Search results

This study aims at establishing the moderating role of self-efficacy in the relationship between organisational culture (OC) and organisational commitment in the perspective of institutions of higher learning in a developing country.

A cross-sectional design was used to obtain quantitative data from 572 academic staff in eight universities. The sample was selected following a simple random technique. The study data were analysed using SPSS version 23.

The study findings reveal that OC and self-efficacy influence organisational commitment. Further, self-efficacy moderates the relationship between OC and organisational commitment.

Universities should foster a culture that emphasises collaboration, open communication, inclusion, equity and staff development to increase organisational commitment. In order to build academic staff self-efficacy, universities should provide opportunities for training and development, mentoring, coaching, continuous performance evaluation, and regular feedback to stimulate academic staff's desire to remain committed to the institution. University administrators should look beyond traditional skills and competencies when recruiting future academic staff as their personal beliefs are essential to accelerating organisational commitment.

This study extends the current literature in organisational behaviour and provides a comprehensive understanding of the relationship between OC and organisational commitment using the Competing Values Framework. This study was also conducted in a developing country context, which can always lead to different results than studies conducted in developed countries.

Higher education institutions have undergone a transformation over the past few decades, from loosely coupled systems to more centrally managed organizations. Central to this ongoing development is the increasing competition for resources and reputation, driving higher education institutions to rationalize their structures and practices. In our study, we focused on changes in job advertisements for professorships in Germany from 1990 to 2010. Findings showed that the requirements stipulated by universities for professorial positions have become increasingly differentiated (and measurable) over time. In this context, competitive aspects, such as third-party funding, international orientation, or publications, have particularly come to the fore and grown significantly in importance. We discuss these findings in light of an increasing managerialization of higher education institutions, which has a direct effect on collegiality. We argue that the differentiation of professorial job profiles leads to even more formalized appointment processes and may push collegial governance into the background.

The macroeconomic changes as well as the challenges facing universities nowadays result in the transfer and adaptation of various concepts and organizational methods from enterprises to universities. One of such solutions is mergers. Even though there are a very large number of practical examples of university mergers in the world, at the same time there is a shortage of frameworks that would help manage mergers. The purpose of this paper is to present key areas of focus in HEIs’ consolidation processes and the creation of the conceptual model of the universities’ mergers.

In this paper synthesis, the inductive approach for model development and case study description were used. The analysis and findings were based on the systematic literature review taken out from management and public policy areas. The new public management and public value governance approaches as well as strategic and process theories of mergers were applied. The descriptive approach to management was used as well.

Formulation of a Conceptual Model of Universities’ Mergers and ten principles of effective management of universities’ mergers that cover the entire process, from planning, through implementation, to integration.

There is a need to verify the proposed inductive model of universities’ mergers through further qualitative and mixed-methods research studies.

The paper offers a significant opportunity for practical application of the presented content, because it indicates how the know-how from one (business) sector can be valuable for the future of another sector (the over-fragmented sector of higher education).

This study presents the key areas of focus in HEIs’ consolidation processes and proposes a novel Conceptual Model of Universities’ Mergers. It concludes with the principles of effective management of universities’ mergers.

The authors developed and validated an algorithm using health administrative data to identify patients who are attached or uncertainly attached to a primary care provider (PCP) using patient responses to a survey conducted in Ontario, Canada.

The authors conducted a validation study using as a reference standard respondents to a community-based survey who indicated they did or did not have a PCP. The authors developed and tested health administrative algorithms against this reference standard. The authors calculated the sensitivity, specificity positive predictive value (PPV) and negative predictive value (NPV) on the final patient attachment algorithm. The authors then applied the attachment algorithm to the 2017 Ontario population.

The patient attachment algorithm had an excellent sensitivity (90.5%) and PPV (96.8%), though modest specificity (46.1%) and a low NPV (21.3%). This means that the algorithm assigned survey respondents as being attached to a PCP and when in fact they said they had a PCP, yet a significant proportion of those found to be uncertainly attached had indicated they did have a PCP. In 2017, most people in Ontario, Canada (85.4%) were attached to a PCP but 14.6% were uncertainly attached.

Administrative data for nurse practitioner's encounters and other interprofessional care providers are not currently available. The authors also cannot separately identify primary care visits conducted in walk in clinics using our health administrative data. Finally, the definition of hospital-based healthcare use did not include outpatient specialty care.

