Search results

In this study, the focus was shifted from repairing durable goods to achieving healthier ecology, making durable goods more secure in turn. This study introduced preventive maintenance behavior to trace the ex-post control of “curling” back to the ex-post control of “self-healing.” This study tries to close the gap between the human repair of machines and their “self-curing.” Finally, the author makes the machines healthier.

The paper constructed a mathematical model of preventive maintenance behavior during a specific period for durable consumer goods. The author builds a simulation function of the two-stage preventative maintenance behavior relations. The study used simulations to analyze the influencing relationship and differences between three preventive maintenance behavior elements to basic warranty preventive maintenance (BWPM) behavior and extended warranty preventive maintenance (EWPM) behavior.

Both BWPM behavior and EWPM behavior were affected by the preventive maintenance (PM) behavioral components in different ways. The influence paths of the two warranty periods affected by PM behavior were also different.

This study introduced PM behavior to trace the ex-post control of “curling” back to the ex-post control of “self-healing.” This study adopted the human–machine interaction mode to improve durable goods' self-healing ability during operation and enable a more effective and sustainable development.

This study’s conclusions may help manufacturers guide PM behavior in a way that achieves “self-healing” of the durable goods.

The author opened a “black box” of PM behaviors and analyzed their components. The internal structure relation of PM behavior is built and the closed-loop system of spatial structure is formed.

The purpose of this paper is to increase understanding of the role of information and knowledge in the context of health behaviour change.

As internet use in Finland is among the highest in Europe, two Finnish web-based weight management services were analysed regarding their weight maintenance information by using a theoretical approach constructed for the purpose. The approach combines the elements of web-based weight maintenance information and the typologies of knowing and actional information. The approach was tested by examining the services deductively with theory-based content analysis.

The approach indicated differences between the profiles of the two analysed information environments, which focus on factual and tailored information and their relation to pragmatic, provisional and contested knowing and the initiation, maintenance and recovery of actional information. Both services support weight maintenance; the other slightly more due to its rich social features.

The examination was focused on the free content of two Finnish weight management services. Further research should include the role of socially interactive information and further testing of the approach with more services.

The proposed approach sheds light on the relationship between the types of weight maintenance information and the dimensions of the typologies of knowing and actional information. The approach has the potential to be applied when designing the information environment of new web-based weight management services.

The approach has potential to be applied when designing the information content of new web-based weight management services to support health behaviour change. The approach could be elaborated further by focusing on enabling social support required in long-term weight maintenance.

The study adopted a novel approach to studying typologies of knowing and actional information, thus providing new viewpoints in both information behaviour and organisational knowledge. The study enables further research on weight maintenance information use by proposing a theoretical background.

The purpose of this paper is to explore some of the influences that computer‐mediated communication (CMC) has and could have on the maintenance of interpersonal relationships. In doing this, ethical dilemmas and implications that arise from the technical affordances offered to CMC participants are discussed. Relational maintenance is integral to people's everyday lives. Yet, the ethical issues involve in using CMC to support this have not been explicitly explored.

The concept of relational maintenance will be explored independently and as it relates to CMC and ethics. This paper will examine current literature and briefly discuss a pilot study relevant to these areas. The pilot study consisted of a survey distributed to undergraduate students in non‐platonic long distance and short distance relationships.

The exploration of prior literature and the findings of a pilot study support the notion that, with the increase of CMC use to maintain relationships follows the potential increase of unethical behavior in this medium. A number of ethical questions have risen that can be used to inform and direct future research.

This paper is original as it explores the concept of ethics from a relational maintenance perspective through electronic communication. It adds value by integrating these three areas and enhancing the understanding of this integration, while providing information of both theoretical and practical relevance.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the influence of transformational leadership (TL) on job satisfaction by using the business perspective of the balanced scorecard.

The paper is based on an empirical study of the top four life insurance firms in Taiwan – Cathay, Nan Shan, Shin Kong, and Cumshaw Post Company – that held more than 50 percent of Taiwan's overall market share. The sales employees of these four firms were selected for empirical testing, since in these firms, emphasis is placed on leadership and on how the employees' job satisfaction is reflected in the reduction of internal process costs.

Consistent with earlier predictions, the authors attained significant results, but they did find that group maintenance, group goal achievement behaviors, and their complementarity truly helped enhance employee job satisfaction. This suggests that group maintenance and group goal achievement behaviors, including their complementarity, will provide a more accurate prediction of the relation between intrinsic and extrinsic components of employee job satisfaction and achieving the objective of an internal business advantage.

