the role of culture: movies in international auxiliary channels
|
[
"International marketing",
"Cultural values",
"Auxiliary channels",
"Hierarchical mixed-effect models",
"Movies"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Sequential distribution is the process by which products are made more accessible to consumers via their releases in different markets and channels sequentially (Lehmann and Weinberg, 2000). Overseas markets and auxiliary channels are supposed to prolong the product life cycle and provide a greater revenue basis for the same new product line for an extended period of time (Calzada and Valletti, 2012; Hennig-Thurau et al., 2006). The movie industry has widely adopted the strategy of sequential distribution (Elberse and Eliashberg, 2003; Eliashberg et al., 2006), and research results have confirmed the benefits of such a strategy (Bruce et al., 2012; Hennig-Thurau et al., 2006; Chintagunta et al., 2010; Hennig-Thurau et al., 2007; Lehmann and Weinberg, 2000). Given that the theatrical revenue in the US accounts for only 13 per cent of the total cost of movie production, and more than 70 per cent of box office revenue comes from international markets (MPAA, 2017, 2011), the US market explains only a fraction of the total revenue of the movie industry. A second type of sequential distribution is auxiliary channels. For instance, consumers in the USA spent $18bn on videos for home entertainment in 2015, with DVD purchases and rentals contributing 34 per cent, while online subscription and video-on-demand (VOD) contributed the rest 66 per cent (The Convergence Consulting Group, 2016). These numbers and results from academic research point to the relevance of sequential distribution and the fact that an understanding of these revenues is vital to the movie industry (Eliashberg et al., 2006).\nSequential distributions of the movie industry: In a sequential distribution system, the channel through which the product is released initially is defined as the main channel (e.g. box office for movies), whereas the auxiliary channel (e.g. DVDs, VoD and online subscription) is the one through which a variant of the product is released after a time lag. Owing to increased competition, the time interval between main and auxiliary channels has been shortened, which makes the difference between main and auxiliary channels depend less on the time of product release (Eliashberg et al., 2006). However, industry norms would still consider theatrical releases as main channels. To delay the emergence of pirated products in the markets, theatrical releases generally precede releases in auxiliary channels (Smith and Telang, 2009). Among all auxiliary channels, the motion picture DVD market is the most typical one in terms of revenues and influence (Weinberg and Moul, 2005). Therefore, to investigate the interplay between main and auxiliary channels in international markets, movies and DVDs provide a good research context. Our findings can be generalized to other auxiliary channels, such as online streaming market, and other entertainment industries, such as concerts, as well.\nSuccess-breeds-success (SBS) effects: Signaling theory is the central pillar for explaining consumers' quality perception of experiential products. Consistent with Raghunathan and Corfman (2006), we describe movies, and by extension, DVDs, as examples of experiential products that are diffused and sold in different nations and channels. Quality of movies cannot be fully assessed before consumption, so signals are used to inform quality judgment (Carrillat et al., 2018; Hofmann et al., 2017). Recent studies have shown that the worldwide revenue of the movie industry is still growing, but the number of products being released in the North America market increases. Consumers are facing more choices in the selection of movie products than before. In addition to the monetary cost of movies, time cost of consumption should also be considered. Therefore, consumers have the impetus to infer the quality of movies, through a learning process, before making decisions. This learning process hinges on the use of product signals. Quality indicators such as studios, genres, directors, star power, sequels, remakes and production spending have been tested to influence quality perception of movies (Akdeniz and Talay, 2013; De Vany and Walls, 1999; Karniouchina, 2011). Recently, with the advent of the internet and social media, movie buzz becomes a vital source of signals (Liu, 2006; Divakaran et al., 2017; Hennig-Thurau et al., 2015). Consumers rely on expert critics, users' reviews and social media to acquire product information. For purchases from auxiliary channel and international markets, another type of signal, the success of the movie in the home country and the main channel, is relevant as well. The box office performance of the home country becomes an important overall signal for international markets and auxiliary channels.\nThe role of national culture: We explain the difference in the SBS effects by incorporating dimensions of cultural values proposed by Hofstede (1980). Hofstede's paradigm, subject to criticisms, is not the only approach to capture the complex nature of culture, but it is still the most enthusiastically used tools in international marketing research (Soares et al., 2007). Researchers argue that the cultural values can be studied at an individual level (Ogden and Cheng, 2011), but national-level culture is also valid owing to clustering effects (Minkov and Hofstede, 2011). We decided to investigate the influence of individualism, uncertainty avoidance, power distance, long-term orientation and indulgence at a national level to examine their impact on the SBS effects and offer managerial implications accordingly. The cultural values were chosen because of their theoretical relevance to the SBS effects. Before we starting the discussion, it should be clarified that culture can be operationalized in many other ways (Shavitt et al., 2006; Schwartz and Bilsky, 1990), and our approach to understand the differences in the SBS effects is by no means the only plausible explanation. Therefore, this investigation serves just as the first cut into the research of international auxiliary channels, waiting for more insights from other facets of cultural or national differences.\nThe moderating role of cultural values on cross-channel sequential distribution: Individualism vs collectivism and uncertainty avoidance\nThe moderating role of culture on cross-national sequential distribution: Although movies from other countries are shown in the USA, the dominant pattern is for US movies to be sequentially released and shown in other countries (Craig et al., 2005). Researchers widely acknowledge the global impact of American movies (Elberse and Eliashberg, 2003; Akdeniz and Talay, 2013), but this impact can vary by countries. We believe that culture, specifically cultural distance, moderates the impact of a movie's success in the home country on its performance in auxiliary channels of international markets.\nData and model specification: Data used to calibrate the model are of DVD markets from six different countries: Australia, Japan, Germany, the UK, the USA and France. For each of the countries, the IPSOS group provided data pertaining to the sales of motion picture DVDs in the year 2005 with information of distributors, product features such as special edition and sequel and the time intervals between theatrical and DVD releases. Table II provides a summary of the sources of all variables in this research. The data comprise a total of 104 Hollywood movies, a subset of which was released through the main and auxiliary channels in the six international markets. Table III provides descriptive statistics for motion picture DVDs included in the sample.\nModel estimation and data analysis: We calibrated a multilevel (DVD and movie levels) mixed-effects models that allowed us to test the different hypotheses using Proc Mixed in SAS with restricted maximum likelihood estimators. The analysis was conducted in two phases, and each cultural influence on the SBS effects was tested separately to avoid multicollinearity, which was a common approach when a few cultural dimensions and their moderations need to be tested (Akdeniz and Talay, 2013; Lu et al., 2018). In Phase I, the influence of all control variables were tested simultaneously at two levels, with instruments of studios also included. The covariance of errors between equations (1) and (5) was significant (th = 0.150, p < 0.001). The coefficients for the time intervals between theatrical and DVD releases. For the time intervals between theatrical and DVD sales showed a downward adjustment. The residual of the model was used as the dependent variable for a Phase II analysis to examine the SBS effects and moderation effects of culture as indicated in equations (2) to (4).\nDiscussions: This paper identified factors that influence the performance of international auxiliary channels. Four out of six moderation effects of culture were supported, so we could infer that the effects of culture on sequential distributions existed. Culture moderated the SBS effects across geographic regions and channels. Consumers in nations with high power distance, long-term orientation and low indulgence were less likely to be influenced by box office success when consumers purchased from auxiliary channels such as motion picture DVDs. Lastly, we confirmed that the greater the culture distance existed between the home and the host countries, the weaker the cross-national SBS effect could be observed.\nLimitations and future research directions: We identified several limitations of this study and hoped that future research can tackle them. Although we modeled the effect of time intervals on DVD sales, the intervals were equally likely to influence box office revenues. Therefore, a comprehensive model that captures the effects of the time windows on both the theatrical and DVD channels will provide more insight for choosing the length of the time window. We leave this topic for a future study. Similarly, our focus in this paper is to explore the interplay between channel types and cultural values. Cultural values can play multiple roles in the new product diffusion process. Future studies can explore the interaction of culture and genre, for example, to enhance the model's explanatory power. Moreover, according to the definition of culture, many other factors are equally, if not more, important than the cultural values in Hofstede's system. For example, language, rituals, customs and religion are indispensable components of a culture. Other paradigms of cultural values also exist in academic research (Schwartz and Bilsky, 1990). Our study focuses on Hofstede's set of dimensions because it is the most tested and widely adopted system and offers measures across different nations. Future studies can include other cultural or non-cultural differences of nations to investigate the SBS effects in international markets. Also, we suggest that more countries be included in the analysis of SBS effects to avoid the potential problem of multicollinearity because of the sampling of nations. Inclusion of more nations can enhance the generalizability of findings. Most importantly, the background of our research is the DVD channel. To fully generalize the findings to other auxiliary channels, empirical testing is required.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Given the high uncertainty in the quality perception of experiential products, manufacturers use signals to influence consumers' decisions. In the movie industry, literature shows that performance of the main channel (e.g. cinema) strongly influences the performance of auxiliary channels (e.g. DVDs). The success of a movie in the home country is also to be resonated by its good performance in host countries. However, the cultural contingency of these success-breeds-success (SBS) effects has not been examined. This paper aims to test the influence of cultural values on the SBS effects across channels and countries.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Borrowing concepts from the signaling literature and analyzing DVD sales data from six international markets using a multilevel mixed-effects model, the study finds that culture plays a significant role to influence both SBS effects.\nFindings: In countries with low power distance, short-term orientation and high indulgence, consumers who purchase from auxiliary channels are more likely to be influenced by the box office performance of movies. Meanwhile, cultural distance between the home and host nations significantly decreases the cross-national SBS effect.\nResearch limitations/implications: The findings are likely to be generalized to online auxiliary channels of movies, but empirical testing is required to ensure that no major adaptation is required in the process. Future research can also extend the framework of this paper to include more countries into the analysis and investigate cultural variables beyond Hofstede's dimensions.\nPractical implications: This paper suggests that the SBS effects may vary across nations. When managers plan for the sequential distributions of experiential products, the cultural values of target markets should be considered to decrease the uncertainty in sales prediction.\nOriginality/value: This paper contributes to the existing literature by investigating the international auxiliary channels of movies and incorporating cultural values into the framework of sequential distributions. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this study is the first to test the links between the main and auxiliary channels from an international marketing perspective.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Platform-based service innovation and system design: a literature review
|
[
"Service innovation",
"Literature review",
"System design",
"Network platform"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Platform-based businesses have gained great popularity in recent years. An increasing number of firms are adopting this model to meet the needs of heterogeneous users and to exploit network effects and external resources that complement those of the firm (Ceccagnoli et al., 2012). Consequently, platform studies have similarly burgeoned (Thomas et al., 2014). Rooted in different intellectual traditions and based on distinct assumptions, platform studies have been dominated by different theoretical perspectives, including the engineering design perspective, an economics perspective and ecological perspectives; research has been conducted at the level of individual products, product systems, industry supply chains, markets, industries and even constellations of industries, covering a wide variety of topics (Gawer, 2014; Thomas et al., 2014). However, as the platform concept evolves and the application context expands, a limited and divided research agenda cannot properly explore the increasingly complicated platform phenomenon (Gawer, 2014). For example, traditional manufacturing firms may know how to design an efficient product platform system, but they are likely to lack knowledge on how to attract various external resources and stimulate network effects to expand their business (Fu et al., 2017). On the other hand, many internet-based firms are good at developing innovative services to attract external resources, but they sometimes face the system design problem such as the mismatching between internal technological and external business systems (Tiwana et al., 2010).\n2. Research methodology and data description: Given the rapidly growing literature in platform studies, a combination of bibliometric and content analyses is recommended in related review articles (e.g. Thomas et al., 2014; Facin et al., 2016). This study also adopted such a hybrid research methodology and focused more on the depth of the content analysis to identify and categorize research issues and reveal the relationships among them.\n3. Detailed analysis of research topics by different perspectives: In this section, we conduct an in-depth content review of detailed research topics of the platform studies. In order to systematically enumerate these topics, three research perspectives are identified in this study: product family (or engineering design perspective), multi-sided market (or economics perspective) and business ecosystem (or ecological perspective), with reference to the classification logic of Gawer and Cusumano (2014), Gawer (2014), Thomas et al. (2014) and Facin et al. (2016) on platform studies, the keywords distribution (count and centrality) shown in Figure 1 and Table I, and the evolution of platform concept explained in Table II.\n4. Findings and discussions: Based on the literature review from three perspectives, a conceptual model (Figure 3) is proposed to cluster and link the various research topics and issues. This model shows how a platform evolves through the interactions between platform service innovation, platform system design and other factors such as the network effect and value co-creation activities.\n5. Implications and conclusions: Using a quantitative descriptive analysis, we provide an overview of the current body of literature on platform studies, covering three perspectives (the engineering design, the economics and the ecology-based perspectives) and research various topics (e.g. innovation, competition, strategies and IT systems). Then, based on a qualitative in-depth review, we clarified the relationships among these diversified topics and developed a comprehensive framework to reveal the mechanism of platform evolution driven by platform-based service innovation and system design. The findings of this paper deepen our understanding on platform studies in the fields related to operations management, information systems and strategic management, and provide practitioners managerial insights with regard to improving operational effectiveness of platforms and evolving platforms to new business models with appropriate design for the long-term development of a platform ecosystem.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to systematically review the platform literature and synthesize the various topics of research into a common framework to reveal the relations between platform-based service innovation, system design and other platform-related factors.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A quantitative descriptive analysis led to an overview of the distribution of research focuses of the 187 sample articles identified by a well-established search strategy. A qualitative in-depth review was then used to clarify the detailed research topics and generate an overall conceptual model to link them, with a focus on platform-based service innovation and system design.\nFindings: In total, 11 research topics of three research perspectives were identified and linked by a framework that accounts for the relationships between platform-based service innovation and system design and their influences on platform evolution. A small panel of industry experts validated the accuracy and utility of the proposed framework.\nOriginality/value: This paper provides an integrated framework for separately developed research perspectives and the topics investigated in the platform literature. Through the proposed framework, this paper helps to improve the knowledge on platform study and management, and lays a foundation for exploring the research opportunities in platform-based service innovation and system design.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Developing strategies to improve agility in the project procurement management (PPM) process: Perspective of business intelligence (BI)
|
[
"Delphi",
"Agility",
"Business intelligence",
"Interpretive structural modelling",
"MICMAC",
"Project procurement management"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: There has been a considerable transformation in procurement since its discovery as primarily a manufacturing-sector discipline in the mid-twentieth century. Traditionally, it was simply a process involving the acquisition of goods and services but underwent great changes during the 1980s and 1990s due to rising cost-cutting pressures in an increasingly global market (Tassabehji and Moorhouse, 2008; Rozemeijer, 2008; Reynolds and Thompson, 2008). Every organization purchases items, i.e., every organization requires to purchase supplies, perhaps as raw materials, components, sub-assemblies, spares, equipment, services and consumables (Zhelyazkov, 2011). Project procurement interacts with every single entity in the organization including sales and marketing to engineering design and manufacturing making it a very important process for the organization. Selecting the right supplier for an assignment, as well as evaluating this supplier's performance while the contract is being implemented, plays an important role in ensuring a good project outcome (de Araujo et al., 2017). Procurement is currently recognized as a strategically significant function (Spekman et al., 1994; Tan et al., 1998; Humphreys, 2001) that is capable of driving and delivering competitive advantage (Mol, 2003; Ubeda et al., 2015; Atmo et al., 2017). Enabling the development of strategic procurement has long been recognized as contributing to an effective organization, but companies in both the public and private sector still seem to find it challenging (White et al., 2016).\n2. Literature survey: 2.1 Project procurement management\n3. Research gaps: Research gaps identified based on literature survey and based on interactions with the experts, and are summarized as follows.\n4. Research objectives: In order to overcome the research gaps, this research defines the following objectives:\n5. Research methodology: Considering the challenges faced and the need for agility improvement in the PPM process, this paper aims to identify the barriers to implementing agility in PPM based on the literature review and expert input. Post identification, the barriers were prioritized by conducting a Delphi survey based on their significance. Top critical barriers with a strong impact on agility improvement in PPM were considered for ISM and MICMAC analysis to establish relationships and interactions among barriers. Based on this analysis strategies were formulated by leveraging business intelligance, for strategic and systematic mitigation barriers for a successful agility improvement in PPM. The research methodology adopted to achieve successful agility improvement is as shown in Figure 1.\n6. Exploring barriers to improving agility in PPM: This section aims to identify key barriers that will hamper the improvement of agility in the PPM process. The various barriers to improve agility in PPM identified from the literature are shown in Table I. These identified barriers were verified for their authenticity based on discussions with few of the domain experts considered in Section 7.1.\n7. Identifying the impacts of barriers to improving agility: After identifying the barriers from literature and conducting the first round of Delphi for validating the barriers, the second round of Delphi was conducted to find the impact of each barrier on improving agility in PPM. The quantified impacts of barriers helped in prioritizing and selecting the critical barriers for further analysis.\n8. Interpretative structural modeling: This section aims to understand the relationships and interactions among the identified barriers. ISM methodology proposes the use of the expert opinions based on various management techniques such as brainstorming and nominal group discussion technique in developing the contextual relationship among the barriers (Jadhav et al., 2013, 2014, 2015; Rane and Kirkire, 2017). ISM enables establishing of relationships among specific items/elements to define a problem by means of their dependency and driving power (Gandhi et al., 2015; Lin, 2013; Luthra et al., 2013; Madaan and Mangla, 2015; Mani et al., 2014).\n9. MICMAC analysis: After obtaining the ISM model for the agility implementation barriers in PPM, MICMAC analysis was applied to prioritize the barriers based on their driving power and dependence. MICMAC analysis is to sort out the variables according to their driving power and dependence (Faisal et al., 2006; Mandal and Deshmukh, 1994). The MICMAC principle is based on the multiplication properties of matrices (Mudgal et al., 2010; Jadhav et al., 2015). Higher driving power indicates that the barrier highly influences other barriers whereas higher dependence indicates that the barrier is highly influenced by other barriers. In the MICMAC analysis, four clusters, namely, autonomous, dependent, linkage, and independent are represented at the four corners of the square (Dandage, et al., 2017).\n10. Results: The purpose of this paper was to identify the most prominent barriers in improving agility, prioritize the barriers and to understand their interactions among the prioritized top 10 selected barriers. ISM assisted with MICMAC analysis provides a model as well as dependence-driving power diagram of barriers giving better visibility on areas to focus, prioritize and strategize for improving agility in PPM. Out of 20 identified barriers 10 barriers to agility improvement in PPM have been prioritized and modeled using ISM in this research; as a result of this, we get a hierarchical structure of barriers that provide a roadmap to tackle them as per their significance. Table XVII provides a summary of the barriers in each cluster with its significance.\n11. Discussions: strategy development based on ISM and MICMAC analysis of barriers for improving agility in PPM by leveraging business intelligence: To overcome the barriers, organizations need to formulate and implement an effective strategy. As an outcome of this entire exercise, the following strategies have been developed which will enable significant improvement of agility in PPM:\n12. Implications of research: 12.1 Implications of research for practitioners\n13. Conclusions: Due to excessive competition in the market and reduction in time to market of new products, a lot of pressure is laid on existing PPM. Due to shorter project/product development time, there is a need for faster planning which may ignore some vital dimensions during planning. The missed-out dimensions may lead to variations in requirements, and a change in the procurement request would be required at any point in time during the project execution. The conventional techniques of PPM are not agile and flexible enough to handle such drastic variation. Improvement in agility will enable project procurement managers to take care of such variation by using latest tools and techniques that can provide real business intelligence which will help in providing clear visibility on right areas to focus and to take right decisions.\n14. Limitations and future research directions: The interactions among barriers were analyzed using ISM which provides relationships within barriers based on the judgment and experience of the experts involved. The interpretation of the interactive relationships represented by directed links for the identified barriers relatively lacks in the ISM approach as ISM interprets only the nodes ignoring the transitive links. To have enhanced results total ISM can be used that interprets both, nodes and links in the digraph. It can also have some important transitive links which can provide a better explanatory framework.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The ability of an organization to observe varying demands and efficiently meet them can be described as agility. Project procurement management (PPM) in the past was stable as things did not change very often and were very predictable. Due to hyper-competition, less predictable market and exponential innovation, the existing PPM becomes very unstable which marks the requirement of an agile model to manage procurement projects effectively. The paper aims to discuss this issue.\nDesign/methodology/approach: For achieving the improvements, various barriers to improving agility in PPM were identified from the literature and experts' review, followed by obtaining quantified impacts of identified barriers from the experts using the Delphi technique. Finally, interpretive structural modeling along with Matrice d' Impacts Croises Multiplication Applique an Classement analysis was used to analyze the interactions among barriers to prioritize and strategize their mitigation.\nFindings: As per the analysis, the lack of top management alignment and commitment, lack of digital strategy, lack of new technology competencies and inefficiencies of financial factors were the most critical barriers that would come across while improving agility in PPM for any organization. Industries should have a stable, well-established and supportive top management that has a vision for digital transformation along with upgrading the companies' technology layer for automating most of the manual processes to have intelligent decision-making capability.\nOriginality/value: Industries need to be agile in their operations for being more competitive and responsive to the market. PPM being the most critical part of the entire value chain needs to be agile in the first place. The strategies developed as an output of this research can be utilized by industries for improving agility in their business processes.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Developing nursing: the contribution to quality
