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Open Access
Article
Publication date: 18 October 2018

Richard Bull, Joanna Romanowicz, Neil Jennings, Marina Laskari, Graeme Stuart and Dave Everitt

This paper aims to present findings from an EU-funded international student-led energy saving competition (SAVES) on a scale previously unseen. There are multiple accounts of…

2668

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to present findings from an EU-funded international student-led energy saving competition (SAVES) on a scale previously unseen. There are multiple accounts of short-term projects and energy saving competitions encouraging pro-environmental behaviour change amongst students in university dormitories, but the purpose of this research is to provide evidence of consistent and sustained energy savings from student-led energy savings competitions, underpinned by practical action.

Design/methodology/approach

A mixed-methods approach (pre- and post-intervention surveys, focus groups and analysis of energy meter data) was used to determine the level of energy savings and quantifiable behaviour change delivered by students across participating university dormitories.

Findings

This research has provided further insight into the potential for savings and behaviour change in university dormitories through relatively simple actions. Whilst other interventions have shown greater savings, this project provided consistent savings over two years of 7 per cent across a large number of university dormitories in five countries through simple behaviour changes.

Research limitations/implications

An energy dashboard displaying near a real-time leaderboard was added to the engagement in the second year of the project. Whilst students were optimistic about the role that energy dashboards could play, the evidence is not here to quantify the impact of dashboards. Further research is required to understand the potential of dashboards to contribute to behavioural change savings and in constructing competitions between people and dormitories that are known to each other.

Social implications

SAVES provided engagement with students, enabling, empowering and motivating them to save energy – focusing specifically on the last stage of the “Awareness, Interest, Desire, Action” framework. Automated meter reading data was used in the majority of participating dormitories to run near real-time energy challenges through an energy dashboard that informed students how much energy they saved compared to a target, and encouraged peer-to-peer learning and international cooperation through a virtual twinning scheme.

Originality/value

Findings from energy saving competitions in universities are typically from small-scale and short-term interventions. SAVES was an energy-saving competition in university dormitories facilitated by the UK National Union of Students in five countries reaching over 50,000 students over two academic years (incorporating dormitories at 17 universities). As such it provides clear and important evidence of the real-world long-term potential efficiency savings of such interventions.

Details

International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, vol. 19 no. 7
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1467-6370

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 9 February 2023

Adele Berndt and Corné Meintjes

Family businesses feature prominently in economies, including the South African wine industry, using websites to convey their family identity. This research paper aims to explore…

1296

Abstract

Purpose

Family businesses feature prominently in economies, including the South African wine industry, using websites to convey their family identity. This research paper aims to explore the family identity elements that family wineries use on their websites, their alignment and how these are communicated online.

Design/methodology/approach

Based on Gioia’s methodology, a two-pronged approach was used to analyze 113 wineries’ websites’ text using Atlas. ti from an interpretivist perspective.

Findings

South African wineries use corporate identity, corporate personality and corporate expression to illustrate their familiness on their websites. It is portrayed through their family name and heritage, supported by their direction, purpose and aspirations, which emerge from the family identity and personality. These are dynamic and expressed through verbal and visual elements. Wineries described their behaviour, relevant competencies and passion as personality traits. Sustainability was considered an integral part of their brand promise, closely related to their family identity and personality, reflecting their family-oriented philosophy. These findings highlight the integration that exists among these components.

Practical implications

Theoretically, this study proposes a family business brand identity framework emphasising the centrality of familiness to its identity, personality and expression. Using websites to illustrate this familiness is emphasised with the recommendation that family businesses leverage this unique attribute in their identity to communicate their authenticity.

Originality/value

This study contributes to understanding what family wineries communicate on their websites, specifically by examining the elements necessary to create a family business brand based on the interrelationship between family identity, personality and expression with familiness at its core, resulting in a proposed family business brand identity framework.

Details

Journal of Product & Brand Management, vol. 32 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1061-0421

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 21 July 2020

Gonzalo Lizarralde, Holmes Páez, Adriana Lopez, Oswaldo Lopez, Lisa Bornstein, Kevin Gould, Benjamin Herazo and Lissette Muñoz

Few people living in informal settlements in the Global South spontaneously claim that they are “resilient” or “adapting” to disaster risk or climate change. Surely, they often…

2428

Abstract

Purpose

Few people living in informal settlements in the Global South spontaneously claim that they are “resilient” or “adapting” to disaster risk or climate change. Surely, they often overcome multiple challenges, including natural hazards exacerbated by climate change. Yet their actions are increasingly examined through the framework of resilience, a notion developed in the North, and increasingly adopted in the South. To what extent eliminate’ do these initiatives correspond to the concepts that scholars and authorities place under the resilience framework?

Design/methodology/approach

Three longitudinal case studies in Yumbo, Salgar and San Andrés (Colombia) serve to investigate narratives of disaster risks and responses to them. Methods include narrative analysis from policy and project documents, presentations, five workshops, six focus groups and 24 interviews.

Findings

The discourse adopted by most international scholars and local authorities differs greatly from that used by citizens to explain risk and masks the politics involved in disaster reduction and the search for social justice. Besides, narratives of social change, aspirations and social status are increasingly masked in disaster risk explanations. Tensions are also concealed, including those regarding the winners and losers of interventions and the responsibilities for disaster risk reduction.

Originality/value

Our findings confirm previous results that have shown that the resilience framework contributes to “depoliticize” the analysis of risk and serves to mask and dilute the responsibility of political and economic elites in disaster risk creation. But they also show that resilience fails to explain the type of socioeconomic change that is required to reduce vulnerabilities in Latin America.

Details

Disaster Prevention and Management: An International Journal, vol. 29 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0965-3562

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 8 April 2020

Christian Gadolin, Thomas Andersson, Erik Eriksson and Andreas Hellström

The purpose of this paper is to empirically explore and demonstrate the ability of healthcare professionals to attain professional fulfilment when providing healthcare inspired by…

1856

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to empirically explore and demonstrate the ability of healthcare professionals to attain professional fulfilment when providing healthcare inspired by “value shops”.

Design/methodology/approach

A qualitative case study incorporating interviews and observations was conducted.

Findings

The empirical data suggest that the professional fulfilment of both physicians and nurses is facilitated when care is organized through “value shops”. Both groups of professionals state that they are able to return to their “professional core”.

Originality/value

The beneficial outcomes of organizing healthcare inspired by the “value shop” have previously been explored in terms of efficiency and quality. However, the professional fulfilment of healthcare professionals when providing such care has not been explicitly addressed. Professional fulfilment is vital in order to safeguard high-quality care, as well as healthcare professionals' involvement and engagement in implementing quality improvements. This paper highlights the fact that care provision inspired by the “value shop” may facilitate professional fulfilment, which further strengthens the potential positive outcomes of the “value shop” when utilized in a healthcare setting.

Details

International Journal of Health Governance, vol. 25 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2059-4631

Keywords

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