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21 – 30 of over 124000Corporate codes of conduct originated around 1900 in the USA gaining further momentum in the 1950s in relation to anti‐trust legislation. Subsequently, the adoption of codes of…
Abstract
Purpose
Corporate codes of conduct originated around 1900 in the USA gaining further momentum in the 1950s in relation to anti‐trust legislation. Subsequently, the adoption of codes of ethics has spread throughout the world and they now feature extensively in many organisations. The literature relating to codes of ethics, therefore, spans many decades and is undoubtedly comprehensive. The purpose of the paper is to provide an appropriate anthology of codes of ethics.
Design/methodology/approach
A descriptive, historical, anthological approach has been taken.
Findings
This paper examines the motivations for the adoption of codes of ethics, which naturally also includes international codes, their frequency of use and content. Codes are also not without critique and it is appropriate to highlight the criticisms of codes, to provide an assessment of their potential effectiveness, the issues surrounding implementation and enforcement and the relationship to organisational culture and leadership.
Research limitations/implications
As noted, the literature on codes of conduct is extensive and while effort has been made to capture the key themes the review is not necessarily exhaustive.
Originality/value
The literature is characterised by the means of institutionalising ethics in organisations and the paper concludes with a summative reflection on the key dimensions that appear to be paramount for improving the efficacy of codes of conduct.
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Ta Na, Nobuo Funabiki, Khin Khin Zaw, Nobuya Ishihara, Shinpei Matsumoto and Wen-Chung Kao
To advance Java programming educations, the authors have developed a Java Programming Learning Assistant System (JPLAS) as a web application system. JPLAS provides fill-in-blank…
Abstract
Purpose
To advance Java programming educations, the authors have developed a Java Programming Learning Assistant System (JPLAS) as a web application system. JPLAS provides fill-in-blank problems for novices to study the grammar and basic programming skills through code reading.
Design/methodology/approach
To select the blank elements with grammatically correct and unique answers from a given Java code, the authors have proposed the graph-based blank element selection algorithm. Then, the code for this problem should be highly readable to encourage novice students to study it. Because code readability can be improved by proper names for identifiers, the authors have also proposed the naming rule testing algorithm to identify codes with correct names.
Findings
In this paper, the authors present a fill-in-blank problem workbook by collecting suitable Java codes from textbooks and Web sites and applying these algorithms with several extensions. The workbook consists of 16 categories with a considerable number of problems that follow the conventional learning order of Java programming.
Originality/value
The proper set of ready-made fill-in-blank problems is effective in enhancing the usability of JPLAS both for teachers and students. For the preliminary evaluation, the authors assign a few problems to students. In coming semesters, the authors will use this workbook in the course to verify the adequacy of the proposal for novices.
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Ricarose Roque and Natalie Rusk
Many initiatives are seeking to engage children in learning to code. However, few studies have examined how children’s engagement in learning and using coding develops over time…
Abstract
Purpose
Many initiatives are seeking to engage children in learning to code. However, few studies have examined how children’s engagement in learning and using coding develops over time. This study aims to seek young people’s perspectives on what they viewed as important in their long-term participation in a coding community.
Design/methodology/approach
This study identified youth with a high level of participation and who demonstrated emergent leadership in the Scratch online community. Using methods from qualitative research on youth development, individual interviews were conducted in which these youth were asked about memorable moments in their participation and how these experiences influenced them.
Findings
While each young person described a unique pathway and perspective, this study identified key experiences that motivated their participation, influenced their development and inspired their emergent leadership. These experiences included opportunities to learn through exploration, to receive feedback from peers, to engage in creative collaboration and to contribute to the community.
Practical implications
This study discussed these findings in light of previous research on youth development, and it suggests that building on practices and principles from research on youth programs can help more young people become engaged in developing broader skills with coding.
Originality/value
Youth highlighted experiences that enabled them to express their ideas, to build relationships, to help others and to see themselves in new ways. Their perspectives expand beyond the predominant focus of coding initiatives on computational thinking and problem-solving skills to also support social, leadership and identity development.
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Access to high-quality data is a challenge for humanitarian logistics researchers. However, humanitarian organizations publish large quantities of documents for various…
Abstract
Purpose
Access to high-quality data is a challenge for humanitarian logistics researchers. However, humanitarian organizations publish large quantities of documents for various stakeholders. Researchers can use these as secondary data, but interpreting big volumes of text is time consuming. The purpose of this paper is to present an automated quantitative content analysis (AQCA) approach that allows researchers to analyze such documents quickly and reliably.
Design/methodology/approach
Content analysis is a method to facilitate a systematic description of documents. This paper builds on an existing content analysis method, to which it adds automated steps for processing large quantities of documents. It also presents different measures for quantifying the content of documents.
