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1 – 10 of over 1000Sue Ogilvy, Danny O'Brien, Rachel Lawrence and Mark Gardner
This paper aims to demonstrate methods that sustainability-conscious brands can use to include their primary producers in the measurement and reporting of the environment and…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to demonstrate methods that sustainability-conscious brands can use to include their primary producers in the measurement and reporting of the environment and sustainability performance of their supply chains. It explores three questions: How can farm businesses provide information required in sustainability reporting? What are the challenges and opportunities experienced in preparing and presenting the information? What future research and policy instruments might be needed to resolve these issues.
Design/methodology/approach
This study identifies and describes methods to provide the farm-level information needed for environmental performance and sustainability reporting frameworks. It demonstrates them by compiling natural capital accounts and environmental performance information for two wool producers in the grassy woodland biome of Eastern Australia; the contrasting history and management of these producers would be expected to result in different environmental performances.
Findings
The authors demonstrated an approach to NC accounting that is suitable for including primary producers in environmental performance reporting of supply chains and that can communicate whether individual producers are sustaining, improving or degrading their NC. Measurements suitable for informing farm management and for the estimation of supply chain performance can simultaneously produce information useful for aggregation to regional and national assessments.
Practical implications
The methods used should assist sustainability-conscious supply chains to more accurately assess the environmental performance of their primary producers and to use these assessments in selective sourcing strategies to improve supply chain performance. Empirical measures of environmental performance and natural capital have the potential to enable evaluation of the effectiveness of sustainability accounting frameworks in inducing businesses to reduce their environmental impacts and improve the condition of the natural capital they depend on.
Social implications
Two significant social implications exist for the inclusion of primary producers in the sustainability and environmental performance reporting of supply chains. Firstly, it presently takes considerable time and expense for producers to prepare this information. Governments and members of the supply chain should acknowledge the value of this information to their organisations and consider sharing some of the cost of its preparation with primary producers. Secondly, the “additionality” requirement commonly present in existing frameworks may perversely exclude already high-performing producers from being recognised. The methods proposed in this paper provide a way to resolve this.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is the first to describe detailed methods of collecting data for natural capital accounting and environmental performance reporting for individual farms and the first to compile the information and present it in a manner coherent with the Kering EP&L and the UN SEEA EA. The authors believe that this will make a significant contribution to the development of fair and standardised ways of measuring individual farm performance and the performance of food, beverage and apparel supply chains.
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This study aims to explain the importance of human resources and attempts to identify the competencies required by the personnel involved in disaster management operations.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explain the importance of human resources and attempts to identify the competencies required by the personnel involved in disaster management operations.
Design/methodology/approach
The research uses a qualitative methodology to explore the competencies required by the relief workers using a content analysis approach to analyze the disaster literature and the job advertisements. The data for the content analysis was developed with the help of 23 independent coders, and exploratory inferences were drawn.
Findings
A detailed review of the literature highlighted the importance of competent personnel in disaster relief organizations. The analysis listed 34 mutually exclusive competencies and their relative importance, which were further divided into four competency clusters. The study also creates a competency dictionary that defines the competencies with the expected behaviors.
Practical implications
Deploying the right resources in the acute time frame during a disaster event can make a difference, and with lives at stake, such deployment acquires prime importance. In addition to contributing to humanitarian logistics literature, the competency model developed will also help forecast the future requirements and help the organization choose “the right person for the right job.”
Originality/value
The inferences drawn in the study are based on disaster management areas, unlike earlier research which also considered business logistics research.
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The purpose of this case study is to explore to what extent US university undergraduates participating in a research abroad program through US–Taiwan Partnerships for…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this case study is to explore to what extent US university undergraduates participating in a research abroad program through US–Taiwan Partnerships for International Research and Education (PIRE) developed intercultural awareness and cross-cultural adaptability skills. It also suggests additional program design features to enhance students' international experiences.
Design/methodology/approach
To better understand participants' experiences in the PIRE program, this study adopts a mixed-methods approach. Demographic questionnaires, pre- and postsurveys, observational field notes and individual interviews were conducted for data collection and analysis.
Findings
Students perceived the experience abroad to improve their intercultural awareness and skills such as openness to cultural differences, coping with challenges abroad and effectively working in diverse teams. Specifically, quantitative findings reflected group gains in the areas of flexibility/openness and perceptual acuity, whereas qualitative findings indicated growth in students' emotional resilience and personal autonomy.
Research limitations/implications
Additional data collection methods, such as pre-/postinstruments or a longitudinal study would provide a more comprehensive assessment of the impact of education abroad on students' intercultural learning.
Social implications
Evaluation of programs and outcomes can help identify areas to maximize student learning and assess the value of education abroad.
Originality/value
This is original research and makes a contribution to education abroad programs in postsecondary education.
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Israel José dos Santos Felipe, Michelle Machado Silva and Harrison Bachion Ceribeli
This study aims to identify the precedents of compulsively using a credit card, analyzing the influence of the following factors: power–prestige, anxiety, distrust and materialism.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to identify the precedents of compulsively using a credit card, analyzing the influence of the following factors: power–prestige, anxiety, distrust and materialism.
Design/methodology/approach
Data collection was performed by the survey method, while the structural equation modeling technique was used for data analysis, adopting the confirmatory factor analysis and path analysis.
