Search results

Alternative document models (ADMs) were created with the purpose of reducing the extent to which anomalies occur in counts of web links at the page level, and have been used extensively within webometrics as an alternative to using the web page as the basic unit of analysis. This paper seels tp carry out a longitudinal study of ADMs in an attempt to ascertain which model gives the most consistent results when applied to the UK, Australia and New Zealand academic web spaces over the last six years.

Information science software (SocSciBot Tools, socscibot.wlv.ac.uk) was used to process hyperlink structure text files for UK, Australian and New Zealand universities and produced standard Page, Directory, Domain and Site ADMs using both inlinks and outlinks. Spearman bivariate correlation analysis was then undertaken to determine the level of correlation between these eight ADMs and a measure of site size for each university.

The findings show that the Domain ADM gives the most consistent results. However, the Directory ADM also gives more reliable results than are evident when using the standard Page model. Aggregating at the site (or university) level appears to provide less reliable results than using the page as the standard unit of measure, and this finding holds true over all three academic webs and for each time period examined over the last six years.

The use of Spearman's correlation coefficient is considered to be unreliable when used with very small sample sizes and, with only eight universities, the New Zealand academic web space may not be sufficiently large to give truly accurate statistical results.

While previous specific studies have shown that more accurate results can be obtained through the use of the Domain or Directory ADM, the paper has shown that these results are consistent over time and across different countries' academic web spaces.

This paper discusses how organisational transformation is situated between design and mobilisation of management control systems. Change occurs even after implementation and design can transform organisational action to the point where organisations may run wild. The procedures developed by the design are actors that over time can transform organisations radically, and this calls for others to intervene into the effects of the design. This is mobilisation where managers intervene and supplement the design with processes and procedures that take the edge in terms of unintended effects away from the designs. Therefore, the mobilisation of the design is oriented towards its rectification so that it is possible to live with it. It is suggested that design can create effects that are highly nonintuitive and that ongoing mobilisation is added all the time. Economic value Added and balanced scorecard are used as examples in this discussion, and a small empirical illustration is provided.

Most global business organisations have begun to explore and embrace new work practices (NWPs) in reorganising their workplace strategies to enhance performance and face intense competition in the global market. This study aims to examine whether or not NWPs are being implemented in office occupying firms in Hong Kong and explore the drivers of the NWPs.

A total of 16 NWPs and 20 drivers were identified through the extant literature review and assessed through a questionnaire survey conducted in the finance, insurance, real estate and business (FIREB) service firms. Based on a comprehensive questionnaire survey, a quantitative approach was used to discover the occurrence of the NWPs in those firms and the driving factors. Based on the questionnaires retrieved, descriptive and inferential statistical analysis was conducted. The relationships between the NWPs occurrence and the driving factors were also investigated to draw necessary inferences.

The results showed that all of the 16 NWPs identified from the literature are happening in Hong Kong FIREB firms. The results of the analysis also indicated that virtual collaboration positively drive the occurrence of NWPs in FIREB firms. Interestingly, innovation in business was shown as such that does not necessarily necessitate stringent hiring strategy.

This research may be of practical value for workplace strategists to make better, more careful forecasts of future workplace trends to ensure resource utilisation and improve space usage patterns and employee productivity.

This paper presents comprehensive overview of drivers that designers, developers, investors, facility managers and planners can use to provide sustainable NWPs. The study will enrich the growing body of international literature on implementing NWPs in global business organisations.

Employing cluster analysis techniques, the paper examines the efficacy of international diversification across economic sectors, or the so‐called “bottom‐up approach,” as contrasted with the traditional approach used by fund managers of allocating assets by country and then by sector. The study covered the 1986–93 period and examined data for seven economic sectors in 20 countries divided into three regional groupings (North America, Pacific Rim, and Europe). The findings are portrayed in dendograms which depict the correlation coefficients between sector pairings. The statistical evidence suggests that the market sector approach has a great deal of merit as a basis for international portfolio diversification.

British empirical research suggests culture and change have contributed to every lean failure. Whilst prevailing research implies that successful lean implementations lead to a profitable organisation, it focuses upon the low numbers of successful lean conversions. The purpose of this paper is to explore the importance of a suitable change strategy resulting in the likelihood of a triumphant lean implementation.

