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1 – 10 of 39Abraham Zakaria, Shaibu Baanni Azumah, Gilbert Dagunga and Mark Appiah-Twumasi
The purpose of this study is to estimate the profitability of rice production for irrigated and rain-fed farmers; determine the factors that influence farmers' decision to…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to estimate the profitability of rice production for irrigated and rain-fed farmers; determine the factors that influence farmers' decision to participate in irrigation and the impact of irrigation on rice farmers' profitability in northern Ghana.
Design/methodology/approach
Using cross-sectional data collected from 543 rice farmers in northern Ghana, the study employed both non-parametric (cost benefit analysis) and parametric (endogenous switching regression) approaches to analyse the data.
Findings
The empirical results reveal a significant difference between the profits of irrigated (GHS 2442.30) and rain-fed farmers (GHS 576.20), as well as the cost-benefit ratios between irrigators (2.53) and rain-fed farmers (1.37). Also, participation in irrigation was found to be influenced by relatively small farm size and off-farm income; while profitability was influenced by membership in a farmer-based organization, access to agricultural extension services and perception of decreasing rainfall intensity. Irrigation also had a positive significant net impact on profitability of rice production.
Research limitations/implications
The results provide justification for development partners and the government of Ghana through the “one-village-one-dam” policy, to invest in irrigation in northern Ghana in order to improve household welfare as well as build resilience for sustainable production systems.
Originality/value
This study is the first of its kind to provide a robust analysis of the difference in profits of rain-fed and irrigated rice farmers while estimating the determinants of Ghanaian farmers' choice of either of the regimes within a bias-corrected framework.
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Kamarulzaman Nordin, Mohd Ariff Jamaludin, Mansur Ahmad, Hashim W. Samsi, Abdul Hamid Salleh and Zaihan Jalaludin
This paper discusses the results from the initiative that has been undertaken to utilize residues from oil palm re‐plantation, particularly the oil palm trunk (OPT) for the…
Abstract
This paper discusses the results from the initiative that has been undertaken to utilize residues from oil palm re‐plantation, particularly the oil palm trunk (OPT) for the production of laminated veneer lumber (LVL). Efficient use of such residues is vital in order to minimize the environmental burdens associated with the disposal of the oil palm residues, thus ensuring the future growth of Malaysian palm oil industry. The bending and compression strength of the OPT LVL produced were accessed and compared with Malaysian oak (formerly known as rubberwood), timber species that is commonly used in the manufacture of furniture in Malaysia. Properties of OPT LVL were found almost comparable to solid Malaysian oak in terms of bending and compression strength. Combination of OPT veneers with several layers of Malaysian oak veneers during the process of LVL manufacturing has resulted in the improvement in bending and compression strength of the LVL as compared to those produced entirely from OPT. In addition, such practice also produced LVL board with far less variation in strength properties as compared to solid OPT properties. With further research and development embarked upon the gluability of the OPT materials, the overall performance of the OPT LVL could be improved for commercial utilization of OPT wastes in the near future. Development higher value‐added by‐products from oil palm industry residues, would benefit the industry through reduction of the overall environmental burden and would place it on a new environmentally sustainable platform.
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Morteza Rahimi, Nima Jafari Navimipour, Mehdi Hosseinzadeh, Mohammad Hossein Moattar and Aso Darwesh
This paper follows a systematic literature review (SLR) method covering the published studies until March 2021. The authors have extracted the related studies from different…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper follows a systematic literature review (SLR) method covering the published studies until March 2021. The authors have extracted the related studies from different online databases utilizing quality-assessment-criteria. In order to review high-quality studies, 32 papers have been chosen through the paper selection process. The selected papers have been categorized into three main groups, decision-making methods (17 papers), meta-heuristic methods (8 papers) and fuzzy-based methods (7 papers). The existing methods in each group have been examined based on important qualitative parameters, namely, time, cost, scalability, efficiency, availability and reliability.
Design/methodology/approach
Cloud computing is known as one of the superior technologies to perform large-scale and complex computing. With the growing tendency of network service users to utilize cloud computing, web service providers are encouraged to provide services with various functional and non-functional features and supply them in a service pool. In this regard, choosing the most appropriate services to fulfill users' requirements becomes a challenging problem. Since the problem of service selection in a cloud environment is known as a nondeterministic polynomial time (NP)-hard problem, many efforts have been made in recent years. Therefore, this paper aims to study and assess the existing service selection approaches in cloud computing.
Findings
The obtained results indicate that in decision-making methods, the assignment of proper weights to the criteria has a high impact on service ranking accuracy. Also, since service selection in cloud computing is known as an NP-hard problem, utilizing meta-heuristic algorithms to solve this problem offers interesting advantages compared to other approaches in discovering better solutions with less computational effort and moving quickly toward very good solutions. On the other hand, since fuzzy-based service selection approaches offer search results visually and cover quality of service (QoS) requirements of users, this kind of method is able to facilitate enhanced user experience.
