Search results

Software developers extensively use stack overflow (SO) for knowledge sharing on software development. Thus, software engineering researchers have started mining the structured/unstructured data present in certain software repositories including the Q&A software developer community SO, with the aim to improve software development. The purpose of this paper is show that how academics/practitioners can get benefit from the valuable user-generated content shared on various online social networks, specifically from Q&A community SO for software development.

A comprehensive literature review was conducted and 166 research papers on SO were categorized about software development from the inception of SO till June 2016.

Most of the studies revolve around a limited number of software development tasks; approximately 70 percent of the papers used millions of posts data, applied basic machine learning methods, and conducted investigations semi-automatically and quantitative studies. Thus, future research should focus on the overcoming existing identified challenges and gaps.

The work on SO is classified into two main categories; “SO design and usage” and “SO content applications.” These categories not only give insights to Q&A forum providers about the shortcomings in design and usage of such forums but also provide ways to overcome them in future. It also enables software developers to exploit such forums for the identified under-utilized tasks of software development.

The study is the first of its kind to explore the work on SO about software development and makes an original contribution by presenting a comprehensive review, design/usage shortcomings of Q&A sites, and future research challenges.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of electronic collaboration (e-collaboration) including information sharing, resource sharing and joint knowledge creation in value creation within pharmaceutical supply chain (SC) and achieving competitive priorities for pharmaceutical companies in Jordan.

A descriptive analytical methodology was used through a comprehensive review of published and unpublished work from secondary sources of information in the areas of specific interest: e-collaboration and competitive priorities. The study was conducted at Jordan Food and Drug Administration (JFDA) (of which many pharmaceutical companies are linked electronically through JFDA workflow system). Data were collected (using paper questionnaire) from 90 electronically collaborating pharmaceutical companies and 81 complete responses were received, forming a 90 percent response rate. The analysis of collected data was performed using partial least square structure equation modeling.

The results of the analysis indicated that e-collaboration dimensions, information sharing and resource sharing, have a positive impact on competitive priorities, while joint knowledge creation was not significantly related to them. The results suggest that value creation in SC electronic systems is contingent on mutual resource synergy and joint collaboration among trading partners.

The sample size for this study does not include all pharmaceutical companies in Jordan, as this electronic linkage within the pharmaceutical companies is at its early stage. Moreover, competitive priorities examined in this research are limited to a single industry context.

This study offers a new insight into information technologies (IT)/business values that can be beneficial to IT and SC managers. By proposing the association between e-collaboration activities and competitive priorities, IT and SC managers are provided with a useful tool to link IT with collaborative activities that lead to value creation. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is one of the early studies about e-collaboration in pharmaceutical SC and competitive priorities in Jordan. As such, managers of manufacturing companies can use the outcome of this study to establish more collaborative partnerships within their SCs. This research contributes to encouraging pharmaceutical firms to focus on their export and marketing capabilities regionally and abroad which would establish a globally competitive pharmaceutical technology industry in Jordan.

It reveals that the adoption of IT alone to manage SC relationships is not sufficient to generate value. Both information- and resource-sharing activities are the core to do so .The results suggest that value creation in SC electronic systems is contingent on mutual resource synergy and joint collaboration among trading partners. The results of the analysis indicated that the dimension of e-collaboration, joint knowledge creation, was not significantly related to competitive priorities.

This study offers a contextual contribution. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is one of the early studies about e-collaboration in pharmaceutical SC and competitive priorities in Jordan.

This study explores central questions related to the connection between intellectual capital (IC) and the innovative performance of organizations through the mediating role of management control systems (MCS) and business strategies, as well as the moderating role of innovation capabilities.

The data was collected from the managers of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) through a structured questionnaire. Out of 1,152 questionnaires distributed, only 415 were used for analysis purposes. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to test the study hypotheses.

Intellectual capital significantly influences MCS, business strategies and innovative performance. Moreover, MCS, business strategies and innovative capabilities significantly improve innovative performance. MCS and business strategies significantly mediate the relationship between intellectual capital and innovative performance. Finally, innovative capabilities significantly moderate that between intellectual capital and innovative performance.

The current research examines how management should use MCS, business strategies, and innovative capabilities to take maximum benefit from intellectual capital in order to improve innovative performance.

This is pioneering research that develops a theoretical model to incorporate intellectual capital, MCS, business strategies, innovative capabilities and innovative performance. Even though the influence of various kinds of intangible assets/resources on innovative performance has been widely examined in the literature, scant attention has been paid to the role of MCS, business strategies, and innovative capabilities in leveraging the firm's intellectual capital.

Lean management is a contemporary management system that firms adopt to boost their performance. Lean management can be integrated with human resources management to develop a new concept of lean human resources management (LHRM). This entails the implementation of several practices. However, the LHRM–performance paradigm remains underexplored in the literature. Hence, this study aims to examine the interrelationships between LHRM practices and the impacts of those practices on firm performance (FP).

Using two equal-sized samples (n = 250 each) of manufacturing firms in Jordan and Germany, this study proposes two structural equation models (i.e. a Jordanian and a German models) depicting the interrelationships between LHRM practices and the impacts of those practices on FP. After testing these models, a comparison between them is conducted, producing findings with theoretical and practical implications.

