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1 – 10 of 34Examines process of management development. Highlights basic skillsfor managing a small team. Gives guidelines for becoming a great managerwhich include “flexibility” and…
Abstract
Examines process of management development. Highlights basic skills for managing a small team. Gives guidelines for becoming a great manager which include “flexibility” and “vision”. Concludes that the best managers are those who “recognize problems, seize opportunities, and create their own future”.
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In their recent book, Dead Man Working, Carl Cederström and Peter Fleming paint a haunting picture of the contemporary employee: sleep deprived and overworked, exhausted and…
Abstract
In their recent book, Dead Man Working, Carl Cederström and Peter Fleming paint a haunting picture of the contemporary employee: sleep deprived and overworked, exhausted and strung out, unable to tell where work ends and where life begins, hardly alive and yet unable to die. In this paper, the author widens the picture by examining the systemic effects of contemporary work on the family. Drawing upon ideas from psychoanalysis and critical theory, the author reveals how the extraction of life by work reverberates across generations and seeps into the home environment. The author also reveals how new constellations of family reinforce deadening work. What emerges is a family portrait known as the “dead family working.”
Sherzine McKenzie and James William Crosby
The purpose of this paper is to examine public perception of factors relevant in sentencing decision making for juvenile school shooters with a history of familial abuse, peer…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine public perception of factors relevant in sentencing decision making for juvenile school shooters with a history of familial abuse, peer victimization, and school intervention.
Design/methodology/approach
Through the use of school shooting vignettes, 298 college-aged participants were randomly assigned to one of eight experimental conditions which differed based on the inclusion of the independent variables.
Findings
Results revealed no significant differences among the groups on the sentencing recommendations (i.e. psychiatric placement and incarceration). However, correlational analyses indicated that participants’ generally perceived they were influenced by the perpetrator’s history of peer victimization and the level of intervention offered by school personnel when the shooter was bullied. Further regression analyses suggested that participant characteristics such as race, gender, and prior experiences with bullying were among the most powerful predictors of agreement with sentencing recommendations.
Practical implications
Implications of the current findings raise questions as to the influence of peer victimization in civil and criminal court proceedings and its associated impact on the juvenile justice system, the educational system, and society’s desire for justice.
Originality/value
This study ambitiously ventures into exploring and understanding the relevant sociological, academic, and legal factors in addressing acts of school violence.
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Mbaye Fall Diallo and Gérard Cliquet
International retailers operating in different emerging countries should figure out how their store image is perceived across these countries and whether they should adapt or…
Abstract
Purpose
International retailers operating in different emerging countries should figure out how their store image is perceived across these countries and whether they should adapt or standardise the retail offer. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how store image is perceived across different emerging markets and how it relates to customer knowledge cues and personal characteristics.
Design/methodology/approach
A store-intercept survey undertaken in Brazil and Vietnam generated 505 usable responses from customers of two metropolitan cities (Brasilia and Hanoi), respectively, in Brazil and Vietnam. The questionnaires were collected in Extra (Brazil) and Big C (Vietnam) retail chains belonging both to the same group (Casino, France).
Findings
Overall, this paper reveals that emerging market customers assess positively modern retail stores and are concerned about services, merchandise, and store layout when shopping. More specifically, the results indicate differences and similarities between Brazilian and Vietnamese customers in terms of store image attributes, store image dimensions, and overall store image. Moreover, customer knowledge of retailers affects store image perceptions at different levels in both countries. Also, significant differences arise across age, gender, and education in both countries, but not across household income categories.
Research limitations/implications
Respondents were customers of only two emerging markets (Brazil and Vietnam) and shoppers of two retail chains (Extra and Big C). Caution should therefore be exercised when generalising the results to other emerging markets.
Practical implications
The paper shows both differences and similarities in store image perceptions in different emerging countries. Because store layout is more positively rated in Brazil than in Vietnam, retailers should be careful to that attribute. In both countries, to improve assortment perceptions, managers might focus on first price (budget) store brands, which can help diversify the assortment and attract less wealthy customers. The service dimension also demands careful management, but personnel training should mirror the local culture.
Originality/value
This research highlights differences and similarities between Brazilian and Vietnamese customers in terms of store image perceptions. It shows that store image mechanisms are similar in emerging countries as in developed countries. Furthermore, the paper is the first to relate store image perceptions to customer knowledge cues in emerging countries.
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Mehmood Khan, Mian Ajmal, Matloub Hussain and Petri Helo
This study aims to identify barriers to social sustainability in the health-care industry in the United Arab Emirates. Furthermore, the impact of these dimensions on social…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to identify barriers to social sustainability in the health-care industry in the United Arab Emirates. Furthermore, the impact of these dimensions on social sustainability is examined.
Design/methodology/approach
A comprehensive questionnaire has been developed based on semi-structured interviews with different departments of two tertiary hospitals in the first phase. In the second phase, data are collected from ten public and private hospitals situated in the United Arab Emirates. In the third phase, responses are examined using principal component analysis to identify the five major barriers for social sustainability. A measurement model (confirmatory analysis) is developed to examine the relationship among these dimensions. Finally, a structural model is developed to examine the significance of these dimensions to the notion of social sustainability in health care.
Findings
The statistical model shows a 61 per cent variance for social sustainability, which is caused by infrastructure, organizational culture, lack of coordination, stakeholder’s disparity and uncertainty, which are positively and highly correlated measurement barriers to social sustainability practices implementation.
