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1 – 10 of over 16000Amber A. Johnson, Tina Huesing, James D. Ludema and Brett Hinds
Hui Wang, Qunzhan Li, Wei Liu, Chuang Wang and Tongtong Liu
The traction cable is paralleled with the existing traction network of electrified railway through transverse connecting line to form the scheme of long distance power supply for…
Abstract
Purpose
The traction cable is paralleled with the existing traction network of electrified railway through transverse connecting line to form the scheme of long distance power supply for the traction network. This paper aims to study the scheme composition and power supply distance (PSD) of the scheme.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on the structure of parallel traction network (referred to as “cable traction network (CTN)”), the power supply modes (PSMs) are divided into cable + direct PSM and cable + autotransformer (AT) PSM (including Japanese mode, French mode and new mode). Taking cable + Japanese AT PSM as an example, the scheme of long distance power supply for CTN under the PSMs of co-phase and out-of-phase power supply are designed. On the basis of establishing the equivalent circuit model and the chain circuit model of CTN, taking the train working voltage as the constraint condition, and based on the power flow calculation of multiple train loads, the calculation formula and process for determining the PSD of CTN are given. The impedance and PSD of CTN under the cable + AT PSM are simulated and analyzed, and a certain line is taken as an example to compare the scheme design.
Findings
Results show that the equivalent impedance of CTN under the cable + AT PSM is smaller, and the PSD is about 2.5 times of that under the AT PSM, which can effectively increase the PSD and the flexibility of external power supply location.
Originality/value
The research content can effectively improve the PSD of traction power supply system and has important reference value for the engineering application of the scheme.
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Johanna Bunner, Roman Prem and Christian Korunka
Non-technical skills are of increasing importance for safety engineers to perform their job. In their position as expert consultants, they work closely with managers. Thus…
Abstract
Purpose
Non-technical skills are of increasing importance for safety engineers to perform their job. In their position as expert consultants, they work closely with managers. Thus, gaining management support is oftentimes crucial for safety engineers to successfully improve occupational health and safety. Drawing on organizational support theory (OST), this study investigates how safety engineers’ non-technical skills in communication and persuasion (i.e. rational and hard influence tactics) are related with their management support, and how management support is related with their individual task proficiency (ITP). The purpose of this paper is to examine the moderating role of safety engineers’ expert power in this context.
Design/methodology/approach
Using an online questionnaire, survey data were collected from 251 safety engineers working in Austria.
Findings
Rational influence tactics are positively related to ITP via management support, whereas hard influence tactics are not. Safety engineers’ expert power moderates the relationship between influence tactics and management support and, consequently ITP. High (vs low) expert status strengthens the positive relationship of rational influence tactics on ITP via management support. For hard influence tactics, high (vs low) expert power buffered the negative relationship of upward appeal and pressure on ITP via management support.
Practical implications
Safety engineers should rely on rational persuasion when cooperating with management to obtain support and improve their own performance.
Originality/value
This study connects the effect of influence tactics in the context of safety engineers’ work performance with OST. It demonstrates that safety engineers’ influence tactics are related to work role performance through management support and that these relationships are moderated by expert power.
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This study aims to investigate the decline of American hegemony as one of the most prominent crises of the modern world order, from a broader perspective that transcends narrow…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the decline of American hegemony as one of the most prominent crises of the modern world order, from a broader perspective that transcends narrow traditional interpretations. The paper assumes that the September 11 events in 2001 have launched the actual decline in American hegemony. Tracing the evolution of US global strategy over the past two decades, the study seeks to analyze the main causes and repercussions of the decline of US hegemony, which would provide a bird’s eye view of what the current global system is going through.
