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Addresses a number of issues relating to determining whether products should be ordered independently and therefore shipped as a single‐product order, or co‐ordinated and shipped as a group, or multiproduct, order from a single source. Factors which might influence the decision include the level or volume of demand, the distribution of demand across products, the weight of items and the attractiveness of the quantity discount offered. Uses an optimal inventory‐theoretic model, that incorporates transport weight breaks and quantity discounts, to assess when product orders should be combined and what products should be ordered separately. The effects of these decisions on the order interval, the number of order groupings, the proportion of items ordered independently, the proportion of attractive discounts forgone in favour of consolidation, and the relative cost savings, are examined using an extensive set of simulated data that are based on a firm in the automobile industry supply chain.

The purpose of this paper is to show how modularity manifests in a service context, more specifically in the provision of care and services to independently living elderly.

Four case studies provide insight into the specification of relevant components and their subsequent assembly into a customized package of care and services.

In all cases, component specification and package construction take place in two phases: partly before and partly during care delivery. Early client involvement allows for a combination of standard components that have a lower level of customization, whereas late client involvement allows for adaptation of these components resulting in a higher level of customization. The paper proposes that modularity theory should distinguish between the creation of modular offerings in care provision versus their creation in goods production, since the findings are the exact reverse of the state‐of‐the art knowledge in manufacturing modularity.

The empirical part of this paper is limited to providers of elderly care and services in The Netherlands and is exploratory in nature. However, the newness of care and service modularity justifies the exploratory research approach.

This paper offers elderly care organizations in‐depth understanding of their complex and multi‐faceted specification process. The insights help both care and service providers to make well‐considered decisions as to what level of client involvement to allow and the type of modularity to apply.

This paper contributes to the emerging literature on service modularity.

The purpose of this study is to assess differences between the guidance offered by cultural studies in the services literature and the retailing literature for emerging markets. To research these differences, the role that the contact person has towards South African township residents' willingness to buy is to be assessed.

A services quality survey of black (ethnic Xhosa) township residents was performed for two different retail types: new, small, independently owned grocery retailers located within the townships, and established, large, national chains located within the city centres. The influence of these services quality measures on willingness to buy was assessed using the partial least squares method for each of the two retail types. Differences between the model parameters for these two retail types were assessed using ANOVA.

The results show that, consistent with the retailing literature, the contact people in these new, small, local and independently owned retailers focus extensively on empathy to influence willingness to buy, while the contact people in the large, traditionally white‐owned national retailers jointly focus on assurance and responsiveness to influence willingness to buy, and spend very little effort on empathy.

Research implications are based on the usefulness of supporting theory, namely that the guidance offered by the cultural studies in the retailing literature is more predictive than that in the services literature for the emerging South African retailing market.

It is found that core elements in relationship marketing are well ingrained in collectivist Xhosa cultural norms. The results suggest that these cultural norms can, and should, be leveraged by the new independently owned grocery retailers.

The research addresses a key concern within emerging markets and offers practical help for retail development within this dynamic economic setting.

The agricultural industry is demanding a skilled workforce. Leadership is often identified as a desired employability skill but understanding the relationship between leader and follower during the leadership process in agricultural contexts is limited. The purpose of this qualitative study is to understand how employers contextualize the follower characteristics and skills desired when hiring individuals with an undergraduate agricultural degree for entry-level positions using a case study approach. Data collected from individual interviews, a focus group, observation, and artifacts were combined to triangulate emergent findings. When viewed through the lens of followership theory, the agricultural industry seeks graduates who are independently-directed followers. The themes of job skills, organizational skills, and values component describe the desired characteristics and behaviors of independently-directed followers.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the transfer of learning among older adults and the importance of physical activity (PA) related to aging in place.

A mixed-methods approach examined 10 older adults aged 65–88, who were receiving occupational therapy and contemplating aging in place. Semistructured interviews determined participants' perceptions of aging in place and PA. Accelerometers assessed levels of PA over 14 days.

Interviews revealed that most participants were aware of the importance of PA but did not specify PA as being a primary contributor to continued independence with aging. Accelerometer data revealed that, on average, 96.7% of the day is spent in sedentary behavior.

Health-care professionals may ask the question, “What will my patient do with the information he or she has learned?” This study was useful to increase understanding of older adults’ learning, lifestyles and effects on aging independently.

As older adults have true expectations of requirements for successful aging in place, realistic levels of PA and transfer of learning could improve the intended outcome of aging independently.

PA is often an overlooked factor for occupational engagement and aging in place and is novel to investigate in combination with interviews.

The vast majority of older people (90%) live in the general housing stock and 70% are owneroccupiers. One of the major challenges for planners in the housing, health and social care sectors is the development of a coherent joint strategy which enables older people to live independently in their own homes. Home improvement agencies (HIAs) aim to meet the housing and related support needs of mainly older home‐owners. Research carried out by Care and Repair England has been tracking and studying the diversification of HIAs into services areas which ‘cross the housing and care divide’. The results of this work have recently been published. They demonstrate both the range and the extent of new service provision by HIAs and its value both to older people wishing to ‘stay put’ and to planners charged with implementing cross‐sector work and prevention strategies.

