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Article
Publication date: 5 May 2015

Guang-Xin Gao, Zhi-Ping Fan and Yao Zhang

The purpose of this paper is to develop a method for solving the multiple attribute decision-making (MADM) problem in which the decision maker can provide the five types of…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to develop a method for solving the multiple attribute decision-making (MADM) problem in which the decision maker can provide the five types of attribute aspirations, namely: benefit type with requirements; cost type with requirements; interval type; benefit type; and cost type.

Design/methodology/approach

First, for each type of attribute aspiration, the calculation formula of utility values of alternative concerning attributes is given. Then, using the calculation formulae, the attribute values are transformed into the corresponding utility values. On the basis of this, the overall ranking value of each alternative is calculated. Further, a ranking order of alternatives can be determined according to the obtained overall ranking values.

Findings

Research shows that it is necessary to develop the method for MADM with attribute aspirations. The example shows that the proposed method is applicable.

Practical implications

The proposed method can be applied to the selection of wastewater treatment technologies or other areas.

Originality/value

This paper proposes a new MADM method with multiple types of attribute aspirations. It develops and enriches the existing MADM methods.

Article
Publication date: 30 March 2020

Desmond Ng

According to behavioral research, aspirations influence a firm's search – exploitive and explorative – for solutions that satisfy a firm's goals. Yet, such goal seeking behavior…

Abstract

Purpose

According to behavioral research, aspirations influence a firm's search – exploitive and explorative – for solutions that satisfy a firm's goals. Yet, such goal seeking behavior is adaptive to a firm's past experiences and not to a manager's expectations of its firm's future. A manager's expectations are often explained in terms of their confidence in future events. The purpose of this study is to address the following research question: how does a manager's confidence influence its expectations of a firm's future performance and goals; and how do these future expectations influence a firm's exploitive/explorative search?

Design/methodology/approach

In drawing on cognition and legitimacy research, a conceptual model was developed to explain the antecedents and outcomes of a firm's “forward-looking” aspirations. The antecedents to a firm's forward-looking aspirations are attributed to a manager's overconfidence – anchoring, confirmation and availability – biases. In using strategic legitimacy explanations, these biases introduce distinct types of forward-looking (exploitive/explorative) search that legitimize/de-legitimize a manager's forward-looking aspirations.

Findings

A key finding of this study is that it introduces a strategic decision-making process in which a firm's exploitive/ explorative search is adaptive toward its forward-looking aspirations.

Research limitations/implications

This forward-looking strategic decision-making process offers research implications to understand how a firm's future goals and expectations can offer new understandings of their past experiences and traditions and explains how a manager's overconfidence biases can influence the assessment of a firm's social aspirational groups.

Practical implications

In addition, this study also offers practical implications in which illustrative examples are used to explain this study's forward-looking strategic decision-making process.

Originality/value

A distinct contribution of this study is that it introduces a forward-looking orientation that has not been previously examined the backward focus of behavioral research.

Details

Journal of Strategy and Management, vol. 13 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1755-425X

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 31 January 2015

Ifigenia Psarra, Theo Arentze and Harry Timmermans

This chapter discusses the formulation of an agent-based model to simulate day-to-day dynamics in activity-travel patterns, based on short and long-term adaptations to exogenous…

Abstract

Purpose

This chapter discusses the formulation of an agent-based model to simulate day-to-day dynamics in activity-travel patterns, based on short and long-term adaptations to exogenous and exogenous changes.

Theory

The model is based on theoretical considerations of bounded rationality. Agents are able to explore the area, adapt their aspirations and develop habitual behaviour. If they experience dissatisfaction, stress emerges and this may lead to short or long-term adaptations of an agent’s activity-travel patterns. Both cognitive and affective responses are taken into account, when agents evaluate available options. Moreover, memory-activation and forgetting processes play a significant role in the development of habitual behaviour.

Findings

Results of numerical simulations show the effect of memory-activation and emotion-related parameters on habit formation, on the decision-making process and on overall model behaviour. Effects of specific aspects of bounded rationality on the evolution of dynamics in the activity-travel patterns of an individual are illustrated. Effects seem realistic, behaviourally rich and, therefore, more sensitive to a larger spectrum of policies.