Design/methodology/approach
The study investigates the decline in American hegemony through a longitudinal within-case analysis which focuses on the causal path of decline in hegemony in the case of the USA, since the events of September 11, 2001, and tries to identify the causal mechanisms behind this decline. Following George and Bennet (2005), the study uses process tracing to examine its research question. Process-tracing method seeks to identify the intervening causal process – causal chain or causal mechanisms or the steps in a causal process – that leads to the outcome of a particular case in a specific historical context (Mahoney, 2000; Bennet and Elman, 2006). The study chose this method, as it offers more potential for identifying causal mechanisms and theory testing (George and Bennet, 2005); it opted for a specific procedure, among the variety of process-tracing procedures listed by George and Bennet, which is the detailed narrative presented as a chronicle, accompanied by explicit causal hypotheses. Using this process tracing procedure, the study assumes that American hegemony has witnessed dramatic changes in the aftermath of critical junctures, particularly the events of September 11, 2001, and the financial crises, 2008, which contributed significantly to this decline. Consequently, it traces the impact of these events on the state of American hegemony, in light of the review of contributions of different theories on hegemony in the field of international relations, both traditional and critical. Consequently, introducing the theoretical framework used in the study (the four-dimensional model of hegemony), which transcends criticisms of previous theories.
Findings
The crises of the modern world order and the decline of American hegemony – being the main manifestation of such crises – revealed the inability of the traditional and critical approaches reviewed in the study to interpret this decline and those crises. The reason behind that was the inability of these interpretations to reflect the various dimensions of American hegemony and its decline since the September 11 events. This highlights the importance of using the four-dimensional model, which combines different factors in the analysis and has proved to be an appropriate model for studying the case of American hegemony and its decline after the events of September 11, as it deals with the phenomenon of hegemony as a social relationship based on specific social networks.
Originality/value
Despite the currency and relevance of the decline of US hegemony for both the academic and political world, the topic needed to be analyzed systemically and addressed in a thorough scientific way. Through the application of theoretical concepts into the analysis of empirical data, this study contributes to a field where too often the discourse about decline of American hegemony is led without the required theoretical or conceptual considerations.
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Eva Hofmann, Barbara Hartl and Elfriede Penz
Collaborative consumption, such as car sharing, specifically implicates customer-to-customer interaction, which must be regulated by service providers (companies, peers and…
Abstract
Purpose
Collaborative consumption, such as car sharing, specifically implicates customer-to-customer interaction, which must be regulated by service providers (companies, peers and self-regulating communities), comprising different challenges for business organizations. While in conventional business relations, consumers are protected from undesirable customer behavior by laws, regulations (power) in the context of collaborative consumption are rare, so that trust becomes more relevant. It is the purpose of the study to investigate possible mechanisms to prevent undesirable customers in collaborative consumption.
Design/methodology/approach
In between subject designs, samples of 186 and 328 consumers filled in experimental online questionnaires with vignettes. Analyses were made of differences among car sharing companies, private persons and car sharing communities in terms of the power of providers, trust in providers and trust in other users of the shared goods, undesirable customer behavior and consumer–provider relations.
Findings
Companies, private persons and self-regulating communities differ in terms of perceived power and trust. Participants specifically perceive mainly coercive power with the car sharing company, but with the private person and the community, reason-based trust in other users is perceived as prevalent. Nevertheless, undesirable customer behavior varies only marginally over the models.
Originality/value
The present study is the first to investigate measures to prevent undesirable customer behavior over different collaborative consumption models. This enables appropriate identification of market segments and tailoring of services. The study identifies opportunities for companies in contrast to private persons and self-regulating communities and, in doing so, provides important stimulation for marketing strategy and theory development.
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John S. Pearlstein and Robert D. Hamilton
The theory presented suggests that underwriters are both advisors and independent agents in the issuerʼs attempt to send “signals” of quality to investors by making pre-IPO…
Abstract
The theory presented suggests that underwriters are both advisors and independent agents in the issuerʼs attempt to send “signals” of quality to investors by making pre-IPO organizational changes. These pre-IPO gambits are intended to increase IPO proceeds, and preemptively address potential investor concerns that would deter them from subscribing. These organizational changes initially can financially benefit founders, early investors and underwriters. But they can also have a longterm impact that some issuers, especially founders, would prefer to avoid. Utilizing signaling and resource-based power, we find that underwriter power is significantly associated with making pre-IPO gambits and lower levels of underpricing.
