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1 – 10 of over 127000This paper aims to uncover the relationships between marital power and influence strategies used during couples' vacation decision processes. Marital power includes two…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to uncover the relationships between marital power and influence strategies used during couples' vacation decision processes. Marital power includes two dimensions: the first dimension is objective and composed of actual economic resources; the second is subjective and composed of feelings such as spousal love or self‐esteem.
Design/methodology/approach
192 couples completed a questionnaire that included statements describing different influence strategies utilized during the vacation purchase‐decision process; respondents indicated the frequency with which they employed each strategy.
Findings
Subjective marital power is associated with the use of spousal influence strategies. Objective marital power does not predict the use of these strategies.
Research limitaions/implications
These findings highlight a hitherto understudied aspect of marital power – subjective power.
Practical implications
Consumer researchers and vacation marketers should take into account the subjective marital power balance and its impact on influence strategies during couples' vacation decision processes.
Originality/value
This study shows that during a vacation decision process, the marital power balance between partners impacts on the choice of spousal influence strategies. Secondly, economic power is not the dominant factor that affects the choice of influence strategy; rather, interpersonal power is influential in the use of spousal influence strategies during the vacation decision process.
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Performance measurement is a technique that has evolved in the European area only in recent times. Demands made on available information have changed primarily in line with the…
Abstract
Performance measurement is a technique that has evolved in the European area only in recent times. Demands made on available information have changed primarily in line with the efforts to instill more management into the public sector (Buschor & Schedler, 1994). Whereas traditional administration has focused primarily on the financing of tasks, the question of efficient and effective performance has assumed more importance today. Performance measurement systems are a response to new requirements of decision making bodies.
Zhenghong Tang, Zijia Wang and Thomas Koperski
The purpose of this study is to measure local climate change response capacity and identify the existing gaps between local climate change action plans and land use plans.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to measure local climate change response capacity and identify the existing gaps between local climate change action plans and land use plans.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses content analysis method to statistically analyze 40 pioneering local jurisdictions' climate change action plans and land use plans.
Findings
The results show significant gaps in the two types of plans. Local climate change action plans have a higher quality of plan components including factual basis, targets, coordination, and communication than local land use plans. However, local land use plans have an even higher quality of policy plan components than action plans.
Originality/value
This study has extended established climate change concepts and practices by incorporating climate change considerations into the existing framework of local decision making.
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In the context of the financial crash and the commercial property market downturn, the purpose of this paper is to examine the basis of valuation used in the UK commercial…
Abstract
Purpose
In the context of the financial crash and the commercial property market downturn, the purpose of this paper is to examine the basis of valuation used in the UK commercial property lending process. Post‐crisis there is discussion of countercyclical measures, including the monitoring of asset prices; however there is no consideration of a different approach to property valuation. This paper questions this omission, given the role that valuations play in the bank regulatory process.
Design/methodology/approach
The different bases of valuation available to lenders within international valuation standards are identified as market value (MV), mortgage lending value (MLV) and investment value (IV), with MV being the most used in the UK. Using the different bases in the period before the financial crisis, the UK property market is modelled at a national office, retail and industrial/warehouse sector level to determine the performance of each alternative valuation basis within the context of countercyclical pressures on lending.
Findings
Both MLV and IV would have produced lower valuations than MV, although there are some practical issues involved in adopting the different bases for the bank lending.
Originality/value
The use of a different valuation basis could provide lenders with tools for more informed and prudent lending.
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Anna Sokolova, Anna Grebenyuk and Alexander Sokolov
This paper aims to present a retrospective analysis of the experience gained in the course of 20 years’ history of S&T priority setting and critical technologies’ identification…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to present a retrospective analysis of the experience gained in the course of 20 years’ history of S&T priority setting and critical technologies’ identification, in terms of expected and actually achieved effects and lessons learned.
Design/methodology/approach
The methodology is based on analysing project documentation and reports, as well as on interviewing project team members. Each project’s effects are evaluated in terms of the six key foresight functions.
Findings
The key factors affecting success of priority S&T areas and critical technologies’ selection and implementation have been identified. They include focusing on practical implementation, linking S&T with socio-economic goals, combining thematic priorities with infrastructural and functional ones, as well as integrating priority selection in the S&T policy process.
Research limitations implications
The task of evaluating priority setting exercises over a long period requires a substantial information base to provide a comprehensive comparative analysis. The projects considered in the paper also need to be analysed in a context of socio-economic development.
Practical implications
The lessons learned presented in the paper could contribute to further development of approaches to selecting science and technology priorities and critical technologies, and their more efficient implementation.
Originality value
Priority setting has significant influence on policymaking and decision-making at the national and industry level. The evaluation of a unique 20-year experience provides substantial information and practical hints for further increasing efficacy of this instrument.
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The purpose of this paper is to shed some light on the reasons and circumstances why strategic change initiatives based on new public management and managerialism go wrong. In…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to shed some light on the reasons and circumstances why strategic change initiatives based on new public management and managerialism go wrong. In particular, how such change initiatives are being justified, communicated, perceived, and implemented within organisational discourses and politics. It reveals personal and group interests behind ideologies, and what change management of this type is really about.