Uncertain attachment to a primary health care provider is a recurrent problem that results in inequitable access in health services delivery. Providing annual reports on uncertainly attached patients can help evaluate primary care system changes developed to improve access. This algorithm can be used by health care planners and policy makers to examine the geographic variability and time trends of the uncertainly attached population to inform the development of programs to improve primary care access.

As primary care is an essential component of a person's medical home, identifying regions or high need populations that have higher levels of uncertainly attached patients will help target programs to support their primary care access and needs. Furthermore, this approach will be useful in future research to determine the health impacts of uncertain attachment to primary care, especially in view of a growing body of the literature highlighting the importance of primary care continuity.

This patient attachment algorithm is the first to use existing health administrative data validated with responses from a patient survey. Using patient surveys alone to assess attachment levels is expensive and time consuming to complete. They can also be subject to poor response rates and recall bias. Utilizing existing health administrative data provides more accurate, timely estimates of patient attachment for everyone in the population.

The purpose of this paper is aimed to examine natives' Fervid Attachment to religious rites, as a part of cultural heritage, in its extrinsic (sense of belonging, rituality) and intrinsic (intimate bond, emotionality) characteristics, by shedding light on how leveraging on these characteristics could be emphasized to promote sustainable local development.

Based on the principles of an ethnographic research approach based on observational methods, this paper analyzes the rites of Holy Week in Taranto, a city located in the Southern Italy, by capturing individuals' behavior according the concept of Fervid Attachment.

Results show that tourism destinations preserving their traditions and religious rites as part of their cultural heritage can satisfy tourists' spirituality needs and, by promoting the interaction with the local population (natives) in terms of relationship between them and tourists, supporting local communities' development. Moreover their Fervid Attachment in terms of sense of belonging, rituality, intimate bond and emotionality could be empathized to promote sustainable local development.

Our results provide suggestions on how local policymakers and tourism marketers could leverage natives' attachment to religious rites to boost religious tourism.

This paper shows from a new perspective based on the concept of natives' Fervid Attachment how local people are relevant in promoting a tourism destination.

In this paper, the authors attempt to understand how labour market attachment during the ages of 30–59 influences individuals' transition out of the labour market.

Using high-quality Swedish register data, the authors follow individuals born in 1950 and observe their labour market attachment during mid-life and their exit from the labour market.

The authors find evidence that labour market attachment in different stages of the career is differently related to exit from the labour market. At the age of 30, as well as between the ages 50–59, low attachment is related with earlier exit from the labour market. On the contrary, low labour market attachment during the ages 40–49 is related with later exit from the labour market. However, regardless of age, lower labour market attachment increases the risk of work-related benefit receipt in the exit year. The authors also find evidence that gender, migration status and childhood socioeconomic disadvantages may represent obstacles to longer working lives, while high education is a consistent factor in avoiding early exit from the labour market.

This study provides insights on the link between labour market attachment in different stages of the career and the exit from the labour market as well as work-related benefits dependency in the year of exit.

The purpose of this paper is to present an environmental psychological case study regarding an office design change. The employees of the researched company had the chance to decide whether to stay in the classic open office set-up or to switch to a shared desk supplemented by a one-day-a-week home office possibility. The authors examined the development of participants’ territorial behaviour and place attachment.

The given organizational situation is a quasi-experimental design; the variables were examined via questionnaire in a longitudinal model. Quantitative measurement was supplemented with focus group discussions.

The degree of personalization (a type of territorial behaviour) decreased significantly not only among those who lost their permanent workstations – as we expected – but also in the entire population. Workplace attachment stagnated for the entire population, but workstation attachment showed a significant decrease among those who switched to the shared desk.

The limitations and the advantages are also followed by the nature of a case study: high ecological validity with relatively low sample size.

Redesigning an office is never just an economic or interior design issue, but a psychological one. This paper provides practical environmental psychological insights into implementing office designs without permanent individual workstations.

This paper presents the environmental psychological background of shared desk design implementation. The authors point out the significance of repressing personalization behaviour and as per the authors’ knowledge, they are the first to introduce the concept of workstation attachment.

The current study aims to propose and empirically investigate a conceptual model of the most relevant antecedents and consequences of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) attribution, thus providing a practical and concise model as well as examining brand attachment as a mediator explaining the relationship between CSR attribution and its consequences.