The main findings of this study indicate that the average implementation of LHRM practices among German manufacturing firms is at a higher level than the average implementation among Jordanian firms. The findings also support the proposed interrelationships between LHRM practices and the impact of those practices on FP for both the Jordanian and German models.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is among the first to highlight the proposed relationships, both in general and in the context of comparing developed and developing countries. Its findings have important implications that can enable manufacturing managers to benefit from the implementation of LHRM practices to enhance FP in different contexts. These findings provide valuable insights for human resource managers and decision-makers and open several avenues for future research.

Vaccine preventable diseases are major threats to the health and well-being of children under five years of age. They contribute a great deal to childhood illnesses and disabilities, and are accountable for a high percentage of childhood mortality worldwide. In Nigeria, the government has made a lot of effort to provide immunizations against these childhood diseases. It is however sad to note that many children still do not complete their routine immunization. The purpose of this paper is to determine factors which influence mothers’ compliance with childhood immunization.

This was a descriptive study carried out among 600 mothers of under-five children randomly selected from nine postnatal clinics in Ekiti State between January and August 2016. A self-structured validated questionnaire containing items to explore demographic characteristics of respondents, compliance with child immunization (Cronbach’s α=0.92) and determinants of compliance (Cronbach’s α=0.83) was the instrument for data collection. Multiple regression analysis was used to identify determinants of mothers’ compliance with childhood immunization.

The level of compliance of mothers with childhood immunization was high (80 percent). The two factors which contributed significantly to mothers’ compliance were the mothers’ knowledge of childhood immunization (β weight= 0.243) and mothers’ educational status (β weight=0.169). Mothers with tertiary education had the highest level of compliance (76.8 percent).

Having good knowledge of childhood immunization and a high educational status positively influence a mothers’ compliance with child immunization.

With over 3,000 academic journals in the fields of Business and Economics, most academics face a hard time selecting an adequate journal to submit their work to. In today's demanding academic environment and with the presence of different journal ranking lists (JRLs), the selection becomes more difficult when considering employment, promotion and funding. The purpose of this paper is to explore key differences among multiple JRLs pertinent to the latter common objectives. An extensive analysis is conducted to compare the content of journals in the Australian Business Deans Council (ABDC) Journal Quality list, Scopus and Web of Science (WoS) in the fields of Business and Economics. Then, a case of a university with medium research output is considered where scholarly performance evaluation is based on the ABDC Journal Quality List.

After ranking journals in the fields of Business and Economics based on SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) indicator, JCR's Journal Impact Factor (JIF) and JCR's Eigenfactor (EF), a methodology is proposed to categorize journals in the three JRLs into the same categorization adopted by ABDC. The latter establishes a way to compare the four JRLs under consideration and serves as a basis to compare and analyze the content of journals in the ABDC Journal Quality list, Scopus and WoS. As a proxy impact metric, a normalized citation count is associated with each article based on Google Scholar. The publications of the considered university are then evaluated from the perspective of the four JRLs in terms of citation-based impact and quality while considering the exposure to popular world university ranking tables.

For journals classified under fourth tier by ABDC, over 53 and 59% are not indexed by Scopus and WoS, respectively. In this case study, over 42% of the publications appear in journals that are not listed in JCR despite the fact that over 94% of them are listed by the SJR list. Generally, publications that appear in journals listed by JCR achieve, on a yearly average, significantly higher citation rates when compared to those that appear in journals listed in ABDC and SJR Lists.

A four-tier mapping is proposed for consistent comparison among JRLs. Normalized citation count associated with each article based on Google Scholar is employed for evaluation. The findings provide recommendations for scholars, administrators and global universities, including Euro-Med Universities, on which JRL can be more influential for both faculty development and positioning of the university.

Existing research on knowledge management processes (KMPs) and absorptive capacity (ACAP) is primarily conceptual and descriptive in nature, and empirical research confirming the real impact of KMPs when developing ACAP is lacking. Furthermore, the relationship between ACAP and organizational performance (OP) has not been adequately studied. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to introduce a comprehensive, delineated and integrated conceptual model which encompasses KMPs, ACAP and OP. Then, an empirical investigation is undertaken to test the relationships among the proposed study model variables.

In total, 245 questionnaires were useable. Partial least square 3.3.3 is utilized to examine the validity of the measurement model and test the hypotheses.

The findings of this study suggest that KMPs influence ACAP and ACAP affects OP. Finally, the results show that KMPs affect OP directly and indirectly through ACAP (mediator).

The results of this study help managers to ascertain the managerial practices that can be employed as well as determine the level of effort and resources necessary to enhance ACAP. Additionally, managers should shed additional light on the ACAP's positive implications for OP.

This study focuses on the conceptualization of KMP and empirically tests the effect of these individual processes on ACAP and on OP. Finally, the relationship between KMPs and OP, although implied, needs to be addressed empirically in the research literature through utilizing ACAP as mediator between KMPs and OP, this appears to be the first study to try to achieve this main objective.