|
[
"Nursing",
"Quality assurance",
"United Kingdom"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Nurses remain the biggest single group of professional employees in health care. In both hospital and community, they are one of the few sectors to provide round-the-clock service. As such, what nurses do, and how well they do it, is probably the biggest single factor that directly affects the quality of care the patient or client receives (HMSO, 1979).\nA nursing development unit: Understanding that nurse recruitment and retention was intimately linked with conditions of practice, Tameside created its first \"Nursing Development Unit\" (NDU) in 1986. While a complex set of aims was drawn up (see the Appendix), the thrust of the whole unit was to produce a \"pincer\" movement to tackle nursing, that is, develop both nurses and nursing.While pay matters related to nursing motivation are largely out of local hands, there is much that individual units can achieve. In the Tameside instance, the NDU, was the culmination of over five years of groundwork in transforming the Care of the Elderly (Wright, 1983, 1989, 1985a, b, 1986a; Wright and Reader, 1986), which has now been well documented.Many health authorities have attempted to tackle the problems through various strategies. What marks the NDU as different is a planned approach of not one but many intertwining factors - a deliberate attempt through a network of nursing activities - to promote nursing (in this case specifically the elderly) as valuable and worthwhile. The \"network\" point is crucial, since no one item (i.e. increasing pay, or supporting a few nurses in advanced education) will produce the breadth of results that is desired (Vogt et al., 1983).Tameside General Hospital is a typical \"bread and butter\" hospital, situated in an ordinary town on the outskirts of the big city. It is surrounded by other health authorities competing for recruitment, yet has little to offer in the way of glamorous facilities. Much of the care of the elderly takes place in old \"work-house\" buildings. Given these factors, and that the setting chosen for the NDU was a \"Cinderella\" site, i.e. geriatric services, then what has been achieved must be viewed as even more exceptional. A situation such as this, which in any health authority, would have been difficult to staff, now has a waiting list of potential recruits and a low turnover, sickness and absenteeism rate. These features among others are tangible evidence that the approach being adopted actually produces results.\nThe network: A multiple variety of strategies being adopted within the NDU appears to be the deciding factor. A full explanation of each of the elements is beyond the scope of this paper and Figure 1 summarises the main points.Towards professional practice\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The paper aims to examine the concept of a nurse development unit and its impact on the quality of nursing practice.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The study uses the Nurse Development Unit at Tameside as an example and the implications for both the patients and nurses are explored.\nFindings: - The paper finds that initial assessments of the Unit and its impact on quality assurance have been very positive, with great emphasis being placed on the patient as a consumer of the quality provided.\nOriginality/value: - The paper provides useful information on the development of quality assurance in nursing.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Sustainability insights from the mission statements of leading Brazilian Universities
|
[
"Sustainability",
"Social responsibility",
"Mission statement",
"Higher education",
"Environmental management",
"Indicators"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: 1.1. Sustainability in higher education\n2. Methods: This study follows the work flow from Ghauri and Gronhaug (2005) about secondary data, an important method for solving, understanding and explaining the problems of this research (Figure 2).\n3. Results: 3.1. Indicator analysis\n4. Discussion: We find few sustainability indicators within the mission statements of leading Brazilian universities, as Figure 3 shows. These results agree with the findings of Hladchenko (2013), although this author did not aim to analyze sustainable indicators, but instead used content analysis to evaluate mission statements from 30 German universities. Hladchenko (2013) discovered that the most popular subjects contained within the mission statements included \"equal rights,\" \"opportunities for men and women,\" \"internationality,\" \"unity of research and teaching,\" \"quality assurance\" and \"interdisciplinarity.\"\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the mission statements from 30 leading Brazilian universities, evaluating the statements based on a sustainable model that involves an environmental management system, public participation and social responsibility, and sustainable education and research.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Content analysis was conducted on the mission statements. The points used were based on the campus sustainability model of Alshuwaikhat and Abubakar. After grading, the Pearson correlation was verified for indicator and ranking points.\nFindings: The authors find few universities with clear sustainability aspects in their mission statements; just 10 percent of institutions achieve five points out of a maximum of nine points.\nResearch limitations/implications: This study analyses only mission statements, which do not provide substantiated real sustainable action as much as reporting does.\nPractical implications: Higher education managers should review the universities' mission statements in terms of a sustainability overview and improve the statements.\nSocial implications: The authors criticize the real mission stated by leading Brazilian universities and their true role in society.\nOriginality/value: Studies frequently focus on reporting and this work instead focusses on mission statements, which are important for guiding reporting and acting as a strategic tool. The results highlight aspects that have only been rarely addressed by Brazilian universities.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Digital channels in the internal communication of a multinational corporation
|
[
"Social media",
"Digital media",
"Internal communication",
"Multinational corporation"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The existing research on internal communications (ICs) in multinational corporations (MNCs)[1] was mostly conducted before the digital communications era. The literature has examined IC from the perspective of how to use traditional communications channels effectively and the skills needed for efficient communication (Charles and Marschan-Piekkari, 2002; Du-Babcock and Babcock, 1996; Tucker et al., 1996; Quible et al., 1996). Recent advances in information technology have created new challenges in managing and facilitating IC, but along with those challenges come opportunities. Nowadays, it is difficult to choose between all the channels provided by the new technology (Quirke, 2008). Many organizations are utilizing new digital communication channels, such as social media, in their IC; however, research indicates that social media (e.g. blogs, communities) in particular is seen as more important for external communications, its main objectives being branding and creating awareness (Jarvinen et al., 2012; Lee et al., 2005; Michaelidou et al., 2011; Scott, 2010). The fact that research related to digital media has focused more on external communication seems to suggest an interest in research related to the use of digital tools in IC. According to a Delphi study of IC among the leaders of the Federation of European Business Communicators Associations, the most topical interest is in new internal digital (including social) media (Vercic et al., 2012). Internal digital communications are increasingly being adopted by corporations (e.g. Salesforce.com's \"Chatter\"; Microsoft's \"Yammer\"; the BBC's intranet, which features blogs, videos and staff interviews; IBM's internal social network \"IBM Connections\" and Wartsila's \"Ask the Doers\") to communicate with employees, facilitate two-way conversations, gather ideas, give feedback, trigger greater engagement and motivation and, overall, encourage employees to contribute to company strategy.\n2. Digital communication channels in IC: Traditionally, companies have used tools such as corporate TV, wall posters and corporate magazines, all of which are one-way broadcasting (one-to-many) tools, for IC. Today, computer-mediated exchange and shared electronic resources have an enormous potential to encourage employee participation in practice (Beirne and Cromack, 2009). The literature classifies new digital communications channels in various ways. Recently, the terms \"social media\" (e.g. Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010) and \"new media\" (Hennig-Thurau et al., 2010) have been used to describe a changing communications landscape. Kaplan and Haenlein (2010) categorize social media into six types: collaborative projects, blogs, content communities, social networking sites, virtual game worlds and virtual social worlds.\n3. Methodology: 3.1 The single-case study as a research strategy\n4. Results: Like almost all organizations, the case MNC employs a wide range of different IC channels. Among the often-used non-digital channels, basic notice boards and notes on the dining tables were used internally to pass on routine news. However, most information in the case corporation is shared via online channels, with the intranet and e-mail playing a significant role. The company strategy states a desire to invest in communication methods employing open dialogue, which accords with the emphasis on digital channels in its communications.\n5. Conclusion and implications: The purpose of this study was to examine how digital communication tools are used for IC in an MNC. It specifically examined the role of digital channels, and both the benefits and issues they bring. The findings of the study indicate that digital communication tools can be widely used and will facilitate IC in an MNC, although they can be some challenges around planning their utilization.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine how digital communication tools are used for internal communication (IC) in multinational corporations (MNCs). Specifically, the study illustrates the role of digital channels in IC, the benefits they bring and the difficulties involved in using them.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This research features a single-case study focusing on a listed Finnish multinational industrial corporation with a long history. Data for the study come from semi-structured theme interviews and a workshop in which the results were discussed.\nFindings: Digital IC tools are able to facilitate IC in MNCs, although some challenges may arise in relation to planning their utilization. Related to the role of digital channels in IC, these findings highlight the importance of face-to-face channels in everyday IC and the role of digital channels as more formal communication channels.\nResearch limitations/implications: This paper focuses on a single organization. Additional research would be required to attain generalizable results.\nPractical implications: The effective use of new digital communication tools requires common guidelines across all areas of an MNC. Despite the great potential of new tools, the importance of face-to-face communication should not be ignored.\nOriginality/value: Most of the research on IC in MNCs was conducted before the digital communications era. Recent advances in information technology have created new challenges and opportunities for IC.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Data flows and national security: a conceptual framework to assess restrictions on data flows under GATS security exception
|
[
"WTO",
"Cybersecurity",
"GATS",
"National security",
"Data flows",
"Digital trade"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Trump's tariffs on steel and aluminum have brought renewed interest on the security exception in the World Trade Organization (WTO). Under the WTO system, countries are not allowed to introduce new tariffs or to impose other trade restrictions on bound goods and services. However, a country can deviate from its free trade obligations to achieve important non-economic objectives such as data privacy, public morals and national security.\n2. Restrictions on data flows as a trade barrier: Under the WTO, countries commit not to restrict trade on specified goods and services included in national schedules with overarching principles, such as most-favored-national treatment, that apply to all such trade. Certain exceptions are available when a measure is considered necessary to achieve important non-economic objectives, including data privacy and national security.\n3. General Agreement on Trade in Services and restrictions on data flows: No WTO member has yet instituted proceedings against another for violating the GATS based on restrictions on data flows, and the more general debate over when measures regulating data flows should be considered a violation of the GATS is still in its infancy. The WTO texts say nothing about the internet, censorship, e-commerce or data flows[7]. Despite attempts to include binding language on data flows under the Work Program on Electronic Commerce (WTO, 1998), as of today there are no rules on data flows being negotiated in the WTO. This raises the question of whether, under the existing GATS language, restrictions on data flows constitute a barrier that could be challenged in a trade dispute (Crosby, 2016; Aaronson, 2017; Burri, 2017; Ferracane, 2017).\n4. General Agreement on Trade in Services exceptions: As noted by Tim Wu, when the GATS entered into force, no one realized that \"almost by accident, the WTO has put itself in an oversight position for most of the national laws and practices that regulate the Internet\" (Wu, 2006). Wu also made the point that members of the WTO would have to decide \"how much control is legitimate domestic regulation, and how much is a barrier to trade.\" Despite the fact that the agreement has not been updated to take into account new internet issues, it is inevitable that the WTO would find itself in the position to adjudicate when certain internet measures would be justified, or not, under the current exceptions.\n5. Data flows and national security: It is not unusual to hear political statements like \"cybersecurity risks pose some of the most serious economic and national security challenges of the XXI century\" (Obama, 2015) and \"without cybersecurity there is no national security\" (Bandurski, 2017)[25]. However, despite the frequent reference to security concerns as a justification for the imposition of restrictions on data flows, governments have not provided clear arguments on how in practice certain restrictions would respond to these security concerns.\n6. Conclusions: No WTO member has yet instituted proceedings against another for imposing restrictions on data flows and the debate over whether these restrictions could or should be considered a violation of the GATS commitments is still in its infancy. Although it has been argued that restrictions on data flows, in practice, may constitute a violation of GATS commitments, further research is still needed to confirm whether the existing language in GATS possesses the basic juridical strength to address restrictions on data flows.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The paper aims to explore the national security implications of a potential for a World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute on data flow restrictions. It proposes a basic conceptual framework to assess data flows' restrictions under General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) security exception.\nDesign/methodology/approach: If a case were to be brought before the WTO dispute settlement, the defender could support its case by invoking the security exception. This paper analyzes three main arguments that could be brought up: protection from cyber espionage, protection from cyberattacks on critical infrastructure and access to data needed to prevent terrorist threats. These three cases are analyzed both legally and technically to assess the relevance of restrictions on data flows under GATS security exception. This analysis can, more generally, inform the debate on the protection of national security in the digital era.\nFindings: In the three cases, restrictions on data considered critical for national security might raise the cost of certain attacks. However, the risks would remain pervasive and national security would not be significantly enhanced both legally and technically. The implementation of good security standards and encryption techniques appears to be a more effective way to ensure a better response to cyber threats. All in all, it will be important to investigate on a case by case basis whether the scope of the measure (sectors and data covered) is considered proportionate and whether the measure in question in practice reduces the exposure of the country to cyber espionage, cyberattacks and terrorist threats.\nOriginality/value: This paper represents a contribution to the literature because it is the first paper to address systematically the issue of data flows and national security in the context of a GATS dispute and because it provides a unique perspective that looks both at legal and technical arguments.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Social networks and unemployment exit in Great Britain
|
[
"Social networks",
"Job search",
"Friends",
"Unemployment exit"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The role of social networks as informational vehicles in job search was first highlighted in the economics literature by Myers and Shultz (1951) and Rees (1966). Friends' networks among other informal channels contribute to the dissemination of job information through individual inquiries and personal recommendations. It was in the field of sociology, however, where the effects of social interactions in job attainment were first formalized in the 1970s (Boorman, 1975; Granovetter, 1995).\nData and empirical strategy: Data\nResults and discussion: We start by estimating two alternative (linear) specifications of model 1, presented in Table I, where model A includes the effect of friends in employment and model B additionally includes further socio-economic, household and personal respondent's characteristics[16] in the vector of explanatory variables[17].\nConclusion: The size of social networks plays an important in the job search of the unemployed. Recent theoretical contributions in the economics literature highlight the role that the social network of an unemployed worker can play in spreading and distributing information about job vacancies. Alternative transmission channels have been proposed in the literature; however, disentangling the effects of all the potential mechanisms with the data currently available is nearly impossible. The difficulty rests with the lack of specific measurement of the characteristics of social networks and their use by unemployed workers.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect employed friends have on the probability of exiting unemployment of an unemployed worker according to his/her educational (skill) level.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In common with studies on unemployment duration, this paper uses a discrete-time hazard model.\nFindings: The paper finds that the conditional probability of finding work is between 24 and 34 per cent higher per period for each additional employed friend for job seekers with intermediate skills.\nSocial implications: These results are of interest since they suggest that the reach of national employment agencies could extend beyond individuals in direct contact with first-line employment support bureaus.\nOriginality/value: Because of the lack of appropriate longitudinal information, the majority of empirical studies in the area assess the influence of social networks on employment status using proxy measures of social interactions. The current study contributes to the very limited empirical literature of the influence of social networks on job attainment using direct measures of social structures.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Segmentation and explanation of smartphone use for travel planning based on socio-demographic and behavioral variables
|
[
"Tourism",
"Segmentation",
"Smartphone",
"Travel planning"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Mobile phone users in recent years have rapidly adapted to the evolution of this device into a smartphone (Gerpott et al., 2013), an apparatus with advanced functions and features (Sarwar and Soomro, 2013). In this regard, according to the International Telecommunication Union (2014), by the end of 2014, the number of mobile phones on the planet will practically equal that of the number of inhabitants (approximately seven billion). This represents a penetration rate of 121 percent for developed countries and 90 percent for developing countries. Moreover, the daily increase of the use of smartphones is influencing behavior (Yoo, 2010). For example, Custora (2015) reveals that online orders via mobile devices in March, 2015, increased by 6 percent as compared to 2014, accounting for 26 percent of total orders (smartphones 15 percent and tablets 11 percent).\n2. Theoretical background: 2.1 Socio-demographic characteristics as segmentation variables\n3. Methodology: 3.1 Fieldwork: data collection, questionnaire and measurement scales\n4. Results: As opposed to previous research, this study attempts to segment tourism consumers based on two fundamental dependent variables. These are consumer's current use of smartphones to search for tourism information and consumer's current use of smartphones to book tourism products. The segmentation variables are gender, age, income, marital status, occupation, length of smartphone use and number of yearly leisure trips.\n5. Discussion and implications: The widespread acceptance of the smartphone is changing consumer behavior on both daily basis and, specifically, on activities related to tourism. This study examines the profiles of users of smartphones for travel planning from the standpoint of socio-demographic and behavioral variables. Different groups of tourists were classified according to socio-demographic and behavioral characteristics in order to explain the degree of use of smartphones in the search or booking of tourism products. Based on this statistical procedure, we selected the following discriminant variables: age, gender, length of smartphone use and number of yearly leisure trips. The current study reveals, on the other hand, that smartphone use for travel planning is not significantly influenced by education level, marital status, occupation and income. Therefore, this study provides significant and easily applicable segmentation criteria, such as the demographic variables of age and gender, along with other behaviors, that lead to better results with a higher discriminatory power.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Due to the advances in smartphones, many companies in the tourism industry have launched mobile applications intended to reach their target audience. Design of these smartphone strategies requires identification of the profiles of individuals that use tourism services. The purpose of this paper is to explore the predictors of smartphone use for travel planning.\nDesign/methodology/approach: To achieve this goal, the authors carried out a hierarchical segmentation analysis selecting a group of different socio-demographic (gender, age, education level, marital status, occupation, and income) and behavioral (length of smartphone use and number of yearly leisure trips) variables to explain the use of these devices to search and book tourism products. The study is based on an online survey of 618 Spanish travelers.\nFindings: Smartphone use for tourism can be primarily explained according to the users' degree of daily experience of mobile phone internet use. That is, a spillover effect can be identified from the context of everyday mobile phone use to travel planning. Age, gender and the number of yearly vacations can also be distinguished, to a certain degree, through the use of smartphones. Specifically, there is an inverted U-shape quadratic relationship between the variable of age and the behavior of a potential tourist.\nOriginality/value: The authors conducted a segmentation study selecting a series of different socio-demographic and behavioral variables with the greatest discriminant power to explain the use of these mobile devices for travel planning. The paper concludes with compelling implications for management.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Effects of show windows on female consumers' shopping behaviour
|
[
"Consumer behaviour",
"Female shopping behaviour",