Research limitations/implications
Although the current paper aimed to provide a comprehensive study, there were some limitations. Since the authors have applied some filters to select the studies, some effective works may have been ignored. Generally, this paper has focused on journal papers and some effective works published in conferences. Moreover, the works published in non-English formats have been excluded. To discover relevant studies, the authors have chosen Google Scholar as a popular electronic database. Although Google Scholar can offer the most valid approaches, some suitable papers may not be observed during the process of article selection.
Practical implications
The outcome of the current paper will be useful and valuable for scholars, and it can be a roadmap to help future researchers enrich and improve their innovations. By assessing the recent efforts in service selection in cloud computing and offering an up-to-date comparison of the discussed works, this paper can be a solid foundation for understanding the different aspects of service selection.
Originality/value
Although service selection approaches have essential impacts on cloud computing, there is still a lack of a detailed and comprehensive study about reviewing and assessing existing mechanisms in this field. Therefore, the current paper adopts a systematic method to cover this gap. The obtained results in this paper can help the researchers interested in the field of service selection. Generally, the authors have aimed to specify existing challenges, characterize the efficient efforts and suggest some directions for upcoming studies.
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Abraham Bernstein, Peter Vorburger and Patrice Egger
People are subjected to a multitude of interruptions. In order to manage these interruptions it is imperative to predict a person's interruptability – his/her current readiness or…
Abstract
Purpose
People are subjected to a multitude of interruptions. In order to manage these interruptions it is imperative to predict a person's interruptability – his/her current readiness or inclination to be interrupted. This paper aims to introduce the approach of direct interruptability inference from sensor streams (accelerometer and audio data) in a ubiquitous computing setup and to show that it provides highly accurate and robust predictions.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors argue that scenarios are central for evaluating the performance of ubiquitous computing devices (and interruptability predicting devices in particular) and prove this on the setup employed, which was based on that of Kern and Schiele.
Findings
The paper demonstrates that scenarios provide the foundation for avoiding misleading results, and provide the basis for a stratified scenario‐based learning model, which greatly speeds up the training of such devices.
Practical implications
The direct prediction seems to be competitive or even superior to indirect prediction methods and no drawbacks have been observed yet.
Originality/value
The paper introduces a method for accurately predicting a person's interruptability directly from simple sensors without any intermediate steps/symbols.
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Zakaria Maamar, Quan Z. Sheng, Samir Tata, Djamal Benslimane and Mohamed Sellami
In any critical system, high‐availability of software components like web services has so far been achieved through replication. Three replication strategies known as active…
Abstract
Purpose
In any critical system, high‐availability of software components like web services has so far been achieved through replication. Three replication strategies known as active, passive, and hybrid, describe for example how many replicas are needed, where to locate replicas, and how replicas interact with the original web service and among themselves if needed. The purpose of this paper is to show how replicates could be substituted with components that are similarly functional to the component that needs back‐up in case of failure.
Design/methodology/approach
After examination of the different existing replication strategies, it was decided to test the suitability of the proposed web services high‐availability approach based on communities for each strategy. To this end, the specification of web services using two behaviors, namely control and operational, was deemed appropriate.
Findings
The active replication strategy is the only strategy that could support the development of a web services high‐availability approach based on communities of web services.
Practical implications
The proposed approach has been validated in practice by deploying a JXTA‐based testbed. The experimental work has implemented the active replication strategy.
Originality/value
Software component high‐availability could be achieved by components that are similarly functional to this component, which permits the common limitations of existing replication strategies to be addressed.
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Chandani Khandelwal, Satish Kumar and Deepak Verma
The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the existing literature on financial risk disclosure by examining a sample of non-financial Indian companies listed on the Bombay…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the existing literature on financial risk disclosure by examining a sample of non-financial Indian companies listed on the Bombay stock exchange (BSE) to explore the degree of information about financial risks contained in their annual reports.
Design/methodology/approach
To study the financial risk disclosure of Indian companies, a sample of 206 non-financial companies has been derived from the top 500 listed companies at BSE. The method used in this study to analyze risk disclosure is content analysis. A total of 1,854 annual reports are scanned through software Nvivo-12 to find different types of risk words. Overall, risk disclosure, category wise risk disclosure, year-wise risk disclosure and sector-wise risk disclosure are assessed. The risk disclosure index is also computed.
Findings
The results show that there are some risk disclosure practices in Indian companies. No general pattern is observed. Companies are following vague method of risk disclosure. In the true sense, Indian companies are now started risk disclosure practices since 2018. This may be because of pressure from regulating bodies and stakeholders with greater detail about their financial risks.
Originality/value
This study is carried out for Indian non-financial companies. The paper adds to the literature relating to financial risk disclosure in developing countries.
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Ibrahim Adeshola, Dokun Oluwajana, Abraham Ayobamiji Awosusi and Olukunle Samuel Sogeke
This study examines how cultural dimensions' influence management style and organizational culture in a multicultural environment.
Abstract
Purpose
This study examines how cultural dimensions' influence management style and organizational culture in a multicultural environment.
Design/methodology/approach
This study adopts a quantitative approach to achieve these objectives, with 270 questionnaires obtained from employees working in a multicultural environment. The resulting data was analyzed using the PLS-SEM statistical approach.
