Search results

Discusses the relative merits of standardized and customized marketing strategies for organizations operating in international markets. Suggests that the suitability of either strategy is heavily dependent on market and environmental conditions. Reports on an examination of the characteristics of the pharmaceutical industry and the extent to which the marketing environment favours standardization. Presents empirical evidence of the extent to which marketing is standardized and suggests that the link between market characteristics and the degree of standardization is weak.

Cloud computing is a relatively new phenomena. It has rarely been examined in the context of the small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The purpose of this paper is to examine the drivers and barriers to cloud computing adoption by SMEs in Ireland.

This study adopted an exploratory approach. A quantitative approach was adopted in the data collection phase. An online self-completion questionnaire was distributed by e-mail to 1,500 SMEs in Ireland. A response rate of 6 per cent was achieved generating 95 usable responses.

Findings from this study indicate that Irish SMEs are adopting cloud technology. The key driver identified is the resultant cost benefits for the firm. However, concern over continuous availability of the service is identified by the SME as a key challenge and is hindering widespread adoption of cloud technology.

This study whilst exploratory in nature, has laid the foundation for further research in the area of cloud computing adoption. This research should enable further studies to replicate this process with the possibility of extending the study to include other countries, on a larger scale and with a particular focus on the knowledge intensive business services sector. This study would benefit from adding a qualitative perspective to the research topic to add depth and enhance the “richness” of the data collected during the process.

This study concludes that policy makers and cloud providers need to provide assurances to SMEs over issues of continuous availability of the cloud service through increased and on-going investment in a high-speed, broadband infrastructure and through ensuring issues pertaining to standardization and compliance are resolved.

This exploratory research has illuminated this area through examining the drivers and barriers to cloud adoption by SMEs. In the Irish context, the benefits of engaging in such activity can reap many benefits. Of particular importance to a peripheral economy such as Ireland is the value of adopting cloud computing which is central to offering competitive advantage and controlling costs.

Policy-capturing is an experimental technique potentially capable of providing powerful insights into the cognitive bases of work-related decision processes by revealing actors’ “implicit” models of the problem at hand, thereby opening up the “black box” of managerial and organizational cognition. This chapter considers the strengths and weaknesses of policy-capturing vis-à-vis alternative approaches that seek to capture, in varying ways, the inner workings of people’s minds as they make decisions. It then outlines the critical issues that need to be addressed when designing policy-capturing studies and offers practical advice to would-be users concerning some of the common pitfalls of the technique and ways of avoiding them.

This paper aims to draw attention to the need for a nuanced view of the emotional contagion framework. It proposes and empirically tests a refined model of emotional contagion and its effects in the hotel sector by focusing on the front-desk service encounter interactions.

Data were collected from three separate groups of paired informants: receptionists, hotel customers and interaction observers. The sample included 573 full customer service interactions in 47 hotels in Catalonia. The model was tested with structural equation modelling.

Emotional contagion has specific mechanisms at the hotel front-desk. No relationship was found between receptionists’ inner mood and their outwardly displayed emotions. Yet, receptionists’ displayed emotions enhance customer mood, and, largely, customer satisfaction. Ultimately, this affects customer behavioural intentions. It was also discovered that guests are able to clearly distinguish between their satisfaction with the specific service encounter at the front desk and the overall satisfaction with the hotel stay. The positive effects of employees’ displayed emotions are of particular importance in lower-star hotels and are less important at the high end. Perceived training opportunities have a positive effect on customer satisfaction and improve the employee-displayed emotion.

Researchers should examine employee outcomes that are more stable than mood, but may enhance or be related to the effective display of emotions at the front desk, such as employee satisfaction and commitment. In general, emotions and behaviours of employees and consumers should be further examined in other services across the hospitality industry, in different cultural contexts and in terms of their impact on company performance. Researchers should heed the precise type of mechanism that takes place in each service context.

The hotel management should focus their efforts on ensuring positive emotional performance, regardless of employees’ inner mood. Managers should carefully interpret differentiated results according to whether they have been drawn from overall satisfaction or customer service interaction surveys. The training provision is of particular importance in lower-star hotels, where customer outcomes depend more on employee-displayed emotion.

