Search results

Relative performance evaluation (RPE) is a widely practiced employee appraisal process in the services industry. In a global delivery model, teams are spread across different geographical locations. The team members work on various tasks under the guidance of different managers and at times under more than one manager for performing the same task. Such complexities make RPE of the team members quite challenging. The paper proposes a methodical step-by-step approach to simplify the evaluation process without compromising on the rigour.

RPE has followed three different approaches. First is the traditional way, wherein evaluators had a common meeting to discuss and arrive at relative evaluation and ranking of members of the peer group employees. In the second, the number of evaluators and employees in a peer group were split in to 2 subgroups. The evaluators provided independent ratings and rankings. Simple mathematical tool then derived the combined ranking. In the third approach, each evaluator evaluated each employee in the peer group and provided the relative ranking for each employee. Again, mathematical tools provided the final ranking considering inputs from all evaluators. All the three evaluation approaches were analysed through an inter-rater agreement method.

All the three approaches for evaluation provided similar results giving confidence that less time-consuming methods could be adopted by evaluators without compromising on the rigour of the evaluation. The outcome of the exercise proved effective as the complaints reaching the ombudsmen reduced as compared to the earlier years. Considerable evaluation time was also saved. The study described in this paper is carried out in a non-unionized, Indian private sector services firm. Its effectiveness in other set ups is yet to be tested.

The research is carried out in the Indian Engineering services firm operating in the Knowledge based sector. Though study results are encouraging, the adaptability of methodology across different sectors and geographies is yet to be tested. More broad based studies are needed to evaluate suitability across firms and regions.

Relative evaluation exercise is challenging for evaluators. Although openness in evaluation is desired, it also makes evaluators uncomfortable in appearing to be taking sides or being opposing a candidate's ranking. The proposed approach brings in anonymity to each evaluator without scarifying individual evaluation.

The proposed methodology can be deployed across different services industries as the proposed methodology is business domain agnostic. It can be easily ported and tailored to align with an individual organization's evaluation philosophy. The suitability and effectiveness of the method can be studied under various types of firms like manufacturing, private, public, NGO, labour oriented, etc. As the proposed method reduces efforts, the stake holders can focus on understanding the relation between employee performance measurement, employee engagement, and long-term outcomes related to employee performance evaluation.

The proposed employee evaluation method leverages inter-rater reliability and agreement tool as a consensus approach to the relative performance ranking exercise. Such an approach to relative performance ranking is original as no prior studies with such an approach are found in the existing Literature.

The purpose of this paper is to use Delphi technique to assess the applicability of coupling various project delivery methods (PDMs) and contract strategies (CSs) for delivery of public building projects (PBP) in Ethiopia.

To achieve the objective of this research, an online Delphi study was designed, conducted and analyzed using various statistical procedures. Results were compared to CII’s project delivery and CS (PDCS) tool, a US-based PDM selection tool.

This study converged in the third round signifying a consensus on the importance of design–build and construction manager at risk as alternatives to design–bid–build. In addition, “controlling schedule growth” was deemed to be a major performance measure that needs to be considered for PBP in Ethiopia, a result consistent with the outcomes from CII’s PDCS tool.

Among existing studies, none to the best of the authors’ knowledge has focused on a holistic approach to identify the most appropriate pairings of PDMs and CSs for PBP which was critically needed due to the magnitude and high stakes of these projects. This research is a steppingstone toward gaining knowledge on how to approach these types of projects in fast-growing environments thirsty for new building projects such as in Ethiopia.

Questionnaire studies of knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP) are effective research in the field of health, which have many shortcomings. The purpose of this research is to propose an automatic questionnaire-free method based on deep learning techniques to address the shortcomings of common methods. Next, the aim of this research is to use the proposed method with public comments on Twitter to get the gaps in KAP of people regarding COVID-19.

