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1 – 10 of 143Camillia Matuk, Ralph Vacca, Anna Amato, Megan Silander, Kayla DesPortes, Peter J. Woods and Marian Tes
Arts-integration is a promising approach to building students’ abilities to create and critique arguments with data, also known as informal inferential reasoning (IIR). However…
Abstract
Purpose
Arts-integration is a promising approach to building students’ abilities to create and critique arguments with data, also known as informal inferential reasoning (IIR). However, differences in disciplinary practices and routines, as well as school organization and culture, can pose barriers to subject integration. The purpose of this study is to describe synergies and tensions between data science and the arts, and how these can create or constrain opportunities for learners to engage in IIR.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors co-designed and implemented four arts-integrated data literacy units with 10 teachers of arts and mathematics in middle school classrooms from four different schools in the USA. The data include student-generated artwork and their written rationales, and interviews with teachers and students. Through maximum variation sampling, the authors identified examples from the data to illustrate disciplinary synergies and tensions that appeared to support different IIR processes among students.
Findings
Aspects of artistic representation, including embodiment, narrative and visual image; and aspects of the culture of arts, including an emphasis on personal experience, the acknowledgement of subjectivity and considerations for the audience’s perspective, created synergies and tensions that both offered and hindered opportunities for IIR (i.e. going beyond data, using data as evidence and expressing uncertainty).
Originality/value
This study answers calls for humanistic approaches to data literacy education. It contributes an interdisciplinary perspective on data literacy that complements other context-oriented perspectives on data science. This study also offers recommendations for how designers and educators can capitalize on synergies and mitigate tensions between domains to promote successful IIR in arts-integrated data literacy education.
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Pina Bausch is considered one of the most influential choreographers in contemporary dance. She created a new dance language based on a groundbreaking form of joint artistic…
Abstract
Pina Bausch is considered one of the most influential choreographers in contemporary dance. She created a new dance language based on a groundbreaking form of joint artistic inquiry. As a leader, Pina Bausch transformed her company into a chosen family of diverse personalities whom she supported in the development of their individual artistic expressiveness. She encouraged her dancers to contribute to her signature style with inventiveness and authenticity. Her ability to integrate the dancers’ contributions into her pieces and bring them to the fore onstage makes Pina Bausch a prime example of creative leadership. While leveraging her company’s collective genius and international fame through boundless curiosity and artistic integrity, Pina Bausch balanced paradoxes of leading innovation. The essence of her leadership style points to the importance of curiosity, humanity, and embodiment in leader-follower relationships.
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This study aims to explore a range of institutional, environmental and policy conditions that influence the creation of “bossless” or “flat” companies, i.e. firms with little or…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore a range of institutional, environmental and policy conditions that influence the creation of “bossless” or “flat” companies, i.e. firms with little or no formal hierarchy.
Design/methodology/approach
The author builds on the theory and evidence presented by Foss and Klein (2022) in their study of the costs and benefits of organizing without hierarchy. The author also draws on a variety of related theoretical insights and empirical evidence. The paper is exploratory and anecdotal though and is intended to motivate further research rather than provide a definitive account of bossless organizing.
Findings
The paper develops nine propositions. It suggests that high levels of economic freedom create maximum scope for entrepreneurs to experiment with different organizational forms (1). Likewise, a lack of economic freedom increases the scope for the government to experiment (2). Markets characterized by technological innovation and uncertainty are likely to discourage bossless organizing (3 and 4), while stagnating industries with major capital requirements are likely to encourage it (5). Labor market interventions that increase the cost of employment contracts sometimes encourage firms to flatten (6), but more generally, these interventions encourage expanding management layers (7). In environments with strong intellectual property (IP) laws, companies with more modular and knowledge-based work are more likely to flatten (8). The creation of low-hierarchy firms such as cooperatives is encouraged by public subsidies, access to cheap credit and preferential tax treatment (9).
Originality/value
Studies of bossless or flat firms focus almost exclusively on describing their internal organization and evaluating their performance; little attention is paid to the conditions that encourage or discourage the emergence of these firms. This paper focuses on the latter, with a view to encouraging more scholarly interest in this field.
