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1 – 10 of 11Tachia Chin, Genyi Li, Hao Jiao, Frederick Addo and I.M. Jawahar
Given advances in digitalization and automation, manufacturing employees are facing the increasing threat of being substituted by smart machines and robots. The purpose of this…
Abstract
Purpose
Given advances in digitalization and automation, manufacturing employees are facing the increasing threat of being substituted by smart machines and robots. The purpose of this paper is to propose a framework that explains as well as can be used to study career sustainability of workers in the fast-paced, continuously changing manufacturing landscape.
Design/methodology/approach
After tracing the evolution of manufacturing sector in China, the authors review existing literature on career sustainability and then propose a new framework. The authors then describe two fictive cases and illustrate the applicability of the four-dimensional framework in helping understand the lived experience of objects in these fictive cases.
Findings
The proposed dynamic framework of career sustainability constituted by four intricately interconnected dimensions (i.e. resourceful, flexible, renewable and integrative) is useful in understanding the fictive cases and hopefully will guide future research on career sustainability in manufacturing or similarly fast-past, dynamically changing environments.
Practical implications
The framework of career sustainability facilitates manufacturing employees to accurately evaluate the sustainability of their careers, whereby they can choose to continue, shift or re-orient their career paths during the transitional period toward digitalized manufacturing; it also enlightens employers to think about how to enhance the job security and engagement of workers by helping prolong their careers and re-design their career plans.
Originality/value
This paper proposes a novel yet context-specific framework to understand and study sustainability of careers. In addition to helping us understand how careers evolve during transformational periods, it also offers fruitful avenues for further research.
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Kodwo Jonas Anson Boateng and Redeemer Buatsi
This chapter discusses the growing use of social media during election campaigns in Ghana. It examines how social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter became preferred tools…
Abstract
This chapter discusses the growing use of social media during election campaigns in Ghana. It examines how social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter became preferred tools for voter engagement, mobilisation and campaign for political parties and their presidential and parliamentary candidates in the 2020 elections in Ghana. It establishes that social media are gradually surpassing traditional/legacy media as the preferred media choice for political mobilisation, civic engagement and political communication in Ghana. The chapter reviews the European Union Election Observation Mission (EOM) report through social media affordance lens. This chapter attempts to answer two critical questions: To what extent did political parties and presidential candidates in Ghana use social media in electioneering campaigns during the 2020 elections and, which social media platforms were highly preferred by political parties and presidential candidates in engaging the electorate? The EOM's data indicators show the prominence of Facebook and Twitter as significant in political party campaigns during the period under study. Preliminary analysis also points out that the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) and their presidential candidate, Nana Akufo Addo including the opposition National Democratic Congress and their leader, John Dramani Mahama, spent thousands of dollars on Facebook advertisements for extensive voter mobilisation.
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James Osei Mensah, Seth Etuah, Emmanuel Fiifi Musah, Frederick Botchwey, Loretta Oppong Adjei and Kofi Owusu
This study aims to analyse consumers' preferences for domestic chicken cut parts and the premium they are willing to pay for the various parts using data from a contingent…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to analyse consumers' preferences for domestic chicken cut parts and the premium they are willing to pay for the various parts using data from a contingent valuation survey of individual chicken meat consumers in the Kumasi Metropolitan Area of Ghana.
Design/methodology/approach
The willingness to pay premiums are obtained using the double-bounded dichotomous choice approach. Determinants of the consumers' willingness to pay amounts are identified through a multivariate Tobit regression analysis.
Findings
The study finds that the wing is the most preferred chicken part by the consumers followed by the thighs. All consumers who express interest in a particular domestic chicken cut part are willing to pay a premium. Age, sex, years of formal education, household size and income level of the consumers as well as convenience, product availability and perceived wholesomeness of the product are identified as the key factors that influence the willingness to pay amounts.
Research limitations/implications
The findings and recommendations of this study could serve as a guide to domestic poultry meat producers and investors in Ghana and other developing countries on how to process or package the meat for the market or consumers. This could further contribute to policy formulation regarding the development of the domestic poultry meat industry.
Originality/value
The uniqueness of this study is seen in the contributions it makes to the literature on consumer preferences and willingness to pay for chicken cut parts from a developing country perspective where the market for these products is virtually non-existent.
