Search results

The purpose of this paper is to identify distinguishing term characteristics from among the information of term appearance situations (tas) residing in the relevant/irrelevant documents retrieved for use. Terms with specific characteristics could be used in the distinguishing of user profiles, documents, pages or concepts to assist in information retrieval.

First, a method to apply the potential term characteristics in the distinguishing of user profiles in the information retrieval environment is designed. Then, an information retrieval system is developed to demonstrate the realisation and sustain the study of the method. Formal tests are conducted to examine the distinguishing capability of the potential term characteristics proposed in the method.

The results of the tests show that the potential term characteristics proposed in this study are successfully applied in the distinguishing of user profiles in the information retrieval environment.

Identification of distinguishing term characteristics would expand the ground for the IR community in the design of feature‐extraction algorithms or systems that try to cull information from structured or unstructured documents.

Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) is distinguishable from suicide attempts (SAs) on a number of psychological and motivational factors. However, in corrective services settings, NSSI and SA are not clearly distinguished in assessment impacting on intervention. The purpose of this paper is to examine if any attributes differentiate lifetime history of SA+NSSI, NSSI and SA presentations in inmates who had recently been assessed in custody by a risk intervention team.

A comprehensive clinical assessment and file review was conducted with 87 male inmates (including a no self-injury control group) in two large correctional centres in New South Wales, Australia, to determine if three self-injury groups differ from the control group and if the three self-injury groups differ from each other across a range of static, trait, environmental and clinical characteristics.

The SA+NSSI group was most different from the control group (27/59 variables), and from the SA group (10/59 variables), predominantly across trait and clinical correlates. The SA group was least different from the control group (2/59 variables: suicide ideation, childhood physical abuse).

It was found that the presence of SA+NSSI history is an indicator of increased psychopathology. A history of SA only appears not readily associated with psychopathology. The self-injury subgroups reflected different clinical profiles with implications for risk assessment and treatment planning.

In 1971, Kilby likened research about the psychology of entrepreneurs to search for a “heffalump”, with no convincing descriptions resulting from the research. This paper surveys later research which compares entrepreneurs with other people, and concludes that more is now known about the psychology of entrepreneurs, but that entrepreneurs are not as different from other groups within the general population, managers included, as was once assumed.

To design effective task-responsive search systems, sufficient understanding of users’ tasks must be gained and their characteristics described. Although existing multi-dimensional task schemes can be used to describe users’ search and work tasks, they do not take into account the information use environment (IUE) that contextualises the task. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

With a focus on English primary schools, in four stages a multi-dimensional task scheme was developed that distinguishes between task characteristics generic to all environments, and those that are specific to schools. In Stage 1, a provisional scheme was developed based upon the existing literature. In the next two stages, through interviews with teachers and observations of school children, the provisional scheme was populated and revised. In Stage 4, whether search tasks with the same information use can be distinguished by their characteristics was examined.

Ten generic characteristics were identified (nature of work task, search task originator, search task flexibility, search task doer, search task necessity, task output, search goal, stage in work task, resources and information use) and four characteristics specific to primary schools (curricular area, use in curricular area, planning and location). For the different information uses, some characteristics are more typical than others.

The resulting scheme, based on children’s real-life information seeking, should be used in the design and evaluation of search systems and digital libraries that support school children. More generally, the scheme can also be used in other environments.

This is the first study to develop a multi-dimensional task scheme that considers encompasses the IUE.

To research how chief executives learn and what behavioural characteristics distinguish them from other managers.

The research used a personality profile (DISC) and structured interviews to compare the behaviours of a sample of chief executives from the public service with a sample from the private sectors in Northern Ireland.

The research found three distinguishing characteristics of chief executives and challenged stereotypes of differences between the public and private sector and between male and female chief executives.

There were no historic data to compare findings to indicate whether the behaviours highlighted were intrinsic or learned. Neither were the data differentiated by age nor was there any indication of how successful chief executives were. Future research might also look at differences between successful and less successful chief executives or look at other categories of leaders. An extremely interesting field might be to look at political leaders and compare their profiles with the chief executives.

The research challenges some of the basis for core competency approaches to development and reinforces the argument for action‐based approaches.

Provides data for the debate on how one can best design and plan the selection and development of senior executives.

The purpose of this paper is to review, integrate and extend the methods for constructing and interpreting a strategic groups map. A strategic groups map is a visualization tool for capturing the essence of the competitive landscape in an industry: extent of competition between and among strategic groups, mobility barriers, available niches, positioning and industry dynamics.

This paper extends Porter’s (1980, pp. 152-155) original prescriptions by reviewing the research on strategic groups in the almost 40 years since Porter’s contribution and by amalgamation of practitioners’ uncodified practices.

The process for constructing a strategic groups map consists of five steps: first, define the industry; second, identify strategic characteristics that distinguish between groups; third, divide firms into groups; forth, select the two main dimensions of the map, and draw the map; and five, interpret the map. Specific instructions are provided for practitioners and academic researchers. Several examples of strategic groups maps illustrate this. Ways to interpret the maps are discussed, followed by limitations and conclusion.

Though the topic of strategic groups has been widely researched since the 1980s, there has been very little done in the area of mapping these groups, leaving scholars of businesses and industries with few directions for constructing strategic groups maps. To fill this gap, a structured process for constructing and interpreting a strategic groups map is provided.

Social ventures are unique and important for society; yet, we know very little about their business models. The purpose of this paper is to: re-conceptualize extant business model frameworks so that they can analyze social ventures; identify the key characteristics of social ventures; and identify the typology of effective social venture business model configurations.

The paper uses resource dependence theory to make sense of extant business models and borrows from public administration literature to identify key characteristics and different configurations of social venture business models.

The paper re-conceptualizes business model frameworks as inter-organizational arrangements to cope with external resource dependence; this paper also identifies four key characteristics of social ventures, and develops a social venture business model typology based on these unique key characteristics and extant business model dimensions.

The typology may guide further social venture research, e.g. research on social venture business model creation, on social venture business model innovation, and on social change. Limitations and boundary conditions are discussed in the paper.

The research may further help social entrepreneurs to develop effective business models that meet the social and financial objectives.

The paper offers a novel reconceptualization of traditional business model frameworks, a unique set of key characteristics of social ventures, and a theoretical typology of effective social venture business model configurations.

Although offender profiling has been cited as an effective tool to interview suspects, empirical profiling methods have completely excluded interviewing suggestions when testing the validity of this technique. The purpose of this paper is to explore the utility of empirically derived profiles of offender- and victim-related sexual assault case characteristics (n=624) in the preparation of the interrogation strategies in sexual assault investigations.

Latent class analysis was used to extract profiles of offender- and victim-related sexual assault case characteristics in a sample of 624 incarcerated sex offenders. Moreover, relationships between offender and victim profiles were conducted using χ² analyses.

Findings show that specific offender-victim profiles are related to greater likelihood of confession during the interrogation. Possible interrogation strategies for each profile are suggested and implications for the practice of interviewing suspects are discussed.

The study is the first to examine both victim and offender profiles in order to assess the significant victim-offender profile combinations and their associated probabilities of resulting in confession.