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1 – 10 of 11Sandra Maria Correia Loureiro and Eduardo Moraes Sarmento
The banking sector is devoted to attracting Generation Y customers with their particular tastes and interests. The purpose of this paper is to explore for the first time how bank…
Abstract
Purpose
The banking sector is devoted to attracting Generation Y customers with their particular tastes and interests. The purpose of this paper is to explore for the first time how bank experience influences emotions and perception of brand equity. Using the stimulus–organism–response (S–O–R) framework, the authors consider the perception of brand equity as the outcome.
Design/methodology/approach
A panel based on the method of Walsh and Beatty (2007) with completed and usable questionnaires was used to test the proposed model. The authors selected a sample of 211 respondents. After eliminating some inconsistencies, a final data sample consisted of 205 usable survey participants (male: 58 percent; female: 42 percent).
Findings
Executional excellence, staff engagement and value for money are the most relevant indicators in shaping the overall bank experience. Pleasure is the positive emotion that most enhances the perception of brand equity.
Originality/value
This study extends the S–O–R model by employing dimensions of experience as stimuli and brand equity as response. The study demonstrates the role of emotions (particularly pleasure) in enhancing brand equity among individuals from the Generation Y.
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Sandra Maria Correira Loureiro, Paulo Rita and Eduardo Moraes Sarmento
The purpose of this study is to contribute with new insights into the nature, dimensionality and measurement of the core essence of the small city boutique hotel (SCBH), something…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to contribute with new insights into the nature, dimensionality and measurement of the core essence of the small city boutique hotel (SCBH), something which has been limited in the literature to date. It further explores the conceptual relationships of SCBH with other constructs, providing greater understanding of the nature of these specific conceptual associations and showing that the SCBH scale exhibits construct validity.
Design/methodology/approach
This study followed the Churchill’s paradigm to methodologically design the study and develop the scale. Based on an exploratory qualitative inquiry (one focus group and ten interviews) and quantitative assessment (two surveys), support was found for a three-dimensional scale.
Findings
Results support the proposed measures of the scale (dream, hospitality and style) in terms of construct, convergent, discriminate, nomological and predictive validity. The findings also suggest that while authenticity acts as a SCBH antecedent, pleasant arousal and preference represent SCBH consequences.
Originality/value
By developing and validating a SCBH scale for city destination, this study addresses an identified literature gap. Specifically, it conceptualizes SCBH as guests’ perception about core characteristics of SCBHs located in the city.
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Timothy Adu Gyamfi, Clinton Ohis Aigbavboa and Wellington Didibhuku Thwala
Construction organisations cannot underestimate the improvement in public–private partnership (PPP) projects’ implementation. At the same time, construction organisations cannot…
Abstract
Purpose
Construction organisations cannot underestimate the improvement in public–private partnership (PPP) projects’ implementation. At the same time, construction organisations cannot overlook the risk arising from engaging in PPP construction projects. Hence, this study aims to establish the influence of risk resource management (RRM) in managing PPP risk in the construction industry in Ghana.
Design/methodology/approach
The researchers adopted qualitative and quantitative research methods to achieve the aim of the study, in which Delphi questions and a close-ended questionnaire were developed. A total of 650 construction specialists, including procurement officers, consultants, project managers, quantity surveyors, site engineers and planning officers were chosen using random and purposive sampling techniques. Recovered data were analysed using descriptive statistics and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The CFA maximum likelihood estimation extractor compresses 19 variables into 3 pattern matrices.
Findings
The results of the study revealed three factors that measure RRM in Ghana’s PPP construction industry, including financial resource management which was influenced by communicating the budget to project team members and project partners understanding the budget, and material resource management which was influenced by the provision of materials transportation and provision of delivery programs and labour resource management which was impacted by a commitment to pay social security and taxes and provision of good salaries, to address RRM in PPP construction organisations.
Research limitations/implications
To incessantly improve the PPP risk management (RM) in construction through RRM, there should be a strong liaison between the universities, government agencies and the construction industry, and such collaboration will assist the industry to obtain first-hand information regarding the study findings and how they can be implemented to help the development of RM in the construction industry. This study is limited to Ghana and CFA and further study should explore structural equation model to determine the structure and measurement model of the risk resource variables.
Originality/value
The study may be valuable to industry stakeholders looking for new approaches to improve RM in their construction activities, particularly in PPP projects. Also, to assist reduce PPP risk, construction companies should use RRM in their organisations.
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Ricardo Sarmento Costa and Eduardo G.M. Jardim
Presents results of a nine‐year research and development project. At the beginning a scheduling simulation software was built and assessed in real contexts. Then it has grown into…
Abstract
Presents results of a nine‐year research and development project. At the beginning a scheduling simulation software was built and assessed in real contexts. Then it has grown into a technology for shop‐floor planning and control in the jobbing industry, developing now into a philosophy for strategic jobbing production management, named here as “Total punctuality approach”. Based on this approach, a conceptual model was developed to orientate control system design in the jobbing industry. The model was conceived on a manufacturing strategy base being clearly driven by punctuality which was identified as being the main order winning criteria in such markets, when quality and price issues have already been resolved. Flexibility, speed and costs were addressed as well according to their relative importance to competitiveness. Concepts extracted from the various technologies available are mixed up forming a special blend with regard to the total punctuality goal. Almost all aspects of the model were implemented in a software that has been successfully used in small Brazilian jobbing firms. Using the software, it is possible to assess a large range of shop‐floor management practices in terms of their contribution to the competitiveness of the company.