Originality and value

The model is unique in its kind. It is one of the first attempts to formulate a dynamic model of activity-travel behaviour, based on principle of bounded rationality, which includes both cognitive and affective mechanism of adaptation.

Details

Bounded Rational Choice Behaviour: Applications in Transport
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78441-071-1

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 22 April 2022

Jenny Gibb, Jonathan M. Scott, Stephen Teo, George Thien, Smita Singh and Marcus Ho

This paper examines how some specific psychological characteristics and stress levels of small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) key decision-makers (founders/managers) (KDMs…

Abstract

Purpose

This paper examines how some specific psychological characteristics and stress levels of small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) key decision-makers (founders/managers) (KDMs) influence firm goal attainment based on two firm aspiration types.

Design/methodology/approach

This study hypothesizes that perceived resilience, social skills (self-promotion, ingratiation, expressiveness, social adaptability), and stress of SME KDMs will differently influence firm performance goal achievement based on firm historical versus social aspirations. IBM AMOS v27 is used to test these hypotheses on survey data of 267 Australian SME KDMs.

Findings

The study reveals that KDMs’ perceived resilience, social skills and stress differentially impact the achievement of firm performance goals when selecting firm-level historical and social aspirations. Resilience and some specific social skills can even have a detrimental effect on achieving firm goals when applying historical and social aspirations. Historical aspirations are based on the firm’s performance history, while social aspirations are based on the performance of a reference group of competitor firms. The differences in the relationship between these characteristics and the two aspiration types are also explained. Furthermore, the study reveals the important role of perceived stress levels in achieving firm performance goals, using both aspiration types.

Originality/value

This study is the first to investigate how the perceived use of some specific psychological characteristics of SME KDMs influence the ability to meet firm performance goals based on the discretionary use of historical and social aspirations and the relationship between these aspiration types. In this context, the paper explains the reasons for the differences and similarities in their use. Thus, this study provides an important empirical contribution to research on the emergent domain of micro-foundational SME goals.

Book part
Publication date: 1 March 2012

Ibrahim Duyar and Inayet Aydin

This study focuses on assistant principals, the “forgotten future workforce” of educational leadership. We explored the current landscape of assistant principalship within the…

Abstract

This study focuses on assistant principals, the “forgotten future workforce” of educational leadership. We explored the current landscape of assistant principalship within the context of work performance, including both task and discretionary performance, and the future career aspirations of assistant principals from a cross-national perspective. Specifically, the study aimed to fulfill the following objectives: (a) to identify the factors affecting the task and discretionary performance of assistant principals, (b) to identify the factors affecting three future career aspirations of assistant principals, and (c) to determine whether the influences of these factors differ by national origin. Personal initiative and perceived organizational support (POS) were the independent variables. This study also examined the demographic attributes of the participants and their schools. Two randomly selected samples, which composed of 227 Turkish and 144 American assistant principals were the participants. The data-gathering instrument incorporated the revised versions of the Personal Initiative Scale (Fay & Frese, 2001), the Perceived Organizational Support Scale (Eisenberger, Huntington, Hutchison, & Sowa, 1986), and the School Organizational Citizenship Behavior Scale (DiPaola & Tschannen-Moran, 2001). The findings of the study showed that personal initiative and POS significantly predicted the task performance, discretionary performance, and certain future career aspirations of assistant principals. National origin appeared to be a significantly differentiating factor of the assistant principals' task performances, discretionary performances, and future career aspirations. We drew conclusions and provided suggestions for future research.

