Search results

Relatively few comparative studies have examined how perceptions across cultures might converge or diverge regarding careers in general and new venture careers in particular. Our research addresses this gap by providing a comparative study of career perceptions among undergraduate business students in three countries with different levels of experience with capitalism: Ukraine, South Korea, and the United States. Results suggest both surprising differences and interesting similarities between undergraduate students in the three countries with regard to how they perceive characteristics associated with entrepreneurial careers. Findings are discussed in the context of distinct differences and commonalities across cultures and implications for future research provided.

The librarian and researcher have to be able to uncover specific articles in their areas of interest. This Bibliography is designed to help. Volume IV, like Volume III, contains features to help the reader to retrieve relevant literature from MCB University Press' considerable output. Each entry within has been indexed according to author(s) and the Fifth Edition of the SCIMP/SCAMP Thesaurus. The latter thus provides a full subject index to facilitate rapid retrieval. Each article or book is assigned its own unique number and this is used in both the subject and author index. This Volume indexes 29 journals indicating the depth, coverage and expansion of MCB's portfolio.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the integration of Okala curriculum into Interior Design coursework. Okala, as a teaching package, is utilized extensively in industrial design education. However, this study examines the expansion and insertion of Okala modules in an existing interior design curriculum. The Okala modules included were: broad ecological information, eco‐design history, and strategies and processes for ecological design implementation. To interpret if the integration was effective, an online survey was developed and distributed to students enrolled in the course.

The survey was administered at the end of the spring 2009 semester. To evaluate the effectiveness of Okala modules and the perceived perceptions of the students' awareness toward the environment – ecologically, economically and sustainably – the researchers used the New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) questionnaire. Developed by Dunlap and Van Liere in 1978, the NEP has been a reliable instrument in several previous studies, has measured other populations' attitudes toward the environment, and correlates well with the intent of researching Okala modules.

The key findings suggest that the incorporation of Okala modules: heightened students' confidence that humans' ability to produce environmentally‐friendly technologies will not allow for environmental collapse; equalized students' feelings about humans' and nature's rights; and did not change students' perception about Earth's capabilities and limits. Overall, the study had successfully determined students' environmental feelings prior to and after course instruction.

This paper exposes the importance of integrating sustainable development and interdisciplinary coursework into the content of a curriculum‐required course.

The paper explores problem‐based learning (PBL) as a useful methodology in leadership development during turbulent times. It identifies several pertinent action points for managers to lead through problems while understanding their capacity to empower themselves and others to face challenges at work.

Broad concepts of PBL are used to distil the characteristics of this methodology and how they might be applicable to leadership development. An actual case of PBL in leadership education and training is employed to illustrate the processes of problem solving and reflective action‐taking.

When confronted by problems, managers should adopt a learning‐oriented mindset and draw on the strengths of others to generate immediate solutions for experimentation. In doing so, they need to accept failure as a prerequisite for creative tensions to be generated and applied in messy circumstances. Until they think out of the box, they will continue to solve problems in tried‐and‐tested ways obstructing the emergence of revolutionary solutions.

In order for managers to make an impact on organizational process and improvement, they need to focus on the action and learn components of PBL. They should be given the space to listen to their own “voice” and internalize the “voice” of others through reflection and dialogue. They should also be recognized for their courage and boldness in confronting problems even if more problems are generated in the process. It is facing the goliath that managers truly grow to become real leaders.

Although the concept of PBL has been around for a long while, its applicability to leadership development has not been sufficiently explored in both theory and practice. This paper brings another dimension to the common idea of problem solving where solution seeking is not an end it itself. At best, it is a means to discovering the potential of true leadership in those whose mindset is focused on learning and reflective decision‐making.

The purpose of this paper is to establish the effectiveness of Talking Mats® (TM) in evaluating service users’ experiences, and explore their views of the implementation of person-centred active support (PCAS).

This is a mixed-methods study, employing qualitative interviewing and observational measures.

Both qualitative and quantitative measures indicated inconsistent implementation of PCAS. It was possible to effectively gain participants’ views on positive and negative aspects of quality of support and quality of life, using TM, across three themes, My life, My support and Self-determination.

Generalisability of the research may be limited due to the sample, and the potential for researcher and interviewer bias is acknowledged.

TM provides a mechanism that may facilitate the inclusion of the views and experiences of people with intellectual and developmental disability (PWIDD) who have limited verbal skills. Their views need to be reflected in adaptions made to PCAS.

This study included a population who are often left out of qualitative research because of the methodologies adopted. It also included older PWIDD, where there has been less research about the effectiveness of TM.