The purpose of this paper is to find a method that makes it possible for people with intellectual disabilities to independently contribute to population-based research in areas that is sensitive. It is important to be able to answer questionnaires independently in research areas that are sensitive because the informant maybe does not want to ask for help to answer a questionnaire about sexual violence, domestic violence, etc. Maybe they not even have talked to anyone about their experiences and then have to tell a staff/relative that helps them to complete the survey is probably unthinkable.

To participate in a survey about sensitive issues independently the questions and the methods have to be adapted to the informant’s skills and needs. The questions written in “difficult Swedish” were transcribed into simple language and then tested whether the target group understood the words that describe violent acts. After adjustments another small group tested the method, an Audio Computer-Assisted Self-Interview (ACASI). After they had completed the survey informants were interviewed about what it was like to participate in the survey.

Preliminary results show that it is possible to independently answer population-based questionnaires, even about sensitive issues, if the researcher offers the possibility to use a web-based ACASI. An ACASI can be used on accessible computers and tablets and can have the same questions that only have to be translated into both easy language and alternative format, such as questions with both text and images and listen to the questions read.

Researchers can include people with intellectual disabilities, they just need to give them a chance. It is possible if they translate their questions into an easy language and include alternative format, i.e. using both text and images and be able to listen to the questions and answers, by, for example, using a web-based ACASI.

Children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) or other developmental disabilities are often reported to have challenges in well generalizing the newly learned communicative skills such as requesting help. Not requesting help when it is needed can hinder engagement and learning, whereas requesting help could also be socially inappropriate. This paper aims to offer a demonstration of applying general case instruction to teach a young child diagnosed with ASD to request help only when needed while concurrently increasing the child’s independence in task completion.

The demonstration adopted within-participant AB designs for one 5-year-old boy with ASD, with data collected across three tasks targeted for intervention and the other three tasks targeted for generalization probes throughout both the baseline and intervention phases. Dependent measures consisted of independent help request and independent task completion. Visual analysis was used to describe the results.

Results showed that the child with ASD learned to ask for help on difficult educational activities, while concurrently increasing his independence on these tasks; generalized the skill of requesting help by asking for help when he encountered other challenging novel tasks; and independently completed easy educational activities without requesting help.

The findings from this study may add to the limited literature that explored the generalization performance across tasks/activities in young learners with ASD, while demonstrating the feasibility of designing and applying general case instruction framework to enhance generalization performance for one individual learner.

Most of the studies carried out on human factor in software development concentrate primarily on personality traits. However, soft skills which largely help in determining personality traits have been given comparatively little attention by researchers. The purpose of this paper is to find out whether employers' soft skills requirements, as advertised in job postings, within different roles of software development, are similar across different cultures.

The authors review the literature relating to soft skills before describing a study based on 500 job advertisements posted on well‐known recruitment sites from a range of geographical locations, including North America, Europe, Asia and Australia. The study makes use of nine defined soft skills to assess the level of demand for each of these skills related to individual job roles within the software industry.

It was found that in the cases of designer, programmer and tester, substantial similarity exists for the requirements of soft skills, whereas only in the case of system analyst is dissimilarity present across different cultures. It was concluded that cultural difference does not have a major impact on the choice of soft skills requirements in hiring new employee in the case of the software development profession.

Specific studies concerning soft skills and software development have been sporadic and often incidental, which highlights the originality of this work. Moreover, no concrete work has been reported in the area of soft skills and their demand as a part of job requirement sets in diverse cultures, which increases the value of this paper.

This research aims to create a methodology that integrates optimization techniques into preliminary cost estimates and predicts the impacts of design alternatives of steel pedestrian bridges (SPBs). The cost estimation process uses two main parameters, but the main goal is to create a cost estimation model.

This study explores a flexible model design that uses computing capabilities for decision-making. Using cost optimization techniques, the model can select an optimal pedestrian bridge system based on multiple criteria that may change independently. This research focuses on four types of SPB systems prevalent in Egypt and worldwide. The study also suggests developing a computerized cost and weight optimization model that enables decision-makers to select the optimal system for SPBs in keeping up with the criteria established for that system.

In this paper, the authors developed an optimization model for cost estimates of SPBs. The model considers two main parameters: weight and cost. The main contribution of this study based on a parametric study is to propose an approach that enables structural engineers and designers to select the optimum system for SPBs.

The implications of this research from a practical perspective are that the study outlines a feasible approach to develop a computerized model that utilizes the capabilities of computing for quick cost optimization that enables decision-makers to select the optimal system for four common SPBs based on multiple criteria that may change independently and in concert with cost optimization during the preliminary design stage.

The model can choose an optimal system for SPBs based on multiple criteria that may change independently and in concert with cost optimization. The resulting optimization model can forecast the optimum cost of the SPBs for different structural spans and road spans based on local unit costs of materials cost of steel structures, fabrication, erection and painting works.

The authors developed a computerized model that uses spreadsheet software's capabilities for cost optimization, enabling decision-makers to select the optimal system for SPBs meeting the criteria established for such a system. Based on structural characteristics and material unit costs, this study shows that using the optimization model for estimating the total direct cost of SPB systems, the project cost can be accurately predicted based on the conceptual design status, and positive prediction outcomes are achieved.