Findings
The study results suggest that organizations should prioritize their integrity using the influence of cultural diversity, management styles, organization culture and social interactivity to achieve different dimensions of human satisfaction.
Practical implications
The results in general present a statistically significant positive effect of power distance, masculinity/femininity and uncertainty avoidance on organizational culture, indicating that disposition to organizational culture has a significant role in trust development, particularly in diverse cultures.
Originality/value
The influence of organizational culture on organizational performance cannot be ignored in a multicultural workplace, especially when it is related to employee performance and commitment. As the world globalizes, many organizations are facing the challenge of cultural differences. Therefore, it is necessary to examine how cultural dimensions affect management style and organizational culture. As a result, this study further considers the empirical evidence of work engagement and its impact on employee satisfaction.
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Azlan Amran, Abdul Manaf Rosli Bin and Bin Che Haat Mohd Hassan
The purpose of this paper is to explore the availability of risk disclosures in the annual reports of Malaysian companies by focusing on the non‐financial section of the reports…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the availability of risk disclosures in the annual reports of Malaysian companies by focusing on the non‐financial section of the reports. In addition, the paper aims to empirically test the sampled companies' characteristics and to compare the levels of risk faced by these companies with the disclosures made.
Design/methodology/approach
The method used in this study is content analysis. A total of 100 listed companies' annual reports were analyzed in order to trace the extent of risk disclosure and the relationship against firm characteristic and diversification strategy were tested. Stakeholder theory was used in explaining the linkages between the variables.
Findings
The total number of sentences dedicated for discussion of risk information by the sampled Malaysian companies is very much less when compared to a 2006 study done by Lisley and Shrives in the UK. Size does matter and proven significant by the regression results. This finding is expected and explainable from stakeholder theory.
Research limitations/implications
Future research is encouraged to look deeper into the different variables that may be involved. The development of a local risk measurement checklist will help researchers to better reflect on the findings in the local context.
Practical implications
Findings in regards of the current state of risk disclosure should be of concern to relevant reg ulatory bodies.
Originality/value
This paper provides an initial understanding of risk management disclosure practices in Malaysia. The government, through various relevant parties, should devise the means to enhance companies' involvement in risk management disclosure practices.
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Fredrik Karlsson, Joachim Åström and Martin Karlsson
The aim of this paper is to survey existing information security culture research to scrutinise the kind of knowledge that has been developed and the way in which this knowledge…
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this paper is to survey existing information security culture research to scrutinise the kind of knowledge that has been developed and the way in which this knowledge has been brought about.
Design/methodology/approach
Results are based on a literature review of information security culture research published between 2000 and 2013 (December).
Findings
This paper can conclude that existing research has focused on a broad set of research topics, but with limited depth. It is striking that the effects of different information security cultures have not been part of that focus. Moreover, existing research has used a small repertoire of research methods, a repertoire that is more limited than in information systems research in general. Furthermore, an extensive part of the research is descriptive, philosophical or theoretical – lacking a structured use of empirical data – which means that it is quite immature.
Research limitations/implications
Findings call for future research that: addresses the effects of different information security cultures; addresses the identified research topics with greater depth; focuses more on generating theories or testing theories to increase the maturity of this subfield of information security research; and uses a broader set of research methods. It would be particularly interesting to see future studies that use intervening or ethnographic approaches because, to date, these have been completely lacking in existing research.
Practical implications
Findings show that existing research is, to a large extent, descriptive, philosophical or theoretical. Hence, it is difficult for practitioners to adopt these research results, such as frameworks for cultivating or assessment tools, which have not been empirically validated.
Originality/value
Few state-of-the-art reviews have sought to assess the maturity of existing research on information security culture. Findings on types of research methods used in information security culture research extend beyond the existing knowledge base, which allows for a critical discussion about existing research in this sub-discipline of information security.
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Yimin Yang, Yuefeng Su, Lulu Yang and Xiongwang Zeng
This paper aims to establish a systematic cognition to alleviate the supply–demand contradiction in rural financial markets from an integrated perspective of knowledge management…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to establish a systematic cognition to alleviate the supply–demand contradiction in rural financial markets from an integrated perspective of knowledge management and proposes the concept of rural financial knowledge ecosystem (RFKE) to encourage multifaceted solutions.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors qualitatively describe the process that the knowledge management dilemmas cause the supply–demand contradiction in the rural finance and further summarize a systematic methodology from three dimensions: the knowledge subject, the knowledge environment and the knowledge ecology.
Findings
The authors list four types of knowledge management dilemmas leading to the supply–demand contradiction in the rural finance, i.e. the weak knowledge sharing, the poor knowledge flow, the slow knowledge updating and the imperfect knowledge environment. Meanwhile, the RFKE model consisting of the ecological subject, the ecological environment and the ecological regulation is also presented.
Research limitations/implications
The role of knowledge management in improving the allocation of financial resources to various rural financial market participants (government, rural financial institutions, farmers, agricultural enterprises, etc.).
Originality/value
The authors creatively give the RFKE model, which complements and enriches the theory of knowledge management. Meanwhile, relevant management practices are urgently needed under the macro circumstance of the COVID-19 pandemic and the rural revitalization in China.
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