Findings
The impact that anxiety has on compulsive use of credit cards was confirmed. Furthermore, the influence of materialism present in an individual on the compulsive use of a credit card was also proven.
Research limitations/implications
As a limitation, the power–prestige construction did not obtain satisfactory average variance extracted in the modeling. Other limitations can be pointed out; for instance, it was a sample composed of university students and with geographic restrictions.
Practical implications
This study highlights the importance of promoting public policies oriented toward the conscious use of credit cards. Interference in the approach of financial institutions aimed at attracting new clients in universities is also necessary.
Social implications
This study aggregates information about the buying behavior of university students, how the precedents affect credit card use behavior and the harmful effects of compulsive use of credit cards.
Originality/value
The originality of this study is in offering a new approach to credit cards by analyzing their usage behavior, more specifically, the compulsive use of credit cards.
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Francesco Pomponi, Robert Crawford, André Stephan, Jim Hart and Bernardino D'Amico
The construction and operation of buildings is a major contributor to global energy demand, greenhouse gases emissions, resource depletion, waste generation, and associated…
Abstract
The construction and operation of buildings is a major contributor to global energy demand, greenhouse gases emissions, resource depletion, waste generation, and associated environmental effects, such as climate change, pollution and habitat destruction. Despite its wide relevance, research on building-related environmental effects often fails to achieve global visibility and attention, particularly in premiere interdisciplinary journals – thus representing a major gap in the research these journals offer. In this article we review and reflect on the factors that are likely causing this lack of visibility for such a prominent research topic and emphasise the need to reconcile the construction and operational phases into the physical unity of a building, to contribute to the global environmental discourse using a lifecycle-based approach. This article also aims to act as a call for action and to raise awareness of this important gap. The evidence contained in the article can support institutional policies to improve the status quo and provide a practical help to researchers in the field to bring their work to wide interdisciplinary audiences.
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Rebecca McPherson and Lucas Wayne Loafman
This study aims to fill a distinct gap in the literature on disability-assistance animals (disability-AAs) and inclusive employment by investigating human resource (HR…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to fill a distinct gap in the literature on disability-assistance animals (disability-AAs) and inclusive employment by investigating human resource (HR) practitioners’ perceptions of disability-AAs in the staffing process and workplace. HR practitioners play a critical role in accommodation and inclusion, yet their experiences and insights have been largely ignored in prior research.
Design/methodology/approach
This study used a phenomenological approach, drawing on signaling theory and employability constructs, to explore insights from 17 HR practitioners’ experiences with assistance animals in the workplace.
Findings
The potential for unconscious bias in employment practices was found, as well as a significant percentage of practitioners who were unprepared to handle animal accommodations. First, the potential development of a positive stereotype bias suggests all genuine assistance animals are high functioning. Second, the assumption that employees’ assistance animal requests for invisible disabilities without previous disclosure are presumed fraudulent until proven valid.
Research limitations/implications
As a qualitative study, findings from this study are not generalizable to a larger population but may be transferable to similar employment contexts.
Originality/value
This study extends knowledge from previous studies, which focused predominately on insights from disabled individuals, animal trainers and therapists, to the HR practitioner domain in creating a more inclusive work environment. Findings from this study suggest the need to improve education about disability-AAs and the potential for unconscious bias for HR practitioners and hiring managers when accommodating requests, particularly when those assistance animals are not described as high functioning.
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This paper aims to examine the Islamic accounting research. In particular, the paper extensively investigates the literature on Islamic accounting to understand the issues…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the Islamic accounting research. In particular, the paper extensively investigates the literature on Islamic accounting to understand the issues, contexts, methods and theoretical paradigms thereof.
Design/methodology/approach
The study has adopted a literature review approach. It has examined the key journal publications for 30 years in accounting discipline and systematically identified the Islamic accounting papers during 1990–2020. In total, 95 papers were identified until June 2020, and they were thoroughly reviewed to identify the relevant issues, contexts, methods and theoretical paradigms.
Findings
The study has found that Islamic accounting papers covered issues of both Islamic organizations (e.g. Islamic financial institutions) and of Muslim countries. The key issues include the regulation and regulatory compliance, annual report disclosures, corporate and Islamic governance, accounting profession, gender, accountability matters, management accounting and control, waqf accounting and zakat management. The study has also observed various normative guidelines from the academics on how the teaching of Islam is enacted in accounting, accountability and governance matters to attain the maqasid al-shari'a, i.e. human welfare, social justice and equity.
Research limitations/implications
The study is not empirical. Hence, the limitations of literature review papers are applicable in this case. Moreover, it is possible that this study could not identify some of the important literature on Islamic accounting (such as the papers published in Arabic by the academicians and professionals of Arab world).
Practical implications
The study enables both Islamic accounting academics and practitioners to identify the main Islamic accounting issues and realize the importance of Islamic accounting.
Social implications
When the author considers Islamic accounting as a social construction and tries to understand the phenomenon through social theories, the author acknowledges the relevance of Islamic accounting in the society in which it operates. It can be noticed from the discussion that Islamic accounting emphasizes on social welfare, balance, equity and providing relevant information to follow the commandments of God.
Originality/value
To the best of the author’s knowledge, this study is the first to provide a synoptic view on the issues, context, methods and theoretical paradigms of Islamic accounting, while covering major accounting journals in 30 years.
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