Findings
The AQCA approach has been applied successfully in four papers. For example, it can identify the main theme in a document, categorize documents along different dimensions, or compare the use of a theme in different documents. This paper also identifies several limitations of content analysis in the field of humanitarian logistics research and suggests ways to mitigate them.
Research limitations/implications
The AQCA approach does not provide an exhaustive qualitative analysis of documents. Instead, it aims to analyze documents quickly and reliably to extract the contents’ quantifiable aspects.
Originality/value
Although content analysis has been used in humanitarian logistics research before, no paper has yet proposed an automated, step-by-step approach that researchers can use. It also is the first study to discuss specific limitations of content analysis in the context of humanitarian logistics.
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Qualitative research suffers from “contestation” and a lack of “boilerplate” problems to assessing and presenting qualitative data, which have hampered its development and the…
Abstract
Purpose
Qualitative research suffers from “contestation” and a lack of “boilerplate” problems to assessing and presenting qualitative data, which have hampered its development and the broader acceptance of qualitative research. This paper aims to address this gap by marrying the constructivist methodology and RQDA, a relatively new open-source computer-assisted qualitative data analysis (CAQDAS)-based R extension and demonstrate how the software can increase the rigor, transparency and validity of qualitative research.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper highlights the constructivist approach as an important paradigm in qualitative research and demonstrates how it can be operationalized and enhanced using RQDA. It provides a technical and methodological review of RQDA, along with its main strengths and weaknesses, in relation with two popular CAQDAS tools, ATLAS.ti and NVivo. Using samples of customer-generated e-complaints and e-praises in the electronics/computer sector, this paper demonstrates the development of a process model of customer e-complaint rhetoric.
Findings
This study offers step-by-step instructions for installing and using RQDA for data coding, aggregation, plotting and theory building. It emphasizes the importance of techniques for sharing coding outputs among researchers and journal gatekeepers to better disseminate and share research findings. It also describes the authors’ use of RQDA in classrooms of undergraduates and graduate students.
Research limitations/implications
This paper addresses the “contestation” and “boilerplate” gaps, offering practical, step-by-step instructions to operationalize and enhance the constructivist approach using the RQDA-based approach. This opens new opportunities for existing R users to “cross over” to analyzing textual data as well as for computer-savvy scholars, analysts and research students in academia and industry who wish to transition to CAQDAS-based qualitative research because RQDA is free and can leverage the strengths of the R computing platform.
Originality/value
This study offers the first published review and demonstration of the RQDA-based constructivist methodology that provide the processes needed to enhance the rigor, transparency and validity of qualitative research. It demonstrates the systematic development of a data structure and a process model of customer e-complaint rhetoric using RQDA.
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Juan Gámez‐González, F. Javier Rondan‐Cataluña, Enrique C. Diez‐de Castro and Antonio Navarro‐Garcia
This work proposes to test the C‐40 deontological code of collective orientation specifically for franchise associations. The literature review revealed a lack of studies about…
Abstract
Purpose
This work proposes to test the C‐40 deontological code of collective orientation specifically for franchise associations. The literature review revealed a lack of studies about this type of codes.
Design/methodology/approach
This code adopts a semi‐normative approach in trying to standardize what form a deontological code of a franchise association should take. The study has been developed from an international perspective, making easier its spread and generalization. Furthermore, a novel methodology in this area has been applied to test the code: “The Experton Theory”.
Findings
As a consequence, from the review of ethical and deontological codes from franchise associations of 46 countries, some associations' statutes and the laws about franchising in some countries, 29 topics were identified. Additionally, 11 more have been added to these contents, making 40 items which conform with what should be integrated into whatever franchising deontological code.
Research limitations/implications
The main limitations of this work refer to the proposition and validation of some questions included in the C‐40 code. Specifically, some of them show opinion divergences of the experts' answers over 25 percent.
Social implications
The proposed code might be used as a background for franchise associations at an international level. It encourages the increase of ethical and business contents in the existing codes and, therefore, the improvement of the relationships among franchisers, franchisees and the rest of the stakeholders.
Originality/value
This study is focused on a scarcely treated topic in the literature: deontological codes in franchising. In addition, it has been developed from an international perspective, making its spread and generalization easier.