"Show window"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: An executive summary for managers and executive readers can be found at the end of this article.\n1. Introduction: Retail environments are dynamic and unpredictable, and it is challenging for retailers to identify courses of action that might provide them with a competitive edge. Many retailers rely on promotional strategies such as visual merchandising as a means of standing out. Visual merchandising refers to the development of effective displays - i.e. displays that attract, engage and motivate consumers (Opris and Bratucu, 2013) - by means of selection and organization of products (Walters and White, 1987). Elements of visual merchandising include mannequins, lighting, store design, graphics and signage, sound and show windows, i.e. windows that display products as a means of attracting shoppers (Diamond and Diamond, 2007). The purpose of visual merchandising is to create a pleasurable shopping experience and to enhance value to motivate customers to make planned or impulsive purchases (Levi and Weitz, 2009). More specifically, visual merchandising displays serve as environmental stimuli that affect the perceptions of consumers; these perceptions, in turn, elicit responses (e.g. purchase) (Du Plessisand Rousseau, 2003). Previous studies have investigated how visual merchandising displays affect consumers' perceptions (Cant and Hefer, 2014).The present paper seeks to further explore the relationship between visual merchandising and customer behaviour. Specifically, we examine the influence of show windows on female shopping behaviour.\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Store environment and shopping behaviour\n3. Study overview and hypothesis: The objective of this research is to understand the impact of show windows on female consumers' shopping experiences and behaviours. The insights we obtain may assist marketers in developing effective strategies to encourage purchasing behaviour, particularly among women, who shop more frequently than men do.\n4. Methodology: We used a qualitative approach (in-depth interviews) to identify constructs relating to consumer response to show windows. We developed these constructs into a survey, which we administered to 209 female consumers. We then used a quantitative approach to analyze their responses.\n5. Discussion and conclusion: To our knowledge, this study is the first to empirically examine the \"show window\" and its effect on the shopping behaviour of consumers. We evaluated shopping behaviour using an S-O-R framework (Donovan and Rossiter, 1982; Mehrabian and Russell, 1974), in which the show window provides a stimulus (S), which consumers evaluate internally (O) and then behaviourally respond to (R). We identified five main factors that shape consumers' experiences of show windows: social, informational, hedonic, image and feel-good factors. We further showed quantitatively that these factors influence female consumers' purchase intentions. In addition, the effect of the aggregation of the first four factors (referred to as the \"show window\" metric) is fully mediated by the feel-good factor, suggesting that the show window affects the purchase intentions of consumers, primarily by eliciting positive feelings regarding the store. In particular, consumers may be more inclined to purchase products when the show window makes them \"feel good\". Finally, we showed that the image factor, the social factor and the hedonic factor each significantly affect the feel-good factor, and that image has the strongest effect.\n6. Future research: Future research can extend the present study in numerous ways. Herein, we focused on the show window as a complete entity; future studies might explore individual environmental cues in show windows, such as colour or lighting. They might also investigate specific characteristics of show windows in different product categories, such as jewellery, accessories, shoes and books. This could provide show window designers with tools towards tailoring show windows and consumer experiences to a specific customer base. In addition, the present study focuses on purchase intention; future studies might explore the actual shopping process or post-purchase behaviour. Another potential avenue for future research is to explore how show windows work together with the retailer's other contact points with consumers - e.g. in-store displays - to convey brand concepts, generate positive feelings about the products and to enhance the shopping experience.\n7. Implications: The findings of the present study can be helpful to many stakeholders, including retail managers, store designers, brand managers and marketing managers. A key finding of this study was that consumers' responses to a show window entail multiple components - including social, informational, hedonic and image-related factors - and that a show window that elicits these responses can create a \"good feeling\" that enhances purchasing intentions. This implies that all stakeholders have to work as a team to create an effective show window that achieves the goals of the store and of the brands it offers. Show windows could engage the shopper in a \"conversation\" through text or elicit social scenes with the graphics. To meet consumers' informational needs, store designers can display new trends in aesthetically appealing ways and brand managers can ensure that the functional and symbolic attributes of the products are on display. To elicit a hedonic response, show windows can incorporate designs and colours that help consumers to enter a \"dream world\", and display the products in a way that encourages consumers to fantasize about the possibilities that might await them if they enter the store. Finally, the show window can use mannequins, graphics and other visual elements to convey a certain type of image that customers might seek to achieve. If marketing managers can incorporate these elements into a show window, they might succeed in making consumers \"feel good\" about the store, increasing the likelihood that window shoppers will step inside and make a purchase.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study if to investigate the effects of show windows on shopping behaviour among female consumers to provide insights that a manager can use to encourage purchase behaviour.\nDesign/methodology/approach: On the basis of 20 in-depth interviews, we developed a survey, which we administered to female consumers (n = 209). The survey was based on a stimulus-organism-response framework. Each respondent was exposed to an image of a show window (images were taken from apparel departments of well-known department stores) and rated her perceptions of the window and intentions to purchase items sold in the store.\nFindings: Using factor analysis, we identify five components of the show window: social, hedonic, informational, image and \"feel-good\" factors. The first four factors are aggregated into a \"show window\" metric, which is shown to influence purchase intentions; this influence is fully mediated by the feel-good factor. The image factor and the social and hedonic factors each significantly influence the feel-good factor.\nPractical implications: When developing show windows, brand managers should aim to touch on all factors of the show window to make shoppers \"feel good\"; these positive feelings might intensify shoppers' purchase intentions.\nOriginality/value: This study identifies five factors that make up consumers' perceptions of show windows. It shows that exposure to a show window affects consumers' purchase intentions, and that this influence is determined primarily by the extent to which consumers \"feel good\" about the store.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Cross-border quality assurance: case study of Hong Kong and Macao
|
[
"Hong Kong",
"Cross-border",
"Macao",
"HKCAAVQ"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Internationalization of higher education not only involves the mobility of students, academics, institutions, and programmes, but also the movement of quality assurance (QA) services. National accrediting agencies in Asia are attempting to internationalize themselves through internal and external approaches (Hou, 2012). This paper focuses on cross-border QA in the process of internationalization and sets out the experience of the Hong Kong Council for Accreditation of Academic and Vocational Qualifications (HKCAAVQ) as an external QA agency in carrying out two cross-border exercises in Macao. Such experience can serve as a reference for higher education institutions (HEIs) or QA agencies in other countries/regions planning to engage in cross-border QA.\nLiterature review: The Observatory on Borderless Higher Education Report says internationalization has become an increasingly important phenomenon in higher education (Middlehurst and Woodfield, 2007; Altbach and Knight, 2007). During the past several decades, internationalization has emerged as an important goal of higher education (Childress, 2009). Yang (2002) also argues that internationalization and university development are linked to each other. Not only do HEIs engage in the process of internationalization, but QA agencies around the globe have also become more internationally active through engaging in cross-border QA exercises. The European Commission (2009) states that cross-border QA is increasingly important in face of globalization, economic integration and increased academic and professional mobility (cited in Bernhard, 2012).\nBackground of the study: Under the principle of \"one country, two systems\" enshrined in the Basic Law following the transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong from the UK to the People's Republic of China, Hong Kong is a Special Administrative Region able to operate its own higher education system and external QA arrangements. In addition, Hong Kong is an active member of various regional QA networks which has provided an opportunity for sharing good practices and raising awareness about QA practices through the networks (Coates and Shah, 2017).\nOverview of higher education in Macao: The following information is extracted from the Macao Yearbook 2015 published by the Government Information Bureau of the Macao Special Administrative Region (2015):The Tertiary Education Services Office.\nResearch methodology: International education is now a hugely competitive market, and national governments and individual providers often see agencies as key tools for developing positional advantage:\nDescription of two case studies: Case 1: pilot program accreditation for GAES\nResults: International education is now a hugely competitive market, and national governments and individual providers often see agencies as key tools for developing positional advantage. What are the implications for agencies in seeking to meet these expectations?The pilot study on the program accreditation guidelines under the Proposed Higher Education Framework of Macao was designed to test the accreditation and standards as well as the process by which a mandatory external QA procedure could be introduced through the jurisdiction's legal framework. The development of the knowledge and understanding of QA among GAES staff through the process and the building of the quality culture in the pilot HEI were added value in the process.\nConclusions: Each country context is unique and has its own purposes for QA (World Bank, 2007). Engaging in cross-border QA creates significant challenges for the EQAA and for the HEIs involved. Not least among which is the necessity for close communication with the jurisdictional regulatory bodies, which is essential to the conduct of successful cross-border QA. As such, apart from preliminary meetings between the agency and the institution for ensuring a shared understanding of the jurisdictional and institutional context for the forthcoming QA process, it is good practice for the QA agency to meet regularly with the jurisdictional regulatory body to ensure that both parties have a common understanding of the key issues involved.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to set out the experience of the Hong Kong Council for Accreditation of Academic and Vocational Qualifications (HKCAAVQ) in carrying out cross-border quality assurance (QA) in Macao.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper draws on case studies of two very different QA exercises conducted by HKCAAVQ in Macao in 2015 and 2016. The first was a program accreditation conducted as part of a pilot of the external QA standards and process developed by the Macao Government's Tertiary Education Services Office (GAES) for potential use by all higher education institutions (HEIs) in Macao. The second was a learning program review (LPR) conducted by HKCAAVQ following a request by a HEI in Macao using QA standards and processes developed by HKCAAVQ.\nFindings: The key findings from the case studies are that an agency engaging in cross-border QA needs to have a clear rationale for their engagement, ensure that they are \"fit-for-purpose\" in terms of the context of the employing jurisdiction and the expectations of their HEIs and have a clear understanding of the relevant legal framework.\nOriginality/value: Cross-border QA is likely to grow in importance and activity in the coming years. The example of Macao provides a useful reference point for governments, HEIs and external quality assurance agency considering engaging in cross-border QA activities.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
"She didn't ask me about my grandma": Using process drama to explore issues of cultural exclusion and educational leadership
|
[
"Dramatization",
"Social justice",
"Education",
"New Zealand"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: This Special Issue of JEA focuses on issues of \"empowerment\", \"leadership\" and \"social justice\". These notions were right at the heart of a collaborative project between Pare Kana, Lecturer in Professional Studies, and Viv Aitken, Lecturer in Drama in Education, at the School of Education, University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand, in April 2006. The authors co-taught a class in which process drama was used to engage final year teaching students with issues of cultural exclusion in a classroom setting. Through role-play, the students, who were mostly of European origin, were able to engage authentically and safely with the experience and issues of cultural exclusion. They were also empowered to \"grow into\" different kinds of leadership positions in an imagined educational setting. The following article describes this project in detail, outlining the planning, the implementation and the outcomes and making the case for process drama as an effective and empowering learning tool. To begin, however, the authors outline the unique New Zealand context for issues of empowerment, social justice and leadership with respect to te Tiriti o Waitangi (the Treaty of Waitangi) and mainstream education. A definition and explanation of process drama is followed by the description of the project.\nThe context for empowerment, leadership, and social justice in Aotearoa New Zealand: Issues of empowerment, leadership and social justice have a particular resonance in New Zealand because of our unique historical, political and cultural situation, central to which is our founding document known as te Tiriti o Waitangi (the Treaty of Waitangi). Signed in 1840, te Tiriti signalled a partnership between Maori as indigenous people of Aotearoa New Zealand and the Crown. Essentially, there are three components to te Tiriti, which relate to notions of partnership between the treaty partners on issues of governance, protection of resources both tangible and intangible, and participation in the rights and benefits of citizenship[1]. Although there are ongoing tensions regarding the place of te Tiriti in public life, the document is acknowledged as the philosophical basis of government policies, including those of the Ministry of Education.\nContext for empowerment, leadership and social justice in relation to education in Aotearoa New Zealand: Pre-service teacher education\nCurrent situation for Maori in mainstream schooling in Aotearoa New Zealand: Disparities in educational outcomes for Maori have long raised concerns in New Zealand. Statistics show early exit from school, exit with low or without formal educational qualification and over representation in stand downs, suspensions and expulsions (Bishop and Glynn, 1999; Ministry of Education, 2005). These outcomes are in sharp contrast to a Tiriti promise of full participation in the benefits of a new society and guarantee to Maori people of full control over their cultural and physical resources within an operational partnership (Shields et al., 2005). Clearly there continues to be a need for intervention on a broad scale to overturn the negative indices for Maori in compulsory mainstream education. This is especially so since an overwhelming majority of Maori students at all levels attend mainstream schools.New Zealand is experiencing a two-fold response to educational issues for Maori. On one hand, there are initiatives driven by Maori themselves. These have grown steadily since the 1980s, beginning with Kohanga Reo (early childhood \"language nests\") followed by Kura Kaupapa Maori (primary schools), Whare Kura (secondary schools) and Wananga (tertiary institutions). Given the imperative of emerging from traditional impositional colonizing models of education, such movements are incredibly significant and that story is told elsewhere (Bishop and Glynn, 1999; Smith, 1992). In addition, there are a number of initiatives focussed on Maori within mainstream education. Examples include projects such as \"Te Kauhua\", \"Te Kotahitanga\", \"Te Hiringa i te mahara\" and \"Te Mana\"[2]. These projects are funded by the Ministry of Education and work in different ways to raise the achievement of Maori students. Central to all these initiatives is a growing awareness that for Maori in education \"culture counts\" (see Bishop and Glynn, 1999). This simple but critical message has resonance beyond Maori education, too, as our New Zealand society becomes increasingly multicultural. This notion that \"culture counts\" was also the central theme of our drama.\nThe context for process drama in Aotearoa New Zealand: Drama has been taught in New Zealand schools and universities for many years and its popularity has surged since it was defined as a core subject within the Arts in the NZ Curriculum (Learning Media, 2001) and, more recently, as a mandated subject area for the NCEA (National Certificate of Educational Achievement) at secondary level. Though the curriculum structure embraces multitudinous approaches to drama, the approach known as \"process drama\" has an important place in the New Zealand context. This is partly because of a close and continued relationship between drama educators in the country and international practitioners of process drama, including its leading progenitor, Dorothy Heathcote.In process drama, rather than working towards a performance, participants engage in a series of structured improvisations with an emphasis on the process of collaborative discovery and idea development. Rather than focussing on technical skills, the aim is to build skills of engagement, empathy and problem solving. In a process drama experience, periods of action are followed by periods of reflection, so that participants are always making links between the fictional world of the drama and the world of their everyday reality. Another key feature of process drama is that the teacher or facilitator of the drama often participates alongside the students by taking one or more roles in the drama. These philosophical and pedagogical features of process drama are worthy of closer examination here. For, almost by definition, process drama is a means of challenging traditional knowledge, power and leadership structures in the classroom.First of all, to accomplish its objectives, a process drama experience is based on learning through direct, embodied experience. Since the work of Gardner, and others, we have come to understand more about the importance of experiential learning, particularly for kinaesthetic learners (Gardner, 1983). It has also been demonstrated across a range of age and learning areas, that where drama is used as a teaching tool, learners tend to remember longer and reflect more thoroughly (Fleming et al., 2004; Heyward, 2006; Hughes, 2006). This makes process drama a valid tool for learning in any subject area and particularly apposite when learning about human experience, including the kinds of social justice issues we wished to tackle in this project.Another key characteristic of process drama is that it is based on the human capacity for empathy. By inhabiting a role, participants find themselves \"walking in someone else's shoes\", and this empathic quality makes drama a particularly powerful tool for confronting social justice issues. Participants may inhabit a role, or a series of roles, where the perspectives are very different from their own. In this way, they may be challenged to reflect on the position from a new standpoint. Indeed one might argue that the only possible route to social justice is through developing empathy. Certainly Neelands (2002), O'Connor (2006) and others have argued compellingly that in a world of \"competency\" based learning, empathy deserves to be seen as the most crucial \"key competency\" for humans existing in today's world:Empathy, the ability to think and feel what it might be like to be other than yourself, sits at the centre of morality and is the most important competency for a world living under the threats of terrorism and its response. Without empathy we can strap packs on our backs and blow up innocent people on subways, without empathy we can attack mosques and Jewish cemeteries in Auckland, without empathy we can demand tax cuts for the rich as the gap between rich and poor widens (O'Connor, 2006).If empathy is a humanizing force, it can also be a complicating one. By \"walking in someone else's shoes\", participants can be encouraged to recognise the complexity inherent in social justice issues. Participants have the opportunity to recognise that there may be multiple perspectives on an issue, and to reflect on these diverse points of view rather than resorting to simplistic, or polarised ways of thinking (Heyward, 2006).While process drama offers authentic engagement, it also offers safety. Working in role provides a sense of distance from the issue. The participant is protected from social or emotional impacts that might occur if s/he were faced with these issues out of role. This sense of distance also provides a degree of liberation, as Bolton describes here:At a visible, concrete level they [the drama tasks] demand normal intellectual application from whoever is carrying out the task, but at a subsidiary level there is a \"no penalty\" awareness felt by the doer, a sense of freeing the individual, so that they may find themselves \"caught off guard\" into identifying skills they did not know they had, into seeing some aspect of themselves in a different light, into revising the way they habitually think about themselves (Bolton, 2003, p. 136).In other words the sense of \"just pretending\" brings an increased sense of agency for participants in role. They can feel more empowered than in real life scenarios because they are protected from real life consequences. For this reason, process drama teachers are careful to ensure that participants are not \"swept up\" in the drama to the point that they mix reality with the fiction. Participants' awareness of the two worlds of the drama and the classroom (metaxis) is carefully maintained (Boal, 1995; Edmiston, 2003). Explicit transitions in and out of role are used to ensure participants stay aware and empowered.That process drama operates with this complex awareness of two realities also enhances opportunities for reflection. By pausing the drama, stepping out of role, reflecting and negotiating before stepping back in, participants have the opportunity to recognise and articulate their learning. Not only do participants \"rehearse\" the action they might take in a real life situation (Boal, 1992), they are also encouraged to pause and realise what they are doing. Process drama can be a highly conscious, and thus consciousness-raising, process.Another feature of process drama that makes it pertinent for exploration of social justice issues is the way it can upend traditional knowledge and authority structures in the teacher-student relationship, particularly through the strategy of teaching in role. By taking on a role themselves, the teacher can explore a range of status positionings that may not be available in a traditional classroom. Morgan and Saxton (1987) identify at least nine different role \"stances\" that a teacher of process drama might take from the \"devils advocate\" to the \"one who knows nothing\". These role stances can be novel and potentially liberating for the teacher. Perhaps more importantly, they also allow a re-positioning of students into new and unexpected roles, often high-status ones in which they, not the teacher, become the \"expert\". For many teachers of process drama, this potential to usefully disrupt the traditional teacher-student power relationship is the most exciting and potent aspect of their work. Edmiston explains this well:One of the key reasons why as a teacher I use drama is because when we create an imagined world we can imagine that we frame events differently so that our power and authority relationships are changed. A long-term aim of mine as a teacher is as much as possible to share power and authority with students. I want students to have opportunities to use words and deeds to act appropriately but in ways that are often not sanctioned in classrooms (Edmiston, 2003, p. 223).For all these reasons, we felt that process drama was an appropriate tool to encourage our students to engage meaningfully with the scenario we had in mind.\nThe project: The pretext\nConclusions and implications for educational leadership: We suggest that the use of process drama for this class was successful in that it complicated and globalised students' responses, encouraging them to engage in deep thinking about the experience of cultural exclusion. At the same time, the drama allowed students to engage in rich and authentic experiences of various kinds of leadership within an educational context. Some inhabited roles as tutor-teachers charged with providing feedback to the teacher. These participants were positioned as \"experts\" from the start and operated from that status. In addition, the drama demonstrated the need for people in leadership positions to take into account and never to overlook the voices and experiences of children. The safety and distance provided by the \"frame\" of drama spurred these students to grow into positions of leadership in the imagined situation and \"stand up\" for issues of social justice for these children. As mentioned, the moment where students \"stood up\" to Annie was a high point. By challenging Annie, students were, in a sense, challenging Pare too - an example of the usefulness of adopting oppositional attitudes in confronting issues of social justice (Rapp, 2002; Thrupp, 2007). For those students inhabiting the roles of children, the challenge was to face up to the issues of status, power and \"leadership\" in the classroom context. There are many different leaders within a classroom, including within the student body. Participants in role as children felt for themselves (again in a safe way) how it was to be either privileged or overlooked, and how hard it could be to stand up as a child and take control over this.We suggest that having engaged with these issues and taken leadership roles in an embodied way in the drama, these students may be more likely to bring these new perspectives into play when faced with similar situations in the real world. This suggestion aligns with the theories of Augusto Boal (1992, p. 155), who argued in his seminal work Theatre of the Oppressed that drama could most certainly bring about social change:Perhaps the theatre is not revolutionary in itself but have no doubts; it is the rehearsal of revolution! (Boal, 1992 p. 155).Our objectives may have been less overtly \"revolutionary\" than those of Boal, who was describing revolution in the direct political sense. Nevertheless, the authors would suggest that experiences in process drama may provoke a quieter, more personal \"revolution\" by taking students to a place where they can find their way, where they are optimistic, willing and able to act from a space of agency within future real life scenarios.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This purpose of this paper is to describe a collaborative project from the University of Waikato, Hamilton New Zealand, in which the authors used process drama to engage final year teaching students with complex issues of cultural diversity, enabling them to \"grow into\" different kinds of leadership positions in an imagined educational setting. The paper describes the project and makes a case for process drama as a means of providing opportunities for leadership and as a potent tool for learning about issues of social justice.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The drama was based on a fictional scenario described by Hall and Bishop, where a beginner teacher (of European descent) unwittingly diminishes the experiences of Maori and other non-European children in her class. Using a three-phase process planning model and with facilitators in role alongside the students, the drama explored the scenario from all points of view. Students were encouraged to build empathy for the beginner teacher and for the children and also to explore the dilemma faced by the teacher's tutor in deciding whether, and how, to confront the teacher on the issue.\nFindings: - Through the drama, students built a sense of empathy for all sides of the issue and engaged in deep thinking about the experience of cultural exclusion. The safety and distance provided by the drama \"frame\" spurred students to take leadership roles and \"stand up\" for issues of social justice. The authors suggest that through such dramas students gain skills and perspectives that they may carry into their professional lives.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The paper describes a small project, over one lesson with a specific group of students. More research is needed into the effectiveness of process drama as a sustained strategy for teacher education.\nOriginality/value: - This scenario explored in the drama has currency in Aotearoa New Zealand, where the population is increasingly culturally diverse, where underachievement of Maori students continues to be of concern, and where research has shown the centrality of teacher-student relations in raising educational achievement for Maori. The authors believe this paper makes a compelling case for the value of drama as a tool for student teachers to encounter social justice issues in a meaningful way, and suggest that the paper is a valuable contribution to more than one discipline, as it straddles the fields of professional practice and drama as pedagogy.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Self-planning functions within the Japanese apparel wholesale industry