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The purpose of this paper is to analyze marketability constructed from market share and concentration and to test its effect on the profitability and the mediation effects of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to analyze marketability constructed from market share and concentration and to test its effect on the profitability and the mediation effects of profit‒loss sharing under stewardship theory.
Design/methodology/approach
This research employs data of financial statements published by ten sharia commercial banks listed in the Indonesia Financial Services Authority during the period 2011–2016. The data are analyzed into path analysis model using multiple mediators.
Findings
The result reveals that sharia banks’ marketability in Indonesia tends to be low. Based on the test of significance through Partial Least Square, it is found that marketability has a positive effect on the level of profitability, indicating that market share and concentration of sharia banks positively lead the change on the level of Return on Asset and Return on Equity. This paper further identifies the mediation effects emerged through mudharabah and musharakah. The results point out that mudharabah has a partial effect and musharakah has a competitive effect on the relationship between market share and profitability.
Practical implications
This paper can be a decision-maker for Central Bank and Financial Services Authority for encouraging sharia banks to enhance the power market through the mode of finances with profit‒loss sharing.
Originality/value
The growth of sharia banks is currently becoming highlight of the literature of sharia banks. This paper provides insights into stewardship theory that sharia banking management provides the concept of the alignment of interest.
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Miriam Carrillo, Alicia Gonzalez-Sparks and Nestor U. Salcedo
This paper aims to investigate the relationship between legitimate and expert social power types of preadolescent children on the influence perception in their mothers’ purchasing…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate the relationship between legitimate and expert social power types of preadolescent children on the influence perception in their mothers’ purchasing behavior in Peruvian toy stores. The literature review takes into consideration the concepts of social power and the influence on family behavior to then focus on social power within family behavior with the purpose of mainly developing four hypotheses regarding purchasing behavior.
Design/methodology/approach
The methodology followed a non-experimental transversal correlational-causal design. A pilot sample size of 67 cases was used. The sample was based on an objective population of Peruvian mothers of families that live in northern Lima and that go to purchase toys to major shopping centers with their children aged 8-11 years.
Findings
The results show that the expert social power, as well as the legitimate social power, has a strong relationship. In addition, both social powers have an impact on the influence perception in purchasing child-mother, but not on the influence perception in purchasing mother-child. Moreover, the test of moderation of the expenditure level on toy purchases did not have an effect on the context that was studied.
Originality/value
The contribution shows that important changes are happening in the consumption behavior on the aspect of children influencing mothers, and that for Latin American contexts, the level of expenditure still does not crucially affect the causality demonstrated.
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Kati Marttinen and Anni-Kaisa Kähkönen
A firm's ability to cascade sustainability requirements further down to lower-tier suppliers might be affected by inter-firm power relations. This study aimed to identify the power…
Abstract
Purpose
A firm's ability to cascade sustainability requirements further down to lower-tier suppliers might be affected by inter-firm power relations. This study aimed to identify the power sources of focal firms and first- and lower-tier suppliers and to investigate how they may affect their ability to cascade sustainability requirements along multi-tier supply chains.
Design/methodology/approach
A multiple case study of 24 companies was conducted to investigate the sources of power in multi-tier supply chains. In total, 42 informants from five focal companies, ten first-tier suppliers and nine lower-tier suppliers were interviewed.
Findings
Differences were found between the sources from which focal firms and first- and lower-tier suppliers drew power. Findings revealed that firms' power sources may increase or impair their ability to cascade sustainability requirements to lower supply chain tiers. Furthermore, multi-tier supply chain-level power sources constitute a significant determinant of firms' ability to disseminate sustainability requirements to lower-tier suppliers.
Practical implications
The results can help companies and purchasing managers understand how their own and suppliers' power may affect their ability to cascade sustainability agendas to lower-tier suppliers. In particular, the results can be useful for supplier selection and the development of supplier relationship management strategies for fostering sustainability in multi-tier supply chains.
Originality/value
This study places traditional power perspectives in the context of multi-tier sustainable supply chain management, broadening the view beyond dyadic relationships that have traditionally been the focus of the supply management literature.
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