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1 – 10 of over 19000Hans Bressers and Cheryl de Boer
Sustainable regional development is often accompanied by the introduction and gradual implementation of innovative concepts, like, e.g. “integrated natural resources management”…
Abstract
Purpose
Sustainable regional development is often accompanied by the introduction and gradual implementation of innovative concepts, like, e.g. “integrated natural resources management” or “sustainable tourism”. From a managerial perspective, in order to contribute to improved sustainable regional development, the innovative concepts need to become rooted in everyday policy practice in such a way that they enable rather than hinder collective action. The paper aims to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach
Enabling collective action is a managerial challenge that is partly dependent on the presence of a sufficient degree of integration in the governance system that forms a context for the action. This challenge can be studied with the help of the concept of boundary judgments. Boundary judgments are normative and cognitive perceptions of actors on the relevancy of specific actors, factors, issues, etc. for their domain of action (what is “fit”, what is acceptable, what is needed?). The paper illustrates the importance of boundary judgments through two empirical studies in The Netherlands.
Findings
Divergent boundary judgments hamper the inclusion of the innovative concept in everyday actions for improving sustainable regional development. However, managers avoiding this complexity by relying on old definitions of their tasks also block the possible innovation. The challenge is to keep the balance between these two extremes.
Originality/value
The paper explains and illustrates the concept of “boundary judgments” and their importance for different types of managers (project leaders and policy makers) to take them into account, alongside the more obvious variation of values and interests among stakeholders.
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María-Laura Franco-García and Juan-Luis Sherwell and Aard Groen
Kirsten Cowan and Atefeh Yazdanparast
Even though the definitions of morality may seem to provide straightforward criteria to assess the morality of individuals, moral judgments are challenging and less exact. This…
Abstract
Purpose
Even though the definitions of morality may seem to provide straightforward criteria to assess the morality of individuals, moral judgments are challenging and less exact. This paper aims to advance extant work on morality and moral judgment by providing a conceptualization of boundary conditions in the relationship between moral judgments and consumer behavior.
Design/methodology/approach
An interdisciplinary literature review is conducted to integrate extant knowledge on morality, moral judgment and consumer behavior to identify and conceptualize boundary conditions affecting moral judgments and decision-making. The research draws on moral foundation theory and norm activation model, and the proposed factors and relationships are grounded in construal level theory and regulatory focus theory.
Findings
The research identifies cultural, individual and situational factors that influence moral judgments and decision-making and argues that moral judgments exhibit a similar pattern across types, but cultural factors determine the salience of each moral foundation type. Moreover, construal factors relevant to the situation (i.e. proximity vs distance) affect the extent and manner of moral judgments, and individual mindsets and their associated information processing styles (e.g. money vs time orientation and promotion vs prevention orientation) make moral judgments more malleable, adding a degree of variability to judgments within similar cultures and situations.
Originality/value
The research makes a rather unique contribution to consumer morality literature by identifying and discussing three different groups of factors with the potential to impact individuals’ judgments of, and reactions to, moral foundation violation information.
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Karl Halvor Teigen, Bjørn Andersen, Sigurd Lerkerød Alnes and Jan-Ole Hesselberg
The purpose of this paper is to examine people’s understanding and evaluation of uncertainty intervals produced by experts as part of a quality assurance procedure of large public…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine people’s understanding and evaluation of uncertainty intervals produced by experts as part of a quality assurance procedure of large public projects.
Design/methodology/approach
Three samples of educated participants (employees in a large construction company, students attending courses in project management and judgment and decision making, and judges of district and appeal courts) answered questionnaires about cost estimates of a highway construction project, presented as a probability distribution.
Findings
The studies demonstrated additivity neglect of probabilities that are graphically displayed. People’s evaluations of the accuracy of interval estimates revealed a boundary (a “cliff”) effect, with a sharp drop in accuracy ratings for outcomes above an arbitrary maximum. Several common verbal phrases (what “can” happen, is “entirely possible” and “not surprising”) which might seem to indicate expected outcomes were regularly used to describe unlikely values near or at the top of the distribution (an extremity effect).
Research limitations/implications
All judgments concerned a single case and were made by participants who were not stakeholders in this specific project. Further studies should compare judgments aided by a graph with conditions where the graph is changed or absent.