Predominantly, results from 68 survey questionnaires and seven case studies consisting of both questionnaires and interview schedules were utilised. Subsequently, extensive lean audits were carried out in 20 companies as a comprehensive validating exercise.

The significance of change was evident; a high correlation was found within the audits with successful organizations, suggesting that a triumphant implementation requires a systematic and controlled change strategy.

Whilst lean failures are attributable to different causes, the fundamental issues of corporate culture and change are evident. Every company needs to find its own way to implement lean and it should be viewed as a never‐ending journey.

The implementation of lean cannot be taken nonchalantly, owing to the investment in terms of time and money. Consequently, if an organization pursues the change strategy suggested, the probability of success implementation is improved.

This research, undertaken in British manufacturing organisations, focused on a bespoke change strategy for lean, as there exists a plethora of research focusing at the generic change process.

There has been a surge of interest in leader character and a push to bring character into mainstream management theory and practice. Research has shown that CEOs and board members have many questions about the construct of leader character. For example, they like to see hard data indicating to what extent character contributes to organizational performance. Human resource management professionals are often confronted with the need to discuss and demonstrate the value of training and development initiatives. The question as to whether such interventions have a dollars-and-cents return on the investment is an important one to consider for any organizational decision-maker, especially given the demand for increased accountability, the push for transparency and tightening budgets in organizations. The authors investigated the potential dollar impact associated with the placement of managers based on the assessment of leader character, and they used utility analysis to estimate the dollar value associated with the use of one instrument – the Leader Character Insight Assessment or LCIA – to measure leader character.

The authors used field data collected for purposes of succession planning in a large Canadian manufacturing organization. The focus was on identifying senior management candidates suitable for placement into the most senior levels of leadership in the organization. Peers completed the LCIA to obtain leader character ratings of the candidates. The LCIA is a behaviorally based and validated instrument to assess leader character. Performance assessments of the candidates were obtained through supervisor ratings.

The correlation between the leader character measure provided by peers and performance assessed by the supervisor was 0.30 (p < 0.01). Using the data required to calculate ΔU from the Brogden-Cronbach-Gleser model leads to an estimate of CAD $564,128 for the use of the LCIA over the expected tenure of 15 years, which is equivalent to CAD $37,609 yearly; and CAD $375,285 over an expected tenure of 10 years, which is equivalent to CAD $37,529 yearly. The results of the study also indicate that there is still a positive and sizeable return on investment or ROI associated with the LCIA in employee placement even with highly conservative adjustments to the basic utility analysis formula.

Utility analysis is a quantitative and robust method of evaluating human resource programs. The authors provide an illustration of the potential utility of the LCIA in a selection process for senior managers. They assert that selecting and promoting managers on leader character and developing their character-based leadership will not only leverage their own contributions to the organization but also contribute to a trickle-down effect on employees below them.

Portfolio construction and diversification is a prominent challenge for investors. It reflects market agents’ behavior and response to market conditions. This paper aims to investigate the stock-bond nexus in the case of two emerging and two mature markets, India, South Africa, the UK and the USA, using long-term historical monthly data.

To address the issue at hand, copula quantile-on-quantile regression (C-QQR) is used to model the correlation structure. Although this technique is driven by copula-based quantile regression model, it retains more flexibility and delivers more robust and accurate estimates.

Results suggest that there is substantial heterogeneity in the bond-stock returns correlation across the countries under study point to different investors’ behavior in the four markets examined. Additionally, the findings reported herein suggest that using C-QQR in portfolio management can enable the formation of tailored response strategies, adapted to the needs and preferences of investors and traders.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no previous study has addressed in a comparative setting the stock-bond nexus for the four countries used here using long-term historical data that cover the periods 1920:08-2017:02, 1910:01-2017:02, 1933:01-2017:02 and 1791:09-2017:02 for India, South Africa, the UK and the USA, respectively.

The main purpose of this work is to quantify the convective heat transfer occurring between two inclined and concentric hemispheres.

The inner one is an electronic assembly generating a constant heat flux during operation. The outer hemisphere is maintained isothermal at cold temperature. The interstitial space is air-filled. The base of the equipment can be inclined with respect to the horizontal plane by an angle ranging from 0° (horizontal position with dome faced upwards) to 180° (horizontal position with dome faced downwards).

