Search results

This paper aims to determine the current usage of next generation online public access catalogs (OPACs) and discovery tools in academic libraries in the USA and Canada.

Using the same random sample of 260 colleges and universities in the USA and Canada from their original study, the authors revisited each institution's library web page to ascertain whether the OPAC interface(s) offered were the same or different than in their initial data collection. Data was collected and analyzed in October and November 2011.

Discovery tool use has practically doubled in the last two years, from 16 percent to 29 percent. A total of 96 percent of academic libraries using discovery tools still provide access to their legacy catalog. The percentage of institutions using ILS OPACs with faceted navigation has increased from 2 percent to 4 percent. Combining the use of discovery tools and faceted OPACs, at least 33 percent of academic libraries are now using a faceted interface. Discovery tools that aim to be the “single point of entry for all library resources” are the most recently popular.

About 16 percent of the institutions (n=43) in the sample either did not have web sites or did not provide access to their online catalogs. Thus, some data might be underreported.

The findings identify trends that may inform academic libraries in the quest to providing next generation interfaces to their varied resources.

This study gives a timely update of next generation catalog (NGC) and discovery tool usage in academic libraries in the USA and Canada.

The study described in this paper aims to identify the progress made in the efforts to model current online public access catalogs (OPACs) after the next generation catalog (NGC) in academic libraries in the USA and Canada.

A random sample of 260 colleges and universities was selected from Peterson's Guide to Four‐Year Colleges 2009, an estimated 10 percent of the total population of 2,560 listed academic institutions. A checklist of 12 features of the NGC was used to evaluate the OPACs of the 260 libraries in the sample. The authors took as the OPAC that which the library linked to as its “catalog,” even though some might be more properly considered “discovery tools” or “discovery layers.” Some libraries used more than one OPAC interface simultaneously; in this case, each OPAC was analyzed separately. In the case of several institutions using the same consortial OPAC, only the first instance of the OPAC was analyzed. About 15 percent of the institutions (n=40) in the sample either did not have web sites or did not provide access to their online catalogs. In all, a total of 233 unique instances of OPACs were analyzed. Data were collected from September 2009 through July 2010. The findings can be extrapolated to the population at the 95 percent confidence level with a confidence interval of ±3.

While bits and pieces of the next generation catalog are steadily working themselves into the current catalog, academic libraries still have a long way to go. About 16 percent of the OPACs in the sample did not show any advanced features of the NGC. More than half of the libraries (61 percent) had only one to five advanced features in their OPACs. Many of those with six or more NGC features were discovery tools. Only 3 percent of the OPACs in the sample (n=8) demonstrated seven to ten out of the 12 functionalities of the NGC, and they were instances either of WorldCat Local or Summon. The weak areas were federated searching, relevance based on circulation statistics, and recommendations based on patron transactions.

This is the first and only study on a large scale conducted thus far that evaluates the progress towards the NGC in academic libraries in the USA and Canada. The findings help academic librarians to recognize and pin‐point the weak links in implementing a true next generation catalog.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a new model for depicting organizational processes: the episodic spiral model (ESM).

On the basis of a strong process view as the orienting paradigm, the authors demonstrate the need for the ESM by discussing the shortcomings of two specific spiral types in the organizational literature – the knowledge creation spiral and the efficacy spiral.

A review of each spiral type through the lens of nonlinear assumptions reveals the treatment to date of organizational spirals as uni-directional and insufficient for understanding organizations. The authors propose that managers must undertake a paradigm shift in order to gain a greater awareness of both the environment in which they operate, as well as their process actions. To facilitate this shift, the ESM depicts choice points, chosen and rejected trajectories, and upward and downward environmental drafts, as well as a multi-dimensional environment, as a way of re-conceptualizing approaches to space, time, and change in organization studies.

The authors propose that the model provides a way for scholars to enhance the study of organizations by understanding that organizations exist in a more dynamic environment than previously studied; recognizing that the organization has a wider range of choices available, and acknowledging the long-lasting ramifications of both choices made and choices discarded; and obtaining a more comprehensive look at the way the organization moves through space and time at any given moment. Taken together, the authors hope that these contributions allow organizational scholars a new approach to theorizing, exploring, and writing about the organizations they study.

The purpose of this paper is to review the literature on logistics and supply chain costs to provide an analysis of sources of publication, citations and authorship using bibliometric analysis techniques (VOSviewer and CitNetExplorer tools).

A review of 756 articles published during the period 2014 to 2019 referenced in the Scopus database was performed. The review was limited to articles published in English and directly related to logistics and supply chain costs.

The research identified more than 2,000 authors representing more than 5,000 keywords and 10,000 references from a total of 155 journals investigated. A critical synthesis of the resulting data revealed several insights about various aspects of studies in this field. For instance, the review identified a scarcity of academic publications in three key areas, namely “supply chain,” “optimization” and “transportation”, which are concepts focused on the total supply chain.

This research highlights important areas of attention for both researchers and practitioners considering costs associated with logistics and supply chain operations and strategies. The results can also help identify thematic areas, journals and topics for future research. The paper identifies and proposes research areas to contribute to the literature when challenges to investigating logistics and supply chain costs are discussed.

