Search results

Purpose – This chapter analyzes the visual coverage of amok school shootings with the aim of tracing particular patterns of visualization relating to the representation of victimizers and victims.

Methodology – Based on a qualitative mixed-method design combining visual content with visual context analysis of print and online coverage of the incidents, a tentative typology is developed to be tested in future empirical studies. The exploratory study builds on empirical data derived both from print and online coverage of two amok rampage incidents in Germany (Winnenden/Wendlingen, March 2009; Ansbach, September 2009). For comparative reasons the online visual coverage of three amok school shootings in the United States (Littleton, 1999; Red Lake, 2005; Blacksburg, 2007), two in Finland (Tuusula, 2007; Kauhajoki, 2008), as well as two additional cases in Germany (Erfurt, 2002; Emsdetten, 2006) were included in the sample.

Findings – A typology of mainly press photographs about amok school shootings with three main categories – visuals portraying the perpetrator(s), visuals portraying the victims, and visuals about the context. For each of the three main categories there are several subcategories. However, quality media focus on context visuals while tabloid media focus on the perpetrator, and sometimes on the victims. Additionally, a clear distinction between print and online media emerged, with quality print media adhering more strictly to privacy laws than both tabloid and quality online sites.

Research limitations – Different samples of amok events; only one with a full sampling of both print and online newspapers and magazines; TV coverage not taken into account.

Practical implications – Heightened media attention and the pervasive need of media to visualize violent events underscore the relevance of empirically based guidelines for photojournalists and editors alike. The results of this study are a first step in this direction.

Originality – The chapter contributes to visual communication research insofar as it presents a first theoretical and methodological approach to operationalize visuals in the context of reporting about a particular type of violent event.

Over the past few years, several scholars have focused on green innovation in the agri-food industry. In line with this research stream, the purpose of this paper is to cover some unexplored areas regarding if stakeholder pressures have a positive influence on family engagement to implement green innovation practices and socially responsible practices.

By adopting a qualitative research methodology, mainly based on a multiple case study, this paper seeks to cover some unexplored areas regarding the understanding the relationship between stakeholders, family involvement and business practices in green innovation. The authors analyze eight cases from five Latin American countries selected, all are family firms focused on agricultural production.

Latin American family firms from agri-food industry, have a positive influence from internal/external stakeholder to implement green innovation initiatives and socially responsible practices, that result in short/long term business practices.

The originality of the proposed conceptual model stems from the need to overcome the previous theoretical models based on the stakeholder theory, which deals separately with internal/external influence over the firm.

This paper expands theory on strategists by investigating how non-executive strategy professionals in multi-business firms strategize. In focus is the strategizing of two groups of non-executive strategy professionals: a corporate strategy team and eleven business strategists employed in each of the incorporated units.

A case study design was employed to explore privileged accessed data to gain first-hand in-depth qualities of strategists' work. The design was characterized by phenomenon driven immersed participatory insider research with retrospective reflection and theorizing. Data includes strategies, interview data, calendars, meeting minutes, workshop material and observational field notes.

Non-executive strategy professionals in multi-business firms are either employed at the corporate center or in the peripheral businesses. Based on this location and their individual experiences they assume an exclusive content or an inclusive process strategizing orientation. In practice, the groups strategize tightly together.

Case studies are useful in explorative research providing thick descriptions. While empirically rich, the results of this study are limited by the context of one single case. Future research is encouraged to confirm, contradict and refine the results presented.

The insights from this study can help organizations regarding how to employ strategy professionals in multi-business firms.

This paper contributes to a recognized need to explore strategists' work. In contrary to the majority of existing research, focusing on senior management and/or strategy formulation, this paper highlighted non-executive strategy professionals' strategizing.

Given that organizational decisions are made by individuals and thus shaped by their subjective and objective characteristics, the purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of SME business owners’ characteristics on their firms’ research and development (R & D) spending in a transition economy.

The authors first build the arguments that, among small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), business owners’ perceived importance of R & D-related activities, their education, related experiences, and social connections, should affect their firms’ R & D spending positively. Then the authors use a Chinese nationwide survey of private SMEs to test the arguments. Tobit regression analyses are conducted by taking Stata 12.0 as the statistic tool.

The authors find that business owners’ perceived importance of R & D-related activities is positively associated with their firms’ R & D spending. In addition, better-educated owners and owners who have technology-related working experience tend to invest more in R & D activities. Finally, owners who have social connections, especially industrial connections, tend to spend more on R & D activities.

This study improves the understanding of R & D spending determinants among SMEs. Going beyond general environmental determinants, it reveals the important agency role of SME owners, and thus contributes to a better understanding of how decisions leading to SME innovations are influenced by business owners’ perceptions and demographic characteristics.

