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Based on a 2015 research survey by the author, the purpose of this paper is to evaluate a group of tablet- and smartphone-based software in order to recommend which one (or two) best matches the requirements for building construction field quality management. The secondary purpose of this paper is to identify which usage criteria best represent the needs of designers and builders. A tertiary but equally important purpose is to identify best means for knowledge transfer to up to 100 project teams per year.

Using a previously developed in-house questionnaire comprising 34 evaluation criteria, the author identified and evaluated eight currently available field quality management software being used by project teams in several different branches of the author’s building construction company. Evaluation involved face-to-face meetings with each of the 11 project teams using a standard questionnaire. Software vendors were also interviewed. Each comment made during interviews was captured and the results were communicated back to the team members for review – there were several comments and clarifications received in this manner. Questionnaires were evaluated, findings and recommendations drafted and circulated to senior management for review.

Out of the original 34 evaluation criteria, there emerged 12 field-derived evaluation criteria; an additional five arose from the site office, for a total of 17 out of the original 34. While site office-based personnel were comfortable with tablet-based software solutions, field staff such as superintendents favored smartphone-based solutions. Where field staff were required to use tablets for field quality management, they insisted on being accompanied by junior project management staff to act as scribes – all agreed this was inefficient.

The eight software products selected for evaluation were limited to those already in use in the company; in one case a product was evaluated due to strong recommendations from staff based on hearsay. There are many more field quality management software and the field is changing rapidly, however the author believes the findings are of value in analyzing any current or future offering.

The ideal building construction field staff member should be equipped with a tablet used periodically during the workday to access the most up-to-date project documents. But the same individual should use a smartphone for the large majority of quality management observations, such as identifying and tracking to resolution deficiencies and non-conformances. Details of this mix and usage have not been previously identified.

In addition to evaluating a variety of field quality management software and identifying selection criteria, the paper identifies a practical implementation protocol that will maximize the likelihood of successful implementation.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a theoretical framework that explains the roles and viability of both cooperation and competition as they emerge in communities of practice. Although the usefulness of cooperation in communities of practice is well-understood, few studies have considered the role of internal competition, and those that have generally only explored cases in which antagonistic behavior led to the community’s collapse.

A contingency theory of communities of practice is developed based on the manifestations of members’ participation.

This theory demonstrates the root causes of fracturing and also provides a foundation for studying communities of practice that have previously defied explanation.

This manuscript explains the potential role and limitations of internal competition in communities of practice, as well as the emergence of subgroups based on differing preferences for cooperation and/or competition. Future research should examine the manifestation and ramifications of such individual differences between community members.

Practitioners can use this theoretical framework to assess communities of practice that they oversee, diagnose potential pitfalls and take corrective action to mitigate potentially toxic influences or inject additional motivating forces that would sustain the community.

This theoretical framework diverges from previous assumptions that internal competition is necessarily toxic for communities of practice, showing the value that it may offer in some contexts.

Haworth Press, the well known publishers in the library and information science field, have recently cottoned on to an interesting idea: devote a special issue of one of their journals to a special theme, and at the same time produce a hardback book, reasonably priced, that reproduces the articles. The idea is to appeal to a market other than the libraries that will typically subscribe to the Haworth journals. Success depends upon the collection of chapters forming a coherent whole. This book, reproduced from a special issue of The Reference Librarian, partly succeeds. The 150 page hardback book comprises seven articles, from five different authors (two authors supply two articles each) with an editor's introduction. The articles are fairly typical journal articles, reporting research results; some could easily have graced the pages of Online and CD‐ROM Review. The articles vary somewhat in length and style, but generally either review the literature of a particular topic, or describe some recent research work. The title is somewhat misleading, as the book is NOT comprehensive; a better subtitle would have been ‘Aspects of Use and User Behavior’.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the effects of scenario planning on participant mental model styles.

The scenario planning literature is consistent with claims that scenario planning can change individual mental models. These claims are supported by anecdotal evidence and stories from the practical application of scenario planning. This research study documents the responses of 129 participants from 10 organizations using the mental model style survey as a pretest and posttest, with scenario planning as the intervention. Paired samples t‐tests were performed between participant pretest and posttest, to test hypotheses on all five factors of the mental model style survey.

Results provide evidence that scenario planning can change individual mental model styles. More specifically, results show that scenario planning promotes efficiency, social, and systems mental model styles, with moderate effect sizes.

The implications of this research include contribution to the growing body of quantitative studies attempting to document the impact scenario planning has on participants. Implications for future research include the use of control groups to isolate effects of the scenario planning intervention.

The study documents one of the largest sample sizes to date in scenario planning research and makes a clear contribution in clarifying significant changes in mental model styles from pretest to posttest.

The private rental market in Malta has expanded significantly in recent years, but as at 2020, no official rent index is yet published. This paper aims to construct such an index and explores the relative importance of structural, locational and neighbourhood factors to advertised rents.

The authors compile hedonic indices for advertised rents in Malta collected from publicly available sources using webscraping techniques. The database comprises more than 25,000 listings with information on various property attributes. Hedonic regressions are estimated using ordinary least squares and rent indices are computed using three alternative methods: the time dummy method, the rolling time dummy method and the average characteristics method. For the latter, indices are computed using the Laspeyres, Paasche and Fisher methods.

The results from the hedonic indices indicate that the annual growth rate in advertised rents was slowing down during 2019, albeit still remaining relatively high, while in 2020, advertised rents contracted sharply, amplified by the effects of COVID-19. The findings also reveal that advertised rental prices are significantly influenced by various structural, locational and neighbourhood factors.

This paper introduces the first rent index in Malta that will be used to monitor developments in the rental segment of the housing market and for financial stability purposes given the share of buy-to-let properties. It also provides various elasticities on the impact of property attributes on advertised rents in Malta. Finally, the study contributes to the literature on the effect of foreign-born residents on advertised rents.

Foreign fighters (FFs) appeared in at least approximately one-fourth of conflicts over the past 200 years. This study aims to reveal the impact of FFs in conflicts, whether they resolve the conflict faster or they drag out the conflict, and investigate the single and simultaneous impacts of ethnic conflict (EC) and FFs on conflict duration (CD).

The data set consisting of 352 conflicts from 1818 to 2022 was collected from different sources. Logarithmic Linear Regression with Dummy Variables and the Cox Regression models were used to check the hypotheses.

One of the key findings of this analysis is that the use of FFs extends the duration of conflicts. Similarly, conflicts involving EC increase CD. Additionally, the simultaneous effect of FFs and EC together increases the CD much more, and it is noted CD significantly varies regionally.

As this study focused on the factors that affect the duration of the conflict in the hypotheses, the findings only can contribute to explaining the duration rather than factors such as the number of casualties and economic losses. The authors believe that policy and key decision-makers can benefit from the results and think twice before deciding to use FFs in conflicts.

This study offers a separate and simultaneous effect of EC and FFs on CD, which provides some empirical contributions to conflict management by filling the gap in this area.

Marketing in an emerging market.

The case is aimed at MBA students in a marketing strategy class on marketing at the bottom of the pyramid or on branding.

A young brand manager faced the challenge to increase drastically a brand market share to 8 per cent in 2015 in a context of a new emerging market with large number of consumers living with no more than US$1.25 a day.

Expected learning outcomes are as follows: to familiarize students with emerging markets characteristics; to illustrate the challenges of marketing a brand to local consumers with limited financial resources to craft a marketing strategy for Pepsodent with a clear positioning, allowing the Pepsodent brand to differentiate itself and to leverage its brand equity; and to develop a marketing-mix aligned with the brand positioning.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.

CSS 8: Marketing.