Only four firms have been examined in this study. It would be worthwhile to see whether the inclusion of other firms would show similar results. When these four firms are placed in a dynamic environment, TL is a key source for providing an internal business advantage: employee capability to react positively to change provides a very important advantage. Although the integration of both TL and change‐oriented action by the TL and employees to provide employee job satisfaction has not been tested before, it would be useful for future researchers and practitioners to do so.

This paper is of both theoretical and empirical value. Theoretically, it has tried to make use of the business perspective of the BSC. Empirically, this paper has demonstrated the influence of TL in gaining an internal business advantage. There is a dearth of research on how firms successfully integrate the business perspective of the BSC to gain an internal business advantage. The paper investigated the effects on intrinsic and extrinsic components of employee job satisfaction of group direct behaviors as motivated by transformational leadership (TL), including examining group maintenance, group goal achievement, and the interaction between the two (their complementarity).

The chemical plant (CP) maintenance industry has been under increasing pressure by process designers to demonstrate its evaluation and information management of model checking (MC) on the durability’s performance and design of plant control instrument. This main problem has been termed as imperfect maintenance actions (IMAs) level. Although IMAs have been explored in interdisciplinary maintenance environments, less is known about what imperfect maintenance problems currently exist and what their causes are, such as the recent explosion in the Beirut city (4 August 2020, about 181 fatalities). The aim of this paper is to identify how CP maintenance environments could integrate MC within their processes.

To achieve this aim, a comprehensive literature review of the existing conceptualisation of MC practices is reviewed and the main features of information and communication technology tools and techniques currently being employed on such IMA projects are carried out and synthesised into a conceptual framework for integrating MC in the automation system process.

The literature reveals that various CP designers conceptualise MC in different ways. MC is commonly shaped by long-term compliance to fulfil the requirement for maintaining a comfortable durability risk on imperfect maintenance schemes of CP projects. Also, there is a lack of common approaches for integrating the delivery process of MC. The conceptual framework demonstrates the importance of early integration of MC in the design phase to identify alternative methods to cogenerate, monitor and optimise MC.

Thus far, this study advances the knowledge about how CP maintenance environments can ensure MC delivery. This paper highlights the need for further research to integrate MC in CP maintenance environments. A future study could validate the framework across the design phase with different CP project designers.

To identify some psychological and social variables that could enhance employees' adoption of total quality management (TQM) in an organization that chooses to implement the management philosophy.

A survey research was conducted, using 418 middle management staff, randomly drawn from some TQM and non‐TQM courier organizations in Nigeria. Respondents received standardized scales measuring perception of their leaders' leadership styles, organizational reward system and self‐report of personality attributes (psychological variables), along with items measuring gender, age, job tenure and level of education (social variables). They also responded to questionnaire items measuring the extent to which they practice TQM.

Correlation analysis show that higher level of maintenance leadership style along with lower level of performance leadership style, low levels of extraversion and neuroticism, higher level of education and shorter job tenure enhance subordinates' practice of TQM. t‐test results show that Employees in TQM organizations were significantly higher on perceived maintenance and performance leadership styles and reward but significantly lower on extraversion, neuroticism and psychoticism than their non‐TQM counterparts.

All measures were based on self‐report of the respondents and data were from only service organizations, thus, limiting generalizations of the findings.

Implementers of TQM in organizations in Nigeria should endeavor to put in place appropriate leadership styles, consider personality attributes, level of education and duration of working in any non‐TQM organization among other personnel issues for selection and retention in a TQM practicing organization.

TQM is a management technique being adopted in Nigeria with some difficulties. The present study brings to focus psychological and social variables that could ease its implementation.

The purpose of the current paper is to investigate the determinants of hygienic food handling behaviour using the health action process approach (HAPA) and to examine if the volitional components of the model or the addition of past behaviour could explain additional variance in behaviour.

A prospective four‐week study investigating the predictive ability of HAPA variables and past behaviour was used. At time 1, 109 participants completed self‐report questionnaires regarding their action self‐efficacy, risk awareness, outcome expectancies and intentions to hygienically prepare food and past behaviour. At time 2, participants returned a follow‐up questionnaire, which measured behaviour, planning, maintenance and recovery self efficacy. Structural equation modelling was used to compare three versions of the HAPA model.

