Search results

Respondents’ comments to the LibQUAL+™ spring 2001 survey were examined to refine the instrument and reduce non‐sampling error. Using qualitative data analysis software, Atlas.ti, respondents’ unsolicited e‐mail messages were analyzed. Results showed that the major problem with the survey was its length, which was due to a combination of factors. This information helped the survey designers in reducing the number of library service quality items from 56 to 25 and in addressing technical problems from the Web‐based survey. An in‐depth discussion of the steps followed in conducting the Atlas.ti analysis will also be discussed.

This study aims to investigate barriers and enablers of social media usage by zooming on one specific type of domain: disaster management. First, by systematically reviewing previous studies using a typology to social media usage, this study identifies the challenges often faced. Second, the results are visualized by qualitatively analyzing the focus group discussion data.

This paper opted for an inductive thematic approach of grounded theory, including focus group discussion with ten participants from diverse backgrounds working in the disaster domain. The data is transcribed verbatim and coded using Atlas.ti software.

The findings suggest that the vogue of social media significantly ascends its usage in disaster management. Regulatory, software, physical, authenticity, cultural and demographic rose as challenges for social media usage in disaster management. Findings further indicate enablers as the rise in mobile penetration, democratic participation, increase in living standards, two-way real-time communication, global reach, expeditious decision-making, no space-time constraint and cheaper source of information. Social media, compared to traditional media, is explored. This study has practical implications in helping authorities understand the barriers and enablers for social media usage in disaster management.

Qualitative data analysis of social media usage for disaster management has received scant attention. The main takeaway of this research is to offer clear findings of the purview of social media usage for disaster management. It demonstrates the challenges and enablers of disaster management using social media in the Indian context. Results indicate that leveraging social media for disaster management can extend decision-making for effective disaster management.

This paper presents the major findings of recently completed research in the UK concerning the attributes of information as an asset and its impact on organisational performance. The research study employed an automated information asset- and attribute-scoring grid exercise and semi-structured open-ended interviews with 45 senior UK managers in four case study organisations. The information asset-scoring grid was developed to provide a simple visual representation of information assets and attributes using Excel charts. The semi-structured open-ended interviews aimed to identify the attributes of information assets considered significant by 45 senior UK managers and to explore relevant issues such as the value of information and organisational effectiveness.

There is sufficient literature on green knowledge regarding supplier selections. Notwithstanding, there are hardly any empirical studies that analyze green knowledge toward supplier selection through the lenses of green intellectual capital (GIC). This paper aims to analyze green knowledge development toward supplier selection through the lenses of GIC.

This study uses an exploratory case study approach involving seven public universities in Ghana. A purposive sampling technique was used in selecting respondents who were interviewed through face-to-face and focus group discussions with a semistructured interview guide. Atlas ti software was used to generate themes for discussion.

The findings of this study attribute the nonapplication of green criteria to supplier selection to low knowledge among practitioners. Training, collaboration, opportunities for further studies and affiliation with professional bodies were identified as means to enhance green knowledge. Green human capital factors that support knowledge enhancement include commitment, capability, skills and ease of understanding.

Green procurement practitioners in public universities in developing countries stand little chance of integrating green criteria into supplier selection if they do not develop their level of knowledge.

Selecting green suppliers is a complex issue for public organizations, particularly universities. This study would therefore help equip managers of public universities and procurement practitioners with the relevant GIC knowledge for the successful integration of green credentials into supplier selection.

This paper highlights the importance of knowledge in green supplier selection. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, analyzing the role of GIC in knowledge development is considered the first of this kind of study.

Purpose: This paper presents an exploratory analysis of minority stress and resiliency processes among parents in LGBTQ families. The paper examines two unique minority stress processes – (1) parents experiencing sexual and/or gender minority stress due to the stigmatization of their own identities as individuals and (2) parents sharing the gender minority stress faced by their transgender and gender expansive (TGE) child, and in the context of their parent–child relationship.

Methodology: Between 2017 and 2018 in-depth, in-person qualitative interviews on the topics of gender, stress, and resilience were conducted with 12 parents in LGBTQ families. Audio recordings were transcribed and then open coded using ATLAS.ti qualitative data analysis software. Analyses of data were informed by critical intersectional theories that locate gender and sexuality within structures of social and racial oppression.

Findings: Interview data indicate that minority stress is experienced by parents experiencing sexual and/or gender minority stress due to the stigmatization of their own identities, as well as among parents sharing the gender minority stress faced by their TGE child in the context of their parent–child relationship. Parents described community resilience and minority coping through interpersonal, community, and institutional support. This paper provides evidence that sexual and gender minority stressors are enhanced and resiliency factors are reduced among those experiencing racism and economic disadvantage.

