Search results

Convivo is a VoIP system designed to provide reliable voice communication for poor quality networks, especially those found in rural areas of the developing world. Convivo introduces an original approach to maintain voice communication interaction in the presence of poor network performance: an Interface‐ Adaptation mechanism that adjusts the user interface to reduce the impact of high latency and low bandwidth networks. Interface modes facilitate turn taking for high latency connections, and help to sustain voice communication even with extremely low bandwidth or high error rates. An evaluation of the system, conducted in a rural community in the Dominican Republic, found that Interface‐Adaptation helped users to maintain voice communication interaction as network performance degrades. Transitions from full duplex to voice messaging were found particularly valuable. Initial results suggest that as users get more experience with the application they would like to manually control transitions based on feedback provided by the application and their own perceived voice quality.

Advance the state-of-the-art on how frugal innovation links to sustainability outcomes and based on content analysis of empirical publications in the field of frugal innovation, analyzing when and how FI is connected with social, environmental and economic outcomes.

Quantitative content analysis on empirical papers published on frugal innovation, using data visualization techniques to disclose relationships among the constructs adopted. Materials were collected following a step-wise methodology. In total, 130 articles were identified, read in depth and coded according to five main categories: context; development; implementation, adoption, diffusion; characteristics; and impacts.

The potential of frugal innovation to drive sustainability outcomes is influenced by the type of actors developing the innovation, regarding their organizational form (large firms, small firms, non-firm actors), their geographical origin (foreign or local) or motivations (mostly profit-motivated or socially-oriented). Collaboration plays a key role along the various stages of the frugal innovation cycle and is thus relevant for its potential to drive sustainability outcomes. The results reaffirm the need for greater attention to where and when sustainability-enhancing outcomes of frugal innovation are more likely to occur.

This study provides a qualitative study based on content analysis of empirical studies to explore the associations between frugal innovations and improved economic, environmental and social sustainability outcomes. The key novelty of this study lies in the systematic coding of each paper regarding the features of the innovation, the innovators, and the outcomes achieved. This allows taking stock of the evidence emerging in such a scattered literature, quantifying the extent to which insights take place in the empirical literature, looking for correlations, and highlight research gaps to understand to what extent frugal innovation can contribute to sustainable development.

Although many studies have concentrated on analyzing the impact of the implementation of ISO 9001 certification, there is still a clear need for research in specific sectors. The purpose of this paper is to focus on the implementation of this international management system standard in the tourism industry, and in particular the motivations conducting to its adoption and the satisfaction derived from it.

A questionnaire survey was conducted among 120 ISO 9001-certified Spanish tourism companies. Confirmatory factor analysis tests were used to verify the scales validity and reliability. The logit model was utilized to investigate the statistical effects of ISO certification.

The paper findings showed that the certified companies in the tourism industry implement ISO 9001 more for internal reasons, like improving processes and procedures or products and/or services, than for external reasons, like the image of the company or promotional or sales tools. The variables size, age and use of a consultant affect the cost and time factors for the implementation of a quality system. In addition, the certification process generated three categories of benefits, with the organizational and control benefits being the more relevant. These benefits are correlated to the antiquity of the certificate. In the final analysis, results show that tourism companies are generally satisfied with the ISO 9001 certificate.

The ISO 9001 quality management system is part of the modern management tools. The paper contributes to a better understanding of the motivations and benefits for implementing the ISO 9001 certification and to the analysis of its application in a particular industry as important as the tourism industry in Spain, a country that is recognized for its leadership in tourism.

Fieldwork in architectural conservation education is a proven practice to develop skills in documenting current conditions and start methodological engagements with a site's architectural and historical values. It is a vehicle to generate intensive learning experiences in comprehensive degrees or short courses. Review of the practice within conservation education is not extensive and the purpose of this paper is to reflect on enhancing pedagogy further.

This reflection was triggered by a major case study, a workshop to generate UG teaching capacity for an Architecture school in Colombia. This led to mapping the fieldwork spectrum, reviewing the authors' experiences (PG courses and external workshops) and activities planned in other MSc programmes. Fieldwork is often seen as skills training, so enhancement is explored through the affiliate geography and architecture UG curricula.

The Colombia workshop provoked strong engagement among students and tutors, and their commitment to make heritage meaningful to their projects is a measure of this pedagogy's success. Fieldwork around a site's essence, beyond skills development can induce conservation students into critical enquiries by motivating them to develop personalised contexts and enhance engagement with the unexpected through inversion of linear learning processes. Setting up site exercises early on PG programmes can encourage curiosity in exploring historic environments and contextualise surveying methods.

Student reaction to these ideas has still to be tested by designing new activities. The educational methods of this implementation need deeper analysis, beyond the paper's scope.

The paper maps the academic value of fieldwork in conservation education, investigating enhancement and cross-fertilisation from architecture and geography.

