Search results

Reports on the first and biggest unitary authority in the UK to achieve the Investors in People standard, Solihull Council, and the ways in which the standard was achieved. Discusses the processes and vision, and the role of managers and teams in communicating via appraisals and team briefings. Provides an evaluation of the procedures and results, and concludes that, although the standard has been achieved, Solihull Council still sees room for improvement.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate leadership curricula in UAE business and education management programmes and examine the extent to which they are derived from and linked to students’ cultural and Islamic values using Habermas’ critical theory.

The study employs a mixed methods approach that takes classical pragmatism as its philosophical foundation and critical theory as a theoretical lens. Data are collected in four sequential phases using critical discourse analysis of course materials, class observations, student survey and faculty interviews. Results are integrated at the interpretative level and abductive reasoning is used as the logic of justification.

Results show that despite the increasing efforts to incorporate cultural and Islamic values into the curriculum, it is still mainly dominated by Western theories and models of leadership, especially in the leadership courses offered by business schools, mainly because of accreditation requirements and the lack of English resources and theories on UAE and Islamic models of leadership.

The study is limited to leadership curricula in the UAE. Researchers may extend and broaden the scope of the study by investigating leadership curricula in the Gulf and/or the Middle East. Future studies may also look at other theoretical frameworks recommended by other management scholars such as Mezirow’s transformational learning and the socio-constructivist approach (Hotho and Dowling, 2010). This study aims to open an ongoing debate and further investigation on the topic.

The results of the current study may inspire faculty members and programme coordinators to develop critical and culturally relevant curricula that are informed by Habermas’ critical theory and best teaching practices.

The study adds to the current knowledge base through its research design and approach that address an under-investigated topic. None of the current studies empirically investigated leadership curricula in the UAE. The theoretical framework and research findings can be used to develop culturally relevant and value-oriented leadership curricula that reflect indigenous and Western perspectives of leadership.

Throughout the past few decades a considerable philosophical literature has appeared, covering the various aspects of the history of philosophy and practically all of the systematic disciplines. Annual reports of this literature have been prepared for the past twenty years by James Collins, St. Louis University, for the Cross Currents review. These surveys are the best single source for keeping abreast of publications in the field. The collected reviews (1957–1977) are now available from Cross Currents at Dobbs Ferry, New York.

The purpose of this paper is to address how wine businesses build sustainability – the ability to survive and be successful over the long-term – in a complex market environment.

To understand how managers in a wine supply chain (i.e. from grower to consumer) are trying to sustain business within a hyper-competitive industry, the authors used a standard grounded theory, constant comparative research method using formal depth interviews along with additional data sources from wine businesses in nine global wine regions in the USA, Australia, Italy and New Zealand.

A framework emerged from the data to improve business sustainability and counteract the complexity in the wine market by developing resilience through innovating and experimenting, obtaining resources/developing capabilities and relying on supply chain connections.

This conceptual framework contributes to the existing theory on institutional transitions and resilience in business, and extends and broadens it by proposing that resilience is needed to combat entropy in the wine industry for businesses in this industry to survive and thrive.

Managers can learn from and apply the examples mentioned in this study and follow the framework presented to implement the strategies to build resilience to increase their chances of sustainability.

This study is one of the first empirical studies to the authors’ knowledge that identifies the impact of entropy in the wine industry and examines resilience as a means to combat an entropic market and obtain business sustainability.

In our last ‘Notes and News’ we made an unfortunate mistake. In writing on the poetry section of the School Library Association's book list Fiction, Verse and Legend we referred to the Bodley Head series of poetry for the young as ‘now regrettably out of print’. Before making this categorical statement we had referred to the Bodley Head's current catalogue ‘with complete back‐list’, and had failed to find any reference to the series, but we had also failed to notice the comparatively insignificant sentence on page ii of the cover: ‘Children's books are listed in a separate catalogue.’

Describes the background to publishing in Scotland and outlines the nature and range of current Scottish publishing houses. Sets Scottish publishing within its UK and European context and indicates a number of major trends. Presents broad statistics of current Scottish publishing. Describes the nature, activities and achievements of 30 Scottish publishing houses, from large to small and from general to specialist.

Three-dimentional (3D) food printers are innovative technologies that contribute to healthy, personalized and stainable nutrition. However, many consumers are still vigilant about 3D printed food in the age of technology. The purpose of this study is to develop a scale and propose a model for consumption preferences associated with 3D-printed food (3DPF).

