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1 – 10 of over 1000Carlos Fernando Ordóñez Vizcaíno, Cecilia Téllez Valle and Pilar Giráldez Puig
The aim of this paper is to analyse the spillover effects of microcredit on the economy of Ecuador, with a particular focus on its potential as a poverty alleviation mechanism.
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this paper is to analyse the spillover effects of microcredit on the economy of Ecuador, with a particular focus on its potential as a poverty alleviation mechanism.
Design/methodology/approach
To address our research questions, we take into account the distance between cantons (Ecuador’s own administrative distribution) by adopting a spatial autoregressive (SAR) model. To this end, a database will be constructed with macroeconomic information about the country, broken down by canton (administrative division of Ecuador), and in a 2019 cross section, with a total of 1,331 microcredit operations in all 221 of Ecuador’s cantons.
Findings
We find a positive effect of microcredit on these neighbouring regions in terms of wealth generation.
Research limitations/implications
We acknowledge that this study is limited to Ecuadorian cantons. Nonetheless, it is crucial to emphasize that focussing on an under-represented developing country like Ecuador adds significant value to the research.
Practical implications
Facilitating access to microcredit is one of the main solutions to address the goals proposed in the sustainable development goals (SDGs).
Social implications
Microcredit activity contributes to the creation of value and wealth in Ecuador, exerting a spillover effect in neighbouring areas that can generate positive multiplier effects and alleviate poverty. For all of the above reasons, our proposal for the country is to support and promote microcredit as one of the main solutions to address the goals proposed in the SDGs.
Originality/value
The novelty of this study lies in the use of spatial econometrics to observe the indirect effects of microcredit on the regions bordering the canton in which it was issued, thus examining the spatial effects of microcredit on wealth distribution.
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The main objective of the present study is to explore whether there are variations in the employment of evaluative language resources by male and female writers. More…
Abstract
Purpose
The main objective of the present study is to explore whether there are variations in the employment of evaluative language resources by male and female writers. More specifically, the study focuses on variations, if any, that can be attributed to difference in gender.
Design/methodology/approach
The study compared and contrasted forty recommendation letters written by male academics to the same number of letters written by female recommenders. The study uses both quantitative and qualitative approaches.
Findings
The investigation of three attitudinal resources in letters of recommendations showed that the most employed resource was the judgment sub-system. The appreciation domain was in the second position, and the least frequent was the affect. The results also revealed no statistically significant variations in attitude sub-systems: Affect and appreciation as the writers in both groups (males and females) employed almost the same options in each. In respect with judgment, however, the analysis explored significant differences between the two sets as male academics used more judgment resources than females.
Originality/value
The main contributions of this study may be as follows: first, it is one of very few studies drawing on the attitude-category of appraisal system, as an analytical tool to examine gender differences in recommendation letters very particularly on the ones written by non-native speakers of English. Second, the gender factor is central in the genre of the recommendation letters and hence researchers should be cognizant of its role as certain variations might be impacted by it. Third, the lists of tokens can be offered as heuristics for academics to have most common words or phrases to use in their letters. Finally, the findings can hopefully bear some important pedagogical implications, very specifically for novice and non-native academic writers of recommendations letters.
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This paper aims to offer an incremental contribution, augmenting the notion of situated rationality as proposed by terBogt and Scapens (2019). Through insights from empirical…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to offer an incremental contribution, augmenting the notion of situated rationality as proposed by terBogt and Scapens (2019). Through insights from empirical data, the authors explore the role of situated rationalities of key individual actors in processes of management control change.
Design/methodology/approach
A qualitative research approach was adopted with qualitative data collected in a single public service organisation through face-to-face interviews, organisation documentation and observations.
Findings
The findings present the important role of key individual actors in bringing about a new situated rationality in a housing department. External austerity forces combined with actors’ experience rationalities acted as a stimulus to change existing management control practices in the management of public services.
Originality/value
The paper conceptualises “experience” rationality, capturing the experiences of a key actor, including elements of leadership style. Drawing on a story of a complex process of management control change, this paper thus reveals interactions between generalised practices and situated rationalities which were not highlighted by the extended framework of terBogt and Scapens.
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Karin Seger, Hans Englund and Malin Härström
The purpose of this paper is to describe and theorize the type of hate-love relationship to performance measurement systems (PMSs) that individual researchers tend to develop in…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to describe and theorize the type of hate-love relationship to performance measurement systems (PMSs) that individual researchers tend to develop in academia. To this end, the paper draws upon Foucault’s writings on neoliberalism to analyse PMSs as neoliberal technologies holding certain qualities that can be expected to elicit such ambivalent views.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is based on a qualitative interview study of researchers from three Swedish universities, who were asked to reflect upon questions related to three overall themes, namely, what it means to be a researcher in contemporary academia, the existence and use of PMSs at their universities and if/how such PMSs affected them and their work as researchers.
