Search results
1 – 10 of 66Monica Trezise and Michael J. Richardson
As Australians experience more fierce and frequent natural disasters, there are urgent calls for businesses to meaningfully respond to climate change. Australian financial and…
Abstract
Purpose
As Australians experience more fierce and frequent natural disasters, there are urgent calls for businesses to meaningfully respond to climate change. Australian financial and professional services employees occupy an ambiguous space as climate mitigation measures have different economic implications for their clients. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how Australian professionals experience climate change and respond to the issue within their workplace.
Design/methodology/approach
This mixed methods study applies a systems thinking framework to investigate: how do professionals’ experiences of the issue of climate change and the workplace influence their cognitions, emotions and behaviour? And in particular, what psychosocial antecedents precede voicing climate concern?
Findings
Firstly, a survey of professionals (N = 206) found social norms, perceived behavioural control and biospheric values, but not attitudes, significantly predicted prohibitive green voice. Middle managers were significantly likely to voice climate concern, whereas senior managers were significantly likely to express climate scepticism. Ten professionals were then interviewed to gain a contextualised understanding of these trends. Interpretive phenomenological analysis identified five interrelated themes: (1) active identity management, (2) understanding climate change is escalating, (3) workplace shapes climate change response, (4) frustration and alienation and (5) belief that corporations prioritise profit.
Originality/value
Findings are discussed in relation to how employees may both embody and adapt their organisations. These results have implications for understandings of workplace meaningfulness and organisational risk governance.
Details
Keywords
Matthew D. Roberts, Matthew A. Douglas and Robert E. Overstreet
To investigate the influence of logistics and transportation workers’ perceptions of their management’s simultaneous safety and operations focus (or lack thereof) on related…
Abstract
Purpose
To investigate the influence of logistics and transportation workers’ perceptions of their management’s simultaneous safety and operations focus (or lack thereof) on related worker safety and operational perceptions and behaviors.
Design/methodology/approach
This multi-method research consisted of two studies. Study 1 aimed to establish correlational relationships by evaluating the impact of individual-level worker perceptions of operationally focused routines (as a moderator) on the relationship between worker perceptions of safety-related routines and workers’ self-reported safety and in-role operational behaviors using a survey. Study 2 aimed to establish causal relationships by evaluating the same conceptual relationships in a behavioral-type experiment utilizing vehicle simulators. After receiving one of four pre-task briefings, participants completed a driving task scenario in a driving simulator.
Findings
In Study 1, the relationship between perceived safety focus and safety behavior/in-role operational behavior was strengthened at higher levels of perceived operations focus. In Study 2, participants who received the balanced pre-task briefing committed significantly fewer safety violations than the other 3 treatment groups. However, in-role driving deviations were not impacted as hypothesized.
Originality/value
This research is conducted at the individual (worker) level of analysis to capture the little-known perspectives of logistics and transportation workers and explore the influence of balanced safety and operational routines from a more micro perspective, thus contributing to a deeper understanding of how balanced routines might influence worker behavior when conducting dynamic tasks to ensure safe, effective outcomes.
Details
Keywords
Jaemin Kim, Michael Greiner and Ellen Zhu
The worldwide imposition of lockdown measures to control the 2020 coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak has shifted most executive communications with external stakeholders…
Abstract
Purpose
The worldwide imposition of lockdown measures to control the 2020 coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak has shifted most executive communications with external stakeholders online, resulting in quick responses from stakeholders. This study aims to understand how presentational styles exhibited in online communication induce immediate audience responses and empirically test the effectiveness of reactive impression management tactics.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors analyze presentational styles using MP3 files containing executive utterances during earnings call conferences held by S&P 100-listed firms after June 2020, the quarter after the World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic on March 11, 2020. Using timestamps, the authors link each utterance to a 1-minute interval change in the ask/bid prices of the stocks that occurs a minute after the corresponding utterance begins.
Findings
Exhibiting an informational presentation style in earnings calls leads to positive and immediate audience responses. Managers tend to increase their reliance on promotional presentation styles rather than on informational ones when quarterly earnings exceed market forecasts.
Originality/value
Drawing on organizational genre theory, this research identifies the discrepancy between the presentation styles that audiences positively respond to and those that managers tend to exhibit in earnings calls and provides a reactive impression management typology for immediate responses from online audiences.