Design/methodology/approach
A strategic change initiative at a large Western‐European university (“International University” – IU) had been investigated between 2004 and 2005 based on qualitative empirical research. Data were gained primarily through semi‐structured in‐depths interviews with IU's senior managers. The findings were triangulated by referring to internal documents and academic literature.
Findings
The case study reveals a whole set of typical characteristics of managerialistic change management approach and how it is communicated. The paper provides insights into the narratives, organisational politics and ideology of change management processes. It draws the attention to the downsides of top‐down change management approaches, to ideologies and interests behind such initiatives as well as intended and unintended consequences.
Research limitations/implications
Academics and practitioners might be motivated to concentrate (more) on the values, ideologies, and interests which are behind “rational” management recipes, to see management and organisational behaviour more differentiated and from a critical perspective.
Originality/value
Organisational change management is usually described on the basis of traditional strategy approaches and concentrates on “technical issues”. By drawing the attention to senior managers' perceptions and interests, and how they pursuit change management objectives on the basis of ideologies, it becomes clearer that allegedly “rational” and “objective” strategic solutions are contested terrain and objects of organisational politics.
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The purpose of this paper is to provide tests to apply and establish what factors are relevant in determining whether or not an employee had a reasonable expectation of renewal of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide tests to apply and establish what factors are relevant in determining whether or not an employee had a reasonable expectation of renewal of a fixed‐term contract as envisaged in section 186(1)(b) of the 1995 LRA.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper draws from case studies to examine whether these actionable conducts can be defined in a precise way.
Findings
The common law scenario, has been materially altered by the provisions of section 186(1)(b) of the 1995 LRA that the employers' non‐renewal of the contract or offer to renew the contract whilst the employee reasonably expected the employer to renew the contract therefore it constitutes a dismissal.
Practical implications
The common law interpreted that where a fixed‐term contract expires, where an express term in the contract stipulates that there is no expectation to renew the contract in the mind of the employee concerned that the contract will be renewed again; the employer will have no contractual remedy available to him. This paper calls upon common law to use and pro‐actively manage labour law responsibilities and further refine the existing dismissal tools.
Originality/value
This paper contributes the rethinking of labour rights is necessary because the social, economic and political environments in which they were first conceived have been fundamentally affected by modern globalization and the expansion of the network society.
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Colin Brown, Scott Waldron and John Longworth
The purpose of this paper is to apply a market efficiency theoretical framework to analyse and postulate solutions to the challenges confronting China in engaging smallholders in…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to apply a market efficiency theoretical framework to analyse and postulate solutions to the challenges confronting China in engaging smallholders in higher value, specialty, agricultural product markets. A marketing experiment/trial to test these ideas is evaluated.
Design/methodology/approach
The case of fine‐wool marketing is used to illustrate issues associated with specialty product marketing. The market efficiency approach highlights the difficulties involved in relaying accurate product prices and values (exchange efficiency) while aligning the logistical requirements of higher value market segments with the small, dispersed and locationally remote smallholders (operational efficiency). The marketing experiment/trial was conducted in three fine‐wool‐growing counties in Western China in 2008.
Findings
The fine‐wool case study highlights that modernization of the marketing system is required not only so that smallholders can access the premium prices potentially available but also to improve international competitiveness.
Originality/value
Engaging smallholders in specialty agricultural product markets poses significant challenges for China. The market efficiency approach (exchange efficiency versus operational efficiency) provides a new perspective on these challenges and offers new insights about appropriate policy settings both at a macro‐ and micro‐level.
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John C. Edwards, William McKinley and Gyewan Moon
Building on the enactment perspective and past work on the self‐fulfilling prophecy, this paper explores how organizational decline can be enacted through self‐fulfilling…
Abstract
Building on the enactment perspective and past work on the self‐fulfilling prophecy, this paper explores how organizational decline can be enacted through self‐fulfilling prophecies of decline. We present two self‐fulfilling prophecy‐based models of organizational decline, one in which decline is enacted unintentionally through the predictions of an organization's managers, and a second in which decline is enacted unintentionally through the predictions of external constituencies. We articulate propositions that capture the dynamics of each model and that are intended as a platform for future empirical research. We also discuss the implications of our theoretical framework for future theory development on the causes of organizational decline, and offer suggestions for managers who wish to avoid organizational decline.
The extent of national export volume attributable to the small firm sector within the UK does not compare favourably with that of certain other European countries/ particularly…
Abstract
The extent of national export volume attributable to the small firm sector within the UK does not compare favourably with that of certain other European countries/ particularly Germany and Italy. In an attempt to enhance the export competitiveness of this firm sector recent policy, research and management attention has been devoted to influences underlying export development. This article contributes to this knowledge by reviewing extensive research studies that have reported on one aspect of this topic: the international orientation of the decision maker within the small firm.