In this paper, two models are proposed to achieve the mentioned purposes, the first one for attitude and the other for people’s knowledge and practice. First, the authors collect some tweets from Twitter and label them. After that, the authors preprocess the collected textual data. Then, the text representation vector for each tweet is extracted using BERT-BiGRU or XLNet-GRU. Finally, for the knowledge and practice problem, a multi-label classifier with 16 classes representing health guidelines is proposed. Also, for the attitude problem, a multi-class classifier with three classes (positive, negative and neutral) is proposed.

Labeling quality has a direct relationship with the performance of the final model, the authors calculated the inter-rater reliability using the Krippendorf alpha coefficient, which shows the reliability of the assessment in both problems. In the problem of knowledge and practice, 87% and in the problem of people’s attitude, 95% agreement was reached. The high agreement obtained indicates the reliability of the dataset and warrants the assessment. The proposed models in both problems were evaluated with some metrics, which shows that both proposed models perform better than the common methods. Our analyses for KAP are more efficient than questionnaire methods. Our method has solved many shortcomings of questionnaires, the most important of which is increasing the speed of evaluation, increasing the studied population and receiving reliable opinions to get accurate results.

Our research is based on social network datasets. This data cannot provide the possibility to discover the public information of users definitively. Addressing this limitation can have a lot of complexity and little certainty, so in this research, the authors presented our final analysis independent of the public information of users.

Combining recurrent neural networks with methods based on the attention mechanism improves the performance of the model and solves the need for large training data. Also, using these methods is effective in the process of improving the implementation of KAP research and eliminating its shortcomings. These results can be used in other text processing tasks and cause their improvement. The results of the analysis on the attitude, practice and knowledge of people regarding the health guidelines lead to the effective planning and implementation of health decisions and interventions and required training by health institutions. The results of this research show the effective relationship between attitude, practice and knowledge. People are better at following health guidelines than being aware of COVID-19. Despite many tensions during the epidemic, most people still discuss the issue with a positive attitude.

To the best of our knowledge, so far, no text processing-based method has been proposed to perform KAP research. Also, our method benefits from the most valuable data of today’s era (i.e. social networks), which is the expression of people’s experiences, facts and free opinions. Therefore, our final analysis provides more realistic results.

In order to estimate the value of semi-automated subject indexing in operative library catalogues, the study aimed to investigate five different automated implementations of an open source software package on a large set of Swedish union catalogue metadata records, with Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) as the target classification system. It also aimed to contribute to the body of research on aboutness and related challenges in automated subject indexing and evaluation.

On a sample of over 230,000 records with close to 12,000 distinct DDC classes, an open source tool Annif, developed by the National Library of Finland, was applied in the following implementations: lexical algorithm, support vector classifier, fastText, Omikuji Bonsai and an ensemble approach combing the former four. A qualitative study involving two senior catalogue librarians and three students of library and information studies was also conducted to investigate the value and inter-rater agreement of automatically assigned classes, on a sample of 60 records.

The best results were achieved using the ensemble approach that achieved 66.82% accuracy on the three-digit DDC classification task. The qualitative study confirmed earlier studies reporting low inter-rater agreement but also pointed to the potential value of automatically assigned classes as additional access points in information retrieval.

The paper presents an extensive study of automated classification in an operative library catalogue, accompanied by a qualitative study of automated classes. It demonstrates the value of applying semi-automated indexing in operative information retrieval systems.

This study aims to propose and evaluate a novel framework of strategic adaptability in dyadic negotiations. The authors define strategic adaptability as a reaction to a cue that leads to shifts between integrative and distributive strategies. Based on the literature on turning points, phase models and strategic negotiations, the authors developed an initial framework identifying five distinct strategic adaptations.

To verify the framework, the authors analyzed two negotiation simulations with a diverse set of negotiation students. Negotiations were content-coded, and adaptations were labeled.