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WE live at the present time under a constant bombardment of exhortation from governments, industrial leaders, trade associations and publicists. They regularly stress the hazards…
Abstract
WE live at the present time under a constant bombardment of exhortation from governments, industrial leaders, trade associations and publicists. They regularly stress the hazards of the competitive world around us. Through all the warnings of this chorus of Cassandras runs a uniform theme. It is that unless we increase productivity the economic future of this country is precarious.
Kwasi Dartey-Baah and Seth Ayisi Addo
Leaders are seen as representatives of their organisations; as such, their actions and behaviours towards their subordinates reflect on the organisations. The purpose of this…
Abstract
Purpose
Leaders are seen as representatives of their organisations; as such, their actions and behaviours towards their subordinates reflect on the organisations. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of some dimensions under transformational and transactional leadership styles on perceived organisational support (POS) in Ghana.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected from 264 engineers and technicians from the country’s power transmission subsector through a survey. Covariance-based structural equation modelling was used in analysing the data with the aid of Statistical Package for Social Sciences and AMOS.
Findings
The analysis indicated surprisingly that idealised influence predicted POS negatively while intellectual stimulation had no significant influence on employees’ POS. However, inspirational motivation, individualised consideration and contingent rewards predicted employees’ POS positively with contingent reward having the highest influence on POS.
Practical implications
The study’s findings indicate the importance that engineers and technicians in Ghana attach to support from their leaders, specifically inspiration and motivation, consideration for their needs and interests and rewards for their performance; thus, the study recommended that organisations must entreat their leaders to show such supportive behaviours towards their subordinates.
Originality/value
The study findings present fresh knowledge from a developing country perspective with regard to the importance that employees attach to these leadership dimensions.
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WORK STUDY still suffers from the unenviable reputation it gained in its early days when it was regarded as little more than a device, tinged with a touch of duress, for getting a…
Abstract
WORK STUDY still suffers from the unenviable reputation it gained in its early days when it was regarded as little more than a device, tinged with a touch of duress, for getting a greater output from the manual worker on the shop floor. This legacy of dislike still erupts occasionally in unexpected ways.
Bernhard Hirsch, Anna Seubert and Matthias Sohn
Managers are confronted with increasing information overload and growing pressure for effective and efficient decision making. The visualisation of data represents a way to…
Abstract
Purpose
Managers are confronted with increasing information overload and growing pressure for effective and efficient decision making. The visualisation of data represents a way to overcome this dilemma and to improve management decision quality. The purpose of this paper is to transfer insights from visualisation research to the managerial accounting context and clarify the impact of visualisation on management accounting reports and decision making. The authors deduce implications for behavioural management accounting research, teaching, and business practice from previous findings and the results.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors conducted an experiment with students and experienced managers. Participants had to evaluate eight different business units based on four accounts (sales, EBIT, FPY, and delivery reliability). The information the authors provided to the participants was either presented as tables only, or in tables and graphs.
Findings
The empirical results show that supplementary graphs improve decision quality, especially within the manager sample but do not affect decision confidence in a performance evaluation task. The authors furthermore find that managers perform poorly when only provided with tables, and they achieve the overall best score when provided with both tables and graphs, whereas students perform similarly in both conditions. The authors additionally show that proficiency affects not only decision quality but also decision confidence.
Research limitations/implications
The results differ from predictions based solely on the cognitive fit model, as the authors found differences in decision quality to be stronger within the group of managers. The cognitive fit model proposes that decision making performance will improve when the problem representation and the decision making task match. Applying the model to a management context, it is obviously insufficient to explain the differences the authors obtained in the experiment. The authors observed that proficiency plays a role in such performance evaluation tasks.
Practical implications
Based on the results, management accountants should analyse the task that needs to be solved with the reported data. By analysing the type of task, accountants can derive the information processing strategy that will most likely be used by executives for problem solving and determine the suitable visualisation format based on the cognitive fit model. Moderate or complex monitoring tasks will presumably be accessed with perceptual information processing. Data should thus be visualised with graphs.
