Search results

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate to what extent Denise Rousseau's psychological contracts in organizations and Jean‐Jacques Rousseau's social contract present superficial or profound similarities. Having localized more precisely the lines of gaps between both works, “transgressive” research directions are proposed to enrich each of both thoughts of contracts.

This work consists in an analysis in the sense of Descartes, dividing conceptual difficulties into smaller and smaller parts. More precisely, that analysis is a semiotic one, as defined by linguist Hjelmslev, considering each step of the analysis a “level” and assessing the depth of similarities between two works: On the Social Contract and Psychological Contracts in Organizations. The parallel study of both works consists in analyzing the “grammar of use” of concepts at each level, establishing semantic comparative tables. This digging into parallel strata of sense is metaphorically considered as the tectonic study of two continents of thought.

It is established that common ideas and concepts are similar up to the depth of level three but radically differ at level four. At level one, nine main common ideas and concepts are raised. Analysis at level two allows considering those superficial similarities as nine more profound homologies in the sense of Greimas and Courtes. At level three, two different groups of homologies are established, binding, on the one hand, an isomorphism between spheres of contracting and, on the other hand, an isomorphism between substances of contract. At level four a deep tectonic fault is unveiled between Jean‐Jacques' and Denise's thought of contract: the sovereignty/exchange gap. This fault corresponds to two universal different syntaxes of subjects and objects defined by Greimas: the participative communication vs closed circulation of the objects of value.

This analysis is based on a corpus of two major works. However, every grammar of use relies on the study of a finite corpus.

The liberal assimilation of every social contract to exchange dynamics is radically denied by such work. The challenge of raising “sovereignty‐like” dimension in psychological contracts is all the more so critical since those contracts are pervasive in organizational and social life.

This paper proposes rigorous criteria for every trans‐cultural and trans‐disciplinary use of concepts in an original manner. A comparative “geology of thought” is made possible through semiotic instruments.

This paper synthesizes the extant geographically distributed work literature, focusing on how geographic distribution affects coordination and communication, knowledge sharing, work design, and social identity. Geographically distributed audit arrangements, such as group audits and offshoring, are becoming increasingly prevalent in audit practice. However, little empirically is known about how working across cities, countries, and continents affects auditors, the audit process, or audit quality. To this end, the synthesis seeks to stimulate research investigating the implications of geographically distributed work arrangements in auditing, by surveying the extant literature within the management and social psychology disciplines and developing eighteen research questions for future audit research to consider. The synthesis reveals that geographically distributed audit work is likely to be very different from work performed in more traditional arrangements and therefore cannot be treated by audit researchers, practitioners, or standard setters as replications of domestic processes abroad. As a result, the synthesis focuses on building a greater understanding of the changes in day-to-day auditing, the consequences of such changes, and interventions that may moderate the challenges encountered in geographically distributed audit arrangements.

The Australian retail food sector, comprising mostly small enterprises, is undergoing change as a result of the innovative supply chain approach adopted. This change has implications across the entire food value chain in Australia. The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the adoption of supply chain management practices on small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the Australian food retail industry.

The study surveys 120 SME retailers in the food sector. A stepwise multiple regression using SPSS version 14.0 was performed on the data.

Statistical results suggest that lean thinking and the quality of information shared can lead to greater efficient supply chain performance.

The small sample is the main limitation. The findings bear important implications for further research as understanding these dimensions can help to position key changes and industry improvement that will increase revenue and reduce cost to the SMEs in the food retail supply chain.

Adopting lean thinking and improving information sharing in the supply chain can reduce the cost for SMEs.

This study has unique implications for social sustainability, especially the smaller food enterprises, which are hard pressed to combat the challenges within the food sector.

Innovative supply chain management helps SMEs to see beyond the silo mentality and helps them to focus on greater value addition in the supply chain.

This article explores the little understood practice of school interior design and the manner in which school interiors give form to ideas about what the work of children and teachers could and should look like. Its focus is a perceived link between the concepts of school work made material in the design of new twenty‐first century learning environments and those expressed in the design of Modernist progressive schools such as Richard Neutra’s Corona Ave, Elementary School, California. The article’s impetus comes from current interest in the inter‐relationship between the design of physical learning environments and pedagogy reform as governments in Australia and internationally, work to transform teaching and learning practices through innovative school building and refurbishment projects. Government campaigns, for example the UK’s Schools for the Future Program and Australia’s Victorian Schools Plan, use a promotional rhetoric that calls for the final dismantling of the cellular classroom with its industrial model of work so that ‘different pedagogical approaches and the different ways that children learn [can] be represented in the design of new learning environments’, in buildings and interiors designed to support contemporary constructivist‐inspired pedagogies.

To determine how seniors evaluate, compare, and use prescription drug information sources, provide insight on perceptions of the credibility, trustworthiness, and value of these sources, and capture verbatim comments for translation into scalar statements in future surveys.

A total of 25 in‐depth interviews were conducted with US seniors age 65 or older. The transcripts were analyzed using an interpretative approach.

Informants distinguish between sources on the dimension of credibility; place the most trust in physicians but since they tend to experience a lack of time and attention from them, mass media seem to fill an information gap; and direct‐to‐physician promotions appear to have an indirect influence on patients' perceived credibility of and interaction with physicians.

The findings suggest that identification of key sources should consider two factors: frequency of access/utilization and trust in information provided by the source. The findings also provide empirically‐grounded statements for future scale development.

The results suggest that for multi‐media campaign effectiveness: advertising for a new drug may be most effective on TV but as a brand enters growth or maturity, print may be a better option; marketers should emphasize print in the direct‐to‐consumer (DTC) advertising media mix; sampling strategies should be coordinated with product packaging literature and emphasized to promote trial; and marketers should attempt to increase internet usage among seniors and utilize the medium more actively but avoid online advertising.

The findings contribute to knowledge on the responsiveness of US seniors to DTC advertising and other prescription drug information sources.

This study investigated how behavioral and emotional forms of engagement are associated with faculty support and student-faculty interactions among engineering students.

Quantitative research methods were used to analyze survey data from 781 undergraduates in seven large undergraduate engineering courses. Linear hierarchical regression models were used to evaluate the relationships between demographics (gender, race/ethnicity, family education, US status and transfer status) and student engagement and between faculty behaviors and engagement.

Faculty support was consistently, significantly and positively linked to all forms of student engagement, while student-faculty interactions were significantly and positively linked to effort and positive emotional engagement and negatively linked to attention and (an absence of) negative emotional engagement. Gender, race/ethnicity, international student status and transfer status significantly predicted at least one form of engagement.

Although this was a single institution study and cross-sectional, the findings suggest that faculty support and student-faculty interactions, while important for engagement, have different effects on different types of students. Faculty and teacher professional development efforts should raise awareness of these differences in order to enhance diversity and inclusion in engineering courses and curricula at all levels.

The analysis of behavioral and emotional forms of engagement represents more of a motivational lens on engagement in contrast to the traditional focus on time-on-task or time spent in fruitful educational practices, as is the norm with much of the engagement literature in higher education.