The authors found a consistent pattern across two studies. Overall, 12% (study 1) and 18% (study 2) of all speaking turns were identified as strategic adaptations. The findings empirically confirmed four of their strategic adaptation types: adapt to deadlock, follow adaptation by opponent, adapt to priority of issue under discussion and adapt to new information on issue. Moreover, findings of this study revealed two new types of strategic adaptability: delayed adaptation to opponent and adapt to understand opponent. Study 2 additionally revealed that strategies vary with the negotiation phase, and negotiation outcome seems to benefit more from the constellation rather than the frequency of adaptations. Furthermore, lower-scoring negotiators tended to adapt to the opponent’s strategy instead of initiating a change in strategy.

The findings of this study provide preliminary insights into how strategic adaptations unfold. These findings present future research opportunities to further test the framework's robustness, increase the knowledge of individual and cultural factors, explore the relationship with negotiation outcomes and develop educational interventions to enhance strategic adaptability.

There is a growing array of literature that supports various implications of positive organizational psychology on workplace outcomes such as the positive work cultures. However, lack of appropriate measuring instruments is halting the progress in this field. Laid down in this article are the conceptual and empirical perspective regarding a positive group culture, i.e. meaningful group culture (MGC) and elaboration of what MGC is and how to measure it. For this study, the MGC is defined as a culture of humane orientation and explained through five dimensions: ideology infused, caring for employees, pro diversity, helping and employee-centric organization identification. The purpose of this paper is to address this issue.

To further elucidate, development and validation of the MGC instrument was carried out in three phases. In the very first phase, content and face validity was assessed by experts. Following it, the second phase construct validity was undertaken through exploratory factor analysis of the results from the use of the instrument on a sample of 540 professionals. To end with, in the third phase, multilevel confirmatory analysis was conducted on an organizational sample of 397 individuals and 106 groups.

The results of the Multilevel Confirmatory Factor Analysis (MCFA) provided further evidence of confirmation that the extraction of five factors was appropriate, and reliability analysis showed the MGC to be both valid and reliable. Consequently, the applications of the tool to Human Resource Development (HRD) professionals are suggested.

To broaden the coverage and enhance generalizability, the study focused on multi-sector convenient based sample.

HRD professionals can use it as a diagnostic tool for deeper exploration into systematic and organizational issues. The use of it can provide a window for addressing the developmental needs within the organizations.

This study is possibly one of the first to develop a psychometrically valid scale to measure higher order measure of a work group culture through multilevel assessment of the model.

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of the (in)congruence between team leader self-evaluation and follower evaluation about the leader's transformation leadership (TL) on team performance, as well as the conditions under which the impact can be strengthened or weakened.

This study adopts a survey method to collect data from matched sales team leaders and sales team members in 81 teams. A multi-level polynomial regression analysis was conducted.

Team performance was higher in teams with balanced or high TL than with balanced or low TL. Among the teams with incongruence, no difference was found between leader underestimation and leader overestimation. TL congruence plays a moderating role in the relationship between team follower evaluation of TL and team performance, such that the relationship is stronger when team leader self-evaluation and follower evaluation are congruent than incongruent.

This study extends the authors' current understanding of TL literature by combining and contrasting the different perceptions of TL from both the leaders themselves and the followers towards leaders. The findings highlight the importance of congruence versus incongruence rather than just the high or low levels of follower TL evaluation. It provides a more complete understanding of the TL and team performance relationship than the traditional view that promotes a linear relationship between TL and performance.

Team leaders play a vital role in achieving superior team performance. However, their role in implementing the organizational customer orientation strategy is not well understood. Drawing on social exchange theory, this study investigates how team leader customer orientation affects team customer orientation climate and team performance (i.e. customer satisfaction) as well as the moderating role of transformational leadership in such effect.

This study builds on survey data collected from matched team leaders, employees and customers nested in 81 service teams and employs hierarchical multiple regression analysis to test the hypotheses.

