Search results

This study aims to investigate how a sample of US municipalities use social media for strategic communication, focusing on efforts to effectively measure and evaluate that communication. Research questions focus on measurement and evaluation practices, as well as the motivations and impacts associated with these practices.

This research uses a qualitative approach. Interviews were conducted with 12 municipal government personnel responsible for social media communication. The self-selected participants represent 10 states and all US Census regions. Data was content analyzed and categorized according to four research questions, with emergent themes described.

The results show a diverse set of approaches and motivations, with surface-level measurement and evaluation methods. Initial efforts at more ad hoc use of social media are moving toward more deliberate strategies, but limited resources inhibit progress for some municipalities.

Few studies exist which explore how US municipalities formally measure and evaluate their social media activities as part of their overall strategic communication efforts. This study adds to the existing literature by providing insight into the measurement and evaluation practices that municipalities use to assess their social media communication. The study also provides a basis for larger and deeper investigations of municipal strategic communication practices related to measurement and evaluation.

This study examines how health-conscious consumers utilize nutrition facts panel labels when purchasing food products, focusing specifically on the dimension of ethical evaluation. It aims to understand how ethical considerations influence the decision-making process of consumers who prioritize health. By analyzing the impact of ethical evaluation on label usage, the study sheds light on the significance of ethics in consumer behavior in the context of purchasing packaged edible oil.

Empirical data were collected using an online survey and a non-ordered questionnaire. In total, 469 valid responses were obtained. The study used SPSS version 27.0 and SmartPLS version 3 for demographic analysis and structural equation modeling.

The findings suggest that three factors – perceived benefits, perceived threats, and nutrition self-efficacy, positively impact the use of NFP labels. However, perceived barriers negatively influence the use of NFP labels. In additionally, ethical evaluation mediates the usage of NFP labels.

In the health belief model, ethical evaluation functions as a mediator and has a greater influence on NFP label use. This study provides a framework for marketers to promote consumer health consciousness by encouraging them to incorporate NFP labels.

This study is one of the first attempts to demonstrate that ethical evaluation mediate health beliefs and the use of nutrition labels.

Entrepreneurship education is being taught to undergraduates in tertiary institutions and fresh graduates in youth programmes to encourage start-ups and create employment as a strategy to stem youth unemployment. As such, entrepreneurship education programmes are expected to include rigorous processes of programme design, implementation and evaluation so as to achieve changes in behaviour, attitude and action of participants measureable in terms of start-up and jobs created. Two entrepreneurship education programmes implemented in Nigeria are evaluated to ascertain the level of effectiveness in design, implementation and evaluation and the outcomes in terms of start-ups and employment created. Research methods adopted in the two programmes combine observation techniques with content analyses, action research in case study and focus group interviews. In addition, test-retest techniques in a quasi-experimental design, with a structured questionnaire is adopted in programme number two only. The findings are that while it is suspected that the design stage is jumped in programme number one, in programme two, the design is poorly done. Implementation is ineffective in the two programmes because objectives did not arise from programme design as they ought to and evaluation methods are inappropriate and so ineffective. The recommendations include review of the design of the two programmes to generate appropriate and measurable objectives; adopting implementation strategies that will achieve the measurable objectives generated from revised programme designs and adopting appropriate evaluation techniques that has capacity to measure outcomes and impact in addition to outputs.

This study aims to investigate the growing use of financial metrics (such as return on investment [ROI]) to measure performance and evaluate human capital (HC) investments.

The research employed an embedded case study approach, examining how one ROI approach was applied to evaluating HC investments, across three sectors (corporate, public health and international development).

Three major findings emerged in this study: First, interpretations of ROI can lead to ambiguity during implementation. ROI is interpreted trichotomously – metaphorically, as a desire for value; literally, as a metric; and procedurally, as a method for planning and evaluating HC investments. Second, understanding, measuring and tracking the domains of people performance (cognitive, affective and psychomotor) is vital to evaluating the impact of HC investments because this is where the change in behavior occurs. Third, although the logic model measures the change in process following an intervention (input-activity-output-outcome-impact), other approaches measure the change in behavior of people in the intervention (people performance).

These findings provide clarity for practitioners about challenges when applying ROI.

This is the first study to explore how the ROI financial metric is applied in a new domain by first examining its interpretation. It elucidates the use of ROI in practice, as well as the different purposes of key ROI approaches.

The paper is a proof of concept (PoC) intervention study aimed for developing performance management (PM) practices in manufacturing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with the longer-term aim enabling the SMEs to improve their productivity. The intervention was designed and deployed by a collaborative quartet of academics, management consultants, accountancy firm and a commercial bank manager.

The paper firstly musters a set of initialising PM practices aligned to productivity improvement. These are utilised to design a knowledge transfer intervention for deployment with a set of manufacturing SMEs incorporating some associated productivity tools. The evaluation of the intervention utilised a case study approach founded on a logic model of the intervention to assess the development of the PM practices.