Findings
The empirical findings show that the hate-love relationship can be understood in terms of how PMSs are involved in three central moments of governmentality, where each such moment of governmentality tends to elicit feelings of ambivalence among researchers due to how PMSs rely on: a restricted centrifugal mechanism, normalization rather than normation and a view of individual academics as entrepreneurs of themselves.
Originality/value
Existing literature has provided several important insights into how the introduction and use of PMSs in academia tend to result in both negative and positive experiences and reactions. The current paper adds to this literature through theorizing how and why PMSs may be expected to elicit such ambivalent experiences and reactions among individual researchers.
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This paper explores the historical roots of accounting for biodiversity and extinction accounting by analysing the 18th-century Naturalist's Journals of Gilbert White and…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper explores the historical roots of accounting for biodiversity and extinction accounting by analysing the 18th-century Naturalist's Journals of Gilbert White and interpreting them as biodiversity accounts produced by an interested party. The authors aim to contribute to the accounting history literature by extending the form of accounting studied to include nature diaries as well as by exploring historical ecological accounts, as well as contributing to the burgeoning literature on accounting for biodiversity and extinction accounting.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors’ method involves analysing the content of Gilbert White's Naturalist's Journals by producing an 18th-century biodiversity account of species of flora and fauna and then interpretively drawing out themes from the Journals. The authors then provide a Whitean extinction account by comparing current species' status with White's biodiversity account from 250 years ago.
Findings
This paper uses Gilbert White's Naturalist's Journals as a basis for comparing biodiversity and natural capital 250 years ago with current species' status according to extinction threat and conservation status. Further the paper shows how early nature diary recording represents early (and probably the only) forms of accounting for biodiversity and extinction. The authors also highlight themes within White's accounts including social emancipation, problematisation, aesthetic elements and an example of an early audit of biodiversity accounting.
Research limitations/implications
There are limitations to analysing Gilbert White's Naturalist's Journals given that the only available source is an edited version. The authors therefore interpret their data as accounts which are indicative of biodiversity and species abundance rather than an exactly accurate account.
Practical implications
From the authors’ analysis and reflections, the authors suggest that contemporary biodiversity accounting needs to incorporate a combination of narrative, data accounting and pictorial/aesthetic representation if it is to provide a rich and accurate report of biodiversity and nature. The authors also suggest that extinction accounting should draw on historical data in order to demonstrate change in natural capital over time.
Social implications
Social implications include the understanding gleaned from the authors’ analysis of the role of Gilbert White as a nature diarist in society and the contribution made over time by his Journals and other writings to the development of nature accounting and recording, as well as to one’s understanding and knowledge of species of flora and fauna.
Originality/value
To the authors’ knowledge this is the first attempt to analyse and interpret nature diaries as accounts of biodiversity and extinction.
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Margaret Hodgins, Sarah MacCurtain and Patricia Mannix-McNamara
Bullying affects at least one-third of the workers through either direct exposure or witnessing, both of which lead to compromised health, and as a result, reduced organizational…
Abstract
Purpose
Bullying affects at least one-third of the workers through either direct exposure or witnessing, both of which lead to compromised health, and as a result, reduced organizational effectiveness or productivity. However, there is very little evidence that organisations provide effective protection from bullying, and in fact, the converse appears to the case. The purpose of this paper to explore the role of both individual and organisational power in the creation and maintenance of the problem. Such an approach moves away from the specific practice of identifying “bullying” that typically engages targets and perpetrators in a dance that is really just around the edges (Sullivan, 2008) of a larger problem; a culture that permits the abuse of power and ill-treatment of workers, in both practices and through organisational politics.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper elucidates key problems with organisational response as identified in the literature and critically examines weak organisational response to workplace bullying using the power theory, arguing that while overt approaches to addressing bullying appear to be underpinned by a simplistic, functionalist understanding of power, practices on the ground are better explained by more sophisticated “second-dimension” theorists.
Findings
There is a need for organisations to move beyond the current individualistic understanding of bullying towards a more nuanced understanding of how anti-bullying policies and procedures are themselves an exercise in institutional power protecting and reinforcing dominant power structures.
Research limitations/implications
The literature from which this paper is drawn is limited to studies published in English.
