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1 – 10 of 38Sabeen Mehmood Durrani, Suk-Kyung Kim and Holly Madill
This research investigates the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the use of transitional spaces in a Korean academic setting, to assess the impact of the pandemic on users'…
Abstract
Purpose
This research investigates the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the use of transitional spaces in a Korean academic setting, to assess the impact of the pandemic on users' utilization of transitional spaces and evaluate any changes in their usage patterns. The research explores whether transitional spaces can function as social interactive spaces, aligning with Ray Oldenburg's “third-place” theory. The focus is on South Korean academic settings, aiming to create neutral and safe zones for users.
Design/methodology/approach
The adopted methodology involves reviewing the literature and employing design charrette as a major data collection tool. The design charrette provided a platform for users to share insights on current transitional spaces during the pandemic and envision these spaces as future social and interactive spaces.
Findings
The design charrette participants advocated for modifying the current transitional space design to transform these spaces into shared spaces for both visitors and regular users in the future. Restricting access for external users to the main building area until necessary. The significance of site amenities in determining transitional spaces as “third-places” was emphasized. While the nature of the building, its location and transitional space amenities are crucial aspects to consider, designers may prioritize user opinions and preferences, as the success or failure of the design ultimately centers on user behaviors.
Research limitations/implications
The research focused on a specific university, hindered by limited access to other institutions during the pandemic. Restrictions on external users discouraged entry without proper permission, which was challenging to obtain. The conventional design charrette outlined in the research method was impossible due to pandemic-related limitations on gathering participants in one location. Therefore, the researcher modified the design charrette method to align with strict social distancing measures.
Social implications
The results of the research are not limited to academic settings, but they can be implied in other environments where social interaction spaces are required and where there is a constant flow of visitors and regular users. The design charrette can be used as a methodology for interior spaces along with large-scale projects of urban planning.
Originality/value
The research analyzed transitional spaces during the pandemic, suggesting redesign to serve and act as buffer zones between private and public areas and become a common social gathering place for visitors and regular users within the built environment.
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The author examines the experiences of learning about Japanese elementary education from the perspective of a Canadian teacher. She suggests through a year-long study in a…
Abstract
The author examines the experiences of learning about Japanese elementary education from the perspective of a Canadian teacher. She suggests through a year-long study in a Japanese third grade classroom that the teaching practices and philosophies underlying curricular and pedagogical decisions made by teachers are shaped by the culture and society of which schools are part, such that learning about Japanese schooling highlights the influence of social, societal, cultural, linguistic factors outside, as well as inside, school. In line with narrative inquiry research practices, the author also acknowledges her own stance as a certified elementary level teacher who was educated and certified in Canada, in contributing to shaping her analysis of teacher knowledge of her teacher participants. She argues that the process of learning about schooling in a country or culture different from the one in which an individual was educated and learned to teach, involves immersing oneself into the research context to learn about the experience from the perspective an insider. Realization of the extent to which this expansive interweaving of school and society is apparent in many aspects of schooling in Japan, in turn, reinforces the idea that this interconnection may also underlie schooling in other societies as well, such that one's experiences in one's own culture may form the foundation for understanding and interpreting knowledge gained about schooling in another culture or community. The notion of cross-cultural teacher knowledge, then, may be grounded in personal and professional experience of teaching and being taught in one's own culture.
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This paper aims to offer insight into how strategies within the accounting profession, which has been becoming more global, might be changed by the recent outbreak of the Second…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to offer insight into how strategies within the accounting profession, which has been becoming more global, might be changed by the recent outbreak of the Second Cold War between the West and the Rest of the World.
Design/methodology/approach
We explore the strategies of those who called themselves “Confucian accountants” in China, a country which has recently discouraged its state-owned enterprises from using the services of the Big 4. We do this by employing qualitative research methods, including reflexive photo interviews, in which Big-4 accountants, recognised as the most Westernised accounting actors in China, and Confucian accountants are asked to take and explain photographs representing their professional lives. Bourdieu’s notions of “economy of practices” and “vision-of-division strategy” are drawn upon to understand who the Confucian accountants are and what they do strategically in their pursuit of a higher revenue stream and improved social standing in the Chinese social space.
Findings
The homegrown Confucian accountants share cultural-cognitive characteristics with neighbouring social actors, such as their clients and government officials, who have been inculcated with Confucianism and the state’s cultural confidence policy in pursuit of a “socialist market economy with Chinese characteristics”. Those accountants try to enhance their social standing and revenue stream by strategically demonstrating their difference from Big-4 accountants. For this purpose, they wear Confucian clothes, have Confucian props in their office, employ Confucian phrases in their everyday conversations, use Confucian business cards and construct and maintain guanxi with government officials and clients.