The findings indicate that team leader customer orientation increases team customer orientation climate, which leads to a higher level of customer satisfaction. Leaders' transformational leadership moderates the link between a leader customer orientation and team customer orientation climate in an unexpected way. When a team leader is transformational, the team customer orientation climate is enhanced, regardless of the level of team leader customer orientation. When a team leader's transformational leadership is low, the higher leader customer orientation is and the higher team customer orientation climate is.

This study contributes to the customer orientation, transformational leadership and service literature by unraveling team leaders' roles in boosting team customer orientation climate and team effectiveness.

Social presence (SP), which refers to individuals’ perception of others being engaged as “real people” in the same situation, is a crucial component in technology-rich learning environments (TREs). This study aims to identify major learning design, antecedents and outcomes of SP within TREs, and identify common findings from the past two decades.

Following Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses review principles and a qualitative analysis of selected articles, a final review of 72 studies that met inclusion criteria was obtained. Key information, including education level, discipline, sample size, study type and measurements, was extracted and studies were further analyzed and synthesized based on design features and learning modes.

The study identifies five crucial factors for instructional design to foster SP in TREs: technology affordances, multimedia features, social factors, instructional principles, learner characteristics and learning management systems. The authors compare two learning modes across three dimensions and identify popular technologies used in studies related to SP over the past two decades. Practical recommendations are provided for educators and educational technology developers to enhance SP within technology-rich learning environments.

This research contributes to the discourse on online learning and computer-supported communication, particularly in the post-COVID-19 era. By examining factors influencing SP and providing implications for instruction and educational technology development, this study offers evidence-based support to educators for engaging learners and fostering authentic learning experiences through adaptive selection of educational technologies.

The debriefing is a procedure based on intra-team feedback, which has frequently been applied in university formation in health but has been less used in business. The aim of this research is to analyse best practices in the actual implementation of debriefing in organisations, based on criteria the guidelines for carrying out each stage established in the procedure.

To achieve these goals, working teams from different organisations carried out 19 group-debriefing sessions on an authentic work problem. These sessions were observed and analysed following a qualitative approach.

After observing a debriefing session in 19 organisations, four categories related to its implementation have been identified: Self-analysis, information, planning and orientation of the development of the team.

It is important to mention some limitations to this work. The major limitation was the lack of published literature related to the debriefing in the area of organisational management. The qualitative and exploratory nature of the study limits the generalisation of the results.

The research has practical implications as the characterisation and description of each phase favours the transfer to implement the debriefing technique adequately in different types of organisations.

It has been observed that all forms of debriefing have a common purpose in learning and, team and employee development, due to the powerful transferability and usefulness of debriefing in different contexts. Therefore, knowing the correct use of debriefing is a breakthrough in this area. In addition, including this type of practice will not just facilitate a better performance, it will also help teams to learn to work in a team from their own experiences.

It has been characterised by the process of debriefing from the correct implementation of each phase through the analysis of the narratives that arise in the debriefing sessions carried out.

匯報是一個基於團隊內部回饋的程序, 它常見於大學組建的醫療衛生方面, 在商業上則較少使用。本研究擬基於匯報程序中所建立的每個階段, 來分析在組織內實際進行匯報的典範實務。

為達至研究目標, 來自不同組織的工作團隊, 就一個真實的工作問題進行了19個匯報會議。研究人員觀察這些會議, 並以定性研究法進行探討和分析。

研究人員觀察於19個組織進行的匯報會議後, 找出了四個進行匯報會議的範疇, 自我分析、資料、計劃和團隊發展的取向。

本研究提供了實務方面的啟示, 因研究結果確認了匯報每個階段的特徵的描述, 以及每個階段的描述, 這會幫助在不同種類的組織內進行匯報會議時, 舉行匯報使用之技巧得以靈活調動, 以發揮各技巧的最佳效果。

研究人員分析有關的匯報會議內的敘述, 並從會議每個階段的正確執行, 找出了匯報程序的各個特徵。