Research limitations/implications
Health-care professionals and stakeholders believe that the elimination of obstacles to social sustainability must be multi-dimensional and not limited to specific practices.
Practical implications
This study would enable health-care industry to examine the extent of obstruction for social sustainability. Hospital administrators and medical professionals could use this feedback to assess and benchmark their performance against that of other competitive hospitals.
Originality/value
The contribution of this paper is to advance the understanding of social sustainability in the health-care sector by viewing it from the perspective of the stakeholders and the social exchanges that occur among them.
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The purpose of this paper is to establish a critical synthesis of the dynamics of narcissistic leadership in organizations. Moreover, this paper offers suggestions for research…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to establish a critical synthesis of the dynamics of narcissistic leadership in organizations. Moreover, this paper offers suggestions for research aimed at providing greater insight into this form of leadership.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper comprises a review of the latest scientific research in the field of narcissistic leadership. In strictly methodological terms, this synthesis can thus be classified as a literature review.
Findings
The paper presents details of four factors that can trigger manifestations of narcissistic leadership: idiosyncratic, cultural, environmental and structural factors.
Research limitations/implications
Based on a comprehensive review of the literature, this paper proposes an analysis of the dominant characteristics and dynamics of narcissistic leadership, essentially from the point of view of a pathological narcissism of the overt (grandiose) type. It would be interesting to extend the exploration to another form of narcissistic leadership – namely, covert (vulnerable) leadership.
Practical implications
Through its exploration of the nature and limits of narcissistic leadership, this paper proposes avenues of research that could have interesting managerial applications.
Originality/value
To the author's knowledge, this is the first synthesis to propose an integrated research model that incorporates the antecedents, components and consequences of narcissistic leadership in organizations.
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A discussion “ On the Neglect of Science in Commerce and Industry ” seems to involve the assumption that this neglect is general if not total. As this would be an exaggeration, I…
Abstract
A discussion “ On the Neglect of Science in Commerce and Industry ” seems to involve the assumption that this neglect is general if not total. As this would be an exaggeration, I prefer to speak of the inadequate appreciation of science in the British commercial and industrial world. During the last thirty years immense efforts have been made to provide instruction in physical science for all classes in the community, and with some success. Every British university is provided with laboratories and gives degrees in science; the number of colleges and technical schools has increased enormously, and the quality of the teaching provided has greatly improved, while there are but few secondary schools which are not furnished with good laboratories in which physical science is taught up to a comparatively advanced stage. Out of these universities, colleges, and schools proceed annually many hundreds of young people with a tincture of scientific knowledge, some of them possessing even a certain amount of practical skill and experience. I do not refer to engineers whose training and professional qualifications require separate discussion.
Isabelle Piot-Lepetit, Rozenn Perrigot and Gérard Cliquet
The purpose of this paper is to develop a new model allowing the implementation of a benchmarking process that jointly measure the efficiency of franchise chains and determine…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to develop a new model allowing the implementation of a benchmarking process that jointly measure the efficiency of franchise chains and determine their optimal organizational form.
Design/methodology/approach
The methodology is based on a non-econometric technique developed by management scientists on economic concepts for evaluating the performance of decision-making units and implementing a benchmarking process. An extended model is developed in the paper for evaluating the efficiency and determining the optimal percentage of company-owned outlets (PCO) of each franchise chain.
Findings
First, results showed that the PCO has a positive impact on franchise chain efficiency; even if other chain characteristics have a larger impact. Second, the optimization of the PCO allows for additional improvements in efficiency.
Research limitations/implications
Even though this study has some limitations (e.g. sample and variable selection), it contributes to the literature on franchising by providing an approach allowing us to answer to the question of Shane (1998) on the optimal proportion of franchised units given other firm characteristics.
Practical implications
By developing a model that allows for the joint evaluation of franchise chain efficiency and optimal PCO, this study offers to franchisors a new benchmarking process allowing for both a competitive and functional benchmarking.
Originality/value
The originality of this research can be found in the new model developed for allowing a benchmarking of franchise chains that allows an evaluation of efficiency jointly with a determination of their optimal organizational form.
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LIBRARIES are not a first priority in the building programme of the nation. It would be difficult to make them so. The Library Association Council, we are assured, have this…
Abstract
LIBRARIES are not a first priority in the building programme of the nation. It would be difficult to make them so. The Library Association Council, we are assured, have this matter under consideration continually and will lose no opportunity to urge the need for extensions of old buildings and for new ones. The demand for libraries grows, in the face of other needs, at a pace which is both a pleasure and an embarassment to librarians. Some authorities have made provision for new libraries this year in budgets which come under consideration this month, and we hope the Ministry concerned will allow some of these projects to be realized.
Just as universalism was a fundamental value underpinning the creation of the post‐war welfare state, so personalisation is rapidly gaining a similar status in contemporary public…
Abstract
Just as universalism was a fundamental value underpinning the creation of the post‐war welfare state, so personalisation is rapidly gaining a similar status in contemporary public service reform. This paper explores the background to both concepts and their current relevance for better outcomes. In particular, it seeks to understand how far they represent competing values and what kind of balance between them might be necessary to improve the health and well‐being of individuals and communities. However, and as this last statement implies, neither can be considered in isolation from the wider outcomes they are intended to secure for people and places.
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