Details

Discretionary Behavior and Performance in Educational Organizations: The Missing Link in Educational Leadership and Management
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78052-643-0

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 31 August 2016

Ari Dothan and Dovev Lavie

Resource reconfiguration enables firms to adapt in dynamic environments by supplementing, removing, recombining, or redeploying resources. Whereas prior research has underscored…

Abstract

Resource reconfiguration enables firms to adapt in dynamic environments by supplementing, removing, recombining, or redeploying resources. Whereas prior research has underscored the merits of resource reconfiguration and the modes for implementing it, little is known about the antecedents of this practice. According to prior research, under given industry conditions, resource reconfiguration is prompted by a firm’s corporate strategy and by characteristics of its knowledge assets. We complement this research by identifying learning from performance feedback as a fundamental driver of resource reconfiguration. We claim that performance decline relative to aspiration motivates the firm’s investment in knowledge reconfiguration, and that this investment is reinforced by the munificence of complementary resources in its industry, although uncertainty about the availability of such resources limits that investment. Testing our conjectures with a sample of 248 electronics firms during the period 1993–2001, we reveal a clear distinction between exploitative reconfiguration, which combines existing knowledge elements, and exploratory reconfiguration, which incorporates new knowledge elements. We demonstrate that performance decline relative to aspiration motivates a shift from exploitative reconfiguration to exploratory reconfiguration. Moreover, munificence of complementary resources mitigates the tradeoff between exploratory and exploitative reconfigurations, whereas uncertainty weakens the motivation to engage in both types of reconfiguration, despite the performance gap. Nevertheless, codeployment, which extends the deployment of knowledge assets to additional domains, is more susceptible to uncertainty than redeployment, which withdraws those assets from their original domain and reallocates them to new domains. Our study contributes to emerging research on resource reconfiguration, extends the literature on learning from performance feedback, and advances research on balancing exploration and exploitation.

Details

Resource Redeployment and Corporate Strategy
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78635-508-9

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 4 September 2017

Gopikrishnan Seshadhri and Virendra Kumar Paul

Present research on assessing performance of residential buildings is done for specific purposes and not holistically. The indicators, factors and attributes considered for…

Abstract

Purpose

Present research on assessing performance of residential buildings is done for specific purposes and not holistically. The indicators, factors and attributes considered for evaluation are not consistent and are broadly based on knowledge base of the author. The purpose of this research is to identify building performance attributes based on user requirement.

Design/methodology/approach

With ISO 6241-1984(E) as a basis for universal acceptance, user requirements have been listed and based on these user requirements, related building performance attributes have been identified. End-user satisfaction is of primary importance to gauge performance of a facility. A quantified approach in evaluation of performance of a facility will enable a facility manager to assess the efficacy of the present policies pertaining to operation and maintenance of the facility. It will also provide valuable inputs to policy makers in initiating measures toward the goal of achieving desired user satisfaction. Performance measurement is done to measure the value created by the services, to justify the investment made in creating the facility or to determine if any additional investments are required for improvement of the facility.

Findings

In this literature review, an attempt is made to identify user requirements based on an internationally renowned standard ISO 6241-1984 (E), as a base and group building performance attributes on these requirements. The identified attributes are grouped into physical, environmental and external factors for ease of garnering user satisfaction and subsequent flexibility in assessment of data based on requirement of the surveys carried out for evaluation.

Research limitations/implications

The identified list of user requirement-related building performance attributes is limited to government residential buildings. The research needs validation through a full-fledged user satisfaction survey.

Practical implications

It provides a comprehensive list of attributes for assessing performance from physical, environmental and external factors, enabling wholesome assessment of the performance of buildings. Moreover, as a universally accepted document ISO 6241-1984 (E), forms the basis of the paper, its application is not limited to a region.

Originality/value

Lot of research is happening in the field of assessing building performance. User satisfaction by virtue of being difficult to quantify, it has not found much favor till now. This attempt is to furnish a comprehensive list of building performance attributes that will enable a multipurpose survey which will not be based on perception of the researcher but on a universally accepted document. The premise of research is that end-user satisfaction is of primary importance to gauge performance of a facility.

Details

Journal of Facilities Management, vol. 15 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1472-5967

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 27 August 2020

Ruijuan Zhang, Shaoping Qiu, Larry M. Dooley and Tamim Choudhury

The purpose of this study is to explore how gender and gender role identity separately and jointly affect managerial aspirations.

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to explore how gender and gender role identity separately and jointly affect managerial aspirations.