Originality/value
The authors provide empirical evidence that supplementary graphs in management reports improve decision quality but not decision confidence. The authors furthermore illustrate the limits of the explaining power of the cognitive fit model in a management report context. In an extension of cognitive fit theory, the authors argue that proficiency plays a crucial role in performance evaluation tasks. The authors propose a process for visualisation of management reports based on their findings and previous findings.
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Joy Leopold and Myrtle P. Bell
The purpose of this paper is to examine coverage of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement in seven US-based newspapers to determine whether the protest paradigm, “a pattern of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine coverage of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement in seven US-based newspapers to determine whether the protest paradigm, “a pattern of news coverage that expresses disapproval toward protests and dissent,” and other marginalizing techniques are present, and racialized.
Design/methodology/approach
Relevant articles published during a six-month period of 2014 near the death of Michael Brown were retrieved from the selected outlets, including the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and the St Louis Post-Dispatch. Textual and content analyses were performed.
Findings
The articles heavily followed the paradigm. An additional characteristic, blame attribution, was also identified. Language of crime, lawlessness, violence, blame for nearby acts of violence, and inflammatory quotes from bystanders and official sources were often present. There was little discussion of key issues associated with the formation of BLM.
Research limitations/implications
Mainstream outlets rather than social media or alternative outlets were examined. Future research should study coverage of BLM in other outlets.
Practical implications
Measures to avoid marginalizing protests and racialization of coverage, including increased diversity in the newsroom and monitoring for racialized language are suggested.
Social implications
Racialization of news and coverage of BLM has widespread negative consequences, such as association of Blacks with criminality that may affect their quality of life. The protest paradigm has the ability to squelch participation in social movements, which have the possibility to bring about needed social change.
Originality/value
This interdisciplinary paper highlights the important role of mainstream media and news routines in affecting the BLM movement. It uses diversity research to make recommendations for media practitioners to avoid racialization of news.
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Emmanuel Osafo and Robert Mayfield Yawson
The purpose of this study is to present a conceptual framework to guide the design, development, implementation and evaluation of education and human resource development (HRD…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to present a conceptual framework to guide the design, development, implementation and evaluation of education and human resource development (HRD) efforts in Ghana.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper draws on the concept of a tempered radical approach to provide a framework for a critical HRD (CHRD) and explore ways by which this view can contribute to developing HR who possess the requisite tools and character to function efficiently in the 21st century and beyond. This paper followed a multidisciplinary integrated literature review approach. This paper also reviewed relevant models and theories that align with the goals of this research to provide a broader view of the problems with HRD in Ghana and to help develop a framework that seeks to provide a sustainable guide for those involved in HRD activities in Ghana.
Findings
A positive outcome from the synergistic alignment between modern science and indigenous ecological knowledge moderated by the principles of CHRD will result in economic growth and development. HRD’s contribution to economic growth and development and its consequential benefit to the actors will depend on how best CHRD goals are accomplished.
Practical implications
The mediating role of the tempered radicalism will help modify the swiftness with which education and HRD programs are executed in Ghana.
Originality/value
This paper presented the tempered radicalism approach as the quintessential model for education and HRD initiatives in Ghana. The application of tempered radicalism in HRD literature is novel.
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Regina Mensah Onumah and Godfred Matthew Yaw Owusu
This study examines the impact of ethics education interventions (EEI) on attaining ethical education goals in higher institutions.
Abstract
Purpose
This study examines the impact of ethics education interventions (EEI) on attaining ethical education goals in higher institutions.
Design/methodology/approach
The study utilizes a survey method, with questionnaires distributed to accounting instructors from universities and professional accountants in Ghana. The empirical analysis is based on 417 valid responses, and the hypothesized relationships are tested using ordinary least square (OLS) regression.
Findings
The results indicate that ethics-related courses (ERC), methods of teaching ethics (MTE) and methods of ethics interventions (MEI) have a positive and significant impact on achieving the objective set for EEI in accounting programs.
Research limitations/implications
This study provides valuable insights for accounting educators and professional body managers in developing accounting ethics curricula in universities and professional accounting institutions.
Originality/value
This study involves accounting educators and professionals and applies ethical theories of egoism, deontology and utilitarianism to demonstrate the role of ethical interventions in accounting programs in achieving set objectives from a developing country context.
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