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1 – 10 of over 10000Mikko Vermanen, Minna M. Rantanen and Ville Harkke
This study aims to investigate the ethical issues related to the internet of Things (IoT) deployment in small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from an individual employee's…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the ethical issues related to the internet of Things (IoT) deployment in small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from an individual employee's perspective. To provide researchers and practitioners with concrete tools for examining these matters, an ethical framework dedicated to IoT is introduced.
Design/methodology/approach
First, the applicability of Mason's original privacy, accuracy, property and accessibility (PAPA) framework is studied in the IoT context. Second, issue category additions are proposed based on the identified coverage limitations of PAPA.
Findings
While the original PAPA framework can be utilised as a generic ethical evaluation tool, it lacks coverage of several IoT-specific issue areas. To thoroughly address the ethical risks associated with IoT, two additional categories are introduced.
Research limitations/implications
The new framework requires further validation to ensure its applicability and to identify potential modification requirements in continuously evolving IoT ecosystems.
Practical implications
Considering the lack of ethical IoT frameworks, this study provides organisations with a practical framework for analysing the ethical issues in IoT deployment.
Social implications
Ethical standards for IoT have not been sufficiently addressed in the current literature and frameworks, making the ethical considerations dependent on subjective stances. Thus, there is an acute demand for a practical framework that outlines the general ethical standards, helping its users to thoroughly address the potential ethical issues.
Originality/value
While the use of IoT keeps growing in SMEs, there is an apparent lack of ethical guidelines. This study contributes to the gap by introducing a preliminary framework for both practical use and further theoretical development.
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Sarah J.R. Cummings and Diana E. Lopez
To interrogate the grand narrative of “entrepreneurship for development” that dominates international development circles, by applying a feminist critical discourse analysis that…
Abstract
Purpose
To interrogate the grand narrative of “entrepreneurship for development” that dominates international development circles, by applying a feminist critical discourse analysis that prioritizes women's situated experiences as local stories.
Design/methodology/approach
Two existing frameworks for analysing women's entrepreneurship, namely the 5M (Brush et al., 2009) and the 8M (Abuhussein and Koburtay, 2021) frameworks, are used to examine the local stories of women in rural Ethiopia to provide a counter-narrative to the grand narrative of “entrepreneurship for development”. The local stories are derived from 16 focus group discussions and 32 interviews.
Findings
The findings provide a counter-narrative to the grand narrative of “entrepreneurship for development”, evident in Ethiopia and in international development generally, while demonstrating larger structural issues at play. They challenge entrepreneurship's solely positive effects. While women recognize the benefits of having a business, particularly in terms of financial gains, empowerment and social recognition, they also highlight negative consequences, including uncertainty, concerns for their own personal safety, criticism, stress, limited social life and fear of indebtedness and poverty.
Practical implications
Policymakers, scholars and development professionals are urged to reflect on the limitations of “entrepreneurship for development” and to consider the negative effects that promoting an acritical grand narrative of entrepreneurship could have on women's lives.
Originality/value
The article advances an innovative partnership between feminist analysis and established women's entrepreneurship frameworks to contest dominant assumptions in the fields of entrepreneurship and international development studies. It adds to the limited empirical evidence on women's entrepreneurial activity in Ethiopia, tests the adequacy of the 5M and 8M frameworks in the rural low-income context of Ethiopia, and proposes a 7+M framework as an alternative to study rural women's entrepreneurship in low and middle income countries.
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Albert Anton Traxler, Dorothea Greiling, Margit Freinbichler and Petra Mayerhofer
While in the past companies have voluntarily disclosed information beyond the financial bottom line, there is now a trend toward mandatory reporting in many countries. With the…
Abstract
Purpose
While in the past companies have voluntarily disclosed information beyond the financial bottom line, there is now a trend toward mandatory reporting in many countries. With the adoption of Directive 2014/95/EU, the European Union has taken a decisive step in this direction. However, research on the effects of these obligations is still at an early stage, particularly regarding Directive 2014/95/EU. Therefore, this paper aims to pursue the question of whether the directive has led to an improvement in reporting.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors analyzed the reporting of the EURO STOXX 50 companies before and after the directive entered into force. To evaluate the improvement, the authors assigned the individual Global Reporting Initiative indicators to the different information requirements of the directive.
Findings
Overall, the authors’ study revealed an improvement in reporting. However, this does not apply to all information categories. A significant improvement can be seen regarding the information on policies and due diligence, principal risk and non-financial key performance indicators. Institutional theory suggests that the observed improvements among these reporting-experienced companies can be understood as the result of coercive pressure triggered by the directive’s requirements.
Originality/value
The authors’ study contributes to the debate on the impact of non-financial reporting obligations by providing empirical insights into the effects of Directive 2014/95/EU. These insights can inform political and managerial decision-making, particularly in view of increasing reporting obligations.