Is employee morale affecting customer satisfaction and therefore the bottom line? This paper describes a piece of exploratory research carried out in the business‐tobusiness (B2B) sector in the UK to determine whether employee satisfaction does ultimately affect profits. There is a great deal of literature that supports this argument. The results of the research, however, actually indicated an inverse relationship in one industry in particular. The focus industries were technology, processing and business banking. This correlates with a recent similar study in the retail industry. The results showed that morale can be very low, yet employees work hard in order to keep their customers loyal and to maximise company profits. This is despite fear of redundancy, high workloads and long hours.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how organizational actors interpret and enact technology in cross-boundary work contexts during e-government implementation in a public organization in East Malaysia.

Case study methodology involving semi-structured interviews, unobtrusive observations, and archival records was utilized in the study. Interview subjects include management staff, general employees, and information technology (IT) specialists to provide rich descriptions of their work practice.

Three distinct contexts contribute to cross-boundary work practice in relation to IT use and non-use, namely, standardization (complete IT use), hybridization (partial IT use), and conventionalization (zero IT use). Technology enactment strategies such as acceptance, avoidance, adaptation, and configuration are employed depending on actors’ interpretation of technology complexity and task interdependency.

Early interventions could involve examining how and why employees accept or avoid technology as part of their work practice and how they switch between enactment strategies. Organizations could ensure better team support to capitalize on the robust social interaction in cross-boundary work contexts to develop greater synergy in technology improvisations.

The study extends the technology enactment perspective as it offers new meanings to structures of action by understanding the temporal agentic orientations and how these are constructed by cross-boundary work contexts. It also offers insight into how enactment strategies are developed according to the productive tensions that arise from the interplay of cognitive orientations.

The purpose of this paper is to offer a practice-based understanding of leadership based on the concept of “leaderful” practice. In supporting this concept, the paper describes the contexts that shape leadership capacity and introduces an integrative framework that further illustrates “leaderful” practice.

The paper draws on prior research conducted by the authors in a variety of industries. Insights were gleaned from both theoretical perspectives and qualitative data drawn from a number of empirical studies.

In order to lead confidently in turbulent times, leaders need to first unlearn the conventional wisdom of leadership. Three contextual enablers contribute to “leaderful” practice, namely problem, action, and experience. Becoming “leaderful” is being mindful of how these three enablers could be harnessed and integrated to facilitate change in meaningful ways.

In order to promote “leaderful” practice, both reflective and conversational spaces are imperative. Such spaces help leaders to be mindful of their internal and external contexts, including a keen awareness of self and others in framing references of the past for the future. In doing so, leaders need to be “present” to confront “wicked” problems and take action through collective experience and intelligence.

Understanding how leaders think, feel, and act in actual practice helps us understand the genuine characteristics of leadership. The paper introduces a framework of “leaderful” practice with a focus on leading with confidence. It extends current understanding of leadership practice by viewing “leaderful” practice from the perspective of problem, action, and experience.

The topic of dividend policies of private family-controlled firms has aroused the interest of corporate finance and governance scholars and practitioners alike. However, a lot of questions concerning the dividends in privately held family firms remain unanswered. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether a private family firm’s dividend payout is influenced by its degree of professionalization.

The hypotheses are tested on a sample of 492 small to medium-sized Belgian family-controlled businesses with Tobit regression models.

The results show that professionalized family-controlled firms pay higher dividends to their shareholders than do less-professionalized firms. In particular, the use of financial control systems, non-family involvement in governance systems, and the use of human resource control systems have a positive significant impact on the average level of dividend payout.

This study may be of interest to family business consultants and (potential) investors, as the results contradict the assumption that family businesses (especially those privately held) will always have a no or low dividend policy.

Investigating dividend payout in the context of other components than family ownership (in this case, professionalization) can broaden our understanding of dividend payout.

The purpose of this paper is to show that owner occupation has become the prevailing tenure in the UK with owners increasingly being seen as holding primary responsibility for the condition of their properties. The UK has had a long tradition of public sector enforcement and grant‐led intervention to help preserve the nation's private sector housing stock. Recent housing policy changes have subsumed earlier grant legislation and provided a general provision for “assistance” to help owner‐occupiers maintain and repair their own homes. Simultaneously, the role of local authorities continues to shift from provider to enabler of service, with greater discretion and an increased role for other agencies at local level.

This paper shows the focus group discussions that were held in South London to explore what low‐income owner‐occupiers in an ethnically‐diverse area would find helpful from the local authority in carrying out maintenance and repair works to their homes.

This paper reveals that some of the wider policy options put forward by the government were not always what respondents favoured, but that many would like to carry out further maintenance and repairs, given the right resource and support opportunities.

The paper contains an exploratory study, limited to homeowners aged over 60.

The paper suggests that a range of resource and support mechanisms are required for home‐owners to carry out works to their homes as private sector housing grants continue to decline.

The paper seeks to put national private sector housing renewal policy into strategic practice at local authority level in helping ensure that home‐owners receive the most appropriate means of assistance and support in carrying out works to their homes.