This chapter aims to make sense of the growing research that examines the role of culture in mergers and acquisitions. We provide a detailed review of the many related but distinct constructs that have been introduced to the literature. While each construct has contributed to our understanding of the role of culture, the lack of connections made among constructs has limited the consolidation of contributions. The review shows what these constructs mean for mergers and acquisitions, what major findings have been discovered, and, most importantly, how constructs interrelate. Our discussion provides several opportunities to foster the needed consolidation of this research.

Being extensively used in metallurgy, rotating magnetic fields are also becoming increasingly interesting for application in crystal growth, where they are intended to act by stabilizing the melt flow. For this purpose, it is important to understand the basic interactions of the magnetically induced flow and other flow components like time‐dependent buoyant convection. So a three‐dimensional finite volume method was developed in order to numerically study the effect of a rotating magnetic field on convection in a cylindrical melt volume. The equations of mass, momentum, and heat transport are solved together with the potential equations describing the electromagnetic field. The numerical computation of the Lorenz force distribution is validated by comparison with an analytical solution. The effects of magnetic field parameters on the temperature distributions and the flow patterns in the considered configurations are analysed.

This study explores the yet understudied productive aspects of uncertainty in the organization of creative collaboration and scrutinizes the practices that allow participants to fruitfully use it as a resource for the creation of novelty. In contrast to former conceptualizations of uncertainty as a quantity to be reduced through organizing, we apply a qualitative heuristic where uncertainty may shift different dimensions regarding participation (who?), procedure (how?) and content (what?). Based on eight creativity biographies in two creative fields, music production and pharmaceutical development, encompassing 36 semi-structured qualitative interviews, we identify embracing, ignoring, and fixing uncertainty as three distinct, yet interrelated practices to engage with uncertainty and thereby enable the emergence of valuable novelty in interaction. We further discover that the participants shift these practices between the different dimensions of uncertainty during the process of creative collaboration. Moreover, we argue that these shifts are necessary to maintain creativity in collaborative processes. Thereupon, we contribute insights to the so far enigmatic notion of organizing for collaborative creativity.

Changes in eating habits and food preferences caused by circadian rhythm disruptions in shift workers increase the risk for chronic diseases. Several studies demonstrated that shift work exerts adverse effects on various risk factors for cardiometabolic disease and cancer. Moreover, shift work leads to altered eating patterns, including diets low in alkaline foods (such as vegetables, fruit and legumes) and high in acidogenic foods (such as meat, fish and cheese). Previously not examined, this imbalance could result in a high dietary acid load (DAL). DAL has been linked to low-grade metabolic acidosis, tissue inflammation and other metabolic alterations. The aim of this study was to investigate the hypothesis that shift work is positively associated with an increased DAL.

The authors used cross-sectional data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (2007–2010). The sample for this analysis was drawn from a representative multistage-probability sample of US civilians. DAL estimations included potential renal acid load (PRAL) and net endogenous acid production (NEAP). Acid load scores and nutrient intake were compared between regular day workers (n = 3,814; mean age, 43.7 ± 0.3; mean body mass index (BMI), 28.6 ± 0.1; females 46.9%) and shift workers (n = 881; age, 37.4 ± 0.6; BMI, 28.4 ± 0.3; females 48.1%). Evening/night shift workers combined with rotating shift workers were contrasted to participants on a regular daytime schedule.

Potassium and magnesium intake were significantly lower in shift workers, whereas no significant differences with regard to total energy intake were found. The authors found significantly higher crude NEAP_F scores in shift workers (mean: 61.8 ± 1.2 mEq/day) compared to regular day workers (mean: 58.7 ± 0.5 mEq/day, P = 0.023). After adjustment for confounders, however, this association remained no longer significant. There were no significant intergroup differences regarding NEAP_R and PRAL_R.

This study revealed significant differences in crude NEAP_F scores between shift workers and day workers. After adjustment for confounders, this association was no longer significant. Such discrepancy is probably because of the scarce homogeneity in the analyzed sample which represents the main limitation of this study. Thus, the results did not confirm the hypothesis that shift work is associated with elevated DAL scores. Importantly, the data suggest significant intergroup differences in nutrient intakes without confirming our initial hypothesis with regard to DAL.

In light of the detrimental health outcomes associated with an increased DAL, this study reinforces the call for evidence-based dietary guidelines in shift workers. Studies in other shift working populations are thus warranted.

Deficits in fiscal and current account balances in a large number of countries reveal interesting implications of the causal relationship between internal and external imbalances. Empirical evidence about the occurrence of so-called twin deficits or twin surpluses provides crucial information about the validity of an intertemporal approach. However, most recent dynamic cyclical changes during the crisis period revealed many questions about the direct interconnection between macroeconomic performance and twin imbalances. In the paper we observe substantial features of twin imbalances in European transition economies. Event study (identification of large fiscal and current account changes and their parallel occurrence) and vector auto-regression methods will be employed to examine key aspects of twin imbalances. Our results suggest that current account deteriorations were predominately associated with negative public investment and savings balances (fiscal deficits), while current account improvements were predominately associated with positive private investment and savings balances, confirming empirical evidence about twin deficits in European transition economies.