|
[
"Garment industry",
"Wholesaling",
"Japan"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The main characteristic of the Japanese distribution system is the multi-layered structure of the wholesalers. Maruyama (2004) indicated that the reasons for this structure could be explained in three different ways. First, numerous small-scale retail stores led to complicated transactions between manufacturers and the retail stores. Thus, wholesalers were able to reduce the transaction costs in order to aggregate the transactions between them. Second, retail companies adopted distribution strategies that relied on the inventory management and delivery functions of wholesalers, in order to concentrate on the management of the retail stores. Finally, manufacturers also used wholesalers to distribute their products to numerous small-scale retail stores. In addition to these factors, the wide variations in commodities and lack of the ability to handle this wide range of commodities on the part of the wholesalers resulted in the multi-layered structure of wholesalers in the distribution system. Torii and Nariu (2004) conducted an empirical analysis to investigate the factors affecting the multi-layered structure of wholesalers, focusing on the wholesalers' private information. The results of the analysis are as follows. Wholesale distribution channels tend to be longer:* when wholesalers are in close geographic proximity to the end consumers;* when wholesalers are not organized into distribution keiretsu by the manufacturers;* when the regional variation in demand is idiosyncratic;* when producers advertise less intensely and distributors advertise more intensely; and* when the density and heterogeneity of retail outlets are greater.However, in recent years, it has been said that the multi-layered structure of wholesalers has decreased significantly. This is because retailers have been modifying their distribution strategies by using new information technology (IT). Further, manufacturers have also changed their distribution strategies to direct transactions with large-scale retailers that bypass wholesalers (Maruyama, 2004). It is evident that the wholesalers have not accepted this situation in a passive manner; in fact, they are struggling to expand their scale of operations and secure business with large-scale retailers (Kim, 2004). In the case of the Japanese apparel industry, wholesalers have made efforts to survive in a slightly different manner - they avoid pressure from large-scale retailers or manufacturers by having self-planning functions and their own brands. If apparel wholesalers have only the distribution functions, they can be confronted with the serious situation mentioned above. On the contrary, if they have self-planning functions as well as their own brands, they can have the power to control the retailers as the retailers would be unable to bypass the wholesalers any longer, and they would have to comply with the wholesalers' pricing strategies, promotion strategies and so on. Thus, apparel wholesalers would have more power to control distribution channels.The purpose of this paper is to investigate the factors that affect the apparel wholesalers' strategies regarding the implementation of self-planning functions, with a particular focus on the location of the wholesalers and their counterpart companies. This article is organised as follows: the second part presents an overview of the Japanese apparel industry. The third part describes the method and data used in the analysis. The fourth part presents the results of the analysis, and the fifth part includes some concluding remarks.\n2. An overview of the Japanese apparel industry: 2.1 Apparel wholesaler\n3. Method and data: 3.1 Probit and multinomial logit models\n4. Estimation results: While estimating the Multinomial logit model, we must eliminate the indeterminancy in the model (Greene, 2002). Therefore, we normalized C2, C3 and C4 by C1, which also meant that we assumed apparel wholesalers made independent decisions regarding the categories they selected. Table III shows the estimated results of these models.The estimated coefficient of SCALE in the Probit model shows a positive sign and is statistically significant at the 10 per cent level, whereas that of C3 in the Multinomial logit model shows a negative sign and is statistically significant at 1 per cent level. This indicates that large-scale apparel wholesalers tend to have self-planning functions in contrast to small-scale apparel wholesalers who tend to be apparel wholesalers who only obtain goods from other suppliers. The estimated coefficient of UDAM in the Probit model shows a positive sign and is statistically significant at the 1 per cent level, whereas C3 and C4 in the Multinomial logit model show a negative sign and are statistically significant at 1 per cent and 10 per cent levels, respectively. This indicates that the apparel wholesalers located in urban areas tend to have self-planning functions, in contrast with those located in rural areas who tend to be apparel wholesalers who only obtain goods from other suppliers. In order to investigate the complementarities between the size and the location of apparel wholesalers, we applied a cross term variable (SCLUBN) to the Probit model. The estimated coefficient of SCLUBN shows a positive sign, indicating that the apparel wholesalers, who are large as well as located in urban areas, tend to have self-planning functions. We can see this in Table III; however, we cannot say this with certainty, even at the 10 per cent significance level. However, the calculated P-value of the coefficient is 0.106. Therefore, we believe that we can obtain a reasonable result.With regard to the coefficient estimation results of GOODS and AREA, we could obtain almost the same results - the estimated coefficients show negative signs in the Probit model, whereas those of C2, C3 and C4 in the Multinomial logit model show positive signs and all are statistically significant. These indicate that the apparel wholesalers who have their own brands as well as handle only their own planned goods tend to treat a small range of goods and conduct business with suppliers and retailers located throughout Japan. In other words, the apparel wholesalers who handle goods planned by other suppliers, irrespective of whether or not they have their own brands, tend to handle a wide range of goods and conduct business with suppliers and retailers located in the same area.Further interesting results are that the coefficient estimates of C4 for PUPW and C3 for SAPW in the Multinomial logit model show negative and positive signs, respectively. This indicates that apparel wholesalers who treat goods supplied by particular suppliers tend to be under pressure from the suppliers, whereas those who obtain goods from many suppliers tend not to be under pressure from the retailers. Furthermore, the coefficient estimates of PUDAM and SADAM in the Probit model show negative signs and are statistically significant, indicating that the apparel wholesalers who have their own brands and handle only their own planned goods conduct business with suppliers and retailers located throughout Japan. On the contrary, the estimated coefficients of C3 and C4 in the Multinomial logit model show positive signs and are statistically significant, indicating that apparel wholesalers who handle goods planned by other suppliers tend to supply goods to retailers located in a particular area.\n5. Conclusions: This paper focused on the recent trend that apparel wholesalers have struggled to survive in the current difficult circumstances of Oroshi-no-Nakanuki, that is, retailers and manufacturers bypass wholesalers entirely, in order to implement self-planning functions that help in creating unique brands. Further, this paper investigated what factors affected whether or not to have self-planning functions in the case of apparel wholesalers by using an empirical approach such as the Probit and Multinomial logit models. Before conducting an empirical analysis, we conducted a questionnaire survey that included a nationwide listing of apparel wholesalers in the categories of men's wear, women's wear, children's wear, school uniforms, work wear, knitted wear, casual wear, jeans, sports wear and shirts. The main findings are as follows:* The large-scale apparel wholesalers who are located in urban areas tend to have self-planning functions. This result also implies that the small-scale apparel wholesalers who are located in rural areas do not have the ability to implement self-planning functions and have no other choice but to handle goods planned by other suppliers.* The apparel wholesalers who handle goods planned by other suppliers tend to treat a wide range of goods and conduct business with the retailers located in the same area. On the contrary, apparel wholesalers who have their own brands and handle only self-planned-goods tend to handle narrow range of goods and conduct business with retailers located throughout Japan.* The apparel wholesalers who handle goods planned by a particular supplier tend to be under pressure from the supplier, whereas the apparel wholesalers who conduct business dealings with many suppliers have the ability to promote themselves to the retailers.* The apparel wholesalers who have self-planning functions tend to obtain goods within Japan and from other countries and sell goods throughout Japan, whereas the apparel wholesalers who do not have self-planning functions tend to obtain and sell goods from or to a particular area of Japan.In this paper, we were able to clarify the factors that have affected the recent trend of having self-planning-functions within the Japanese apparel wholesalers; however, we were unable to clarify whether or not apparel wholesalers with planning functions were successful or better off than before. We have left this task for future research.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to clarify what factors affect the recent trend of having self-planning functions within Japanese apparel wholesalers.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A questionnaire survey was conducted involving Japanese apparel wholesalers and applied the probit and multinomial Logit regression analyses.\nFindings: - The main findings are as follows: large-scale wholesalers who are located in urban areas tend to have their own planning functions, whereas small-scale wholesalers who are located in rural areas tend not to have self-planning functions and handle goods planned by other suppliers; wholesalers who handle a wide range of apparel and conduct business with retailers located in the same area tend not to have their own planning functions; the apparel wholesalers who have business dealings with many suppliers have the ability to promote themselves to the retailers; and the apparel wholesalers who have self-planning functions tend to obtain goods from within Japan and other countries and sell goods throughout Japan.\nPractical implications: - Small-scale and rural apparel wholesalers face difficult circumstances due to their size, location and lack of self-promotion ability. In contrast, large-scale and urban wholesalers are able to ensure greater independence due to their size and location.\nOriginality/value: - This paper focuses on the important role of wholesalers in the Japanese apparel industry and, by using the empirical approach, can clarify factors affecting the recent trend of having self-planning functions within Japanese apparel wholesalers.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Improving supply chain performance through industry standards use and community socialization: A perspective of standards consortia
|
[
"Environmental performance",
"Community socialization",
"Inter-organizational knowledge sharing",
"Inter-organizational trust",
"Standards consortia",
"Vertical information systems standards"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: During the past decade, a growing number of firms have realized the importance of sustainability in facing the challenge of climate change and depletion of natural resources. Some researchers suggest that organizations that emphasize sustainability should balance their economic and environmental goals (Elkington, 1994). However, these sustainable goals should be met through the cooperation of the entire supply chain, rather than an individual firm within it (Carter and Rogers, 2008; Winter and Knemeyer, 2013; Brandenburg et al., 2014).\nResearch model and hypotheses: Two supply chain collaborative mechanisms: VIS standards use and community socialization\nMethodology: Research site and data collection\nData analysis and results: Because our research model contains both reflective and formative constructs, we used PLS Graph (Version 3.0) as our data analysis tool based on prior literature (Marcoulides and Chin, 2013; Ronkko and Evermann, 2013; Mcintosh et al., 2014).\nDiscussion: Summary of findings\nConclusion: This paper examines how VIS standards use and community socialization influence the performance of supply chain. We highlight the role of standards consortia on VIS standards use and community socialization. Our empirical results show that VIS standards use and community socialization could create some intangible relational assets, arising from more effective knowledge sharing and trust building. Such intangible relational assets can then be leveraged to bring about other forms of impacts - such as enhanced operational and environmental collaboration, which eventually improves operational, strategic, and environmental performances. We hope that this study provides a framework for future research to examine how supply chain partners can use technology, utilize different collaborative mechanism of supply chain management to improve the supply chain performance.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine how use of industry standards and community socialization contribute to the operational, strategic and environmental performances of supply chain partners.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Survey data were collected from 216 firms in China that have implemented RosettaNet standards. Structural equation modeling was used to test the hypotheses forming the research model.\nFindings: The empirical analysis suggests that use of industry standards and community socialization is central to achieving greater supply chain performances. The results show that the use of industry standards and community socialization enhance inter-organizational knowledge sharing and trust, which eventually improve performances of supply chain partners.\nOriginality/value: The study makes several contributions to the literature. First, it highlights the importance of standards consortia, which not only develop and promote industry standards, but also improve community socialization. Second, the research examines how use of industry standards could influence the operational, strategic and environmental performances of supply chains, and thus fills the research gap in related literature. Third, this paper explores how industry standards can be used as boundary objects to span organizational boundaries and enable greater supply chain partnerships.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Green supply chain management in China: pressures, practices and performance
|
[
"Green marketing",
"Supply chain management",
"International relations",
"Operations management"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Balancing economic and environmental performance has become increasingly important for organizations facing competitive, regulatory, and community pressures (Shultz and Holbrook, 1999). With increased pressures for environmental sustainability, it is expected that enterprises will need to implement strategies to reduce the environmental impacts of their products and services (Lewis and Gretsakis, 2001; Sarkis, 1995, 2001). To establish their environmental image, enterprises have to re-examine the purpose of their business (Hick, 2000). Success in addressing environmental items may provide new opportunities for competition, and new ways to add value to core business programs (Hansmann and Claudia, 2001). Approaches, such as cleaner production, environmental management systems and eco-efficiency, have been implemented for green management practices. In 1994, the Confederation of British Industries (CBI) identified the factors driving the competitive advantage through environmental performance as market expectations, risk management, regulatory compliance and business efficiency. Green supply chain management (GSCM) has a key role in ensuring that all of these factors are addressed (Hutchison, 1998). Environmental impacts occur at all stages of a product's life cycle. Therefore, GSCM has emerged as an important new archetype for enterprises to achieve profit and market share objectives by lowering their environmental risks and impacts and while raising their ecological efficiency (van Hock and Erasmus, 2000).China is one country where the issues related to GSCM have become even more critical. Recent studies have shown that a majority of world's manufacturing will be carried out in Asia in the next couple of decades (US-AEP, 1999). As a major manufacturing country, China has many opportunities, but they also face substantial environmental burdens with this opportunity (Rao, 2002). Moreover, developing countries such as China are becoming increasingly industrialized. As part of supply chains, China has been used as a point of disposal of end-of-life products for multinational organizations and developed countries. For example, the end-of-life products have been shipped to developing countries, such as China, where these developing countries do not have the infrastructure or tools available to care for the end-of-life products (Puckett and Smith, 2002), causing greater environmental burden on these nations. The appropriate development of GSCM concepts and practices may indeed aid these countries by lessening the environmental burden of both manufacture and disposal of products, while even potentially improving their economic positioning.With the relative scarcity of resources and the potential pressure of \"green barriers\" to trade, both the Chinese government and enterprises have had increased reasons to initiate corporate and industrial environmental management measures. Some of the measures which are being promoted are environmental impact assessment, ISO 14001 certification and recently GSCM. Given this emerging organizational and competitive environment faced by Chinese industry, this paper describes the empirical results of a GSCM-based survey and site visits at various Chinese manufacturing organizations. Initially, in this paper, we introduce current environmental awareness, practices, and performance of GSCM in general and in Chinese enterprises, this background sets the foundation for various issues (propositions) that will be evaluated using the empirical data. An outline of our research method is then presented. Research findings of a categorical and descriptive nature are then discussed with an evaluation and comparative analysis with previous research findings. The paper concludes with some suggestions with a particular emphasis on what Chinese manufacturing company managers and policy makers should be concerned with, in light of our findings, in future operations of GSCM.\nLiterature review: The literature in GSCM has been growing as organizations and researchers begin to realize that the management of environmental programs and operations do not end at the boundaries of the organization. Overall, research in corporate environmental management and its operations relationships have been growing in recent years with a number of papers outlining these relationships (Angell and Klassen, 1999; Geyer and Jackson, 2004; Gupta, 1995; Hanna and Newman, 1996; Sarkis, 2001; Melnyk et al., 2002), including the identification of a need to investigate GSCM. GSCM is strongly related to inter-organizational environmental topics as industrial eco-systems, industrial ecology, product life cycle analysis, extended producer responsibility and product stewardship. In a broader sense, GSCM also falls within the purview of the burgeoning literature of ethics and sustainability which incorporates other social and economic influences. Research is increasingly investigating many of these \"triple bottom-line\" issues (Carter, 2000; Zaklad et al., 2004).GSCM's definition has ranged from green purchasing to integrated supply chains flowing from supplier, to manufacturer, to customer and reverse logistics, which is \"closing the loop\" as defined by supply chain management literature (Zhu and Sarkis, 2004). Similar to the concept of supply chain management, the boundary of GSCM is dependent on the goal of the investigator. In this case, for our paper, we shall focus on a single level supplier-manufacturer-customer relationship. The research in GSCM addresses a variety of issues ranging from organizational research and practice in GSCM (Geffen and Rothenberg, 2000; Hall, 2001; Theyel, 2001; Zsidisin and Siferd, 2001) to prescriptive models for evaluation of GSCM practices and technology (Faruk et al., 2002; Handfield et al., 2002; Sarkis, 2003).The remainder of the literature review will focus on the major areas we will be investigating in our empirical study including issues relevant to GSCM adoption pressures and drivers, adoption of GSCM practices, and performance perceptions from these adoptions.GSCM drivers for adoption\nP1: Chinese enterprises are feeling significant pressure to introduce GSCM principles and practices and these pressures arise from a variety of sources.GSCM practice\nP2: Chinese enterprises are in the initial stages of GSCM practice adoption.\nP3: GSCM practice adoption in Chinese enterprises lags behind the GSCM pressures they have experienced.GSCM performance\nP4: GSCM practice adoption in Chinese enterprises has improved organizational and environmental performance of those adopting organizations.\nMethodology: Questionnaire development\nResults and discussion: Evaluating propositions\nImplications and conclusions: Recently, Chinese enterprises have increased their environmental awareness due to regulatory, competitive, and marketing pressures and drivers (as supported by our P1). Chinese enterprises highlight their exporting philosophies by pursuing such international organizational standards as ISO9000 serial and ISO14001 certification. At the same time, in support of our second proposition, Chinese enterprises have sought to implement a variety of GSCM practices to improve their environmental performance in response to this export philosophy so that they can more effectively serve as suppliers to foreign enterprises in China. Internal environmental management, especially commitment from top-level managers and support from mid-level managers, will be necessary for development of any GSCM programs in China. This is not different from any enterprise almost any place in the world. Thus, education (raising awareness) of management in GSCM practices is one of the initial crucial steps in this arena.However, GSCM is still in its infancy in China. Chinese enterprises have recognized its importance, but have lagged in the implementation of these principles into practice (in support of our third proposition). It is not clear what the barriers are for this implementation, but the lack of necessary tools, management skills and knowledge, and most likely the lack of an economic justification in terms of performance, may all be barriers. Therefore, even with higher environmental awareness and pressures in Chinese enterprises, this awareness has not translated into strong GSCM practice adoption, let alone to improvements expected in some areas of performance (as shown in our discussion of P4). It seems that the Chinese government has stipulated new policies to promote GSCM and other corporate environmental practices primarily to export more products and to attract more foreign investments. For example, some local government agencies have helped enterprises to pass ISO14001 certification by providing training and subsidizing part of certification fee. To realize both environmental and economic performance, investment recovery by altering current policies and establishing recovery system infrastructures that help \"close the loop\" is something that should be highlighted by Chinese national policy makers.This work is one of the few efforts to investigate GSCM practices in China. Thus, our investigation and its findings are still relatively exploratory. Future research can also include investigation of longitudinal relationships identified in this work and can help identify long-term patterns in one of the world's largest countries and one that will truly have a global impact on the environmental and economic direction of society over the next few decades. In addition, future research should try to tease out various relationships, including mediating and moderating relationships, that may exist between various items and factors we have identified. A more broadly-based and random sample study across China would also provide a better picture of these practices and what is occurring throughout China, not only in special economic zones.Despite the limited research and relative novelty of GSCM in China, efforts made by Chinese enterprises together with the Chinese government have established a good foundation for further development. After China's entry into the WTO, more foreign enterprises have established joint ventures or FDI enterprises in China. By improving both quality and environmental image, Chinese enterprises can cooperate with foreign enterprises in China such as becoming long-term suppliers of their foreign customers. This is a road that may also improve operations and business performance for these organizations. Win-win is still possible at the national and organizational level if GSCM practices are seriously given consideration.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - Green supply chain management (GSCM) has emerged as a key approach for enterprises seeking to become environmentally sustainable. This paper aims to evaluate and describe GSCM drivers, practices and performance among various Chinese manufacturing organizations.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Based on a literature review, four propositions are put forward. An empirical study using survey research was completed. The survey questionnaire was designed with 54 items using literature and industry expert input. An exploratory factor analysis was conducted to derive groupings of GSCM pressures, practice and performance from the survey data which included 314 responses. A categorical and descriptive nature of the results is then presented with an evaluation and comparative analysis with previous research findings.\nFindings: - Chinese enterprises have increased their environmental awareness due to regulatory, competitive, and marketing pressures and drivers. However, this awareness has not been translated into strong GSCM practice adoption, let alone into improvements in some areas of performance, where it was expected.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The investigation and its findings are still relatively exploratory. Future research can investigate relationships identified in this work, as well as tease out mediating and moderating relationships. A more broadly-based and random sample study across China would also provide a better picture of this GSCM situation.\nPractical implications: - Efforts made by Chinese enterprises together with the Chinese government have established a good foundation for further development. After China's entry into the WTO, a win-win relationship between foreign companies and Chinese manufacturers is still possible.\nOriginality/value: - This work is one of the few and pioneering efforts to investigate GSCM practices in China.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