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Keith Still, Marina Papalexi, Yiyi Fan and David Bamford
This paper aims to explore the development and application of place crowd safety management tools for areas of public assembly and major events, from a practitioner perspective.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore the development and application of place crowd safety management tools for areas of public assembly and major events, from a practitioner perspective.
Design/methodology/approach
The crowd safety risk assessment model is known as design, information, management-ingress, circulation, egress (DIM-ICE) (Still, 2009) is implemented to optimise crowd safety and potentially throughput. Three contrasting case studies represent examples of some of the world’s largest and most challenging crowd safety projects.
Findings
The paper provides some insight into how the DIM-ICE model can be used to aid strategic planning at major events, assess potential crowd risks and to avoid potential crowd safety issues.
Practical implications
It provides further clarity to what effective place management practice is. Evidence-based on the case studies demonstrates that the application of the DIM-ICE model is useful for recognising potential place crowd safety issues and identifying areas for require improvement.
Originality/value
Crowd science is an emerging field of research, which is primarily motivated by place crowd safety issues in congested places; the application and reporting of an evidence-based model (i.e. DIM-ICE model) add to this. The paper addresses a research gap related to the implementation of analytic tools in characterising place crowd dynamics.
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Hans Landström, Jonas Gabrielsson, Diamanto Politis and Roger Sørheim
In this study, the authors develop knowledge and insights on how the perception of interestingness influences the structure and focus of conversations in entrepreneurial education…
Abstract
Purpose
In this study, the authors develop knowledge and insights on how the perception of interestingness influences the structure and focus of conversations in entrepreneurial education (EE) research. In particular, the authors elaborate on what is perceived as interesting among different subgroups of EE researchers, and not least, how EE researchers can identify and engage in scholarly conversation within the field.
Design/methodology/approach
The study is based on a unique database with web-based responses from 465 EE researchers from around the world. The authors conduct analyses of both open-ended and closed questions. The open-ended questions are analyzed by inductive categorization. The closed questions are subject to factor and cluster analyses.
Findings
The findings suggest that EE research is a topic-oriented field, characterized by a strong focus on novel and challenging research issues. In addition, the field is individualistic and fragmented, and the perception of interestingness differs between five subgroups of EE researchers, whose members have a somewhat different perception of interestingness. Accordingly, the authors also find different core conversations going on within the field. Obviously, these conversations tend to be triggered by the field's obsession with novelty and challenging research, but several conversations are related to practically relevant research, as well as methodological and theoretical discussions.
Originality/value
This is the first study to elaborate on the perception of interestingness among EE researchers and the conversations going on within the field. In the study the authors have explored the characteristics of EE research based on the perception of interestingness among the researchers within the field. In this respect, this study contributes insights on how current and aspiring EE researchers can find and build scholarly conversations embedded in passionate interest, while concurrently disseminating and accumulating knowledge on EE together with like-minded peers.
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Pablo Leão, Caio Coelho, Carla Campana and Marina Henriques Viotto
The present study aims to investigate an unsuccessful implementation of an active learning methodology. Active learning methods have emerged in order to improve learning processes…
Abstract
Purpose
The present study aims to investigate an unsuccessful implementation of an active learning methodology. Active learning methods have emerged in order to improve learning processes and increase students' roles in the classroom. Most studies on the subject focus on developing learning strategies based on successful implementations of such methods. Nevertheless, critical reflections on unsuccessful cases might also provide material for developing further contributions to this literature.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors conducted an intrinsic case study of an unsuccessful application of the flipped classroom method to an undergraduate basic statistics course at a Brazilian business school. The data collected comprised the course's syllabus, evaluation forms and two rounds of interviews with students and the professor.
Findings
The findings indicate that, apart from that which had been mapped by past literature, three additional aspects may limit the chances of successfully implementing a flipped classroom methodology: students' educational backgrounds, the course's structural issues and methodological and relational issues.
Originality/value
The present study contributes to the literature on active learning methodologies mainly by mapping additional aspects that should be considered in the implementation of the flipped classroom methodology. Additionally, the authors investigate an unsuccessful case of such an implementation, an investigation that is still scant within this literature.
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Scalar terms, such as “local” and “global,” “big” and “small” are fundamental in how academics and practitioners make sense of and respond to grand challenges. Yet, scale is so…
Abstract
Scalar terms, such as “local” and “global,” “big” and “small” are fundamental in how academics and practitioners make sense of and respond to grand challenges. Yet, scale is so taken-for-granted that we rarely question or critically reflect on the concept and how it is used. The aim of this paper is to identify scale as an important concept in research on grand challenges and to point out why taking scale for granted can be problematic. In particular, I suggest that to date most research on grand challenges sees scale as a fundamental ontological feature of the world. Yet, scalar categories and hierarchies are not as self-evident and given as they may seem. Moreover, taking scale as an ontological fixed category limits our ability to make sense of, theorize and respond to grand challenges. As an alternative, I suggest seeing scale as an epistemological frame that participants employ in their everyday practices to make sense of, navigate and develop solutions to grand challenges. The chapter concludes with a research agenda for studying scale as socially constructed in practice.