This study empirically corroborates that customer outcomes of front-desk services are linked to receptionists’ displayed emotions, and not to employees’ feelings. Onsite data collection, multiple-informant approach, paired dyads and structural equation modelling hold a great potential for study designs that seek insights into interpersonal phenomena in hospitality services research.

Studies in psychology have long revealed that making personal choice involves multiple motivational consequences. It has only been recent, however, that the literature on neuroscience started to examine the neural underpinnings of personal choice and motivation. This chapter reviews this sparse, but emergent, body of neuroscientific literature to address possible neural correlates underlying personal choice. By conducting the review, we encourage future systematic research programs that address this topic under the new realm of “autonomy neuroscience.” The chapter especially focused on the following motivational aspects: (i) personal choice is rewarding, (ii) personal choice shapes preference, (iii) personal choice changes the perception of outcomes, and (iv) personal choice facilitates motivation and performance. The reviewed work highlighted different aspects of personal choice, but indicated some overlapping brain areas – the striatum and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) – which may play a critical role in motivational processes elicited by personal choice.

The purpose of this paper is to present the development and validation of the Universal Transformational Management Framework (UTMF), an entrepreneurial tool that guides the development of inclusion-driven strategic management, planning and practice in sport organizations.

A range of qualitative data collection techniques was undertaken in this action research: seven cross-sectoral semi-structured interviews; one focus group with sports professionals; a qualitative survey and research group consultations. A matrix analysis, a thematic analysis and secondary research were undertaken to analyze data.

The UTMF is a staged framework that embeds principles of behavioral, organizational and transformative change theory, guiding strategic development toward inclusion from a contemplation phase toward an action and maintenance stage. The UTMF is composed of 14 fundamental components identified as key areas that sport entrepreneurs should recognize and address for planning and delivering sport services that leave no one behind.

Policy makers, management and sport professionals have at their disposal an inclusion-driven framework that challenges their systems and establish mechanisms to leave no one behind.

Organizational transformation can ultimately produce a contagion effect advancing equality and inclusion in society. The UTMF offers a structure for sport entrepreneurs aiming to facilitate and activate social transformation in and through sport.

The UTMF is a wide-ranging framework to facilitate an orchestrated transformation of sport organizations in order to provide universal services that include marginalized groups and address global challenges identified in intersectional agendas like the SDGs.

This chapter explores the impact of delivering culturally community family therapy with strength-based strategies, to transgenerational Black Haitian families living in Haiti and the Dominican Republic following the 2010 earthquake. A series of workshop intervention over several years, which were co-facilitated by community pastors and leaders provided a cultural-based intervention drawing on Black British and Caribbean culture, Haitian culture, Christian spiritual belief systems, in conjunction with some bi-cultural attachment and systemic methods and techniques. Community feedback through testimonies contributed to evaluation and outcomes in developing new strategies to manage stress, and family conflict and distress, together with developing new strategies in sharing a vision for the future across the community.

Although social influence plays an important role in organizational groups, past findings regarding culture's impact on social influence have been scarce and inconsistent. Past research has found that people from collectivist cultures are more susceptible to social influence, while other studies have found the opposite or no effect. One major weakness of prior research on social influence is the predominantly cognitive orientation that has underemphasized the role of affect in culture's impact on social influence. We address this weakness by outlining an affective model of social influence, thereby expanding our understanding of social influence in multicultural decision-making groups.

In the present paper we explore the long-term influence of childhood neglect on violent behavior in the transition to adulthood. In particular, we test whether neglect is spuriously related to violence due to their common association with academic achievement, physical abuse, and general offending. We then ask whether neglect has an indirect effect on violence through its impact on parental attachment, alcohol use, emotional negativity, academic achievement, or staying in school.

We use two waves of data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health (Add Health) and employ both regression models and INDIRECT, a syntax file that allows for the testing of indirect effects using SPSS (Preacher & Hayes, 2008).

We find that the long-term association between childhood neglect and violence in the transition to adulthood is robust in models controlling for GPA, physical abuse, and other forms of offending. Neglect did not have an indirect effect on violence through attachment, negative emotionality, or academic achievement but did have indirect effects on violence through its association with staying in school and with alcohol use.

This set of analyses was exploratory in nature. Further research on neglect should be undertaken, using finely tuned measures and research questions. In addition, our findings imply that the association between neglect and later violent behavior may be intertwined with certain dynamics of physical abuse and alcohol use, which should be further studied.