Originality/value
This paper is the first attempt to explore Confucian accountants’ strategies for increasing their revenue and social standing at the start of the Second Cold War.
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This study aimed to examine the relationship between customer relationship management (CRM)-based library services and head librarians' personal and academic variables. The…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aimed to examine the relationship between customer relationship management (CRM)-based library services and head librarians' personal and academic variables. The status of CRM-based library services in the university libraries of Pakistan was also assessed.
Design/methodology/approach
A cross-sectional survey research design and quantitative research approach were applied. A structured questionnaire was emailed to the heads librarians of all university libraries recognized by the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan, and the response rate was 74 percent.
Findings
The analysis showed that a relationship to CRM-based library services was confirmed by the head librarians' age, academic qualification, professional experience, CRM awareness and training. Moreover, several CRM-based library services such as face-to-face interaction, current awareness services, orientation for new users, coordination through e-mail services, special goodwill to regular users, make telephone calls, complaints/suggestions boxes, online services, provision of a conducive learning environment, user education, selective dissemination of information services, users' participation in the collection and service development, ask a librarian services and users' help desk services were currently being practiced by the university libraries.
Originality/value
This study is a valuable resource for developing user-centered library services and culture. Findings are helpful in enhancing CRM applications in libraries and making their users satisfied and loyal. This study makes a significant contribution to the body of literature and knowledge on library CRM.
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Although much of the research has examined the positive relationship between memorable tourism experiences (MTEs) and tourist satisfaction, little research has attempted to…
Abstract
Purpose
Although much of the research has examined the positive relationship between memorable tourism experiences (MTEs) and tourist satisfaction, little research has attempted to analyze the double mediating effects of cognitive and affective responses and the moderating effects of tourism motivation on the relationship. To address these gaps, this study developed a theoretical framework including MTEs, cognitive response, affective response, tourism motivation and tourist satisfaction with golf tourism using a stimulus-organism-response (SOR) theory.
Design/methodology/approach
The author collected data from domestic and international tourists that attended amateur golf tournaments for non-commercial purposes as amateur athletes in Jeju and Gunsan, South Korea, in 2022. Construct validity of the measurement scale was verified by confirmatory factor analysis, factor loadings, average variance extracted and construct reliability. The reliability of the measurement scale was verified by Cronbach's analysis. The current study utilizes structural equation modeling with maximum likelihood estimation to analyze the positive relationships and double mediating effects. Jamovi statistical software was also used to conduct a moderation analysis.
Findings
The findings displayed the significant impacts of MTEs on cognitive response, affective response, and tourist satisfaction, and the positive impacts of cognitive response and affective response on tourist satisfaction. Moreover, cognitive and affective responses were found to partially mediate the aforementioned relationships and golf tourism motivation moderated the aforementioned paths.
Originality/value
The current study shows that there is a double mediating role of the cognitive and affective responses and moderating role of tourism motivation on the relationship between MTEs and tourist satisfaction and explores golf tourists who participate in an amateur golf tournament for non-commercial purposes as amateur athletes, which has largely been ignored in golf tourism research.
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While the university as an institution is a great success story, one hears the constant chatter of the crises in higher education usually associated with the organizational…
Abstract
While the university as an institution is a great success story, one hears the constant chatter of the crises in higher education usually associated with the organizational transformation of universities. Regardless of one’s normative assessment of these observations, the institutional success of the university has been accompanied by the emergence of universities as organizational actors. I reflect on how these changes could alter the university as an institution, using the Australian higher education sector as an example. In doing so, I explore how universities as organizational actors, in responding to the demands of their external environment, set in motion a series of changes that redefine highly institutionalized categories, and, in doing so, radically remake the university as an institution.
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John C. Pruit, Carol Rambo and Amanda G. Pruit
This performance autoethnography may or may not be interpreted as a continuation of a conversation regarding the experiences of those with devalued statuses in academic settings…
Abstract
This performance autoethnography may or may not be interpreted as a continuation of a conversation regarding the experiences of those with devalued statuses in academic settings. The authors rely on “strange accounting” to consider their experiences in the academy from various standpoints: before and after promotion, before and after leaving academia. While reflecting on our past experiences, we introduce the concept of “everyday precariousness” as a way of explaining the normalization of instability, insecurity, and negative affect that is part of everyday life for those with devalued statuses in academic settings and beyond. Everyday precariousness is an embodied experience for those in vulnerable positions. Normalized exposure to risks, such as discrimination, harassment, bullying, or structural instability, produces an undercurrent of threat that permeates academic culture. Our stories of everyday precariousness span race, ethnicity, class, academic roles, and gender boundaries (among many others). Analyzing these experiences furthers previous work on the uses of strange accounting as well as the dynamics of status silencing. In the final analysis, unresisted and unabated, everyday precariousness and status silencing can lead to institutional failure and resonance disasters.