The first model showed that intention was a significant predictor of behaviour explaining 40 per cent of the variance and was the best fit. The second model, which included the volitional components of the HAPA model, did significantly increase the proportion of behaviour explained. The third model, which included past behaviour, increased the variance explained but was not a superior fit to the previous two models.

The results of this study confirm that aspects of the HAPA may be useful in determining hygienic food handling behaviour. However, volitional variables do not appear to be important in this behaviour. The implications of this for future research and interventions are elucidated.

The current study is one of the first to use the HAPA model to predict hygienic food handling behaviour.

Asset management has recently gained significance due to emerging business models such as Product Service Systems where the sale of asset use, rather than the sale of the asset itself, is applied. This leaves the responsibility of the maintenance tasks to fall on the shoulders of the manufacturer/supplier to provide high asset availability. The use of asset monitoring assists in providing high availability but the level of monitoring and maintenance needs to be assessed for cost effectiveness. There is a lack of available tools and understanding of their value in assessing monitoring levels. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This research aims to develop a dynamic modelling approach using Discrete Event Simulation (DES) to assess such maintenance systems in order to provide a better understanding of the behaviour of complex maintenance operations. Interviews were conducted and literature was analysed to gather modelling requirements. Generic models were created, followed by simulation models, to examine how maintenance operation systems behave regarding different levels of asset monitoring.

This research indicates that DES discerns varying levels of complexity of maintenance operations but that more sophisticated asset monitoring levels will not necessarily result in a higher asset performance. The paper shows that it is possible to assess the impact of monitoring levels as well as make other changes to system operation that may be more or less effective.

The proposed tool supports the maintenance operations decision makers to select the appropriate asset monitoring level that suits their operational needs.

A novel DES approach was developed to assess asset monitoring levels for maintenance operations. In applying this quantitative approach, it was demonstrated that higher asset monitoring levels do not necessarily result in higher asset availability. The work provides a means of evaluating the constraints in the system that an asset is part of rather than focusing on the asset in isolation.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of choice on the development and maintenance of a fruit consumption behaviour and if behaviour change was underpinned by habit strength.

A 2×2×3 mixed model experimental design was used. The independent variables were pictorial cue and fruit consumption manipulated on two levels: choice and no choice, across three-time points: baseline, post-intervention (after two weeks) and follow-up (one week later). Participants (n=166) completed demographics, the self-report habit index and fruit intake at all three-time points.

All participants showed significant increases in fruit consumption and habit strength at post-intervention and follow-up. However, participants provided neither choice of cue nor fruit showed a significant decrease in consumption at follow-up.

Fruit consumption can be significantly increased with a relatively simple intervention; choice seems to have an effect on behaviour maintenance, providing no choice negatively effects behaviour maintenance post-intervention. This may inform future interventions designed to increase fruit and vegetable consumption.

The intervention that the authors designed and implemented in the current study is the first of its kind, where choice was manipulated in two different ways and behaviour was changed with a simple environmental cue intervention.

This chapter presents a quantitative and qualitative review of research on the use of behavioral self-management (BSM) procedures with adolescents with learning disabilities or behavioral disorders (LD/BD). These procedures included self-monitoring, self-evaluation, self-reinforcement, self-instruction, and packages containing two or more BSM techniques. Twenty studies published from 1981 to 2002 were identified and analyzed. The analysis centered on a series of questions addressing overall effectiveness of the procedures, whether BSM produced socially valid changes, where the changes occurred (i.e. special education or general education setting), whether maintenance and generalization of the target behavior(s) occurred, and if students began to use BSM procedures on their own. Results showed a mean percentage of nonoverlapping data (PND) of 80 indicating that BSM procedures are, overall, an effective approach to behavior change. It also appears that in some instances, these changes are socially valid in that the performance of students with LD/BD can be improved to the level of nondisabled peers. Interventions consisting of a combination of self-management procedures appear to be the most effective, however self-monitoring alone has similar impact. BSM also appears to be effective with a wide variety of behaviors, albeit with relatively discrete behaviors (versus more complex chains of behaviors used in strategic problem-solving). While there is some evidence that target behaviors were generalized and maintained, many of the studies reviewed did not measure it. Also of concern was the apparent lack of student involvement in selecting target behaviors, goal setting, forms of recording etc as well as the fact that no study measured student ability to apply BSM procedures after intervention. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.