A study on the dynamics between the moral reasoning process and celebrity image and their impact on consumers' support for celebrity comebacks after a transgression
|
[
"Celebrity",
"Celebrity branding",
"Moral reasoning",
"Moral rationalization",
"Human brands",
"Moral decoupling",
"Support after transgression"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Many celebrities have been involved in scandals and acts of immorality or illegality and have attempted to return to their profession afterwards. However, the process of returning to the public eye greatly differs from celebrity to celebrity. Within that context, the present study examines the influence of the moral reasoning process on consumers' decision to support a celebrity's return to work when he or she has misbehaved and identifies whether such decisions vary with the celebrity's brand image.\nTheoretical background and hypotheses: Celebrity as brand\nStudy 1: To test the four hypotheses derived above, we conducted Study 1 to examine the differences in the degree of support for the return of a celebrity after a transgression according to celebrity's image and the moral reasoning process. The experimental manipulation consisted of two types of celebrity image (bad boy vs role model) while moral reasoning was measured. Figure 1 summarizes the hypotheses tested in Study 1.\nStudy 2: We conducted Study 2 to address the limitations of Study 1 where we were not able to separate the effects of the different types of moral reasoning processes and their interaction with celebrity brand image. In Study 2, respondents of the survey experiment were primed into either moral decoupling or moral rationalization to examine how the two specific types of moral reasoning influence consumer support for the return of celebrities with different images after a transgression.\nGeneral discussion: This paper started out by asking why consumers respond differently to transgressions by celebrities even though on the surface the circumstances appear to be similar. We have tried to answer that question through two studies that looked at the preference, image and the moral reasoning process used by consumers to support celebrities' return after a misdeed. Overall, we show that there is indeed a complex set of relationships that governs how consumers react - they pass moral judgment according to the specific brand image of a celebrity that may help or hinder their comeback into public life.\nLimitations and future research: There are some limitations in this research that can temper the extent to which we can generalize our results to various situations. First, in our empirical studies, using a pre-test, we chose transgressions that were unrelated to the celebrities' profession and that had an intermediate level of severity. Moreover, these transgressions were manipulated using information about fictitious celebrities to control for pre-existing respondents' differences on information or biases about them and confounding characteristics between identified celebrities. Despite the control benefits, the disadvantage of this approach could be that respondents' involvement with the celebrities may be generally lower as compared to studies that use known celebrities (Fong and Wyer, 2012). The involvement or attachment with known celebrities by respondents may be a factor that determines the power of a specific human brand. By using fictitious celebrities, the effects related to human brands may have been bounded or based more on celebrity archetypes.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This study aims to examine how consumers use a moral reasoning process to defend preferred celebrity and celebrity brand images and specifically, the processes for supporting the celebrity's comeback after a transgression.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Study 1 measures consumers' preference for celebrities and their support for them after a transgression and tests whether the celebrity's image moderates consumers' preference for celebrities and their support of them to come back. Study 2 examines the effect of the specific moral reasoning processes and tests whether it leads to different levels of support after a transgression, depending on the primed celebrity image.\nFindings: Results show celebrity preference is positively related to consumer support of a celebrity's return after a wrongdoing. This relationship is moderated by the celebrity's image (Study 1). The authors find that a celebrity primed with a role model image receives more support for a comeback in the moral rationalization condition, whereas a celebrity primed with a bad boy image receives more support in the moral decoupling condition (Study 2).\nResearch limitations/implications: First, in the empirical studies, using a pre-test, the authors chose transgressions that were unrelated to the celebrities' profession and that had an intermediate level of severity. Moreover, these transgressions were manipulated using information about fictitious celebrities to control for pre-existing respondents' differences on information or biases about them and confounding characteristics between identified celebrities. Despite the control benefits, the disadvantage of this approach could be that respondents' involvement with the celebrities may be generally lower as compared to studies that use known celebrities (Fong and Wyer, 2012). The involvement or attachment with known celebrities by respondents may be a factor that determines the power of a specific human brand. By using fictitious celebrities, the effects related to human brands may have been bounded or based more on celebrity archetypes. Another limitation is that both Studies 1 and 2 collected data using an online panel. To make the results more generalizable, the authors can contemplate on-site experimental designs or a qualitative approach in future research. The latter may also facilitate the use of known human brands to understand how they interact with other mediating factors without having to worry about control of confounds between respondents. Finally, there is a potential inflation of moral sensitivity stemming from measuring moral reasoning in Study 1 after informing participants about a celebrity transgression. While the authors followed other studies in this procedure, for the effects related to measuring across different image groups this would be less critical, as all participants would be affected in a similar way. However, there remains the possibility that the inflation bias could be higher for one celebrity type and could be a limitation or even a topic considered for future research that delves into specific relationships between celebrity image type and morality judgment bias.\nPractical implications: The results of this study have managerial implications for the various stakeholders involved. First, for celebrities, especially role models, living up to expectations congruent to the performances and brand images that they have developed is important. This will necessitate them to manage their consumers' expectations, and perhaps, suggest that they do not create unrealistically high ones. Although consumer expectations have not often taken center stage as a theoretical issue in recent consumer research, they may still be important for consumers' evaluations and choices (Howard and Sheth, 1969). In addition, this study offers implications for public relations agencies or management companies that promote and manage celebrities. Although consumers in many countries have a higher preference for celebrities with a role model image, the authors see that being such a human brand can be potentially counterproductive amid scandals. If the level of supporters' commitment for a celebrity is high and the attachment relationship is strong, then constructing a diverse and flexible image spectrum may be more advantageous in the long term than adhering to just the role model image. In the event that a misbehavior has occurred, celebrities, to the extent that they can identify their brand image, need to assess more precisely the type of moral judgment and support they are likely or unlikely to receive after the transgressions. Based on that analysis, the misbehaving celebrities may have to adjust the rehabilitation period or act of redemption. Finally, the conventional wisdom used by advertising agencies or corporations that the bad boy image of celebrities is more vulnerable to a negative event, needs to be reconsidered (Aaker et al., 2004). This rethinking is aligned with other past research that have also argued that transgressions do not necessarily have an adverse impact on associated brands (Lee and Kwak, 2016). Thus, when advertising agencies use celebrities, they must consider the congruence between the human brand image and the company and review the source and depth of the reasons why supporters like celebrities using a broader perspective.\nSocial implications: Although consumers in many countries have a higher preference for celebrities with a role model image, the authors see that being such a human brand can be potentially counterproductive amid scandals. For them constructing a diverse and flexible image spectrum may be more advantageous in the long term than adhering to just the unrealistic role model image. Celebrities need to assess more precisely the type of moral judgment and support they are likely or unlikely to receive after the transgressions. Based on that analysis, the misbehaving celebrities may have to adjust the rehabilitation period or act of societal redemption.\nOriginality/value: The study makes three key contributions by combining celebrity image and moral psychology to assess how consumers pass moral judgment on celebrities who transgress according to different image types, examining the mediation effect of moral reasoning in the relationship between consumer preferences for a celebrity and their support for them after transgressions and looking at consumer support for a comeback of the transgressing celebrity as the dependent variable and not just the effects of the immediate fallout. The value of this study, therefore, lies in understanding the specific dynamics between consumer preference, celebrity image, moral reasoning processes and consumer support to accept a celebrity's return after a transgression.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
An overview on the technological disasters
|
[
"Disasters",
"Hazardous materials",
"Risk management",
"Man‐made disasters",
"Production management"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Major hazard installations are highly needed for every country to provide its industrial, agriculture, transportation etc. with energy. Major hazard installations (MHI) store large quantity of hazardous substances and energy in one place. The definition of MHI is given by CIMAH (1996). The typical types of MHIs are the refineries, petrochemical plants, chemical production plants, LPG storage, water treatment plants, etc. (ILO, 1988).Perrow (1984) has suggested that some contemporary technical installations are so complex and so closely meshed that accidents are inherent in their design: such systems generate what he calls \"normal accidents\". Systems of this kind display both a high degree of complexity and a very tight degree of coupling. MHIs are highly complex and tight-coupled organizations. The characteristics of the high complexity and tight coupling organizations are summarized by Turner and Pedgeon (1997). Shrivastava (1992) pointed out that the accidents in complex, tightly-coupled, interactive technological systems are caused by multiple failures in design, equipment, supplies, and procedures. Typically, system accidents occur because of unanticipated interactions among multiple failures. One component's failure triggers failures in other components or subsystems. Due to the high complexity and level of interaction among subsystems, designers and operators are unable to predict failures or their mutual interactions. In addition, tight coupling between subsystems reduces operator's ability to control damages and recover from accidents once they are set in motion.The disasters, which involve MHIs, are known as technological disasters. The consequences of the technological disaster sometimes extend beyond the boundary of the property to reach the neighboring residents.Disaster management has been classified into six elements, prevention, mitigation, preparedness, response, relief, rehabilitation, and reconstruction. An old proverb said \"Prevention is better than cure\". Therefore, in order to prevent the technological disasters, the MHIs' management should be aware of the technological disaster definition, stages, types, criteria, factors, models and furthermore, the disaster management requirements.This paper presents an overview on the technological disaster definition, criteria, stages, models, factors, and prevention.\nTechnological disaster: Definition\nDiscussion: The accidents which involve MHIs can be classified as technological disasters, provided a criterion should be met. Several criteria have been proposed by researchers and agencies. The criteria were classified into quantitative and qualitative criteria. The quantitative criteria were based on assumed figures of fatalities, injuries, evacuees and the economic loss. The qualitative criteria were based on the potential of spread of the disaster and increasing of severity of the emergency (Shaluf et al., 2003).There are internal and external factors which lead to technological disasters at MHIs. The internal factors are those errors which occur inside the organization, such as social, technical, operational errors, etc. The external factors are those factors outside the organization, such as poor infrastructure, lack of external support, etc. The internal factors trigger the disaster. Where the external factors assist the disaster to become large-scale disaster. This paper summarizes the technological disaster internal factors. It has been noted that the managerial errors contributed to all factors, which led to the technological disasters. Therefore the managerial errors are the root causes of the technological disasters. Human errors can be reduced through careful selection of personnel, and regular training.Turner and Pedgeon (1997) have pointed out that investigators who approach the origin and preconditions of disaster are very rare. The models which describing the precondition of technological disaster were reviewed by Shaluf et al. (2003). It has been noted that there are only a few models which have been developed to describe pre-disaster stage. Ibrahim-Razi's model described the sequence of the development of technological disaster in eight phases, as depicted in Figure 1.The disaster consists of three stages: pre, during and post disaster stages, as shown in Figure 2. The disaster management includes six elements: prevention, mitigation, response, relief, reconstruction, and rehabilitation, as shown in Figure 2. The most important element in disaster management is the prevention. Prevention of the technological disaster can be achieved through the adherence to the relevant regulations, and the guidelines of control of the major hazards.\nConclusions: The technological disaster definitions, criteria, types, stages, factors, models, and its prevention have been reviewed and the following have been noted:1. Although technological disasters may occur at non-major hazard installation, it has, however, been noted that most of the technological disasters involved major hazard installations. The impact of the technological disaster is not limited to the plants but it can extend to neighboring surroundings.2. Establishment of the disaster criteria is useful for the following reasons:* to set benchmark to define the incident as a disaster;* to declare an international assistance; and* to record the disasters into databases, so lessons can be learned from the analysis of the recorded case histories. UNIP, and CRED created internet web sites providing useful disaster databases.1. Technological disasters were divided into three stages: pre, during and after disaster stages. This can aid researchers, as well as emergency planners, by focusing on each stage to achieve a detailed analysis, better understanding, and consequently an acceptable disaster management level.2. Design, operational, organizational errors are the main causes of the technological disasters.3. The managerial errors are root causes of the technological disasters.4. Disaster models are good representation of the development of the technological disaster. Therefore, the disaster models assist the MHIs management of monitoring and controlling major hazard installation.5. Technological disasters can be reduced through good design, operation, maintenance and inspection of MHIs.6. The updated, specific, detailed and integral regulations are required to be adhered to at MHIs in order to prevent technological disasters.7. Although the regulations cannot absolutely prevent accidents, they will act as a reminder of what is considered to be a minimum good standard. The regulations can help to ensure good standard and thereby help to prevent accidents.8. International Guidelines - ILO provides several guidelines derived from international experience to control MHIs, therefore if the guidelines are followed properly, major accidents can be reduced. One of the technical tools developed by the ILO (1988) is a Major Hazard Control Manual. The manual identifies and discusses the various components of major hazard control system. The ILO East Asia Multidiscplinary Advisory Team (ILO/EASMAT) pointed out that for a setting up major hazard control system, 20 steps are essential in preventing major industrial accidents.9. Operational experience - some organizations have a good record in the operating of their MHIs. Therefore, the operational experience could be benefited from to prevent major accidents. McGihon et al. (1993) highlighted that Mobil has implemented a Process Safety Management System (PSM) at all US refineries.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to provide graduate students, researchers, governmental and independent agencies with an overview of technological disasters.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Technological disasters are subjects of concern to researchers, academicians, governmental and independent agencies. Disasters are classified into natural and man-made disasters. For an incident to be classified as a disaster, the disaster criteria should be met. Several disaster criteria have been proposed defining the disasters in terms of casualties, economic loss and environmental impact. The disasters which involve major hazard installations (MHIs) are known as technological disasters. The technological disaster definition, stages, types, criteria, factors, models have been reviewed. This paper presents an overview of technological disaster definition, criteria, stages, models, factors, and prevention.\nFindings: - Although the technological disasters may occur at non-MHIs, it has been noted that most of the technological disasters involved MHIs and that their impact is not limited to the plants but can extend to neighboring surroundings. The technological disaster consists of three stages: before, during, and after disaster. There are many factors contributing to the technological disasters, some of which are observed clearly while others are partially hidden. The main technological disaster factors were identified as human, organizational and technological errors. Few models have been drawn describing the sequence of development of the technological disaster.\nOriginality/value: - This paper presents an overview on the technological disaster definition, criteria, types, stages, models, factors, and prevention and combines the scattered information on technological disaster into one record.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The social and business dimensions of a networked business incubator: the case of H-Farm
|
[
"Entrepreneurship",
"Business networks",
"Social networks",
"Social network analysis",
"Networked business incubator"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: This work, exploratory and descriptive in nature, aims at providing insights on the relational dimension of a networked business incubator (NBI), by analysing social and business ties linking tenants among each other, with the incubator management and external actors. In particular, it investigates the incubator management's role in fostering tenants' social and business networks. The theoretical foundations of the research lie mainly on the concept of NBIs (Hansen et al., 2000), which have the property of supporting start-up firms fuelling multiple relationships, which in turn reduce the liability of newness (Stinchcombe, 1965) and the liability of smallness (Freeman et al., 1983) that characterize new ventures. In particular, this study explores social and business ties through the lenses of the social network approach.\n2. The networked business incubation model: a literature review: Following the US National Business Incubation Association, business incubators may be defined as an infrastructure \"designed to accelerate the growth and success of entrepreneurial companies through an array of business support resources and services\" (www.nbia.org). They are particularly helpful in sustaining high-tech start-ups (Clarysse et al., 2005), reducing difficulties related to the \"liability of newness\" (Stinchcombe, 1965) and the \"liability of smallness\" (Freeman et al., 1983). New ventures face complicated challenges including the management of internal relations among strangers, assembling required resources, and establishing the social and business relationships necessary to enter the market (Singh et al., 1986; Cafferata et al., 2009; Aldrich and Yang, 2012). This is even more evident in the case of knowledge-intensive and innovative new ventures (Elfring and Hulsing, 2003). In order to assess the high failure rate of small start-up companies, the European Commission (2002) suggested to nurture start-up firms in business incubators. Start-ups hosted in a business incubator can benefit from a resource-munificent environment (Vanderstraeten and Matthyssens, 2012) created by the various services offered. In particular, tenants can attain economies of scale, accelerate their learning curve, have access to networks and experience increased legitimacy (Bruneel et al., 2012).\n3. Tenants' social and business networks and incubator management's role: The importance of a profitable network relationship in creating and developing firms is object of a number of studies (Uzzi, 1996; Aarstad et al., 2010; Hoang and Antoncic, 2003; Slotte-Kock and Coviello, 2010), mainly due to the possibility to rely on a strong social capital base. Social capital consists of all the social relationships and social structures used to help individuals access information and know-how (Uzzi, 1996; Bollingtoft and Ulhoi, 2005). Previous literature has well expressed the positive relationship between social capital and entrepreneurship (Hoang and Antoncic, 2003; Slotte-Kock and Coviello, 2010). Family and close friends represent strong ties, which, complemented with weak ties, constitute the relational base useful in the first stage of a firm's life, because they provide a low cost access to critical resources (Greve and Salaff, 2003). Social ties are characterized by informal relationships, which are not based on and regulated by contracts (Bollingtoft and Ulhoi, 2005). Some studies (Schwartz and Hornych, 2010) suggest that social relationships are more common in an internal-to-the-incubator network, because tenants share spaces, technologies and other resources offered by the incubator. In this perspective, McAdam and McAdam (2006) sustain that geographical proximity among tenants located in an incubator can influence the frequency of contacts and thus the development of social networks.\n4. Methodology: The contributions of the literature review discussed above show that all previous researches focussed on one or more aspects that can characterize the networking dimension of a business incubator. However, none of these mentioned works attempted to investigate said aspects within a more complete perspective. In particular, in order to test our hypotheses, we observed the direct role of the incubator management in favouring networking activities within the incubator, which is an under researched topic.