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Paula Cristina Nunes Figueiredo, Maria José Sousa and Eduardo Tomé
The aim of the paper is to propose an integrative model of the leader competences through the analysis of the several models of competence found in the literature review.
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of the paper is to propose an integrative model of the leader competences through the analysis of the several models of competence found in the literature review.
Design/methodology/approach
The methodology used was qualitative, based partially on an integrative literature review (Torraco 2016). This paper aims to review, update and criticize the literature related to the competences approach in the organizational context and, on the other hand, to review, criticize and synthesize the literature, namely, the models and competences.
Findings
Difficulties in choosing and implementing a leader competency model led to the integration of competencies in a single model, seeking to simplify the choice and implementation process in organizations. The integrative model of leader competences arises from the literature review, more specifically from the analysis of the different approaches found. This model is grouped into four dimensions – intellectual competences, management competences, social competences and emotional competences. This research is a contribution to reduce the fragmentation of leadership and management theories and facilitates the choice and implementation of a leader competence model suited to the organization’s needs, contributing to the leadership effectiveness.
Originality/value
The integrative model of the leader competences allows the choice and implementation of a competence model with a wide range of competences considered as essential in the organizational context by several researchers. This model simplifies the process of identifying the competences that need to be developed, feeding the human resources development process within the organization.
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In July 2009 the Universidade Lusíada de Famalicão organized the International Conference on Managing Services in the Knowledge Economy 2009 (MSKE 2009)…
Abstract
Purpose
In July 2009 the Universidade Lusíada de Famalicão organized the International Conference on Managing Services in the Knowledge Economy 2009 (MSKE 2009). http://clegi.fam.ulusiada.pt/MSKE2009/. MSKE 2009 was an interesting forum which gathered 60 specialists from 20 countries in different areas such as knowledge management, intellectual capital, human resource development, social policy, law and international economics. In the human resource development field, five relevant contributions were selected to compose the current issue. The purpose of this introductory paper is to review the literature on the role of human resource development (HRD) in the current knowledge based and services driven economy.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper reviews the importance of knowledge as a crucial economic factor and the importance of services as the main area of economic business. It shows how HRD relates to services and knowledge.
Findings
Starting at the time of the Agricultural Revolution when human resources (HR) were marginally considered, the paper ends in the globalized and technologic advanced world of 2010 in which HR are a decisive production factor and are analyzed by different very important scientific perspectives. Crucially, in the present new order of the world, services are the main economic sector in advanced countries. The important role of HRD as a factor of success in a world dominated by services and knowledge is explained. The major open questions and controversies related to HRD are enumerated.
Research limitations/implications
Quite a number of open questions remain in the HRD field. Those questions relate to individuals, educational system, organizations, and to society as a whole. Those questions are analyzed in detail in this introduction. The current special issue includes papers dealing with five separate topics related to the open questions: academic curricula needed for the service sector; role of universities and workplace work‐related arrangements of the educational system; intellectual capital management; career advancement; career aspirations.
Originality/value
The paper introduces the special issue of the Journal of European Industrial Training on “HRD in the knowledge based and services driven economy”.
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Eduardo da Silva Fernandes, Ines Hexsel Grochau, Carla Schwengber ten Caten, Diogo José Horst and Pedro Paulo Andrade Junior
This paper aims to identify the determining factors for the financial performance (FP) of social enterprises in an emerging country, in this case Brazil.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to identify the determining factors for the financial performance (FP) of social enterprises in an emerging country, in this case Brazil.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper identifies the determinants of the FP of social enterprises in Brazil using the resource-based view as a theoretical lenses and the quantitative method (n = 601) of logistic regression, analyzing the importance of nine variables related to SEs.
Findings
The findings refer to practical contributions (which show how SEs should focus and allocate their resources to maximize FP) and theoretical contributions linked to entrepreneurship literature (by differentiating the results of this work from the literature on commercial entrepreneurship in terms of resources), social entrepreneurship literature (by presenting the resources that determine their FP), business literature, entrepreneurial finance and entrepreneurship in emerging economies.
Originality/value
This work represents a novelty from a methodological point of view, filling the gap regarding the lack of studies that apply a quantitative methodology to a large sample and analyze several different variables when most studies analyze only one factor related to the performance of an organization. It also fills the gap in entrepreneurship studies that use some theoretical lenses. This work is also a pioneer in analyzing the variables involved, such as market orientation, technologies and impact measurement in social entrepreneurship. As this work uses data from a secondary sample, there is the limitation of not choosing the analyzed variables. Even though there were many variables in the sample, it was impossible to consider some variables, referring to various aspects of resources and performance. For this same reason, the social performance of SEs, which is of fundamental importance within the objectives of any organization of this type, was not analyzed and may be a suggestion for future work.
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Susana Lima, Celeste Eusébio, Maria Rosário Partidário and Cecilia S. García Gómez
Novel approaches to tourism have been encouraged as a development strategy for the developing world, from governments and international organizations in the fulfillment of the…
Abstract
Novel approaches to tourism have been encouraged as a development strategy for the developing world, from governments and international organizations in the fulfillment of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. The UNWTO has been playing an important role in this regard with the launch of programs like UNWTO.Volunteers. The literature reveals, however, that the majority of development programs still follow neoliberal approaches, despite a growing interest in applying knowledge and learning postrationalist approaches. Through a case study undertaken in 2008 focusing on UNWTO.Volunteers and its application in Chiapas, this chapter discusses how knowledge and learning approaches are being applied by UNWTO, arguing that it makes an attempt to follow some of the premises claimed by postrationalist theories.
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