Practical implications
Experts and project managers cannot assume that readers of cost estimates understand a well-defined uncertainty interval as intended. They should also be aware of effects created by describing uncertain estimates in words.
Originality/value
The studies show how inconsistencies in judgment affect the understanding and evaluation of uncertainty intervals by well-informed and educated samples tested in a maximally transparent situation. Readers of cost estimates seem to believe that precise estimates are feasible and yet that costs are usually underestimated.
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Byoung-Chun Ha and Hyunjeong Nam
The purpose of this study is to empirically analyze managers’ ethical judgments in supply chain management. It investigated the influence of those judgments on trust and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to empirically analyze managers’ ethical judgments in supply chain management. It investigated the influence of those judgments on trust and collaboration in relationships with suppliers.
Design/methodology/approach
A scenario-based method was applied to measure managers’ ethical judgments using a sample of 341 data sets collected via survey. Structural equation modeling was utilized to test the proposed hypotheses associating ethical judgments with trust and collaboration in supply chains.
Findings
This study illustrates that managers’ ethical judgments in bidding/contracting, information management and inventory management significantly increase trust, which in turn increases supply chain collaboration.
Originality/value
The study extends our understanding of ethical judgments in the supply chain management context. Its findings on the causality among ethical judgment, trust and supply chain collaboration provide an effective approach to the management of supplier relationships.
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Yang Zhang, Wei Liu, Yongkang Lu, Xikang Cheng, Weiqi Luo, Hongtu Di and Fuji Wang
Profile measurement with boundary information plays a vital role in the detection of quality in the assembly of aviation parts. The purpose of this paper is to improve the…
Abstract
Purpose
Profile measurement with boundary information plays a vital role in the detection of quality in the assembly of aviation parts. The purpose of this paper is to improve the evaluation accuracy of the aerodynamic shapes of airplanes, the profiles of large-sized parts need to be measured accurately.
Design/methodology/approach
In this paper, an accurate profile measurement method based on boundary reference points is proposed for the industrial stereo-vision system. Based on the boundary-reference points, the authors established a priori constraint for extracting the boundary of the measured part. Combining with the image features of background and the measured part, an image-edge compensation model is established to extract the boundary of the measured part. The critical point of a laser stripe on the edge of the measured part is extracted corresponding to the boundary constraint. Finally, as per the principle of binocular vision, the profile of the measured part is reconstructed.
Finding
Laboratory experiments validate the measurement accuracy of the proposed method which is 0.33 mm. In the analysis of results between the measured data and the theoretical model, the measuring accuracy of the proposed method was found to be significantly higher than that of the other traditional methods.
Practical implication
An aviation part was measured in the part-assembly shop by the proposed method, which verified the feasibility and effectiveness of this method. The research can realize the measurement of smooth surface boundary which can solve existing profile reconstruction problems for aviation parts.
Originality/value
According to the two-dimensional contour constraint, critical points of the laser strip sequence at the edge of measured part are extracted and the accurate profile reconstruction with the boundary is realized.
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The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of perceived justice and consumer's moral judgment of a service failure on recovery outcomes.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of perceived justice and consumer's moral judgment of a service failure on recovery outcomes.
Design/methodology/approach
The research model is examined by adopting a field study approach followed by an experiment. The SPSS program with the PROCESS tool was used to analyze the simple moderation and moderated mediation effects.
Findings
The research findings show that consumer's moral judgment of a service failure moderates the relationship between service recovery (psychological compensation vs monetary compensation) and recovery outcomes (recovery satisfaction, negative word of mouth and repurchase intention). Moreover, the conditional indirect effect of service recovery on recovery outcomes through perceived justice is significant when service failure is seen as less moral. Specifically, consumers report lower perceived justice and react negatively to recovery measures when service failure is seen as less moral. In contrast, when consumers perceive a service failure as moral, a psychological compensation outperforms a monetary compensation, lessening negative word of mouth (NWOM).
Originality/value
These findings provide important insights into recovery measure development when considering consumer moral perspectives.
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This paper is written in response to the question “What developments are taking place in systems?” as a contribution to the November 2006 Cybernetics Conference. The paper is…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper is written in response to the question “What developments are taking place in systems?” as a contribution to the November 2006 Cybernetics Conference. The paper is based upon the assumption that what is meant by the question relates to research in an area of systems known as soft systems.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper begins with clarification about “Systems” and then the reader is taken on a personal journey through what are considered to be important contributions to soft systems research. The account includes reference to philosophical treatise on aspects relevant to some of the difficulties facing subjective research and some outcomes from research germane to the development of these ideas.