Performance feedback about whether responses are correct or incorrect provides valuable information to help guide learning. Although feedback itself has no extrinsic value, it can produce subjective feelings similar to “rewards” and “punishments.” Therefore, feedback can play both an informative and a motivational role. Over the past decade, researchers have identified a neural circuit that processes reward value and promotes reinforcement learning, involving target regions of dopaminergic input (e.g., striatum and ventromedial prefrontal cortex). Importantly, this circuit is engaged by performance feedback even in the absence of reward. Recent research suggests that feedback-related brain activity can be modulated by motivational context, such as whether feedback reflects goal achievement, whether learners are oriented toward the informative versus evaluative aspect of feedback, and whether individual learners are motivated to perform well relative to their peers. This body of research suggests that the brain responds flexibly to feedback, based on the learner’s goals.

Students play an unequivocal role in sustainable universities as they are theorized to embody the mission of a sustainable university through a sustainable lifestyle and spread sustainability practices during their professional careers. Despite this, it is not well known how or why students come to embody a sustainable lifestyle. This study aims to better understand the relationship between happiness, academic achievement and sustainability behaviors among the student population in a Mexican higher education institution.

In a questionnaire study, engineering and psychology university students at a large public university in northwestern Mexico answered questions regarding their environmental sustainability behaviors, happiness and academic performance. A stratified random sampling technique was used to obtain the sample population that best represents the entire population. After chi-square tests, it was confirmed that the three variables were independent of one another. Therefore, a series of correspondence analyses were conducted to examine clusters or patterns that could indicate relationships among the three variables.

The main finding from this work was that the happiest and most academically astute participants were only slightly environmentally sustainable or not sustainable at all. The lack of environmental sustainability in students from one of the most top-rank sustainable universities in Mexico does not align with previous sustainability reports. External factors to the university, such as cultural values and extreme weather conditions, may have influenced students’ sustainability behaviors.

As with any other questionnaire study, the provided data is subject to interpretation, judgment and bias. In addition, the environmental and happiness index used in this study are not free of criticizing, and some author had disputed its efficacy. Finally, this study’s findings did not determine any causality or directionality between any of the latent variables. However, causality and directionally between environmental sustainability-happiness and happiness-academic performance have to be found in both directions.

Despite the unsustainability of students in this study, this study has several contributions. First, it provides an evaluation of a sustainable university from the perspectives and behaviors of students. The views of students as they relate to the complexities and visions of a sustainable university have remained relatively underexamined. Second, these analyses point to specific sustainability-oriented challenges and inadvertent barriers (e.g. extreme weather patterns) toward the embodiment of a sustainable lifestyle. These challenges and barriers suggest that sustainable universities need to address the dynamic changes inherent in sustainable development. Finally, this study indicates that the link between happiness, academic performance and sustainability may be more complicated and driven by cultural and structural barriers. The issue of barriers, as they relate to sustainability behaviors, is highly relevant and presents important opportunities and questions for future research.

This study provides an evaluation of a sustainable university from the perspectives and behaviors of students. Students’ views as they relate to the complexities and visions of a sustainable university have remained relatively underexamined. Second, these analyses point to specific sustainability-oriented challenges and barriers as they relate to the embodiment of a sustainable lifestyle. These challenges and barriers suggest that sustainable universities need to address the dynamic changes inherent in sustainable development. Finally, this study indicates that the link between happiness, academic performance and sustainability may be more complicated and driven by cultural and structural barriers.

This chapter aims to develop a broad understanding of the relationship between tourism and development in Colombia for the period 1996–2012 through two complementary analyses. After a review of secondary sources, high-impact public policies related to tourism are analyzed, as well as the gains and gaps to be overcome. The main findings points out that Colombia is at a juncture where tourism is starting to bloom. Whatever is planned and how it is done in terms of public policy will determine the future model for its development. As such, tourism can become a strategic instrument for decentralization processes, regional and local dynamics, and strengthening the rule of law.

Learning outcomes of this study are as follows: formulate an external analysis of INAPOL; and develop a strategic analysis to identify strategic alternatives.

INAPOL is a manufacturing company dedicated to the production of polyethylene sleeves and the manufacture of plastic bags, which faced a crisis because of the new environmental regulations in Chile. This rule prohibits the delivery of plastic bags in commerce, which leads directly to a decrease in the demand for bags by its main customers. This is why it is necessary to conduct a strategic analysis and reformulate a development plan. The reader is expected to be able to identify the external factors that limit the company and the internal factors that affect the company. In addition, the reader is expected to develop strategic analysis tools such as PESTEL and SWOT and identify background information to propose strategic alternatives.

The present case study presents a low complexity and can be applied in introductory courses of strategy or management for undergraduate students in administration.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CSS 11: Strategy.