Essential frontline workers in the retail sector face increased exposure risks to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) due to frequent interactions with the general public. Often these interactions are fraught with controversies over public safety protocols. The purpose of this study is to examine the impacts of frontline workers' perceptions of workplace safety and customer misbehaviors on their stress and psychological distress to inform managing workplace health and safety during public health crises.

The authors conducted an online survey of 3,344 supermarket workers in the state of Arizona (US) during the state's first COVID-19 pandemic wave in July 2020. Measures included mental health distress, and perceptions of workplace safety and customer behaviors. The authors utilized a mixed-methods approach combining multiple regression analyses with qualitative analyses of open-ended comments.

Workers reported high rates of stress and psychological distress. Increases in mental health morbidity were correlated with perceptions of being unsafe in the workplace and concerns about negative customer encounters. Qualitative analyses reveal frustration with management's efforts to reduce risks intertwined with feelings of being unsafe and vulnerable to threatening customer encounters.

The findings highlight the need to provide and enforce clear safety guidelines, including how to manage potential hostile customer interactions, to promote positive health workplace management during a pandemic.

This study is among the first to assess the COVID-19 pandemic's impact on the mental health of non-health care frontline essential workers and presents novel insights regarding perceived customer misbehavior and need for management support and guidance in a public health crisis.

This paper aims to present how iterative round‐trip modelling between two different business process modelling tools can be enabled on a conceptual level. Iterative round‐trip modelling addresses model transformations between high‐level business and executable process models, and how to maintain these transformations in change time. Currently, the development of these process models is supported by different tools. To the authors' best knowledge, no coherent collaborative tool environment exists that supports iterative round‐trip modelling.

This paper is primarily based on a literature review of state‐of‐the‐art business to IT transformations regarding business process modelling. The architecture of integrated information systems (ARIS) and Cordys tools are used as an example case in this research. ARIS is a business process analysis (BPA) tool suited for analyzing and designing business processes, while the execution and monitoring of these processes is allowed by Cordys, a business process management suite (BPMS). The theory is used for transforming between ARIS event‐driven process chains from the business perspective and business process modelling notation in Cordys from the IT perspective.

A conceptual framework is proposed to couple a BPA and BPMS tool for round‐trip business process modelling. The framework utilizes concepts from the model‐driven architecture for structurally addressing interoperability and model transformations. Ensuring iterative development with two tools requires traceability of model transformations.

In many organizations, BPA and BPMS tools are used for business process modelling. These are in practice often two different worlds, while they concern around the same business processes. Maintaining multiple versions of the same process models across two tools is a considerable task, as they often are subject to design changes. Interoperability between a BPA and BPMS tool will minimize redundant activities, and reduce business to IT deployment time.

This research provides a theoretical base for coupling a BPA and BPMS tool regarding iterative round‐trip modelling. It provides an overview of the current state‐of‐the‐art literature of business process modelling transformations, and what is necessary for maintaining interoperability between tools. The findings indicate what is expected in tool support for iterative development in business process modelling from analysis and design to execution.

This research aims to address the transformative service research (TSR) agenda by examining the issue of caste-based financial exclusion in microcredit lending services in India. To do so, it draws on statistical discrimination theory from labour economics to develop and test a multi-level prosocial service orientation framework.

Survey data come from 238 loan officers and 250 lower caste loan applicants across 43 microfinance institutions (MFIs) in India. The data are analysed using hierarchical linear modelling, a method appropriate for investigating micro- and macro-level organisational variables.

At the micro level, the service orientation factors of social dominance orientation and algorithmic-driven lending decisions affect financial exclusion of lower caste bottom-of-the-pyramid (BoP) vendors. At the macro level, the service orientation mechanism of inclusive service climate reduces caste-based financial exclusion, while the level of lending risk to reduce discrimination receives no support.

Research in other contexts is warranted to confirm the prosocial service orientation model. Methodological challenges at the BoP also present avenues for insightful work.

The study shows the importance of an inclusive service climate and reassessment of algorithmic-driven lending decisions to eliminate caste-based indicators in lending decisions. It also recommends policy reform of caste-based affirmative action at the macro- and micro-levels of lending decisions.

This research extends the TSR agenda to include caste-based discrimination in prosocial services. It takes a multidisciplinary perspective on services research by incorporating statistical discrimination theory from labour economics to extend understanding of service orientation.

Nurses who are more engaged in their work, and have the right job characteristics and positive organizational factors, are expected to perform better. The purpose of this study is to improve the performance in the healthcare sector in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), thus this study explored the job characteristics and organizational factors that affect work engagement and job performance of nurses.

Nurses (N = 2,369) working in the public healthcare sector in the UAE were asked to provide their perceptions on work engagement and its antecedents, their performance and how they perceive justice in their workplace.

Regardless of job demands, nurses’ job performance remained unaffected by demographic factors, which was a striking finding: nurses provide quality services and manage to accomplish their tasks, at any level of demand. Justice acted as a moderator of the relationship between job resources and work engagement, which was a new addition to the literature. Nurses with low overall perceptions of justice had stronger links between job resources and work engagement. Even if the level of justice was perceived as low, work engagement remained unaffected.

Work engagement is a critical issue, but has received little attention, with most focusing on its relationship with performance as the outcome variable. This paper has therefore enriched the literature and is significant in both country and sector.