Findings
The paper recounts lessons learnt from the practice about the nature of undertaking soft systems research and whilst acknowledging that this research continues suggests that because of these soft systems has an intellectual and practical foundation.
Originality/value
Systems has become more contemplative about the nature of the world and how each one makes sense of it. Systems thinking and practice is no longer based solely on biological models but has a greater emphasis placed upon understanding and learning. Systems thinking now makes explicit that what comprises the whole is subjective but rigorous. The paper is of value to soft systems researchers and practitioners especially those who are attempting research/practice in which the clients are encouraged to participate in the process of learning.
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Yumeng Feng, Weisong Mu, Yue Li, Tianqi Liu and Jianying Feng
For a better understanding of the preferences and differences of young consumers in emerging wine markets, this study aims to propose a clustering method to segment the super-new…
Abstract
Purpose
For a better understanding of the preferences and differences of young consumers in emerging wine markets, this study aims to propose a clustering method to segment the super-new generation wine consumers based on their sensitivity to wine brand, origin and price and then conduct user profiles for segmented consumer groups from the perspectives of demographic attributes, eating habits and wine sensory attribute preferences.
Design/methodology/approach
We first proposed a consumer clustering perspective based on their sensitivity to wine brand, origin and price and then conducted an adaptive density peak and label propagation layer-by-layer (ADPLP) clustering algorithm to segment consumers, which improved the issues of wrong centers' selection and inaccurate classification of remaining sample points for traditional DPC (DPeak clustering algorithm). Then, we built a consumer profile system from the perspectives of demographic attributes, eating habits and wine sensory attribute preferences for segmented consumer groups.
Findings
In this study, 10 typical public datasets and 6 basic test algorithms are used to evaluate the proposed method, and the results showed that the ADPLP algorithm was optimal or suboptimal on 10 datasets with accuracy above 0.78. The average improvement in accuracy over the base DPC algorithm is 0.184. As an outcome of the wine consumer profiles, sensitive consumers prefer wines with medium prices of 100–400 CNY and more personalized brands and origins, while casual consumers are fond of popular brands, popular origins and low prices within 50 CNY. The wine sensory attributes preferred by super-new generation consumers are red, semi-dry, semi-sweet, still, fresh tasting, fruity, floral and low acid.
Practical implications
Young Chinese consumers are the main driver of wine consumption in the future. This paper provides a tool for decision-makers and marketers to identify the preferences of young consumers quickly which is meaningful and helpful for wine marketing.
Originality/value
In this study, the ADPLP algorithm was introduced for the first time. Subsequently, the user profile label system was constructed for segmented consumers to highlight their characteristics and demand partiality from three aspects: demographic characteristics, consumers' eating habits and consumers' preferences for wine attributes. Moreover, the ADPLP algorithm can be considered for user profiles on other alcoholic products.
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Policarpo C. deMattos, Daniel M. Miller and Eui H. Park
This paper aims to examine complex clinical decision‐making processes in trauma center units of hospitals in terms of the immediate impact of complexity on the medical team…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine complex clinical decision‐making processes in trauma center units of hospitals in terms of the immediate impact of complexity on the medical team involved in the trauma event.
Design/methodology/approach
It is proposed to develop a model of decision‐making processes in trauma events that uses a Bayesian classifier model with convolution and deconvolution operators to study real‐time observed trauma data for the decision‐making process under tremendous stress. The objective is to explore and explain physicians' decision‐making processes under stress and time constraints during actual trauma events from the perspective of complexity.
Findings
Because physicians have blurred information and cues that are tainted by random environmental noise during injury‐related events, they must de‐blur (de‐convolute) the collected data to find a best approximation of the real data for decision‐making processes.
Research limitations/implications
The data collection and analysis is innovative and the permission to access raw audio and video data from an active trauma center will differentiate this study from similar studies that rely on simulations, self report and case study approaches.
Practical implications
Clinical decision makers in trauma centers are placed in situations that are increasingly complex, making decision‐making and problem‐solving processes multifaceted.
Originality/value
The science of complex adaptive systems, together with human judgment theories, provide important concepts and tools for responding to the challenges of healthcare this century and beyond.
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