Search results

The purpose of this study is to address a critical gap in enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementation process for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) by acknowledging and countering cognitive biases through a cognitive bias awareness matrix model. Cognitive biases such as temporal discounting and optimism bias often skew decision-making, leading SMEs to prioritize short-term benefits over long-term sustainability or underestimate the challenges involved in ERP implementation. These biases can result in costly missteps, underutilizing ERP systems and project failure. This study enhances decision-making processes in ERP adoption by introducing a matrix that allows SMEs to self-assess their level of awareness and proactivity when addressing cognitive biases in decision-making.

The design and methodology of this research involves a structured approach using the problem-intervention-comparison-outcome-context (PICOC) framework to systematically explore the influence of cognitive biases on ERP decision-making in SMEs. The study integrates a comprehensive literature review, empirical data analysis and case studies to develop the Cognitive Bias Awareness Matrix. This matrix enables SMEs to self-assess their susceptibility to biases like temporal discounting and optimism bias, promoting proactive strategies for more informed ERP decision-making. The approach is designed to enhance SMEs’ awareness and management of cognitive biases, aiming to improve ERP implementation success rates and operational efficiency.

The findings underscore the profound impact of cognitive biases and information asymmetry on ERP system selection and implementation in SMEs. Temporal discounting often leads decision-makers to favor immediate cost-saving solutions, potentially resulting in higher long-term expenses due to the lack of scalability. Optimism bias tends to cause underestimating risks and overestimating benefits, leading to insufficient planning and resource allocation. Furthermore, information asymmetry between ERP vendors and SME decision-makers exacerbates these biases, steering choices toward options that may not fully align with the SME’s long-term interests.

The study’s primary limitation is its concentrated focus on temporal discounting and optimism bias, potentially overlooking other cognitive biases that could impact ERP decision-making in SMEs. The PICOC framework, while structuring the research effectively, may restrict the exploration of broader organizational and technological factors influencing ERP success. Future research should expand the range of cognitive biases and explore additional variables within the ERP implementation process. Incorporating a broader array of behavioral economic principles and conducting longitudinal studies could provide a more comprehensive understanding of the challenges and dynamics in ERP adoption and utilization in SMEs.

The practical implications of this study are significant for SMEs implementing ERP systems. By adopting the Cognitive Bias Awareness Matrix, SMEs can identify and mitigate cognitive biases like temporal discounting and optimism bias, leading to more rational and effective decision-making. This tool enables SMEs to shift focus from short-term gains to long-term strategic benefits, improving ERP system selection, implementation and utilization. Regular use of the matrix can help prevent costly implementation errors and enhance operational efficiency. Additionally, training programs designed around the matrix can equip SME personnel with the skills to recognize and address biases, fostering a culture of informed decision-making.

The study underscores significant social implications by enhancing decision-making within SMEs through cognitive bias awareness. By mitigating biases like temporal discounting and optimism bias, SMEs can make more socially responsible decisions, aligning their business practices with long-term sustainability and ethical standards. This shift improves operational outcomes and promotes a culture of accountability and transparency. The widespread adoption of the Cognitive Bias Awareness Matrix can lead to a more ethical business environment, where decisions are made with a deeper understanding of their long-term impacts on employees, customers and the broader community, fostering trust and sustainability in the business ecosystem.

This research introduces the original concept of the Cognitive Bias Awareness Matrix, a novel tool designed specifically for SMEs to evaluate and mitigate cognitive biases in ERP decision-making. This matrix fills a critical gap in the existing literature by providing a structured, actionable framework that effectively empowers SMEs to recognize and address biases such as temporal discounting and optimism bias. Its practical application promises to enhance decision-making processes and increase the success rates of ERP implementations. This contribution is valuable to behavioral economics and information systems, offering a unique approach to integrating cognitive insights into business technology strategies.

This chapter examines the influence of the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy on some of the most important Supreme Court decisions of the past three decades. Mobilizing the epistemic community framework, it demonstrates how network members, acting as amici curiae, litigators, academics, and judges worked to transmit intellectual capital to Supreme Court decision makers in 12 federalism and separation of powers cases decided between 1983 and 2001. It finds that Federalist Society members were most successful in diffusing ideas into Supreme Court opinions in cases where doctrinal distance was greatest; that is, cases where the Supreme Court moved the farthest from its established constitutional framework.