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Elizabeth Whitworth, Angela Druckman and Amy Woodward
The purpose of this paper is to describe the development of a comprehensive categorisation of food scares.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to describe the development of a comprehensive categorisation of food scares.
Design/methodology/approach
Following an initial desktop study, the categorisation was developed collaboratively with industry experts through a workshop and series of semi-structured interviews.
Findings
The new categorisation developed is in Venn diagram format allowing overlapping categories. It is organised around the two major types of contamination (biological, and chemical/physical contaminants) and the two major causes of contamination (wilful deception, and transparency and awareness issues).
Practical implications
The long and complex supply chains characteristic of current food production systems have resulted in a rising number of food scares. There is thus an increased emphasis on developing strategies to reduce both the number of incidents of food scares, and their associated economic, social and environmental impacts. The new categorisation developed in this study enables experts to address categories of food scares. Inclusion of the cause of contamination is particularly important as the method through which contamination occurs is key in devising food scare prevention strategies.
Originality/value
The new categorisation, unlike previous categorisations, enables food scares to fall into multiple categories, as appropriate. Also, again in contrast to previous categorisations, it takes into account not only the physical problem of a food scare but also the mechanism through which it arises.
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Charlot Cassar, Ida Oosterheert and Paulien C. Meijer
Controversial issues characterize life in democratic societies, and they often arise unexpectedly in the classroom, without being planned for by the teacher. However…
Abstract
Controversial issues characterize life in democratic societies, and they often arise unexpectedly in the classroom, without being planned for by the teacher. However, controversial issues are rarely addressed beyond a mandatory curriculum and are often avoided. The aim of this exploratory study is to investigate what teachers identify and address as unplanned controversial issues in the classroom and the content of such issues. Unplanned controversial issues identified fell into three categories (1) mainstream controversy, (2) teacher-initiated controversy, and (3) controversial pedagogy. The findings suggest that more attention needs to be paid, among other things, to the political dimension of education, teacher vulnerability, and who the person in teaching is.
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Marjan Hocevar and Tomaz Bartol
The purpose of this study is to identify research perspectives/clusters in the field of urban tourism (city tourism) in narrow sense and tourism cities (cities and tourism) in the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to identify research perspectives/clusters in the field of urban tourism (city tourism) in narrow sense and tourism cities (cities and tourism) in the broader sense to examine the complex relationship through the optics of science mapping. This paper believes that the existing qualitative assessments of this field can be experimentally verified and visualized.
Design/methodology/approach
First, the key conceptual dilemmas of research perspectives in urban tourism are highlighted. Based on the Web of Science (WOS) Core Collection and the VOSviewer (computer program for visualizing bibliometric networks), the data will be analyzed. Clustering is used to evaluate information retrieval (inclusivity or selectivity of the search query), publication patterns (journal articles), author keywords, terminology and to identify the respective cities and author collaborations between countries.
Findings
Terminological specificities and their contextuality (authors’ preferences) are elaborated, as the topic is studied by authors from different disciplinary fields. Compared to other specific tourisms, urban tourism includes geographic terms (variations of city names) and terms with different connotations (travelers, visitors). Recent Spanish (also Portuguese) linguistic/geographic contexts are noticeable and a strong presence of WOS Emerging Sources Citation Index papers. Research perspectives are represented in the network of clusters of connected terms. If the search is based on a narrower sense of strict urban tourism, then tourism-business topics predominate. If tourism and cities are less closely linked, socio-cultural and environmental-spatial perspectives emerge, as does tourism/cities vulnerability (climate change and health issues).
Research limitations/implications
The construction of a search syntax for the purpose of retrieval is always marked by compromises, given different terminological usages. A narrow search query will miss many relevant documents. On the other hand, if the query is too general, it returns less relevant documents. To this end, this paper tested queries on three different levels of inclusivity or selectivity. More consistent use of terms would benefit authors in the field of urban tourism when searching for references (information retrieval) and, as a consequence, would allow better integration of the field.
Practical implications
This study provides a practical method for evaluating cities and tourism in combining the expertise of an information scientist and a sociologist. It points out numerous caveats in information retrieval. It offers an overview of publishing just prior to the outbreak of Covid-19, thus providing an opportunity for further comparative studies.
Originality/value
This study is the first to examine urban tourism using such a method and can serve as a complement to the existing systematization of qualitative approaches. The findings are consistent with numerous qualitative assessments of weak the research interconnection between the specifics of cities and tourism in terms of broader socio-spatial processes. However, the study suggests that such research linkage is increasing, which is noticeable in relation to issues of social sustainability (e.g. overtourism, Airbnb and touristification).
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