Details
Keywords
Michael Buckland's works have spanned theoretical, historical and practice-oriented foci and genre. This article focuses on some of his theoretical-historical works that span over…
Abstract
Purpose
Michael Buckland's works have spanned theoretical, historical and practice-oriented foci and genre. This article focuses on some of his theoretical-historical works that span over 20 years, which demonstrate a reading and critique of European Documentation in terms of what has been called “Documentality.” This turn to a philosophy of information called “Documentality” marks the moment of “neo-documentation.” This article surveys this moment in Buckland's works by reading his articles “Information as Thing,” “What is a ‘Document’?”, and “Documentality Beyond Documents.” It shows the transition from Documentation as a philosophy of information as representation to Documentality as a philosophy of information as function and performance. Some concepts and works of Bruno Latour are used to illuminate this transition from Documentation to Documentality. Implications and further research directions are discussed at the end.
Design/methodology/approach
Conceptual and historical analyses.
Findings
The article follows a neo-documentalist transition in Buckland's works in the thinking of documents from an Otletian representationalist epistemology (“Documentation”) to a functionalist and performative epistemology (“Documentality”) for documents.
Research limitations/implications
This is a conceptual work on a limited corpus in Buckland's oeuvre. It has a limited discussion of Documentality in the works of other writers, namely the works of Bernd Frohmann and Maurizio Ferraris.
Practical implications
The article points to historical shifts in the study of documents in Library and Information Science.
Social implications
Documentality critically and materially studies documents in sociotechnical information management systems and elsewhere.
Originality/value
This work highlights the importance of the above works and the importance of the neo-documentalist perspective of Documentality.
Details
Keywords
Hesham Bassyouny and Michael Machokoto
This paper aims to investigate the association between negative tone in annual report narratives and future performance in the UK context. Under the principle-based approach in…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate the association between negative tone in annual report narratives and future performance in the UK context. Under the principle-based approach in the UK, managers tend to bias the tone of narrative reports upward, as the reporting regime is more flexible than the rule-based approach in the USA. Consequently, any negative disclosure not mandated by regulators conveys credible information about a firm’s prospects.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper uses a sample of UK FTSE all-share non-financial companies from 2010 to 2019. The authors use the textual-analysis approach based on Loughran and McDonald (2011)’s wordlist (LM) to measure the negative tone in UK annual reports.
Findings
The results show a significant negative association between negative tone and future performance. Moreover, our further analyses suggest that only the negativity in the executive section of the annual disclosures correlates significantly with future performance. In summary, this study suggests that negativity does matter under the principle-based approach and can be used as an indicator of future performance.
Originality/value
In contrast to the literature arguing that only positivity has the power to affect a firm’s outcomes under the principle-based approach, the authors provide new empirical evidence suggesting that negativity also matters within the UK context and can be used as an indicator for future performance. Also, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to identify which section of the annual report is more informative about a firm’s future performance.
Details
Keywords
Michael Sony and Kochu Therisa Beena Karingada
Education 4.0 (E 4.0) represents a new paradigm in the field of education, which emphasizes a student-centric approach that allows learners to access education anytime, anywhere…
Abstract
Purpose
Education 4.0 (E 4.0) represents a new paradigm in the field of education, which emphasizes a student-centric approach that allows learners to access education anytime, anywhere, tailored to their individual needs through modern-day technologies. The purpose of the study was to unearth the critical success factors (CSFs) essential for the successful implementation of E 4.0.
Design/methodology/approach
The CSFs were unearthed using a literature review and further the interrelationships were analysed using multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) approach.
Findings
The study unearthed 15 CSFs for the successful implementation of E 4.0. The most important factor for the successful implementation of E 4.0 was personalized learning which was found to be the casual factor. The other causal CSFs were clear vision and leadership for E 4.0, stakeholder involvement, data analytics in teaching and learning, inter-disciplinary learning and blended learning environments. The effect factors were digital citizenship-based education, teacher training and development for E 4.0, supportive environment, curriculum redesign for E 4.0, open educational resources, digital technologies, formative assessments, infrastructure for E 4.0 and sustainability in education.
Research limitations/implications
This is the first study which unearthed the CSFs and found the interrelationships among them, thus contributing to the theory of technology organization environment.
Originality/value
This study represented a pioneering effort in understanding the CSFs underpinning the successful adoption of E 4.0, paving the way for a more personalized, tech-savvy and effective education system.
Details
Keywords
Graham H. Lowman, Peter D. Harms and Dustin Wood
Central to the fit concept is that congruence between individual and environmental attributes leads to improved outcomes. However, when discussing fit, researchers often describe…
Abstract
Purpose
Central to the fit concept is that congruence between individual and environmental attributes leads to improved outcomes. However, when discussing fit, researchers often describe congruence as alignment between distinctive or unique individual and environmental attributes. We suggest that current approaches to examining fit do not adequately account for this assumption of distinctiveness because they fail to consider normative expectations and preferences. As such, we propose an alternative theoretical and methodological approach to conceptualizing and measuring fit.