This paper seeks to address the question: what happened to postmodern?

Three trends are reviewed: postmodern fragmentation, late modern appropriations of postmodern moves; and emergent awareness of the dark‐side of postmodern.

On the way to postmodern theory the revolution to reform modern capitalism fragmented into rhetoric‐strands, while practice became ineffective.

The paper concludes with possibilities for participatory research in ways that enact more postmodern forms of capitalist praxis.

It is suggested that qualitative studies of postmodern praxis can be conducted; such as postmodern organizations that enact the dark‐side of biotechnology; consumer organizations, such as Blackspot and No Sweat that contract to non‐sweatshop factories; and autoethnographic examples of how building a Harley‐Davidson chopper is post‐production and post‐consumption.

The paper shows that in the fragmentation of moderns and postmoderns, there is a relentless appropriation of postmodern moves by late modernism. This is one contributing factor to the “dark side of postmodern.” Other contributing factors are naive brands of postmodern (e.g. chaos theory, complexity, new age spirituality) which, sometimes only see the positive potentialities, and blind one to the dark side. What is original is the call for a combination of critical theory and postmodern theory (critical postmodern) that looks at the relation between various ideas of modern and postmodern and how they can be studied in their dialogicality.

This paper examines organizational climate and organizational culture within a hotel industry framework. An argument is put forward that there is a causal link between good organizational climate and the level of service quality in a hotel. Organizational climate is also examined within the service quality framework to explore the effects of its integration into quality initiatives. A conceptual model of organizational climate and service quality and performance is presented that provides an explanation of the linkage between organizational culture, organizational climate, service quality, customer satisfaction and hotel performance.

Employee turnover is a significant challenge for human resource management (HRM) strategies and organisational performance. This study seeks to present findings drawn from an extensive survey of labour turnover in the Australian accommodation sector. A particular focus is placed on turnover rates and costs.

Based on labour turnover literature and an industry panel, an online survey was designed and distributed to four‐ and five‐star hotels across Australia. Human resource managers from 64 hotels participated in the survey, providing a representative sample and a response rate of 29 percent.

The research shows that the major costs are attributed to labour turnover. These are costs that both the industry and individual operators should examine closely, as they impact substantially on hotel operating costs and profitability. It also indicates that the levels of service, consumer experience and value may be impacted.

A limitation of the study is its main focus on tangible labour turnover costs. Additionally, findings based on four‐ and five‐star hotels may not apply to other accommodation sectors.

The literature on hotel labour and turnover costs is limited and the paper provides the first major study in the Australian context, adding new knowledge to one's understanding of labour turnover and cost impact on hotels. It also suggests areas where hotels may better address the turnover issue.

The purpose of this study was to develop and validate a self-reporting tool: the hospitality employee’ satisfaction index.

The 15-item instrument presented in this study was developed through an examination of the extant literature and seven focus groups representing the hospitality industry. The instrument was piloted online with 1,000 hospitality employees, refined and then distributed online to 9,000 hospitality employees.

Factor analysis extracted three factors (career advancement, control and variety and relationships), and reliability analysis (Cronbach’s alpha) indicated high internal consistency. A stepwise multiple regression revealed that the control and variety factor related most strongly to overall job satisfaction, followed by relationships and career advancement factors, confirming that in the context of the hospitality industry, these factors were important in the measurement of job satisfaction. Control and variety was significantly related to the intention to stay in the job, and career advancement and control and variety were related to the intention to stay in the hospitality industry.

The data were gathered in Australia and were tested nationally to support the robustness of the instrument. Therefore, the hospitality industry can use this instrument as a generic index to evaluate the job satisfaction levels of employees.

This specifically designed hospitality job satisfaction instrument can be used to evaluate the job satisfaction of employees at all levels and can be used in the development of a benchmark. This index is the first of its kind to be tested in the broader hospitality context, including accommodation, restaurants, coffee shops, fast food, clubs, hotels, convention, sporting venues, catering and institutional catering.

This paper aims to review the past, current and future trends in human resource management (HRM) in the hospitality industry, with a specific focus on large international hotels. The setting of this review is within the context of general HRM theory development.