\n5. Evidence from the Ca' Tron Valley: the origin and functioning of H-Farm: H-Farm was founded in early 2005 in the Ca' Tron Valley, an estate of 110 acres in the municipality of Roncade (Province of Treviso, in north-eastern Italy), owing to the vision of a Serial Entrepreneur: Riccardo Donadon. The company is a research and technological innovation centre, a private incubator, whose mission is to nurture innovative companies in the field of digital media technology. H-Farm was born out of a community of ICT enthusiasts, a heterogeneous group of creative people headed by Riccardo Donadon, who decided to get involved in a new business venture. \"H\" stands for \"Human\" and \"Farm\" clearly recalls the values of a peasant society that seems to be diminishing year after year under the combined pressure of technology and globalization. The name embodies the company's mission: to empower human capital for the creation of new technological products in an environment that boosts organizational creativity.\n6. Results: 6.1 Social ties in H-Farm\n7. Conclusions: This paper adds to previous literature on NBIs providing evidence of the social and business relationships occurring among tenants, between tenants and the incubator management, as well as with external advisors, clients and suppliers. Special attention is given to the analysis of the incubator management's intermediary role in fostering tenants' social and business networks. The case study confirms and extends the literature on NBIs along three main dimensions. First, NBIs are distinguished from others by the fact that they offer an extensive network of business relationships that tenants can use to make their fledging process faster and more efficient. Second, in H-Farm, as well as in other NBIs, there are important relationships not only with external stakeholders but also within the incubator, whether business or social ties. Third, the role of the incubator management team is twofold. On the one hand, it works as an intermediary enabling and facilitating tenants' relationships, offering them the possibility to leverage on the incubator's reputation, which helps to legitimate their activities and mitigate the liability of newness. On the other hand, it also develops intense interactions with tenants, conveying relevant information and knowledge.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide insights on the relational dimension of a networked business incubator (NBI), by investigating the intermediary role of incubator management in fostering social and business ties linking tenants among each other, with the incubator management and external actors.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper offers a literature review on the NBIs and advances a comprehensive analytical framework of the networked incubation model. This framework is empirically illustrated through a case study research on a leading Italian private NBI, namely, H-Farm. The collection of primary data was conducted by means of face-to-face in-depth interviews and a survey. Data were processed through social network analysis (SNA) tools.\nFindings: The results highlight the co-presence and interaction of social and business ties, which build up a vital environment nurturing an entrepreneurial ecosystem. Community-based relationships and the intermediation of incubator management are crucial for supporting tenants in product and business development activities.\nResearch limitations/implications: These results pave the way to further research, oriented to the conceptualization of a NBI as a (small) cluster. Moreover, the application of the SNA tools adopted invites further research on networked incubators, applying the same methodology in new directions.\nOriginality/value: This paper adds to previous literature on NBIs by providing evidence of the intermediary role of incubator management in promoting and facilitating social and business relationships occurring among tenants, between tenants and the incubator management, as well as with external advisors, clients and suppliers.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Luxury consumption moves East
|
[
"Luxury fashion and textiles",
"Global supply chain strategies",
"Chinese consumers"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In 2009, China surpassed the USA as the second largest consumer of luxury goods, and is expected to claim the top spot from Japan by the year 2015 (\nLiterature review: The literature contains relatively little prescriptive guidance for establishing supply chain strategies in the luxury fashion marketplace (Brun et al., 2008). Fashion in general has received much more attention than luxury fashion in the supply chain strategy literature and Hines and Bruce (2007) caution that fashion must not simply be equated with luxury. However, research examining luxury fashion include contributions by Brun and Castelli (2013) which describes the concept and dimensions of luxury, whilst Husic and Cicic (2009) analysed luxury consumption factors arguing that it should be put in the context of psychological determinants. Phau and Prendergast (2001) equate luxury brands to exclusivity, as a well-known brand identity, that enjoys high brand awareness and perceived quality whilst retaining sales levels and customer loyalty, whilst worthy contribution in developing our understanding of the distinction between luxury and non-luxury, these papers do not examine luxury fashion in the context of supply chain strategy specifically.\nMethodology and case background: To examine this issue further, an in-depth case study was undertaken with a leading UK-based manufacturer of luxury cashmere and woollen accessories. The benefit of exploring a single case study rather than multiple cases was that more time could be invested in researching and understanding the key issues.\nResults and discussion: The results of this study are discussed under the four key factors analysed from the literature.\nConclusions: This paper has explored four supply chain factors that must be critically assessed for a niche luxury manufacturer in the UK to become successful as a new entrant to the luxury fashion market in China. Whilst luxury fashion has been examined in the literature, the focus has been on brand value, marketing and consumer perception aspects of management strategy rather than supply chain strategy. Given the globalised nature of supply chains, ever increasing wealth distribution coupled by increased consumption of luxury products in Asia, the outcomes of this research makes a strong contribution to the existing literature and to our understanding of the benefits of developing a competitive advantage as a manufacturer of luxury products lies in the supply chain. By developing the critical success factors in a supply chain context this research provides a useful perspective and addition to the literature which as mentioned earlier focused more on marketing and consumer angles rather than supply chain.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The literature contains relatively little prescriptive guidance for establishing supply chain strategies in the luxury fashion marketplace. The focus has been on fashion rather than luxury fashion and the purpose of this paper is to identify and explore the critical supply chain success factors to consider when entering the Chinese luxury fashion marketplace.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Given the lack of research in this area an exploratory and in-depth case study was conducted with a niche UK textile manufacturer.\nFindings: Findings from the case study suggest there are four critical success factors to consider when developing a business strategy to enter the Chinese luxury fashion marketplace.\nPractical implications: The findings could guide managers that are developing a business case for entering the Chinese luxury fashion marketplace.\nOriginality/value: This case study provides novel insights to transformations in global supply chain strategy as luxury consumption is moving towards the east, which creates new challenges and demands for European manufacturers to respond, to sustaining a competitive advantage.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Is there a strategy behind buying advertising time and space?
|
[
"Product positioning",
"Competitive strategy",
"Advertising effectiveness"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Driving from Chicago to Florida with family or friends a few decades ago, highways south of Illinois and Indiana seemed inundated with signs telling drivers to \"Visit Rock City,\" \"See Ruby Falls\" and \"Visit the Blanket Store.\" Then or now, few who made these trips knew or remembered where any of these tourist attractions were located, but it seemed like every barn wall, billboard and cow that stood in the same place too long carried one of these ubiquitous signs. By the time we left the area, everyone supported more regulatory restrictions on billboards. In more modern times, politicians send voters numerous programmed telemarketing calls with prerecorded vote messages as the campaigns spend ever-increasing amounts of money on mass media advertising with what appears to be decreasing impact on the electorate. For product advertising, ambush media and guerilla marketing have been added to the internet and traditional advertising venues as major companies strain to cover every open inch of modern life with their messages.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to note the advertising business overspending on advertising messages that is often done with minimal consideration to the impact or effects of many consumer exposures.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper notes textbooks statement of advertising budget spending as the money needed to attain pragmatic communications goals and compares this to the ongoing business reality of media planning that mostly devolves into maximization of audience exposures to mass media vehicles carrying the brand or company name.\nFindings: - The pragmatic business need is for more questioning the value of media spending, not as return on investment, but how it contributes to overall communications concerns. The media planners dilemma is the uncertainty of the effects of every additional audience exposure, thus (and too often) they take the easy route and simply resolve to purchase as many target audience impressions as possible for as low a price as can be negotiated.\nOriginality/value: - This paper asks an important question that many people in the advertising business try to avoid: \"Why is so much money being spent?\". While it is difficult to track the impact of every single vehicle placement, the media planners should at least try to question what is the real strategy behind efforts to maximize target audience exposures to vehicles carrying the company logo.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Identity, identity work and the experience of working from home
|
[
"Work",
"Identification",
"Managers"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In recent decades work organizations have begun to spread beyond their temporal and spatial boundaries and work has become an \"unbounded activity\" to be conducted \"anytime and anywhere\" (Kurland and Bailyn, 1999), including the \"other sphere\" of the home environment. This flexibility has been hailed as a utopia with huge potential to turn the pre-industrial cottage into a post-industrial electronic cottage; a new system of production where individual agents are enabled to achieve a precious balance between the demands of work and home (see Toffler, 1980, pp. 204-17). Other commentators point to the ambiguous nature of such flexibility because they see the possibility of rationalistic, control-based norms and values of industrial production discourses and practices infiltrating the private sphere. The result is the potential instrumentalisation of domestic relationships, an erosion of the private enclave through the introduction of words and techniques resonating with modern forms of Western rationality and control (Brocklehurst, 2001; Felstead and Jewson, 2000; Grey, 1999; Hochschild, 1997).Thus, the unbounded character of post-industrial work has potentially manifold consequences, not only for the technical and task aspects of paid work, but also for the wider mesh of social and organizational relationships. These have the potential to be disrupted and become unbalanced when paid work moves into an environment (the home) that is defined as the \"domestic sphere\", traditionally the domain of women and children and based on values of care, reciprocity and nurture (Hochschild, 1983). It has been argued that such a meeting of different \"worlds\" results in a degree of conflict and contradiction, particularly for the identities of those parties who make the transition from full-time office-based manager to one who is home-based (Brocklehurst, 2001; Tietze, 2003). Embedded in this literature is the notion that identities are emergent, dynamic and part of a relational process (Musson and Marsh, 2007), particularly so for the managerial occupation (Watson and Harris, 1999), which can only be understood within the framework of changing relationships and contexts. Being thus contingent, identity is constructed as an ongoing social process (Czarniawska, 1997), achieved by a subtle interweaving of the many different \"threads\" of social and occupational classifications that enable individuals to locate and define themselves in their social environment and produce the fabric of their identity (Burr, 1995).In the field of social sciences and in particular in organization studies \"identity\" continues to provide both topic and subject of research endeavour (Alvesson et al., 2008). Research studies have made progress in conceptualising identity as subjective meaning and experience in the light of human actors\" ongoing efforts to address questions of \"who they are\" and \"how to act\". In particular, research has focused on the identity processes of professional or managerial staff (Alvesson and Willmott, 2002; Musson and Duberley, 2007; Thomas and Linstead, 2002; Watson, 2008); and especially on the identity formulation of this occupational group as it occurs in circumstances, which are frequently ambiguous, discordant and contradictory. Thus, identity formulation is potentially a hazardous project and requires individual to engage in \"identity work\", a concept taken up in the literature and formalised by Svenginsson and Alvesson (2003, p. 1165) who define identity work as individuals being engaged \"in forming, repairing, maintaining, strengthening or revising the constructions that are productive of a sense of coherence and distinctiveness\". Watson (2008, p. 129) recently elaborated on this concept and posits that through identity work \"people strive to shape a relatively coherent and distinctive notion of personal self-identity and struggle to come to terms with (...) and influence the various social-identities which pertain to them in the various milieux in which they live their lives\". Such \"striving\" is interactive, i.e. it involves social and organizational encounters with other people or contexts and is therefore always dialogic in character (Beech, 2008, pp. 51-2) and includes the performance of roles, routines and acts which are constitutive of creating a sufficiently permanent sense of self (Alvesson et al., 2008; Simpson and Carroll, 2008).The concept of identity work is a useful heuristic tool to articulate the tensions that individuals experience especially in transitional and transformative circumstances. Such charcteristics are evident in home-based production contexts (Tietze and Musson, 2005). Identity issues may come to the fore for home-based producers whose relational network is disrupted because household members may take on a more prominent role and relationships within the traditional locale of paid work (the office; colleagues, subordinates) need to be re-defined. In this paper we argue that the transition of managers from purely office-based to partly home-based working is more than a mere physical move in the location of paid work. This change places managers in a culturally different environment and requires them to engage more directly with questions of \"who they are\", \"how to act\" and \"where they belong\", i.e. the change poses questions of identity. To support our argument we present three case studies, where managers have found different \"solutions\" to the identity challenges caused by the relocation of paid work into the home. Through these we demonstrate that the relative success or failure of homeworking is intrinsically bound to whether identities can be successfully redefined in the light of the physical change of work location.\nMethodology: The data used here were collected during a research project situated in the UK where legislation (UK Employment Act, 2002) has supported the introduction of flexible work arrangements including home-based telework. We wanted to capture the particular experience of a specific occupational group, i.e. managers, but also include the perspective of their co-habitants and families as the views and standpoints of this group are frequently neglected in the literature (Tietze and Musson, 2005). In other words our intent was to explore the life worlds of managers and their families and how they \"cope with\" the arrival of paid work in the home environment from an identity perspective. Such an exploration of the life and meaning worlds of respondents is in line with the assumptions of the interpretivist paradigm (Burrell and Morgan, 1986), which acknowledges the centrality of meaning in social action (Putnam, 1982) and concomitant identity processes (Tietze, 2003). We identified twenty-five managers from diverse industrial, sectoral and functional backgrounds who participated in working-from-home initiatives. They were all practising \"professional managers\", i.e. they possessed qualifications such as DMS (Diploma in Management Studies) or MBA (Master of Business Administration) from UK Business Schools, who had begun to work from home for at least part of their working week (between one and 2.5 days per week) during the previous 12 months. Thus, our study group displayed commonalities in professional status, a degree of self-directedness and generally viewed paid work as central to their life projects. In line with our espoused paradigm, we developed a qualitative methodological approach based on in-depth interviews and observational data collected during home visits, which enabled us to generate contextualised knowledge and understanding of respondents' lives: Using semi-structured interviews as a form of talk which captures subjective narratives (which are in themselves constitutive of people's identities) we interviewed our participants for between one and 1.5 hours. All the interviews took place in the home environment of the manager, often including house tours and conversations with other family members. All of which provided us with valuable additional data. Overall then, we took a narrative approach to collecting the data, asking participants to tell us in their own words about their experiences of working from home and managing their professional roles and identities. Specifically, we asked them to tell us about the routines they developed, changed or continued to use in their everyday work and home lives. We did this because it has been suggested that routines are at the core of understanding behaviour since they are central to our achievement of a sense of security and continuity (Giddens, 1991). From the data collected we were able to judge whether each participant's experience of working from home ultimately led to a return to the office, or enabled them to have the \"best of both worlds\" or embedded them more firmly in their home worlds. These were not of course always mutually exclusive outcomes, or indeed clearly obvious choices for each participant. Yet generally our participants did tend to favour one outcome over the others, and the three case studies presented next are amongst the clearest examples in our data.The three case studies presented next provide exemplars of the different approaches to managing the identity challenges involved in managers working from home that permeated our data. However, they do not provide generalizable cases whose patterns and lessons can be transported completely beyond the research scene contexts. These empirically based cases are a \"construction of certain elements of reality in a logically precise configuration\" (Gerth and Mill, 1948, p. 59) and thus they provide a tool that helps us to understand what we observe. We use them as a \"yardstick against which to measure what we study\" and in writing them we made sense of what would otherwise remain \"intelligible flux\" (Billington et al., 1998, p. 249).Case 1: Back to the office\nDiscussion: Identities challenged\nConclusion: The up-take of conducting paid work at home foregrounds identity issues and necessitates the engagement in periods of \"identity work\" to (re)establish a sufficiently stable sense of self. Managers and their households addressed this \"task\" in different ways and with different outcomes. In this regard we propose that this contemporary mode of work offers possibilities to articulate not just how to \"balance work and home\", but that embedded in it are questions of identity which are central to understanding the mutually constitutive relationship between domestic and professional spheres of life. Bringing an \"identity perspective\" to bear on an investigation of working from home shows that the meanings individuals attach to their work, their homes and their \"selves\" are not stable or pre-given and that they make sense of this way of working in light of their overall lives.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This paper seeks to show how the shift of paid work from traditional locations into the home environment raises serious questions of identity for managers who have started to work from home and who have to \"cope with\" the sometimes conflicting demands imposed by different socio-cultural spheres.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Based on an empirical study of working from home, three case studies are presented, which articulate and summarise different modes of engagement with both paid and domestic work and respective identity issues.\nFindings: - Adding to the extant literature on working from home, the findings indicate that the success or failure of working from home is intrinsically tied into issues related to homeworkers\" identity.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The empirical data are taken from a period when homeworkers had to \"learn\" how to cope with being both \"at home and at work\". Further empirical enquiry might focus on longitudinal aspects of the relationship between working from home and identity.\nPractical implications: - With regard to working from home policies it is advisable to take into account questions of identity, rather than applying exclusively task-based or technical aspects when considering the organisational benefits of this form of spatial and temporal flexibility.\nOriginality/value: - In conceptualising working from home from an identity perspective, new insights have been gained into the reasons why this mode of work sometimes fails to deliver on its promises, yet proves outstandingly successful on other occasions.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Effect of perceived warmth on positive judgment
|
[
"Business environment",
"Color",
"Perceived warmth",
"Visual sensation",
"Warmth stereotype"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Physical warmth activates psychological warmth. Williams and Bargh (2008) showed that mere tactile experience of physical warmth affects an individual's interpersonal judgment and prosocial behavior. They showed that the participants who had briefly held a hot cup of coffee (vs an iced cup of coffee) judged the target person as having a warm (i.e. kind, trustful, etc.) personality. This suggests that the experience of physical warmth temporarily activates the associated psychological concepts of \"interpersonal warmth\" which favorably influences the judgment of others. In their second experiment, they showed that participants who had held a hot pad (vs cold pad) exhibited greater prosocial behaviors by choosing a gift for a friend rather than a gift for themselves as a reward for participating in the study. The physical warmth from tactile experience can be translated into an individual's judgment of and attitude toward other people (Williams and Bargh, 2008).\nTheoretical background: The color-temperature association\nHypotheses development: Based on the review of the literature, we developed three hypotheses as follows. We reason that, through the activation of a warmth stereotype, the use of warm colors in an online banner advertisement will increase the level of trust and positive attitude toward the sponsor of the advertisement. We posit:\nPilot study: effect of colors on interpersonal warmth: This pilot study examines whether exposure to a warm (vs cold or neutral) color influences interpersonal judgment like tactile experience was shown in the study of Williams and Bargh (2008). We expect that, depending on the background color, people will judge the personality of an identical person differently.\nStudy 1: the effect of color in an advertising artifact: In Study 1, we examine if colors in an advertising artifact contribute to activating a customer's warmth stereotype and if such stereotype will, in turn, affect his/her level of trust and attitude. It should be noted that based on the results of our pilot study, we came to rule out the possibility that the color blue will have a negative effect on our dependent variables.\nStudy 2: the effect of color-based warmth in an e-commerce environment: While Study 1 examined the effect of color used in an advertising artifact, Study 2 brings the inquiry to a more comprehensive e-commerce environment. In Study 2, we examined whether the perceived warmth from a website will affect trust and purchase intention and whether such an effect is mediated by a warmth stereotype.\nStudy 3: the effect of perceived warmth in a workplace environment: While Study 2 examined the impact of perceived warmth in an e-commerce website environment, Study 3 expanded the inquiry to a physical workplace environment. We predicted that employees who experienced a warm feeling from the ambient colors of their workplace were more likely than others to develop a warmth stereotype and, in turn, more likely to exhibit a positive attitude (i.e. commitment) and behavioral intention (i.e. extra-role behavior intention) toward their organization.\nGeneral discussion: In this research, we proposed that a color-based visual sensation affects people's cognitive judgment. Importantly, we demonstrated that such an impact is mediated by activation of a warmth stereotype. Evidence from three studies provides strong support for our proposition. Study 1 provided direct experimental evidence that warm (vs neutral) color in a banner advertisement elicits a viewer's warmth stereotype, which, in turn, increases trust in and positive attitude toward the person featured in the advertisement. Study 2 showed that the perceived warmth induced by the colors of an e-commerce website activates the web user's warmth stereotype, which, in turn, increases trust in the website and purchase intention. An analogous prediction was tested in Study 3 in a field study setting. We observed that the nurses' perception of warmth based on the ambient colors of their work environment leads to positive attitudinal (i.e. commitment) and behavioral (i.e. citizenship behavior) consequences.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to explore how color-based visual sensation affects people's judgment of other people and their environment. The authors focus primarily on uncovering the causal mechanism in which such effect is mediated by warmth stereotype.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors used data collected from experiments and field surveys in the USA and South Korea.\nFindings: Pilot study shows that an anonymous person against a warm color background (vs neutral and cold color background) is perceived to be one with warmer personality. Study 1 shows that warm (vs neutral) color in advertising increases a perceiver's warmth stereotype and trust and, consequently, a favorable attitude toward the advertiser. Study 2 shows that color-based warmth of an e-commerce website increases a web user's warmth stereotype and trust of the website and higher intention to purchase. Study 3 shows that the nurses' perception of warmth from a hospital's ambient color affects their favorable judgment of the hospital and intention to take on an extra role. Importantly, all effects observed across studies were mediated by the activation of warmth stereotype.\nPractical implications: The findings provide practical guidelines to companies for the usage of colors in crafting advertising artifacts, designing a website and creating a workplace environment to induce positive attitudes and motivations toward each target.\nOriginality/value: The extant research on warmth experiences focuses on tactile sensation as a key independent variable and transient mood as a dominant mediator. This study extends the stream of research by adopting perceived visual sensation as an independent variable and warmth stereotype as a new mediating construct.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Intercultural competencies for culturally diverse work teams