A between-subjects experimental design was employed. The study included two experimental conditions; intrinsic and extrinsic CSR attribution and a control condition. An online self-administered survey was utilised for data collection. The sample was a convenience sample of 336 university students. Both one-way between-groups ANOVA and Partial Least Squares-Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) were utilised for hypotheses testing.

The most significant antecedents of CSR attribution in order of importance are the firm's approach to CSR communication, past corporate social performance, CSR type and the firm's call for customers' participation in its CSR. CSR attribution exerted a significant direct positive impact on brand attachment and trust. Three significant indirect consequences of CSR attribution were PWOM intention, purchase intention and brand loyalty intention. Whereas trust played a significant mediating role between CSR attribution and its three indirect consequences, brand attachment exerted significant mediation only between CSR attribution and brand loyalty intention. Brand attachment might mediate the relationship between CSR attribution and purchase intention. However, brand attachment failed to play a mediating role between CSR attribution and PWOM intention.

Several studies marginally investigated CSR attribution. Despite the vital role of CSR attribution in how consumers receive firms' CSR engagement, the availability of CSR attribution-centric studies is limited. By introducing a model of the most relevant antecedents and consequences of CSR attribution, this study aids in understanding the psychological mechanism underlying consumers' CSR attribution and provides valuable implications.

Satisfaction and loyalty as vital and strategic concepts in the marketing literature are highly important to companies and marketers. The review of the existing literature reveals a gap of the role of emotional constructs that can begin in a regular and rational sequence of satisfaction and ultimately lead to the formation of consumer loyalty. Hence, this study aims to answer the question of whether emotional constructs such as emotional attachment and love play a mediating role in the process of transitioning from satisfaction to loyalty in the correct sequence.

A total of 300 valid questionnaires on smartphone and apparel brands were collected from respondents and analyzed using the partial least squares method.

The results showed that brand love is the strongest antecedent of brand loyalty and is the only variable that directly influences brand loyalty in comparison to satisfaction and emotional brand attachment. Moreover, the examination of indirect effects revealed that our assumption based on that the emotional structures such as emotional attachment and brand love play a mediating role in the process of transitioning from satisfaction to loyalty in a correct sequence is supported.

Generalizability needs to be established with a wider range of consumer groups. The survey was conducted in Iran, and future research should assess the same product categories in other cultural settings as well as consider other product categories to assess the external validity of these results. The insights on consumers’ brand relationships help brand managers devise effective brand management strategies.

The managerial implications can guide managers toward enhancing the consumers’ loyalty to the brand through a better understanding of the consumer loyalty process to a brand as well as better relational marketing practices.

The study validates the mediating role of emotional brand attachment and brand love in the relationship between brand satisfaction and brand loyalty, is one of the first to develop a conceptual model that examines the role of emotional structures in the process of transition from satisfaction to loyalty, is one of few studies to develop the role of emotional structures in the form of a relational chain of brands in the process of transition from satisfaction to loyalty.

This paper aims to investigate infant sensory patterns and their associations with previous perinatal loss, maternal-foetal attachment and postnatal maternal sensory patterns.

In a prospective cohort study, women with and without perinatal loss (N = 57) were recruited from an Australian public hospital. Participants were surveyed during pregnancy (maternal-foetal attachment, loss) and again postnatally (maternal/infant sensory patterns). Chi-square tests and logistic regression analyses controlling for previous perinatal loss were conducted with infant sensory patterns as outcome variables.

“More than typical” infant low registration was associated with poorer quality of maternal-foetal attachment. “More than typical” infant sensory seeking was associated with previous perinatal loss and higher levels of maternal sensory seeking. “More than typical” infant sensory sensitivity was linked with previous perinatal loss, poorer quality of maternal-foetal attachment and higher maternal low registration. “More than typical” infant sensory avoidance was associated with poorer quality of maternal-foetal attachment and higher levels of maternal sensory sensitivity.

To support more typical infant sensory patterns, results point to the potential benefit of occupational therapists supporting pregnant women with previous perinatal loss; facilitating favourable maternal-foetal attachment; and educating new mothers on how their sensory patterns impact on interactions with their infant. Sensory modulation strategies that consider the sensory patterns of both mother and infant may be beneficial to promote engagement in co-occupations.

These findings are the first to suggest that previous perinatal loss, poorer quality of maternal-foetal attachment and higher levels of maternal postnatal sensory patterns represent risk factors for infant sensory patterns that are “more than typical.”