Search results

The purpose of this paper is to describe, as a case study, the recent developments in high‐speed rail (HSR) technological development and economic and business development in China.

The authors use a descriptive case study design examining the factors behind the importation of foreign HSR technology and its development within the Chinese context. Various secondary sourced data are used to build the case that educational development in transportation technologies and strategic focus at the national level have created the ability to pursue the development and creation of a national strategic competency in HSR technology for the Chinese.

The authors find that a major factor behind HSR development in China appears to be the result of a need for the Chinese Government to build the competencies of strategic technologies at the national level. Given present usage levels of HSR, the internal development of HSR systems is not justified by the economic rationales of cheaper and more efficient transportation for the Chinese. However, the case does point out the importance of technological leapfrogging (or “hopping” over the competition, to use the analogy in the title). It is apparent in the case that Chinese engineering has advanced in such a way that it is not inconceivable that China may lead advanced technological state‐of‐the‐art designs in the near future. This building of national core competencies appears to be related to the increase in world‐class educational efforts. As such, the authors argue that the Chinese efforts in HSR are now described by fact‐based education and derivational innovation practices as illustrated in the staged model of innovation by Johnson and Weiss.

The case study is one of the first published in the academic management literature. It demonstrates the process of development of HSR in China and provides preliminary evidence of the importance of the educational and innovation practices in China on the development of an indigenous technological industry in the country.

Purpose: The purpose of the present study is to synthesize and organize existing literature on contagious diseases and tourism. This systematic mapping of the literature helps to identify various mature and emerging themes around the research domain in the literature.

Design/Methodology/Approach: The study uses systematic methodology along with bibliometric and content analysis. Using a combination of electronic database searching and forward and backward references searching, the study identifies 160 suitable published studies.

Findings: Initial bibliometric analysis reveals that Tourism Geographies and Tourism Management are most influential journals and Law and Lee are most influential authors working on this field. The Hong Kong Polytechnic University and Universiti Sains Malaysia are among the top contributing educational and research organizations. Further, the content analysis reveals that literature on contagious diseases and tourism industry revolves around three prominent themes namely SARS and other contagious diseases, crisis management and tourism forecasting.

Research Limitations/Implications: The study does not consider ‘grey literature’ and conference proceedings.

Originality and Value: Present study is one of the early attempts that analyzes the literature on contagious diseases and tourism using bibliometric analysis and contributes to the literature by identifying various mature and emerging on contagious diseases and tourism literature. These insights provide a robust map for future investigation in this field and also offer implications for practitioners.

This paper seeks to understand how new practices that challenge established norms and values become institutionalized by studying the development of corporate philanthropy in France over three decades (1979–2011). Our inductive qualitative study uncovers the processes that enable actors at both field- and organizational-levels to enhance a new practice’s internal and external legitimacy, ultimately leading to its institutionalization. In particular, we identify the central role of a community of practice as a bridge between the field-level, purposive interventions (theorizing, influencing policy) of an institutional entrepreneur and the organizational-level, emergent interventions (mobilizing, embedding) of frontline practitioners experimenting with the new divergent practice, thereby enabling its legitimation and, ultimately, its institutionalization. As such, our findings contribute to refining our understanding of institutionalization processes as inherently distributed and to uncovering communities of practice as the missing link between “heroic” entrepreneurs’ interventions and the hidden work of frontline practitioners implementing the new practice.

E‐Teaching as the use of information and communication technology (ICT) in education is of growing importance for educational theory and practice. Many universities and other higher education institutions use ICT to support teaching. However, there are contradicting opinions about the value and outcome of e‐teaching. This paper starts with a review of the literature on e‐teaching and uses this as a basis for distilling success factors for e‐teaching. It then discusses the case study of an e‐voting system used for giving student feedback and marking student presentations. The case study is critically discussed in the light of the success factors developed earlier. The conclusion is that e‐teaching, in order to be successful, should be embedded in the organisational and individual teaching philosophy.

Research on the demographic characteristics of top management team (TMT) on e-commerce adoption has really advanced. Although some of such studies factored location factors as e-commerce adoption drivers, rare attempts have been made to unravel if the differences in the demographic composition of TMT and the rate of adoption may be explained by the differences in the firm’s geographical location. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to bridge this knowledge gap by proposing a framework that conceives and measures geographical location as a contextual variable between e-commerce adoption and TMT composition.

Data were generated from the opinions of owners/managers of 226 SMEs drawn purposefully from registered SMEs in five industries located in three geo-political zones of Nigeria. Two cities (a state capital and a commercial nerve centre) were studied and a four-step hierarchical regression (spanning factor-loading) was used to test the hypotheses.

Evidence from the study shows that the hypothesized relationships between demographic factors and e-commerce adoption (main/direct effects) were statistically significant (supporting H1-H4). The two moderators (physical infrastructures and industrial specialization) that explained location factors were equally statistically significant in moderating the relationship between the demographic composition of TMT and e-commerce adoption.