Research limitations: This is an exploratory study conducted with a small sample of parents in a specific geographic area.

Originality/Value: These data provide initial evidence to support further analyses of the dyadic minority stressors within parent–child relationships in LGBTQ families

Ethiopia operates a large agricultural extension service system. However, access to extension-related knowledge, technologies and agricultural inputs is unequally distributed among smallholder farmers. Social learning is widely practiced by most farmers to cope with this unequal distribution though its practices have hardly been documented in passing on knowledge of agriculture and rural development or embedding it into the local system of knowledge production, transfer and use. The purpose of this study is, therefore, to identify the different methods of social learning, as well as their contribution to the adoption and diffusion of technologies within Ethiopia’s smallholder agricultural setting.

A mixed methods approach was used, comprising farmer and expert interviews, focus group discussions, informal individual discussions and key informant interviews. The data were documented, coded and later analyzed using SPSS and ATLAS.ti.

The findings showed that 55 per cent of the farmers in the studied areas fully relied on social, community-level learning to adopt agricultural technologies, while 35 per cent of them relied on social learning only partly. Farmers acquired knowledge through social networks by means of communication, observation, collective labor groups, public meetings, socio-cultural events and group socialization. Informal institutions such as iddir, debo and dado, helped farmers learn, adopt and diffuse technologies.

This study used the concept of epistemic oppression by Dotson (2014) as a conceptual framework to examine farmers’ access to extension services and to analyze how informal institutions serve as workplace learning for the smallholder farmers. The authors suggest community-level social learning serves as a coping mechanism against the prevailing limitations of the formal extension system, and at the same time, it guards against the deepening of social, political and epistemic inequalities that are inherent to the knowledge system.

To explore people’s attitudes towards bus service quality and bus use.

The study is a natural experiment that uses primary data collected from questionnaires, which were conducted to Maltese residents. The information was collected two months before the bus service reform and one year afterwards.

Results cast doubt on whether current policy measures regarding bus service quality are adequate to contribute to a modal shift from car to bus use.

Provides insight on whether current policy measures are sufficient in order to obtain an increase in bus patronage.

The case study of the Malta bus service reform provides an opportunity to study people’s attitudes in a quasi-experimental situation. Additionally, the research sheds light on the possible impact that bus service reforms have on people’s attitudes.

This paper aims to explain how companies in the region of Arab countries respond to the institutional diffusion of a new communication genre like corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports.

Analysis of the features, content and language of CSR reports published by listed companies in the region, to classify the genres of these reports and infer results about ways of companies’ interaction with newly institutionalized genre.

Three distinct genres are identified: “sustainability reports genre,” “professional CSR report genre” and “light CSR report genre.” When companies interact with institutionally diffused genres, they either adopt them and re-enforce their distinctiveness, mix them with elements from other genres so their distinctiveness will be diluted, or produce the old and established genres under the new name so the new genre will lose its distinctiveness.

The proposed classification of CSR report genres and ways of companies’ interaction with new genres are original and open new horizons for research in social and environmental accounting and corporate communication fields.

This study attempts to describe mentors' perceptions of their ethical dilemmas, the derived mentor roles, and the ethical guidelines suggested by mentors, with reference to previous studies exploring the mentors' multifaceted roles.

A total of 60 mentors participated in a two‐phase study: the mentors were asked to submit descriptions of their ethical dilemmas to the study web site, and submissions were then discussed in focus groups. A four‐stage coding process derived from grounded theory was utilized.

The findings were grouped by means of the ATLAS.ti 5.0 into five main categories: discretion, caring, accountability, autonomy, and distributive justice. The findings raise three important issues: first, mentors perceive their role mainly as empowering their mentees and perceive their powerlessness as being due to lack of tools for dealing with ethical dilemmas. Second, most mentors' ethical dilemmas involved conflicts with school principals. Third, a large number of mentor roles and several of the derived ethical guidelines are unique to the mentoring situation.

The findings may promote the design of an educational program for mentors that will relate to the ethical aspects of mentoring. Such programs call for the participation of school principals in program development and meetings to help mentors deal with their ethical dilemmas.

While previous studies in mentoring focused on defining mentoring, describing mentors' roles, and suggesting how to build effective mentoring, no study focused on the ethical aspects of mentoring. This study describes mentors' ethical dilemmas, and the unique ethical guidelines that emerged.