|
[
"Competences",
"Employees",
"Cross‐cultural management",
"Job satisfaction",
"Equal opportunities"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In recent years, significant changes in the composition of the workforce have taken place with organisations becoming increasingly more diverse on a large number of personal characteristics, one of the most significant of which is cultural diversity. In addition, now, more than ever, organisations are using teams to increase organisational efficiency and effectiveness (Shaw and Barrett-Power, 1998). For this reason it can almost be expected that in the future individuals will work in teams with people from diverse cultural backgrounds. While all forms of diversity present challenges to work teams, cultural diversity defined as \"the existence of two or more persons from different cultural groups in any single group or organisation\" (DeSimone and Harris, 1998, p. 485) presents organisations with one of the most challenging issues of our time (Foldy, 2004). One of the most consistent findings in the diversity literature is that culturally diverse teams tend to suffer from a lack of cohesion generally caused by fundamental differences in team members' views, leading to such things as conflict and subgroup formation. They also suffer from higher process losses than homogeneous teams (Scachaf, 2005, p. 49). We suggest, however, that these negative outcomes can be overcome if team members are interculturally competent.Intercultural competence allows people to understand differences which may arise as a result of different cultural backgrounds and to communicate and integrate across these differences (Iles, 1995). Maznevski (1994) highlighted the importance of intercultural competence to the effectiveness of interactions in culturally diverse teams when she suggested a common finding of culturally diverse teams' research is that \"diversity led to higher performance only when members were able to understand each other, combine, and build on each others ideas\" (Maznevski, 1994, p. 536). A lack of the intercultural competencies facilitating team members to do this can result in such things as unequal power distribution, inequality, discrimination and the devaluation of diverse team members' contributions (Kelsey, 2000). Furthermore, individual team members are likely to have lower levels of satisfaction, commitment and trust (e.g. Jackson and Ruderman, 1995; Ng and Tung, 1998) with diverse teams suffering decreased, innovation and productivity (Linnehan and Konrad, 1999). For this reason, the aim of this article and a significant contribution of this research is identifying those intercultural competencies which if possessed by individuals working in culturally diverse teams facilitate more positive outcomes for individual team members (and consequently, diverse teams overall).To date, to the best of our knowledge, no framework has been developed which ties together in a single, but multifaceted manner the plethora of definitions and conceptualisations of intercultural competence. In order to address this gap in the literature, the aim of this article is to develop such a framework. We also seek to identify the relationship between the different facets of intercultural competence and outcomes having important consequences for employee and organisational effectiveness. In order to achieve these goals, next we provide a review of the competencies that are identified in the literature as being important to intercultural interactions to develop an intercultural competencies classification system. Following this, we present the findings of quantitative research undertaken to investigate the importance of each of the competencies identified. We finish with a discussion of the findings and implications of the research.\n2. Intercultural competencies: Before discussing the intercultural competencies proposed to facilitate positive outcomes for employees in culturally diverse teams, it is important to have a clear definition of what competence is. A popular definition of competence is that it consists of knowledge, skills and attitudes possessed by individuals (Hunt and Wallace, 1997). However, when discussing intercultural competencies it is important to note that many researchers use the terms competencies and skills interchangeably. Kanungo and Misra (1992) identified six key differences between competencies and skills. These distinctions suggest that competencies that are more generic can be applied to a range of tasks or situations while skills that are more specialised can be applied to specific tasks or situations. Consequently, in this article we define intercultural competencies as a set of skills, knowledge and attitudes that are used when interacting with culturally diverse team members.Intercultural competencies are essential for individuals working in culturally diverse teams as they \"allow group members to communicate more effectively with one another about their differences, to evaluate more accurately how their own behaviour is affecting group processes, and to react in a more realistic and less judgemental way to the different attitudes and behaviours expressed by other group members\" (Shaw and Barrett-Power, 1998, p. 1318). A myriad of cross-cultural competencies have been proposed in the management literature (Leiba-O'Sullivan, 1999) that can play a key role in recruitment, selection, training, development, performance management practices and in the overall development of culturally diverse teams (Iles, 1995). The same competencies are commonly referred to by researchers but using different wording. In an effort to identify those competencies that are commonly referred to and that are applicable in a domestic setting, we have undertaken an extensive literature review to identify a coherent set of variables representing the competencies predicted to impact on individual's satisfaction, trust and affective commitment as well as assessment of their work team.The competencies identified through this review (see Table I) can be identified as falling into three categories; cognitive, affective and behavioural. While cognitive competencies relate to a person's ability to process information, affective competencies relate to a person's emotional responses and behavioural competencies relate to a person's behavioural actions. Classifying the competencies in this way is of particular importance as it helps to identify not only the levels at which the barriers between members of culturally diverse teams can arise but also the levels at which they should be addressed. Each group of competencies will be discussed in more detail next.2.1 Cognitive intercultural competencies\n3. Method: 3.1 Sample\n4. Results: 4.1 Data screening\n5. Discussion: Now and into the future it is almost guaranteed that individuals will work in culturally diverse work teams at some point in their career. Unfortunately, working in a culturally diverse team can have a potentially negative impact on both individual team members and the team overall. At the individual level, this can include such things as feelings of exclusion, a lack of access to information, opportunities and support and low job satisfaction (Kelsey, 2000; Mor Barak, 2000; Wanguri, 1996) while at the team level, this can include such things as decreased productivity and performance (Linnehan and Konrad, 1999; Maznevski, 1994; Scachaf, 2005). For this reason, the research presented in this article sought to examine the impact that the level of individuals' competencies has on their responses toward and assessment of their team.While overall, the results indicated support for the proposed intercultural competencies classification system, not all of the intercultural competencies were identified as being significant. The competencies that were identified as being significantly related to facets of individuals' response toward and assessments of their team are identified in Table VII. In regard to the cognitive competencies, the proposed relationship between cognitive complexity and goal orientation and individuals' job satisfaction, affective commitment and trust in co-workers and their assessment of their work team was supported. The only result found not to be significant was for the relationship between performance orientation and assessment of the team in terms of vision.In regard to the affective competencies, while the results for dissimilarity openness and tolerance for ambiguity were partially supported, the results for cultural empathy were not. In regard to dissimilarity openness, while the like/enjoy contact with dissimilar others subscale was significantly related to each of the dependent variables, the comfort with difference and communicating with dissimilar others subscales were not significantly related to the dependent variables. Further, while tolerance for ambiguity was found to be significantly related to individuals' levels of job satisfaction, affective commitment and trust in co-workers, it was not significantly related to individuals' assessment of their team. Finally, the relationship between cultural empathy and each of the dependent variables failed to reach significance.In regard to the behavioural competencies, while support was found for the relationship between conflict management style and all of the dependent variables and partial support was found for the relationship between emotion management ability and the dependent variables, the results for intercultural communication competence were not significant. With regard to emotion management ability, only the ability to regulate own emotions, ability to display own emotions and ability to understand emotions in others subscales were found to have a significant relationship with satisfaction and individuals assessments of participative safety and support for innovation. Further, only the ability to regulate own emotions and ability to display own emotions subscales were found to have a significant relationship with affective commitment and individuals assessments of task orientation. Finally, only the ability to regulate own emotions subscale was found to have a significant relationship with individuals' assessment of vision in their team. In regard to the non-significant finding regarding intercultural communication competence, closer inspection of the measure used to assess this variable indicates that, in actual fact, while the items used were reported to assess intercultural effectiveness, the items themselves appear to measure communication competence rather than intercultural communication competence. It should also be noted that while every effort was made to utilise measures that are appropriate by today's standards (Douthitt et al., 1999), due to the lack of validated measures reported to measure intercultural communication competence, the items used in this study were adapted from Hammer et al.'s (1978) questionnaire and while this has been widely used it may not have been current by today's standards after all. Consequently, further empirical investigation with an updated measure of intercultural communication competence is required.Based on the above findings, it is evident that intercultural competence is made up of a range of knowledge, skills and actions that facilitate positive interactions between culturally diverse individuals. As such, Table VIII identifies the different facets of intercultural competence and what a definition of intercultural competence should incorporate.5.1 Theoretical contributions\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact that the level of individuals' intercultural competencies has on their satisfaction, trust and affective commitment and assessment of their work team.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - An intercultural competencies classification system is developed in which the cognitive, affective and behavioural intercultural competencies predicted to impact upon individuals' responses toward, and assessments of, their work team are identified. The results of quantitative survey research providing support for the classification system are subsequently described.\nFindings: - Competencies identified as being related to individuals' responses toward, and assessments of, their work team include cognitive complexity, goal orientation, dissimilarity openness, tolerance for ambiguity and emotion, and conflict management skills.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The research provides sound evidence for the important role that intercultural competence plays in facilitating positive individual level outcomes which it is theorised will lead to positive team level outcomes.\nOriginality/value: - The key contribution of the research is the development of an intercultural competencies classification system which ties together in a single but multifaceted framework the intercultural competencies required for employees working in culturally diverse teams.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Modelling knowledge sharing behaviour using self-efficacy as a mediator
|
[
"Knowledge sharing",
"Malaysia",
"Knowledge sharing behaviour",
"Agriculture",
"Successful farmers"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Knowledge sharing behaviour among employees has been associated with organization's overall productivity (Naoman and Fouad, 2014), and therefore, the agricultural industry's productivity can be further improved if farmers exchange useful knowledge with one another. This is because previous studies have suggested that successful farmers have adequate knowledge to boost their productivity (Kamarudin et al., 2015). Knowledge sharing behaviour among successful farmers is of concern not only on the farmers' development but also on the the performance of the Department of Agriculture as a whole. In the Malaysian agricultural context, the knowledge sharing behaviour of successful farmers formally and informally occurs during training, farm visits and also through discussions. However, current practices of sharing processes, although happening formally and informally, are unstructured. Strategies need to be put forward to capture and distribute the knowledge so that farmers can learn from one another and develop intellectually. To date, there is no unquestionable mechanism or coordination being properly implemented, leaving the issue to remain unclear and unresolved. This calls for an effort to be made in identifying and examining the issues related to the knowledge sharing behaviour among farmers. Instead of keeping it to themselves, sharing it directly with others through social interactions or discussions would benefit the whole community. Failure to address this issue will commonly lead to the loss of knowledge.\nLiterature review: Knowledge sharing behaviour\nMethodology: Data collection\nData analysis and results: Participants' characteristics\nResults: Based on the findings (Table V), five paths were all significant (Ha4a, Ha4b, Ha4c, Ha5a and Ha5b were supported). Regarding the mediating effects of self-efficacy in Table VI, it was found that self-efficacy did not mediate the relationship between training and knowledge sharing behaviour (Ha2a is not supported). However, the mediation effects of self-efficacy on the relationship between prior experience, social support and trust were all significant (Ha2b, Ha3a and Ha3b were supported).\nDiscussion and implications: This study posits that individual-related factors, namely, the enjoyment in helping others, training, prior experience and environmental-related factors, namely, social support and trust significantly, influence knowledge sharing behaviour. Furthermore, self-efficacy mediates the three of the four model paths in this study. Concerning individual-related factors, it was found that successful farmers who feel the pleasure in helping others tend to be more motivated to share knowledge. Training affects farmers' knowledge sharing behaviour, as during the session, they will have the opportunities to interact and exchange knowledge with others. In addition, prior experience attained from past knowledge sharing activities becomes an important basis to predict their current sharing ability. Accordingly, the correct blend of individual and environmental factors is necessary in triggering motivations and situations where farmers could engage in knowledge sharing activities.\nLimitations: This study has several limitations. First, it is interesting to note that this study is limited to samples of successful farmers in the agriculture context only. Consequently, the results are specific to the agriculture setting and unlikely to be generalized to other industries. Apart from that, this study uses an individual's perceptions for the knowledge sharing behaviour rating. Thus, some respondents may not be willing to admit their experience in the knowledge sharing behaviour. Moreover, this cross-sectional study might not be able to capture the perception of the knowledge sharing behaviour across time, and the majority of the relationship posited was based on the grounded findings from past research. It would be more interesting if researchers could consider doing qualitative research, as this kind of research may generate knowledge based on personal experiences related to knowledge sharing behaviour.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the direct and indirect relationships between individual-related factors and environmental-related factors with the knowledge sharing behaviour through the mediating role of self-efficacy among successful farmers in selected states in Malaysia.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The research used survey method and included 241 participants from Johor, Negeri Sembilan and Selangor. The analysis was conducted using the partial least square structural equation modelling to achieve the research objectives.\nFindings: The findings indicate that individual-related factors (e.g. enjoyment in helping others, training and prior experience) and environmental-related factors (e.g. social support and trust) have significant influence on the knowledge sharing behaviour. The results also reveal that self-efficacy mediates the relationships between prior experiences (individual-related factor), social support, trust (environmental- related factor) and the knowledge sharing behaviour.\nPractical implications: Agriculture officers should emphasize on farmers' personal and social factors to encourage the knowledge sharing behaviour among the agriculture communities of successful farmers.\nOriginality/value: The research yields a theoretical framework that outlines the potential of six key factors in explaining the knowledge sharing behaviour among successful farmers. The factors can be considered in developing structured knowledge-sharing programs.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Understanding circular economy awareness and practices in manufacturing firms
|
[
"Empirical",
"Awareness",
"Circular economy",
"Practices",
"Manufacturing firms"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In recent years, the traditional economic model of \"make-use-dispose\", which had proven to be an effective and widely acceptable approach of making business, has been put in question for various reasons (Stahel, 2016; Andrews, 2015). Whether that is becoming aware of the environmental impact of a firm's activities, having to adhere to the environmental legislation or having to adjust to issues regarding the scarcity of resources, a need for a different economic model has been present since the early 2000s. One approach that appears to effectively provide solutions for these issues is circular economy (CE) (Kumar et al., 2019; Irani and Sharif, 2018; Lieder and Rashid, 2016).\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Linear and the 3Rs principles\n3. Methodology: The study adopts a survey questionnaire based design to collect primary data. Given the positivist nature of the research, the study first involved a comprehensive review of the current CE understanding and practices. The literature review identified a number of models and argued to identify the most suitable model that demanded empirical validation. The study narrowed down to the model proposed by Lieder and Rashid (2016), which is based on the three essential pillars of: environmental impact; resource scarcity and economic benefits. An online survey questionnaire was then created using the Qualtrics survey tool to collect the data. The research process therefore included three phases, namely, survey design, data collection and data analysis, as elaborated next.\n4. Findings and discussion: 4.1 Demographics\n5. Conclusions: This study provides a holistic review of the literature around the current state of CE practices. The study also reviewed and critically examined the existing CE models/frameworks that make an attempt at encapsulating CE. Specifically, the most widely accepted models found in the literature were analysed. The model proposed by Lieder and Rashid (2016) was benchmarked and tested through survey. The results of the survey proved the effectiveness of the model in describing the concept of CE far better than other models and taking all aspects considered by manufacturing firms into account. This is important, as so far, no model of CE had ever been tested and proven. Our study provides a better understanding of the levels of awareness of the concept of CE in the European continent. Our findings show a very encouraging 70 per cent awareness levels, which is constantly improving. The results of the survey suggested that, as far as employees in manufacturing firms are concerned, the consideration of their firms' environmental impact is greater than the potential economic benefits or resource scarcity. Despite of that fact, all of those aspects are inter-dependent, meaning that one cannot think about CE without thinking on all three elements of the pillars of CE. This study therefore adds to the limited empirical literature on CE awareness and practices in manufacturing firms. The paper also provides empirical validation of the CE model proposed by Lieder and Rashid (2016), thus providing a valuable contribution to the knowledge and understanding of the CE.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Circular economy (CE) has evolved as a result of the growing environmental awareness, environmental legislation and the need for social responsibility. However, awareness levels of CE are not as high as expected and practices are further behind than they should be, with a significant lack of research around the subject in the literature. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to examine the current state of awareness levels and the practices around CE in manufacturing firms. Moreover, the study aims to empirically validate one of the earlier proposed CE models.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study adopts a quantitative survey questionnaire based approach. More than 500 people from various manufacturing organisations were contacted directly over a 40-day long sampling process through the FAME database, personal contacts and LinkedIn. The survey resulted in 103 completed responses. Given the exploratory nature of the study, the data were mainly analysed using descriptive statistics. To validate the CE model, a correlation analysis was also conducted.\nFindings: The research findings show that with the growing emphasis on CE across the globe by governing bodies, firms are becoming more aware of CE practices. The analysis also shows some useful insights on the state of each of the pillars (economic benefits, environmental impact and resource scarcity) of CE. The findings also indicate that the environmental impact pillar of CE is at a more developed state than the other two pillars which are, mostly, in a research state.\nResearch limitations/implications: The study provides manufacturing firms with a thorough understanding of the state of CE practices and importance of its successful implementation. The findings of the study advocates consideration of all three pillars of CE by managers as a guide to plan for an efficient strategy around CE implementation. Moreover, our study adds to existing efforts by the academic community to raise the awareness towards CE practice among all relevant stakeholders. The findings of this study are based on the responses from a limited 103 survey responses from manufacturing firms.\nOriginality/value: This study adds to the very limited empirical literature on CE awareness and practices in manufacturing firms. This is also one of the first studies attempting to empirically validate an existing CE model.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
"Sailing through a river of emotions": capturing children's earthquake stories
|
[
"Participatory research",
"Disasters",
"Disaster response and recovery",
"Research involving children",