The intervention contributed to a partial development of the mustered practices and the productivity diagnostic based on the multi-factor productivity (MFP) abstraction and a data extraction protocol had the strongest impact. The study revealed the importance of the three interlaced factors: Depth of engagement, feedback opportunities and the intervention gradient (the increase of independent action from the participating SME's and the diminishment of the external intervention effort).

The case study is based on a limited number of individual SME's, and within just the manufacturing sector.

SME businesses will require a more sustained programme of interventions than this pilot to develop PM capability, and depth of engagement within the SME is critical. Professional stakeholders can be utilised in recruitment of firms for intervention programmes. Business can start developing PM capability prior to PMS implementation using the tools from this programme.

The productivity diagnostic tool, based on a synthesis of MFP and the performance pyramid, an array of potential initialising practices for PM capability and discovery of potential mechanisms for PM practice development.

Knife crime and serious violent crime (SVC) among youth has been growing at an alarming rate in the UK (Harding and Allen, 2021). Community and school-based intervention and prevention services to tackle knife crime are being developed with some evaluation; however, these are independent and of varied quality and rigour. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to record the approaches being developed and synthesise existing evidence of the impact and effectiveness of programmes to reduce knife crime. In addition, the complex factors contributing to knife crime and SVC are discussed.

A systematic approach was used to conduct this knife crime intervention evidence review using two search engines and four databases. Inclusion and exclusion criteria were applied to ensure focus and relevance. The results of searches and decisions by the research team were recorded at each stage using Preferred Reporting Items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA).

Some evidence underpins the development of services to reduce knife crime. Much of the evidence comes from government funded project reports, intervention and prevention services reports, with few studies evaluating the efficacy of intervention programmes at present. Some studies that measured immediate impact in line with the programme’s aims were found and demonstrated positive results.

This systematic review specifically synthesised the evidence and data derived from knife crime and weapon carrying interventions and preventions, integrating both grey and published literature, with a novel discussion that highlights the importance of outcome evaluations and issues with measuring the success of individual level interventions and their contributions to the overall reduction of violence.

By acknowledging the importance of micro-influencers and all decision-making process stages, this study aims to explore the impact of perceived influencer’s credibility, impacted by the sponsorship absenteeism, on problem recognition, information search, alternative evaluation, purchase and post-purchase. Additionally, the authors investigate the moderating role of trust level on the researched relationships.

This study focuses on 111 young Croatian consumers of cosmetic products. The authors analysed data with confirmatory factor and regression analyses.

This study reveals positive relationships between micro-influencers’ perceived credibility and all decision-making phases. The research results also show that the lack of sponsorship positively influences perceived credibility. Furthermore, results indicate that the trust level is an essential moderator for the relationships between perceived credibility and sponsorship and information search and buying stages.

Limitations include the convenience sampling method and data collection at one point while also focusing on consumers from one country.

This study provides practical implications for companies outlining the marketing activities that should be considered in all stages of the decision-making process while recognising the attractiveness of micro-influencers for the buying experience.

This study fills gaps in the literature on micro-influencers credibility in general and particularly in the cosmetics industry. In addition, the study fills the gaps in the literature considering the impact of perceived micro-influencer credibility on all five decision-making process stages.

This chapter explores the relevance of critical race theory (CRT) and queer theory to the relational aspects of program evaluation. Often conceptual binaries that undergird traditional evaluation theory and practice (e.g., internal versus external evaluation, subjective versus objective analysis, observation versus intervention, and insider versus outsider positionalities) adversely influence rigid social roles between evaluator and participant limit a study's effectiveness in supporting programs for equity in contemporary school districts. To illustrate this approach, an array of problems within a program evaluation of a district-wide ethnic studies reform initiative is presented. Approaches to these challenges rooted in tenets of CRT and queer theory illustrate how the district was able to clarify goals and develop an effective implementation plan that focused on effective ethnic studies curriculum and pedagogy.

The study aims to analyze the synergy of artificial intelligence (AI), with scientometrics, webometrics and bibliometrics to unlock and to emphasize the potential of the applications and benefits of AI algorithms in these fields.

By conducting a systematic literature review, our aim is to explore the potential of AI in revolutionizing the methods used to measure and analyze scholarly communication, identify emerging research trends and evaluate the impact of scientific publications. To achieve this, we implemented a comprehensive search strategy across reputable databases such as ProQuest, IEEE Explore, EBSCO, Web of Science and Scopus. Our search encompassed articles published from January 1, 2000, to September 2022, resulting in a thorough review of 61 relevant articles.

(1) Regarding scientometrics, the application of AI yields various distinct advantages, such as conducting analyses of publications, citations, research impact prediction, collaboration, research trend analysis and knowledge mapping, in a more objective and reliable framework. (2) In terms of webometrics, AI algorithms are able to enhance web crawling and data collection, web link analysis, web content analysis, social media analysis, web impact analysis and recommender systems. (3) Moreover, automation of data collection, analysis of citations, disambiguation of authors, analysis of co-authorship networks, assessment of research impact, text mining and recommender systems are considered as the potential of AI integration in the field of bibliometrics.

This study covers the particularly new benefits and potential of AI-enhanced scientometrics, webometrics and bibliometrics to highlight the significant prospects of the synergy of this integration through AI.