Sampling the opinions of SMEs in some industries of three geo-political zones of Nigeria limits the power of generalization. Therefore, extended data and measures are required to replicate the study in order to build external validity and reliability, and possibly theories. Further, some errors seem unavoidable in the course of converting the data through SPSS procedure just as all the measures used appear subjective and prone to common method bias. Other demographic and location factors not captured in the study may be handled by future studies.

The work will be of benefit to the academia and practitioners in terms of showing how location factors dictate the relationship between the demographic composition of top management and e-commerce adoption. The paper raises pointers that stimulate future research and advised policy-makers on even or near-even distribution of infrastructural facilities.

Currently, the global hotel industry is faced with the challenge of a growing skills gap. Contrary to expectations, the shortage of skilled employees persists despite improved access to training. This implies that the cause of the shortage is not the lack of training, but a general lack of understanding of how training is transferred to practice. Therefore, this study aims to use an empirical approach to test a transfer of training (TOT) model that can be applied to the hotel sector.

The setting of the study is the Sultanate of Oman, and 302 questionnaires were collected from 24 hotel properties, of four- and five-star categories.

The findings reveal, to a high and significant degree, that the antecedents of TOT are the opportunity to perform (OTP) and motivation to transfer (MTT), while supervisor support is a significant moderator. In addition, motivation to learn (MTL) is the most important predictor of MTT, while accountability is the leading predictor of OTP. Results also indicated that perceived organizational support (OS) has the strongest impact on MTL.

The proposed model needs to be tested under different contexts, especially different countries and with different hotel categories, to determine if the relationships between the factors remain similarly valid. Other factors that can predict the TOT need to be investigated.

Practical recommendations for hotel operators have been presented, equipping industry practitioners with the tools they need to develop the competencies of their employees, thereby improving the performance of individual properties.

The current study emphasized the validity of the proposed training transfer framework which was adapted from the learning transfer system inventory model, highlighting the particular importance of factors such as perceived OS and accountability.

Diving has become a popular tourism activity for professionals and novices. Coral reefs or other types of natural sources are still the most preferred diving sites. However, they are under threat for many reasons, for example, climate change, intensive human activities or commercial use. Many countries have promoted artificial reefs to protect coral reefs and create new attractions for tourists. These new underwater atmospheres have changed diving and diving experiences. Wrecks, vessels, monuments, hotels, sunken cities or other types of artificial reef forms invite divers to discover and explore the human-driven underwater environment with novelty seeking, photographic opportunities and mysterious surroundings. This atmospheric turn has brought many advantages to communities, stakeholders and nations with socio-economic benefits, advantages in sustainability management and destination image. This chapter examines the range of underwater atmospheres in different structures and countries and explores their potential benefits.

This study investigates the mediating role of personal initiative taking in the link between employees' exposure to transformational leadership and their engagement in creative behavior, as well as a potential catalytic role of perceived work overload in this process.

The research hypotheses were tested with survey data collected among employees of a large organization that operates in the telecommunications sector.

Transformational leadership translates into enhanced creative work efforts among employees, because these employees adopt an action-based approach toward work. This mediating role of personal initiative taking is particularly prominent among employees who encounter excessive workloads in their daily jobs, because their initiative and creativity promise solutions to this resource-draining work situation.

For human resource managers, this study reveals that employees who go out of their way to address problem situations offer an important means by which a leadership style that inspires and challenges followers can be leveraged to produce enhanced creative outcomes. It also pinpoints how this process can be triggered by employees' beliefs that work demands are excessive.

This study adds to prior research by detailing a hitherto overlooked factor (personal initiative) and catalyst (perceived work overload), related to the translation of transformational leadership into increased creative behavior.

Honeycomb cellular structures exhibit unique mechanical properties such as high specific strength, high specific stiffness, high energy absorption and good thermal and acoustic performance. This paper aims to use numerical modeling to investigate the effective elastic moduli, in-plane and out-of-plane, for thick-walled honeycombs manufactured using selective laser melting (SLM).

Theoretical predictions were performed using homogenization on a sample scale domain equivalent to the as-manufactured dimensions. A Renishaw AM 250 machine was used to manufacture hexagonal honeycomb samples with wall thicknesses of 0.2 to 0.5 mm and a cell size of 3.97 mm using 304 L steel powder. The SLM-manufactured honeycombs and cylindrical test coupons were tested using flatwise and edgewise compression. Three-dimensional finite element and strain energy homogenization were conducted to determine the effective elastic properties, which were validated by the current experimental outcomes and compared to analytical models from the literature.

Good agreement was found between the results of the effective Young’s moduli ratios numerical modeling and experimental observations. In-plane effective elastic moduli were found to be more sensitive to geometrical irregularity compared to out-of-plane effective moduli, which was confirmed by the analytical models. Also, it was concluded that thick-walled SLM manufactured honeycombs have bending-dominated in-plane compressive behavior and a stretch-dominated out-of-plane compressive behavior, which matched well with the simulation and numerical models predictions.

This work uses three-dimensional finite element and strain energy homogenization to evaluate the effective moduli of SLM manufactured honeycombs.