"The role of schools"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: The details of the series of earthquakes that struck the city of Christchurch and surrounding areas of Canterbury, New Zealand, throughout 2010 and 2011 have been well described in media reports, documentaries, books and academic papers. Although children throughout the city discussed, wrote about, drew and re-enacted their earthquake stories many times at home and school, little of this has been formally captured by researchers. This is understandable as the adults responsible for children wanted to protect them from any psychological harm that could ensue if children were further traumatized by the re-visiting of their experiences. Yet research on helping children adjust after trauma suggests that emotional processing (Caruana, 2010; Gordon, 2007; Prinstein et al., 1996) is an important post-trauma activity. Emotional processing is defined as \"a diverse set of physical, cognitive and affective actions that lead to absorption of emotional disturbances [...]\" (Prinstein et al., 1996, p. 464). Without appropriate absorption or opportunities to put events into perspective, reminders of the event can interfere with normal functioning resulting in nightmares, distress or listlessness. Carefully managed and repeated exposures through calm rehearsals, relevant conversations, drawing, play or drama contribute to appropriate absorption. Children also have the right to have their voices heard. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC, 1989) states that every child, as well as the right to a life that is safe, healthy and socially connected, should have a voice in matters that concern them. Much child-related research is adult-centric in both determining the problems and the solutions. There is, therefore, a need for critically informed research that gives children the opportunity to engage in carefully facilitated emotional processing which gives expression to children's voices and perspectives. Through on-going and sensitive engagement with a group of willing schools, this UNESCO-funded research enabled children to find ways to retell their stories for themselves, their schools, their families and posterity. The data reported here are drawn from a larger study which aimed to capture this significant time in New Zealand's history by assisting school communities to record their earthquake stories. The researchers and a video team gathered stories from principals, teachers, school support staff, children and parents. Each school had control over how their own story-telling project would proceed, who would be involved, how it would be undertaken and what the final product would be. This paper discusses the engagement of children from three different schools in their projects. The schools chose to tell their stories in different ways and, in doing so, engaged the children to different extents.\nLiterature review: Children and adolescents represent a large, but often under-recognized or ignored population group in disaster research (Cahill et al., 2010; Gibbs et al., 2013; La Greca, 2006; Save the Children, 2006). As Cahill et al. (2010, p. 6) suggest, \"Caught between the perceptions that infants are the most vulnerable and adults are the most capable, there can be a tendency to overlook their needs\". Children are most often conceptualized as passive victims who are excluded from contributing to disaster response and recovery. The focus is most often on mental health risks, including lessening their exposure to the potential of post-traumatic stress disorder (Cahill et al., 2010; Sagy and Braun-Lewensohn, 2009). There is a plethora of research that concludes that disasters have serious impacts on mental health and social functioning (Bonanno et al., 2010; Norris et al., 2002). Mental health and wellbeing impacts may be manifested in different ways, for different age groups, and can have a delayed onset (McFarlane, 1987; Norris et al., 2002; Peek, 2008). Children and adolescents may have particular vulnerabilities in relation to psychological impacts (Anderson, 2005; Hawe, 2009; Peek, 2008). Their sense of safety and security, their on-going development and their social relationships may all be compromised (Gordon, 2002; McDermott and Palmer, 2002). Young people who survive disasters report that the loss of loved ones and places, order and opportunity upset their sense of a predictable and hopeful future (Betancourt and Kahn, 2008). Researchers note behaviour changes such as depression and anxiety, irritability, poor impulse control and heightened aggression (Bonanno et al., 2010; Cahill et al., 2010; Prinstein et al., 1996).\nTheory, ethics and methodology: The aim of this research was to give the schools that participated an opportunity to record their school's earthquake story. The research team would have access to the raw data to generate research findings for the funder, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and wider audiences. In return each school would generate a product that they could keep, for example, a book, a DVD or a photo essay. This research aimed to use the citizen child perspective to frame children as active participants in the projects. The research was carefully designed to ensure that it did not exacerbate post-disaster trauma (child at risk). To do this we acknowledged the child as a co-researcher who could guide the researcher through the activity, helping to direct both the content of the research discussion, and, where possible, the research activity itself. This ensured that children could engage in emotional processing but had control over how deeply they wished to go into sharing their experiences. Gibbs et al. (2013) discuss the importance of such work being undertaken by experienced researchers. Not only did we use researchers with many years' experience, they had wide ranging experiences with children and young people. They also worked in pairs in a non-threatening manner using warm-up activities and a conversational tone to put children at ease. Having two researchers also meant that one could lead while the other kept an eye on children's emotional responses to ensure children were not pushed out of their comfort zones. The data gathering sessions involved moments of tears and laughter but with sensitive handling and debriefing the children all left feeling the better for their participation.\nThe case study schools: The three schools discussed in this paper - Hillview, Riverside and Beachlands (not their real names) are all state co-educational primary schools (educating children aged 5-12) but they represent differing geographical locations and socio-economic communities and thus, differing earthquake damage, response and recovery experiences. Despite the differences, the schools' stories had many commonalities (see Mutch, 2013b). One difference was, however, the extent to which children were given agency to determine the direction of each school's project. In theorizing children's engagement in disaster research (see Mutch, 2013a), I have developed a continuum of engagement (see Figure 1). Each place on the continuum values research that benefits children but engages them to a different degree. With the exception of research for children (child-related research), each of the case study schools in this paper exemplifies a different place on the continuum.\nCase study 1: Hillview: Hillview chose to compile a book of their experiences. The book would contain the narratives from interviews with children, parents, the principal and teachers. These narratives would be supplemented with photographs, children's stories and drawings: many completed immediately following the major earthquakes. Hillview school wanted children to be the centre of the story but some of the adults were concerned too much emphasis on children's individual experiences could be upsetting for them. Consequently, children were interviewed in a variety of combinations - in small groups from the same class, with their siblings, or with their parents. The research was framed in a way that allowed children to distance themselves a little from the trauma of their experiences by, for example, asking them to imagine that they were explaining what happened to someone from another country or to imagine themselves as a grandparent, telling their grandchildren about the earthquakes. Protocols were set in place so that children felt free to talk only as much as they wished and could withdraw from the interviews at any time if they felt uncomfortable. The families have since reported, rather than the children being upset by the interviews, they have been catalysts for families re-telling their stories to each other, and even sharing experiences that had not been talked about before.\nCase study 2: Riverside: The second school, Riverside, wanted the children and their families to all be represented and remembered within their project. They wanted to create something that was both a memorial to mark what happened to their community, yet would also celebrate their resilience and look towards the future. The idea that emerged was to create a garden and seating area within the school grounds populated with plants from the families' gardens, especially where the property had been zoned \"red\" (to be demolished). The garden was also to include mosaics \"with bits of bricks from broken houses\" that would tell the community's story. A group of final year students (Year 8, aged 12) brainstormed ideas. They wanted it to remind people in the future what had happened: \"To remind them of what was there in the past and of what had been lost\"; \"we want them to know what we went through\"; \"how we stayed together and worked it out\" and \"for memories of people who died\". The students discussed lost buildings and icons, both in their town and the city of Christchurch. They came up with pre- and post-earthquake symbols and representations which would form the basis of a set of four panels. The first panel is their town in early times, the second represents their town in modern times, the third their town being torn apart by the earthquakes, and the fourth identifies their hopes for the future, framed by words such as \"courage, stay strong, kia kaha (stand tall), faith, band together, stand tall, and new world\". The river is a motif that connects all four panels and a well-known local sailing ship appears in the final panel, described by one boy as \"sailing through a river of emotions\" and when asked where it was going, he replied, \"getting to calmer seas\". The local community has already planted the garden around the seating area. A local artist has agreed to help with the practicalities of turning the mosaic designs into a living piece of art.\nCase study 3: Beachlands: Beachlands School wanted children to drive their project using the skills their senior students had shown in video making. We brought in a trainee film director to mentor the students on the basics on filming, directing, interviewing and editing. The interviewing students designed the interview protocol and showed remarkable flexibility in adapting the questions to suit the age of the students or the flow of the story. The students who were interviewed chose the setting for their interview, often where they were when the February earthquake happened - in the library, in the playground, by the school garden shed or on a school trip to the New Brighton pier. As the students' stories unfolded they talked of where they were, how they felt and what they had learned from the earthquakes. Here is an excerpt that typifies the stories told on camera. This boy was at the New Brighton pier:\nConclusion: The research has confirmed that with careful facilitation and support, children can draw on their personal experiences of traumatic circumstances in a constructive manner (Bonanno et al., 2010; The Public Health Agency of Canada, British Columbia Ministry of Health, Emergency Management, and Development, 2007). Common themes across the schools represented here were the vividness and detail of their recall, their developing ability to put distance between themselves and the events, and yet the strong emotional response that often bubbled to the surface. They were shocked by the deaths in the city and further saddened by the changes to their locality caused by so much damage, yet were able to put some perspective on their own hardships. They all talked of the importance of family and friends, and many were appreciative of their principal and teachers. They were very keen to provide advice for others who might find themselves in a similar situation and eager to have input into how Christchurch might look in the future.\n",
"role": "user"
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{
"content": "Purpose: The three case studies reported in this paper are drawn from a wider project in which schools in Canterbury, New Zealand, were invited to tell the stories of their experiences of the 2010/2011 earthquakes. The purpose of this paper is to capture the stories for the schools, their communities and for New Zealand's historical record.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The approach taken was qualitative and participatory. Each school had control over their project design and implementation. The researchers were partners and facilitators in assisting each school to reach its goal. In these three case studies approximately 100 participants including principals, teachers, students and families were engaged in generating data to create tangible and long-lasting end products.\nFindings: The two themes from the data highlighted in this paper are: first, the importance of providing emotional processing opportunities for children without severe post-trauma symptoms to support their recovery and second, the ways in which children can be engaged and given a voice in research that concerns them.\nOriginality/value: The paper contributes to the wider collection of research on and about the Canterbury earthquakes by giving voice to children and highlighting the role of schools in post-disaster response and recovery. The \"continuum of engagement\" described here is a new and original model.\n",
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] |
Evolving digital divides in information literacy and learning outcomes: A BYOD journey in a secondary school
|
[
"BYOD classrooms",
"Digital divide in learning",
"Classroom curricular practices",
"Digital outcome divides"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Immersion with information and communication technologies (ICTs) in our lives has altered the way information literacy skills are being perceived among the general population. Media-rich collaboration tools having more visual effects such as animations, drag, drop and click events are being used to engage young and old. These tools in turn have transformed how formal education is being delivered as novel learning activities are being designed and assessment models are being aligned with the current teaching curriculum (Demiraslan and Usluel, 2008; Mardis and Everhart, 2013). Teaching methods, when assisted by appropriate technical tools, systems and services, help to transform teaching and learning practices (Mardis and Everhart, 2013; Sampson et al., 2014). Individuals (in this case, teachers) based on their defined profession (namely teaching) create their own context-adapted approaches (or teaching delivery styles) in their attempt to control chaos within their work domains (or classroom spaces), thereby making a more inclusive learning organization (Ortenblad, 2015). Or, in other words, teachers experiment with rich digital technologies as they integrate them into their existing teaching deliveries, thereby enabling innovative pedagogical practices in their schools. Further, with advances in technologies, opportunities to search and retrieve information have improved immensely, especially among learners who can explore themselves. The penetration of mobile, handheld devices and 24/7 access to the internet have created more prospects for both educators and learners to collaborate on learning activities from anywhere (Newhouse et al., 2014). Having said that, only the availability of technologies and ability to operate those devices are less than likely to improve the learning experience and outcomes (Bailey et al., 2012). Information literacy skills are key to make learners make proper use of available material resources and are crucial for learners to realize their potential in future endeavors (Mardis and Everhart, 2013; Meyers et al., 2013).\n2. Evolution in digital divide literature: The phenomenon of the digital divide has been studied in many contexts, which has resulted in multiple variations to our perceptions of this phenomenon, causing more confusion than clarification. However, the shared understanding behind most of the studies are that the digital divide phenomenon is linked with many socio-economic issues, involving individuals and community groups; and this is now receiving increased attention from academics, researchers and policymakers around the world (Dewan et al., 2005).\n3. Descriptive case design: A number of approaches can be used to investigate the integration of digital learning technologies and strategies in classrooms. Some of the approaches include social constructivist perspective (Khalid et al., 2014) and experimental approach using pre- and post-tests (Martin and Ertzberger, 2013). Cheung and Hew (2009) suggest research designs to include surveys, interviews or observations when investigating technology-enabled learning and similar initiatives.\n4. Socio-cultural analysis framework: Drawing on further from our previous research (Adhikari et al., 2012, 2016; Parsons and Adhikari, 2016), we have focused our further investigation on the influences of digital/information literacy, computer self-efficacy and nature of technology usage. Our aim is to increase understanding of how personal, behavioral and environmental factors influence learning outcomes that are known to result in digital outcome divide. The focal constructs identified for further investigation have potential to impact learning activities not only on formal spaces like classrooms, but also across informal spaces, such as homes and any place outside the school premises. Therefore, a sociocultural approach is adopted to investigate the learning process within formal and informal learning spaces mediated by one-to-one digital learning devices. Our framework (Figure 2) adapted from Pachler et al. (2010) analyses interrelationships between three components, namely structures, agency and cultural practices. Engagement with learning activities using one-to-one digital learning devices in and around different learning spaces is further influenced by a triangular relationship linking structures (imposed by curricula, communication, mobile technologies), agency (such as self and other users/actors) and cultural practices (or social interactions in everyday life) (Pachler et al., 2010). Each of the three components of the socio-cultural framework aligns with the BYOD case study being investigated and helps to scaffold the interrelationships between key stakeholders, practices and structures governing the teaching and learning.\n5. Case analysis and findings: Semi-structured interview data were analyzed in NVivo, coded using emergent themes (developed from repeated ideas) and subsequently gathered together under predefined focal constructs for investigation. Following a simple content analysis of repeated ideas, the broad emergent themes are outlined in Table I, cross referenced by three components of the sociocultural framework for mobile learning.\n6. Contributions: This paper combines two frameworks to cross-examine the relationships between the various sources of social cognitive abilities related to individual's information literacy, learning activities and computer self-efficacy levels. This paper has integrated the three-level digital divide framework applied to the context of teaching and learning with sociocultural framework for mobile learning. We have used three main constructs used to investigate social cognitive abilities identified from our earlier research (Adhikari et al., 2016) and cross-referenced it with socio-cultural framework for mobile learning (Pachler et al., 2010) to explore how each of the three component govern the student learning activity in the BYOD classroom. We have been able to establish that self-efficacy level in learners can potentially affect their knowledge acquisition, skill development and brings about changes in attitudes and behaviors, which in turn has a greater impact on the learning outcomes. This has led to many interesting findings and has been helpful in identifying certain key emergent themes over the five year BYOD journey.\n7. Conclusions and limitations: Schools have a societal perspective with their core business in educating future citizens of the world. Using a socio-cultural lens, this study investigates how integration of one-to-one devices influenced teacher and learner experiences within a secondary school context near the end of a five-year-long BYOD journey. Rich insights on digital divide aspects related to information literacy and learning outcomes are shared after qualitative analysis of the empirical data collected. Abundant quotes from interview data have illustrated teachers' viewpoints in their own words and added contexts to digital learning strategies they have adopted.\n",
"role": "user"
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"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to seek answers to questions on how equity of information literacy and learning outcomes have evolved with the ongoing advances in technologies in teaching and learning across schools. The authors' report on a five-year long bring your own device (BYOD) journey of one school, which was one of the earliest adopters of one-to-one learning devices in New Zealand.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Using a socio-cultural ecological lens for analysis, a longitudinal study has investigated aspects of how digital/information literacy, computer self-efficacy, and nature of technology usage are transforming school and classroom curriculum practices.\nFindings: Findings of this study reveal a significant shift in social and academic boundaries between formal and informal learning spaces. One-to-one learning devices provide the link between school and home, as students take more ownership of their learning, and teachers become facilitators. Curricula changes and proper technological support systems introduced in the school structures have given agency to students resulting in greater acceptance of the BYOD policy and extensions to learning beyond formal classroom spaces. Digital divide amongst learners has evolved beyond equity in access and equity in capabilities to become more inclusive, thereby paving the way for equity in learning outcomes.\nResearch limitations/implications: This study has been conducted in a school which is located in a relatively high socio-economic region. To achieve a more holistic view, there is a need for further studies to be conducted in schools from low socio-economic communities.\nOriginality/value: This paper adds to the existing literature by sharing teacher reflections on their use of innovative pedagogies to bring changes to classroom curricular practice.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Microbiological safety and quality aspects of the short supply chain: SWOT analysis of the Belgian case study
|
[
"Supply chain",
"Food safety",
"Microbiology",
"SWOT analysis"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Developments at the consumer and the farmer level have resulted in a renewed interest in short market channels for foods. Consumers are increasingly motivated by health and environmental concerns, which is expressed by an increased demand for high quality foods (with emphasis on freshness, taste, nutritional quality and safety) and sales direct from source. The short food supply chain, offering locally grown (organic and non-organic) food is a segment seen as a place to buy \"good food\" but also as means to express consumer values associated with food choices (e.g. resource conservation, animal welfare, the revival of a sense of community, enjoyment of cooking, etc.). Rural economy benefits from the increase in activity and profits through direct sales (Berlin et al., 2009; Carey et al., 2011). Typical for the short food supply chains is that there is a face to face or proximate producer-consumer relation and often the producer involved uses this direct contact with the consumer in marketing his products and exchanges information on quality attributes and provenance of the food to the overall more involved and interested consumer who makes his purchases in the short food supply chain.\n2. Material and methods: In November 2012, the Scientific Committee of the FASFC organized a symposium on the food safety of the short supply chain. In the context of this symposium, a working group of experts of the Scientific Committee evaluated the microbiological safety and quality aspects related to the short supply chain.\n3. Results: 3.1. Result of analyses of microbiological hazards and hygiene indicators in dairy products for sale in the short supply chain vs the conventional (long) supply chain\n4. Conclusion: In conclusion, the short supply chain is becoming more and more popular because it markets properties of the products like improved freshness, taste, image and ethical production values. From the Belgian case study performing a SWOT analysis as well as microbiological analyses of dairy products marketed in the short food supply chain, it can be noted that the short supply chain is somewhat more vulnerable to food safety problems. Regional initiatives have been taken in order to help producers comply with the relevant legislation. It is, however, in the interest of consumers and of producers of short supply chain foods to maintain and to further optimize the safety of the food stuffs in order to preserve the excellent image of the foods concerned. The characteristics of the short food supply chain, such as freshness of foods or restricted numbers of processing and transaction steps and employees involved, facilitate efficient implementation of food safety rules. Further investment in guidance, training and networking for exchanging information provided by either public or private organizations to farmers or businesses in the short food supply chain may further enhance the capacity to deliver high quality and safe foods to the consumer.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: In recent years consumers in Belgium have shown a great interest for foods from the short supply chain. The difference with the conventional chain is that in the short supply chain the primary products are locally processed and sold directly by the producer to the consumer. The short supply chain has different microbiological quality and safety aspects in comparison with the conventional chain. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate these aspects.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The methodology consists of analyzing the available scientific literature and results of microbiological analyses on foods from the short supply chain.\nFindings: The main findings were that Listeria monocytogenes was frequently detected (15 percent) in sampled raw dairy products whereas Salmonella was not isolated in 1,023 samples. Human pathogenic vero (cyto) toxin-producing Escherichia coli and Campylobacter spp. are potential hazards, in particular for products that are not thermally treated. Data with regard to E. coli counts showed a greater variability in products from the short supply chain compared to the conventional chain.\nResearch limitations/implications: The paper discusses strengths and weaknesses with impact on microbial quality and safety in operation of food safety management in the short supply chain vs the conventional chain.\nOriginality/value: This is the first paper that assesses the risks from the short supply chain vs the conventional chain and that makes recommendations for operators in the short supply chain.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
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