Design/methodology/approach
We introduce the normative theory of fit, outline how researchers can decompose fit into distinctive and normative components and identify areas for future research.
Findings
Management researchers have largely ignored the importance of decomposing fit into distinctive and normative components. This shortcoming necessitates additional research to ensure a more accurate understanding of fit and its relationship with outcomes.
Originality/value
We provide a clarification and critical examination of a pervasive construct in the field of management by introducing the normative theory of fit, identifying areas where researchers can employ this theoretical lens and suggesting a reevaluation of the importance placed on differentiation that is traditionally employed in practice.
Details
Keywords
Mathew B. Fukuzawa, Brandon M. McConnell, Michael G. Kay, Kristin A. Thoney-Barletta and Donald P. Warsing
Demonstrate proof-of-concept for conducting NFL Draft trades on a blockchain network using smart contracts.
Abstract
Purpose
Demonstrate proof-of-concept for conducting NFL Draft trades on a blockchain network using smart contracts.
Design/methodology/approach
Using Ethereum smart contracts, the authors model several types of draft trades between teams. An example scenario is used to demonstrate contract interaction and draft results.
Findings
The authors show the feasibility of conducting draft-day trades using smart contracts. The entire negotiation process, including side deals, can be conducted digitally.
Research limitations/implications
Further work is required to incorporate the full-scale depth required to integrate the draft trading process into a decentralized user platform and experience.
Practical implications
Cutting time for the trade negotiation process buys decision time for team decision-makers. Gains are also made with accuracy and cost.
Social implications
Full-scale adoption may find resistance due to the level of fan involvement; the draft has evolved into an interactive experience for both fans and teams.
Originality/value
This research demonstrates the new application of smart contracts in the inter-section of sports management and blockchain technology.
Details
Keywords
Linda M. Waldron, Danielle Docka-Filipek, Carlie Carter and Rachel Thornton
First-generation college students in the United States are a unique demographic that is often characterized by the institutions that serve them with a risk-laden and deficit-based…
Abstract
First-generation college students in the United States are a unique demographic that is often characterized by the institutions that serve them with a risk-laden and deficit-based model. However, our analysis of the transcripts of open-ended, semi-structured interviews with 22 “first-gen” respondents suggests they are actively deft, agentic, self-determining parties to processes of identity construction that are both externally imposed and potentially stigmatizing, as well as exemplars of survivance and determination. We deploy a grounded theory approach to an open-coding process, modeled after the extended case method, while viewing our data through a novel synthesis of the dual theoretical lenses of structural and radical/structural symbolic interactionism and intersectional/standpoint feminist traditions, in order to reveal the complex, unfolding, active strategies students used to make sense of their obstacles, successes, co-created identities, and distinctive institutional encounters. We find that contrary to the dictates of prevailing paradigms, identity-building among first-gens is an incremental and bidirectional process through which students actively perceive and engage existing power structures to persist and even thrive amid incredibly trying, challenging, distressing, and even traumatic circumstances. Our findings suggest that successful institutional interventional strategies designed to serve this functionally unique student population (and particularly those tailored to the COVID-moment) would do well to listen deeply to their voices, consider the secondary consequences of “protectionary” policies as potentially more harmful than helpful, and fundamentally, to reexamine the presumption that such students present just institutional risk and vulnerability, but also present a valuable addition to university environments, due to the unique perspective and broader scale of vision their experiences afford them.
Details
Keywords
César Augusto Ferrari Martinez
This chapter is dedicated to understanding the idea of international as a key notion to the development of globalisation and to promoting the rescaling of spaces and subjects in…
Abstract
This chapter is dedicated to understanding the idea of international as a key notion to the development of globalisation and to promoting the rescaling of spaces and subjects in contemporary higher education. The author discusses the concept of scale as a performative device that activates the capacities of bodies. Instead of seeing scale as a naturalised and hierarchical structure of spatial distribution, the author understands it as an ensemble of discourses and practices that produce scalar effects. Globalisation uses scale to promote the idea that subjects would become ‘international’ by being linked to privileged spaces and bodies in the Global North. In this sense, globalisation is not merely about nodes where certain flows converge. Rather, the author understands it as the political conditions that control and constrain the space for certain flows to occur and not others. Using assemblage analysis, the author presents and analyses three scenes taken from his ethnographic records that have as a guiding line the materialisation of the international. These scenes report the experience of being a Latin American doctoral student attending a congress in the United States, a tense situation experienced at a Chilean university academic event, and the unpretentious manifestation of an elaborate idea of internationality from a personal experience of a trip to India. The results point to three elaborations of the international: an optimistic view of a shared world, a geopolitical internationality and the production of a global corporeality.
Details