The developed questionnaire was handed to 192 Z and Y generation participants (Data1) for the exploratory factor analysis stage initially. Then, the questionnaire was handed to another group of 165 participants (Data 2) for verification by confirmatory factor analysis. Finally, the dimensions “healthy and personalized nutrition,” “sustainable nutrition” and “socio-cultural nutrition” were analyzed by structural equation modeling.

The results indicated that there was a high relationship between “healthy and personalized nutrition” and “sustainable nutrition” as well as between “sustainable nutrition” and “socio-cultural nutrition” when 3DPF was considered.

The study would contribute to the new survey area related to 3DPF by presenting a scale and proposing a model. Also, the study reveals which nutritional factors affect the Z and Y generation’s consumption of 3DPF. In this context, the study aims to make marketing contributions to the food production, restaurant and hotel sectors.

3D食品打印机是创新技术, 有助于健康、个性化和可持续的营养。然而, 在科技时代, 许多消费者仍然对3D打印食品保持警惕。本研究的目的是开发一个刻画与3D打印食品相关的消费偏好的量表并提出一个模型。

本研究首先将开发的问卷交给192名Z和Y世代参与者（数据1）进行探索性因素分析阶段。然后, 将问卷交给另一组165名参与者（数据2）通过验证性因素分析进行验证。最后, 通过结构方程模型分析了“健康和个性化营养”、“可持续营养”和“社会文化营养”这三个维度。

结果表明, 在考虑3D打印食品时, “健康和个性化营养”与“可持续营养”之间以及“可持续营养”与“社会文化营养”之间存在很高的关系。

本研究通过提出一个量表并提出一个模型, 为与3D打印食品相关的新调查领域做出了贡献。此外, 研究揭示了影响Z和Y世代对3D打印食品消费的营养因素。在这一背景下, 本研究旨在为食品生产、餐厅和酒店等领域做出营销贡献。

This paper aims to investigate residential occupants’ motivations and behaviour on energy savings. Energy consumption in residential buildings is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions.

By using an online survey questionnaire instrument, this research collected 504 sets of responses from households in the state of New South Wales, Australia.

Through statistical analysis of the data collected, this research found that construction cost and government incentive were considered as the major influencing factors on achieving energy-efficient residential building development, and the lower bills resulted from the reduced energy and water consumption were considered as the most important benefits. The research also found that many households exhibited a high level of awareness and had implemented some sustainability improvement measures. It is suggested, based on these research findings, that governments should articulate, by means of education, the rationale and benefits of sustainable home development that are identified in this research and reduce material costs and increase government incentives.

A framework on improving residential sustainability was proposed in this paper. Stakeholders in the sustainable home supply chain could use this framework as a reference to pave the way for energy efficient home development from their perspective

Open-plan office environments are considered to offer workplace productivity benefits because of the opportunities that they create for interaction and knowledge exchange, but more recent research has highlighted noise, distraction and loss of privacy as significant productivity penalties with this office layout. This study aims to investigate if the purported productivity benefits of open plan outweigh the potential productivity penalties.

Previous research suggests that office environments are experienced differently according to the gender and age of the occupier across both open-plan and enclosed configurations. Empirical research undertaken with office occupiers in the Middle East (N = 220) led to evaluations to establish the impact different offices had on perceived productivity. Factor analysis was used to establish five underlying components of office productivity. The five factors are subsequently used as the basis for comparison between office occupiers based on age, gender and office type.

This research shows that benefits and penalties to workplace productivity are experienced equally across open-plan and enclosed office environments. The greatest impact on perceived workplace productivity however was availability of a variety of physical layouts, control over interaction and the “downtime” offered by social interaction points. Male occupiers and those from younger generations were also found to consider the office environment to have more of a negative impact on their perceived workplace productivity compared to female and older occupiers.

The originality of this paper is that it develops the concept of profiling office occupiers with the aim of better matching office provision. This paper aims to establish different occupier profiles based on age, gender and office type. Data analysis techniques such as factor analysis and t-test analysis identify the need for different spaces so that occupiers can choose the most appropriate space to best undertake a particular work task. In addition, it emphasises the value that occupiers place on “downtime” leading to the need for appropriate social space.

This paper proposes a framework for understanding knowledge‐related asymmetries in strategic alliances. Their effect on alliance stability, on the realizations of the goals and purposes of the alliance, and on partners’ individual performance is examined. Information asymmetries are thought to have a negative impact on the stability of the alliance. For their part, knowledge asymmetries seem to have a positive impact while learning asymmetries have a negative impact. A mutually reinforcing link is established between the stability of the alliance, the realization of its purpose, and individual partners’ performance. Even if further research is needed, it appears as though a key to growth in an alliance is the careful management and generation of learning, knowledge and information asymmetries.