Practical implications
The authors advocate a realistic assessment of the role of both individual and organisational power in the creation and maintenance of workplace bullying, as a way forward to plan appropriate intervention.
Social implications
Workplace bullying is problematic for organisations at several levels, and therefore for society.
Originality/value
That power is relevant to workplace bullying has been apparent since the work of Brodsky in 1976 and Einarsen's early work, this paper builds on a the more nuanced work of McKay (2014), D'Cruz and Noronha (2009), Liefooghe and MacDavey's (2010) and Hutchinson et al. (2010), exploring the organisational response to the raising of bullying issues by individual employees as an exercise of power.
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Tim Heubeck and Reinhard Meckl
Managers play a critical role in shaping the development of firms due to the risky and long-term nature of innovation. Although the managerial effect on strategic change has long…
Abstract
Purpose
Managers play a critical role in shaping the development of firms due to the risky and long-term nature of innovation. Although the managerial effect on strategic change has long been factored into organizational theories, scholars still lack a complete understanding of the specific managerial capabilities that drive innovation in today's digital economy. The present study builds on dynamic managerial capabilities theory to close this research gap. The paper proposes managers' dynamic capabilities and their three underlying drivers – managerial human capital, social capital, and cognition – as a direct antecedent to digital firms' innovativeness.
Design/methodology/approach
The study draws on survey data from German Industry 4.0 manufacturing firms, which were analyzed using regression analysis.
Findings
The results confirm managers' dynamic capabilities as facilitators of innovation. In contrast to previous research on nondigital industries, the findings demonstrate that only the complete portfolio of managers' dynamic capabilities promotes innovativeness in digital firms. The study provides evidence for the importance of dynamic managerial capabilities in the digital economy yet contradicts previous research on nondigital industries related to the advantageousness of managers' human capital, social capital, and cognition for innovation.
Originality/value
The study contributes to the literature by being the first to holistically test the effects of dynamic managerial capabilities on innovation in digital firms. The results offer a nuanced account of managers' dynamic capabilities, thereby expanding dynamic managerial capabilities theory to the digital economy.
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Fernando Martín-Alcázar, Marta Ruiz-Martínez and Gonzalo Sánchez-Gardey
This study aims to examine the connection between scholars' research performance and the multidisciplinary nature of their collaborative research. Furthermore, in response to…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to examine the connection between scholars' research performance and the multidisciplinary nature of their collaborative research. Furthermore, in response to mixed results regarding the effects of multidisciplinarity on research performance, this study explores how human resource management (HRM) practices may moderate this link.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors built a model based on the theoretical arguments and empirical evidence found in the review of diversity and HRM literature. The authors also performed a quantitative study based on a sample of scholars in the field of management. Different econometric estimations were used to test the proposed model.
Findings
The results of this empirical analysis suggest that multidisciplinary research has a non-linear effect on research performance. Certain HRM practices, such as development and collaboration, moderated the curvilinear relationship between multidisciplinarity and performance, displacing the optimum to allow higher performance at higher levels of multidisciplinary research.
Originality/value
The paper provides advances on previous works studying the curvilinear relationship between multidisciplinarity and the researchers' performance, confirming that multidisciplinarity is beneficial up to a threshold beyond which these benefits are attenuated. In addition, the findings shed light on important issues related to team-oriented HRM practices associated with the outcomes of multidisciplinary research.
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The purpose of this paper is to deconstruct the backpacker label by reconstructing it using the historical antecedent of drifting. Following the deconstruction of backpacking’s…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to deconstruct the backpacker label by reconstructing it using the historical antecedent of drifting. Following the deconstruction of backpacking’s near past, the author build a clearer conceptual foundation for backpacking’s future.
Design/methodology/approach
The study is framed by scenario planning, which demands a critical review of the backpacking and an appreciation of its history in order to understand its future.
Findings
Backpacking, ever evolving, remains difficult to articulate and challenges researchers to “keep up” with its complexity and heterogeneity. This paper argues that researchers must learn more about how backpacking “works” by opening a dialogue with its past, before engaging in further research. The paper finds that a poor conceptualisation of backpacking has led to a codification of backpacker criteria.
Practical implications
Backpacking remains a research topic which draws disparate researchers using criteria that produces disparate results and deviations. By understanding its past, researchers will be better placed to explore the emancipatory impulses that drive backpackers today and in the future.
Originality/value
This papers’ value lies in the retrospection process which explores backpacking’s near past so as to “make sense” of present research and present scenarios for it is the immediate future. The paper re-anchors backpacking by investigating the major historical, social and cultural events leading up to its emergence.
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