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Rajiv C. Shah and Jay P. Kesan
Regulation through “code,” i.e. the hardware and software of communication technologies, is growing in importance. Policymakers are addressing societal concerns such as privacy…
Abstract
Regulation through “code,” i.e. the hardware and software of communication technologies, is growing in importance. Policymakers are addressing societal concerns such as privacy, freedom of speech, and intellectual property protection with code‐based solutions. While scholars have noted the role of code, there is little analysis of the various features or characteristics of code that have significance in regulating behavior. This paper examines three universal governance characteristics that policymakers may use to ensure code comports with societal concerns. The characteristics are transparency, defaults, and standards. For each characteristic, the paper discusses the salient regulatory issues for manipulating code. Additionally, the paper provides normative proposals for modifying some characteristics, such as defaults. In sum, our analysis should aid policymakers seeking to manipulate code to ensure that code comports with our societal values and addresses our societal concerns.
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Andrew Holt and Timothy Eccles
The purpose of this paper is to assess whether financial reporting practices for commercial service charges in the UK retail sector match the best practice requirements of the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to assess whether financial reporting practices for commercial service charges in the UK retail sector match the best practice requirements of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) Code of practice for commercial service charges. This assessment was performed by benchmarking commercial service charge documents provided to retail occupiers at UK shopping centres against the RICS Code’s financial reporting requirements.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were generated from direct analysis of actual service charge documents supplied to commercial retail occupiers. This ensures authenticity by removing reliance upon third party reporting of said data. The paper uses a sample size that is representative of the financial reporting practices for commercial service charges at UK shopping centres.
Findings
Levels of compliance with the financial reporting requirements of the RICS Code of Practice for commercial service charges are found to be poor, especially in terms of the disclosure of the accounting policies used during the preparation of the service charge accounts. These results contrast with claims by the professional body.
Research limitations/implications
The work analyses service charge documents prepared during 2010-2012 by 44 managing agents and 87 landlords at 126 UK retail shopping centres located in Great Britain. Content analysis was utilised to interpret the data and required some subjective judgement by the researchers.
Originality/value
Data are original and the paper provides a unique benchmarking test for assessing Code compliance. This contrasts markedly with the anecdotal evidence offered by the profession in defending current standards of practice and whilst the paper has limitations, it is the largest and most in-depth study of commercial service charge practices at UK retail shopping centres.
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The purpose of this paper is to determine whether TAMS Analyzer and Viewshare are viable free and open source software data sharing and creation tools for those with limited…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to determine whether TAMS Analyzer and Viewshare are viable free and open source software data sharing and creation tools for those with limited funding and technological skills.
Design/methodology/approach
The participant observer method was used to collect experiential evidence while applying the tools to a collection of text-, image-, and video-based digital cultural records.
Findings
TAMS Analyzer was found to be a low barrier to entry tool for those with coding and qualitative data analysis experience. Those with general experience will be able to create datasets with the support of manuals and tutorials, while those with limited experience may find it difficult to use. Viewshare was found to be a low barrier to entry tool for sharing data online, and accessible for all skill levels.
Research limitations/implications
TAMS Analyzer supports Mac and Linux platforms only, so a low-cost software recommendation was made for those in Windows environments.
Practical implications
Librarians can use these tools to address data access gaps while promoting library digital collections.
Social implications
With a greater understanding of data tools, librarians can be advisors, collaborators, agents for data culture, and relevant participants in digital humanities scholarship.
Originality/value
The research evaluates both the capabilities of the tools and the barriers to using or accessing them, which are often neglected. The paper addresses a need in the literature for greater scrutiny of tools that are a critical component of the data ecology, and will further assist librarians when connecting scholars to tools of inquiry in an environment with limited funding and technical support.
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Abhishek Kumar Singh and Krishna Mohan Singh
In the present work, we focus on developing an in-house parallel meshless local Petrov-Galerkin (MLPG) code for the analysis of heat conduction in two-dimensional and…
Abstract
Purpose
In the present work, we focus on developing an in-house parallel meshless local Petrov-Galerkin (MLPG) code for the analysis of heat conduction in two-dimensional and three-dimensional regular as well as complex geometries.
Design/methodology/approach
The parallel MLPG code has been implemented using open multi-processing (OpenMP) application programming interface (API) on the shared memory multicore CPU architecture. Numerical simulations have been performed to find the critical regions of the serial code, and an OpenMP-based parallel MLPG code is developed, considering the critical regions of the sequential code.
Findings
Based on performance parameters such as speed-up and parallel efficiency, the credibility of the parallelization procedure has been established. Maximum speed-up and parallel efficiency are 10.94 and 0.92 for regular three-dimensional geometry (343,000 nodes). Results demonstrate the suitability of parallelization for larger nodes as parallel efficiency and speed-up are more for the larger nodes.
Originality/value
Few attempts have been made in parallel implementation of the MLPG method for solving large-scale industrial problems. Although the literature suggests that message-passing interface (MPI) based parallel MLPG codes have been developed, the OpenMP model has rarely been touched. This work is an attempt at the development of OpenMP-based parallel MLPG code for the very first time.
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