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Long Nguyen Phi, Dung Hoang Phuong and Thong Vu Huy
This paper seeks to revisit the interrelationship among tourists’ perceived value of the destination, tourist satisfaction and destination loyalty in the heritage tourism site of…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper seeks to revisit the interrelationship among tourists’ perceived value of the destination, tourist satisfaction and destination loyalty in the heritage tourism site of Hoi An. In addition, the moderating role of tourists’ perceived crowding, which has become remarkably common at the site, in such a triangle relationship will also be explored. In other words, this study aims to validate an extended model of perceived value – tourist satisfaction – destination loyalty – perceived crowding.
Design/methodology/approach
The study collects data from 403 tourists who visited Hoi An during peak season through an online questionnaire. The data were later analysed using AMOS and Warp partial least squares.
Findings
The results validate the significant and positive correlation among perceived value, customer satisfaction and destination loyalty. Also, perceived crowding was confirmed to affect the relationship among these three variables negatively. In terms of academic contributions, this paper empirically proved that low levels of tourist satisfaction and destination loyalty among tourists who highly value their visiting experience at World Heritage Sites (WHS) can be caused by perceived crowding.
Originality/value
So far, current literature has investigated the direct (either positive or negative) relationship between perceived crowding and post-visit behaviours of tourists (Nie et al., 2022; Papadopoulou, Ribeiro, & Prayag, 2023; Stemmer, Gjerald, & Øgaard, 2022). Broadening this area of research, the authors of this paper used the social interference theory and the stimulus-overload theory to explain the low level of tourist satisfaction and destination loyalty among tourists who highly value their visiting experience at WHS.
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Michael Kyei-Frimpong, Emmanuel Kodwo Amoako, Bridget Akwetey-Siaw, Kwame Owusu Boakye, Isaac Nyarko Adu, Abdul-Razak Suleman and Amin Abdul Bawa
The current study aimed to examine the moderating role of perceived supervisor support in the nexus between employee empowerment and organizational commitment in the Ghanaian…
Abstract
Purpose
The current study aimed to examine the moderating role of perceived supervisor support in the nexus between employee empowerment and organizational commitment in the Ghanaian hospitality industry.
Design/methodology/approach
A quantitative research design was adopted, and data were collected from 274 frontline workers from 4-star and 5-star hotels at two different waves within a 7-month interval. The data received were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics with the aid of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS V. 23.0) and SmartPLS (V.4.0), respectively.
Findings
As hypothesized in the study, employee empowerment was significantly related to organizational commitment. Furthermore, the results revealed that perceived supervisor support moderated the nexus between employee empowerment and affective and continuance commitment but did not moderate the nexus between employee empowerment and normative commitment.
Originality/value
Arguably, support from supervisors has been theoretically identified as a key construct in enhancing subordinates' commitment to an organization. However, less is known in the literature about the moderating role of perceived supervisory support in the nexus between employee empowerment and organizational commitment, especially in the Ghanaian hospitality industry.
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Aijing Liu, Emily Ma, Yao-Chin Wang, Shi (Tracy) Xu and Tyran Grillo
The purpose of this study is to critically reflect on visually impaired customers’ technology assistance needs and the perceptions of existing technologies’ performance in the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to critically reflect on visually impaired customers’ technology assistance needs and the perceptions of existing technologies’ performance in the contexts of hospitality and tourism.
Design/methodology/approach
Following a qualitative approach, this study used in-depth semistructured interviews with 19 participants with visual impairments.
Findings
Positive and negative sides of technology-assisted experiences in the hotel, restaurant, and travel domains were summarized, and room for improvement was discussed to enhance the quality of life and travel experience of visually impaired customers.
Practical implications
Findings from this study offer actionable implications and future directions to technicians and managers to make hospitality and travel experiences more inclusive.
Originality/value
This timely reflection addresses a critical situation by offering original ideas and calling for more discussion of under-represented groups with visual impairments.
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