Nusselt–Rayleigh correlations are proposed for several configurations obtained by varying the generated power and the base inclination. The large resulting Rayleigh number ranging between 2.4 × 10⁵ and 1.7 × 10⁷ allows using these new and original correlations in various engineering fields, such as electronics in the present work. The calculations are realized by means of a 3D numerical approach based on the finite volume method.

The geometry and the thermal boundary conditions considered in the present survey are suitable for applications in many engineering areas.

Despite a lot of agricultural initiatives by the government in a regionally diversified country like India, agriculture is poor, and farmer suicide cases are rampant. This study aims to socially transform and bring behavioural change among the farmers of southern India through the usage of new media. The research has gauged the factors that affect new media accessibility and usability, hindrances in the process and change of farmer’s behaviour through online social marketing bringing social transformation.

The study is action participatory in nature, and the data is triangulated by conducting a survey at the first level using the Delphi technique among 184 rural south Indian farmers who are smartphone users use new media, and at the next level, the farmers were requested to use WhatsApp for agricultural new sharing, and in the last stage, personal interview with entrepreneurs and farmers has been conducted to understand their new media adoption, e-learning and online social marketing.

New media is the best way to transform agricultural practices socially. It is a forum where all the farmers of the country can get together and address the issue of the agrarian crisis. Online social marketing (OSM) through WhatsApp is one of the best methods of behavioural change because different farmers can share their experiences and emotion for the crisis and give an appropriate solution to a problem. And, one of the most important features of OSM is it removes third parties from miscellaneous issues be it selling, buying or seeking and sharing information.

Despite trying to cover different hindrances in the way of social marketing of agriculture, the study is not free without its limitations. Language was a barrier, and this study require a lot of time to perceive the changes and adoption. Also, due to time constraint, the authors have categorically clubbed innovators, early adopters and early majority in the same layer opinion leaders and adopters of innovation. These could be analyzed separately in five layers, as suggested by Rogers (1995).

From the managerial perspective, the government should extend services that teach the agriculturists, farmers the use of new media. The marketers and makers of apps and software can tap into this business for launching products for farmers. We need apps designed only for farmers, where agricultural and farming practitioners all over the country and globe can interact about their products, conditions of agriculture and give solution to issues arising in agriculture and farming.

The researchers posit that there are hardly any studies that provide strategies to the agricultural and farming sectors in a regionally diversified country like India. The study is one of its first kind to propose new media strategies to reach out to the farmers of different regions and segmentation for a behavioural change and adoption of new media for better and sustainable agriculture. It has gauged into the factors that affect new media accessibility and usability among farmers and simultaneously gave strategy for behavioural change.

The purpose of the paper is to model and develop recommendations for regulating the development of social market economy under the influence of noneconomic factors.

The authors determine the existing examples of social market economies, in which quality of life clearly correlates with economic growth – and the research objects are thus determined. Then, the list of noneconomic factors, which could be quantitatively characterized based on the official statistics, is formed. The econometric model of dependence of the rate of economic growth of the selected noneconomic factors is created, and it is determined at which combination of these factors' influence it is possible to reach the target rate of economic growth of social market economy. Data are processed automatically by compiling the descriptive statistics and conducting regression analysis within the method of imitation modeling and multiparametric nonlinear optimization.

It is shown that, unlike the classical market economy (pure capitalism), in which economic factors dominate, social market economy (mixture of capitalism and socialism) is also influenced by noneconomic factors. This changes the view on economic growth as one of the most significant processes in the economic practice and one of the key research objects in economics. It is substantiated that there's a necessity not for micro- (as in the classical market economy) but for macroeconomic view on economic growth through the prism of factors that are external to entrepreneurship.

The results of imitation modeling allowed reducing the uncertainty and reflecting the specifics of economic growth of social market economy. The compiled model of multiple linear regression allowed narrowing down the circle and outlining four main noneconomic factors of economic growth of social market economy. The authors' recommendations for regulation of these factors are offered, and a mechanism of regulation of development of social market economy based on noneconomic factors management is offered.