This paper provides a detailed review of the literature, background, issues and trends in HRM. It moves from the generic HR review to examine the hospitality industry and specific identifiable trends and issues. Additionally, personal communication with senior industry executives is used to highlight specific areas.

Issues of training and skills development and of service quality are as important in the future as in the past. Technology is now set to revolutionise the way HRM is conducted. Generational change and how Generations X and Y view work require new approaches for HRM. Casualisation and outsourcing will become more dominant methods of employment. Strategic human resource management (SHRM) and its practices have the flexibility to add value to future hospitality firm performance. The future of HRM in the hospitality industry will need to take into account the various trends but will also be influenced by local circumstances.

This is a conceptual paper based on a review of literature that addresses a large area of both generic and hospitality HRM, and focuses on a specific section of the hospitality industry: large international hotels.

The paper provides a basis for understanding how the various HRM trends are developing, and addresses the steps required to meet future challenges in the industry.

The value of the paper is in its identification and analysis of the major trends in HRM and the implications these hold for the future of the hospitality industry.

The paper aims to examine employment relations practices and labour market features of 4‐5 star luxury multinational chain (MNC) and domestic hotels operating in the Brisbane‐Gold Coast corridor in Australia and discuss the implications that competing on price and quality has on employment, wages and training.

The study used data drawn from a large managerial and employee relations/demographic survey covering wages, employment status, age, gender, working conditions and training, including interview data from hotel HRM managers.

The data showed a persistence of gendered, low waged and segmented labour markets dominated by flexible labour. Competition between MNC and domestic hotels were not found to be the conduit of “new” HRM practices as a competitive edge. Both MNC and domestic hotels shape the hotel labour market in a way which perpetuates cost minimization strategies based on an increasingly skilled, yet flexible and low cost labour force.

Of the 14 hotels, only three were domestic. MNC luxury hotels dominate the sample. Rather a straight forward convergence thesis, MNC and domestic hotels have been compelled to compete on price and standard quality.

While not a deliberate strategy of a “a race to the bottom”, the 4‐5 star luxury MNC and domestic hotels in the study have re‐shaped employment relations practices perpetuating a cost minimization competitive strategy suggesting that a “high road” competitive strategy as portrayed in HRM literature strategy is not the only way for firms such as hotels achieving a competitive edge.

Seeks to argue that procedural literacy, of which programming is a part, is critically important for new media scholars and practitioners and that its opposite, procedural illiteracy, leaves one fundamentally unable to grapple with the essence of computational media.

This paper looks at one of the earliest historical calls for universal procedural literacy, explores how games can serve as an ideal object around which to organize a procedural literacy curriculum, and describes a graduate course developed at Georgia Tech, Computation as an Expressive Medium, designed to be a first course in procedural literacy for new media practitioners.

To achieve a broader and more profound procedural literacy will require developing an extended curriculum that starts in elementary school and continues through college. Encountering procedurality for the first time in a graduate level course is like a first language course in which students are asked to learn the grammar and vocabulary, read and comment on literature, and write short stories, all in one semester; one's own students would certainly agree that this is a challenging proposition.

New media scholars and practitioners, including game designers and game studies scholars, may assume that the “mere” technical details of code can be safely bracketed out of the consideration of the artifact. Contrary to this view, it is argued that procedural literacy, of which programming is a part, is critically important for new media scholars and practitioners and that its opposite, procedural illiteracy, leaves one fundamentally unable to grapple with the essence of computational media.

Granting ‘sanctuary’ in the United States to those fleeing poverty and violence is rooted in a deep history of hospitality and compassion. As we are witnessing a rise in xenophobia accompanied by policies of exclusion, we also see a rising number of ‘sanctuary jurisdictions’ limiting their cooperation with immigration authorities that many communities consider are using extremely harsh and punitive measures to detain and deport irregular migrants. As this chapter will demonstrate, there has been a dramatic increase through ‘immigration federalism’ of the number of these jurisdictions in cities, states and municipalities since the first practices of ‘sanctuary’ in the 1980s as result of the waves of forced migration due to the civil wars in Central America. The author also proposes that those entities granting ‘sanctuary’ to irregular migrants should also apply practices of ‘compassionate migration’ as described in the chapter to expand their protections further and include them in their communities.