Design/methodology/approach

The study was cross-sectional in nature. Survey data were collected from Chinese Government sectors. Two-way analysis of variance was used to test the research hypotheses.

Findings

The results showed that gender role identity and combination of gender and gender role identity predict management aspirations while gender alone does not affect management aspirations. Androgynous individuals self-reported higher scores of managerial aspirations. Female managers who perceive themselves as androgynous and masculine tend to possess higher management aspirations. However, when they perceive themselves to exhibit feminine traits, they are more likely to hold lower management aspirations. Moreover, male managers with androgynous and feminine traits are inclined to have higher management aspirations.

Research limitations/implications

Due to cross-sectional survey data, research results may be biased by common method variance. In addition, because of a convenient sample, the research results may lack generalizability. Moreover, with participants from different organizations, the percentage of men and women in the organization and participants’ role conflicts between work and family life would impact the gender role identity of individuals. Future research should control for the gender composition of the workplace and participants’ role conflicts between work and family life.

Practical implications

The findings can help narrow the gender gap of managerial aspirations through focusing on gender role identity in selecting managers and designing the leadership training program, ultimately resulting in diminishing disparity in top leadership positions between men and women.

Originality/value

This study examines how gender and gender role identity separately and jointly affects managerial aspirations in the Chinese context.

Details

Gender in Management: An International Journal , vol. 36 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1754-2413

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 25 March 2008

Cameron M. Ford and Diane M. Sullivan

Entrepreneurship research has grown in both quality and quantity over the past decade, as many theoretical innovations and important empirical research findings have been…

Abstract

Entrepreneurship research has grown in both quality and quantity over the past decade, as many theoretical innovations and important empirical research findings have been introduced to the field. However, theoretical approaches to understanding entrepreneurship remain fragmented, and empirical findings are unstable across different contexts. This chapter describes features of a multi-level process view of new venture emergence that adds coherence to the entrepreneurship theory jungle and brings order to idiosyncratic empirical results, by explaining how ideas become organized into new ventures. The centerpiece of this effort is enactment theory, a general process approach specifically developed to explain organizing processes. Enactment theory – and Campbellian evolutionary theorizing more generally – has a long history of use within and across multiple levels of analysis. Consequently, the description here illustrates how organizing unfolds across multiple levels of analysis and multiple phases of development. After describing the theorizing assumptions and multi-level process view of new venture organizing, the chapter explores implications of applying this perspective by suggesting new research directions and interpretations of prior work. The aim is to advocate process theorizing as a more productive approach to understanding new venture emergence.

Details

Multi-Level Issues in Creativity and Innovation
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-84950-553-6

Article
Publication date: 28 June 2011

Eziyi O. Ibem and O.O. Amole

The purpose of this paper is to present research assessing the level of qualitative adequacy of newly constructed public housing in urban centres in Ogun State, Nigeria.

1018

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to present research assessing the level of qualitative adequacy of newly constructed public housing in urban centres in Ogun State, Nigeria.

Design/methodology/ approach

The study followed a quantitative research strategy. A survey of 517 housing units constructed through four different strategies and selected based on quota of their existence in nine public housing estates was conducted with a questionnaire as the key data collection instrument. A five‐point Likert scale was used in measuring the level of qualitative adequacy of four key housing sub‐components. The data were analysed using descriptive statistics.

Findings

Residents found the overall housing to be inadequate; they indicated that housing unit attributes were the most adequate and thus contributed most, while neighbourhood facilities were the least inadequate and contributed the least to qualitative housing adequacy.

Research limitations/implications

The sample population comprised mainly house heads in public housing constructed between 2003 and 2009 therefore, the findings may not be considered to be applicable to all the public housing in the study area. However, the findings can form the basis for judging the performance of public housing in the current democratic dispensation in the study area.

Practical implications

The findings imply that giving adequate attention to the provision of infrastructural facilities and maintenance of existing ones can enhance the qualitative adequacy of public housing.

Originality/value

This paper is a pioneering effort at evaluating the qualitative adequacy of most recently constructed public housing in the study area.

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