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Ernan E. Haruvy and Peter T.L. Popkowski Leszczyc
This paper aims to demonstrate that Facebook likes affect outcomes in nonprofit settings. Specifically, Facebook likes influence affinity to nonprofits, which, in turn, affects…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to demonstrate that Facebook likes affect outcomes in nonprofit settings. Specifically, Facebook likes influence affinity to nonprofits, which, in turn, affects fundraising outcomes.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors report three studies that establish that relationship. To examine social contagion, Study 1 – an auction field study – relies on selling artwork created by underprivileged youth. To isolate signaling, Study 2 manipulates the number of total Facebook likes on a page. To isolate commitment escalation, Study 3 manipulates whether a participant clicks a Facebook like.
Findings
The results show that Facebook likes increase willingness to contribute in nonprofit settings and that the process goes through affinity, as well as through Facebook impressions and bidding intensity. The total number of Facebook likes has a direct signaling effect and an indirect social contagion effect.
Research limitations/implications
The effectiveness of the proposed mechanisms is limited to nonprofit settings and only applies to short-term effects.
Practical implications
Facebook likes serve as both a quality signal and a commitment mechanism. The magnitude of commitment escalation is larger, and the relationship is moderated by familiarity with the organization. Managers should target Facebook likes at those less familiar with the organization and should prioritize getting a potential donor to leave a like as a step leading to donation, in essence mapping a donor journey from prospective to active, where Facebook likes play an essential role in the journey. In a charity auction setting, the donor journey involves an additional step of bidder intensity.
Social implications
The approach the authors study is shown effective in nonprofit settings but does not appear to extend to corporate social responsibility more broadly.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first investigation to map Facebook likes to a seller’s journey through signals and commitment, as well as the only investigation to map Facebook likes to charity auctions and show the effectiveness of this in the field.
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Paulo Botelho Pires and José Duarte Santos
Buying online has become a widespread and common activity for consumers, and, for many organizations, e-commerce has become a very profitable alternative to sell their products…
Abstract
Buying online has become a widespread and common activity for consumers, and, for many organizations, e-commerce has become a very profitable alternative to sell their products and services, also allowing them to leverage their strategy in new geographical markets immediately. Although the literature on the subject is comprehensive, there is a gap in identifying the holistic constructs that are the determinants of consumers' choice of an online store. This research resorts to an exploratory study, based on a nonsystematic literature review, seeking to identify these constructs. The results obtained allowed us to identify the following constructs: consumer behavior, customer experience, web content, catalog, terms and conditions, customer support, perceived value, trust, security and privacy, satisfaction, and loyalty. Customer experience, satisfaction, and loyalty constructs stand out from a strategic perspective.
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Salman Shooshtarian, Tayyab Maqsood, Peter S.P. Wong, Savindi Caldera, Tim Ryley, Atiq Zaman and Ana María Cáceres Ruiz
The utilisation of products with recycled content (PwRC) in construction projects has been identified as a targeted way to achieve sustainable management of construction and…
Abstract
Purpose
The utilisation of products with recycled content (PwRC) in construction projects has been identified as a targeted way to achieve sustainable management of construction and demolition waste resources. However, sustainable applications of these resources are subject to a wide array of factors that demand a thorough investigation. This study, therefore, explores the motivations, barriers and strategies for optimal PwRC uptake using a multiple-case study approach.
Design/methodology/approach
This study adopted an interpretive multiple-case study approach. The case studies were selected from recently completed construction projects including two infrastructure projects, one commercial project and one residential project. A series of semi-structured interviews were carried out to collect the data. For each case study, four participants were interviewed; these participants represented design, client, supply and building teams.
Findings
The study revealed the main barriers, motivations and opportunities for adoption of PwRC resources in four construction projects. These factors are believed to influence the utilisation of PwRC to varying extents and/or in diverse ways. The findings also suggest that there is a significant opportunity for stakeholders to adopt more sustainable waste management practices, and the use of institutional drivers can help achieve this goal.
Research limitations/implications
The primary research contribution of the study lies in proposing three key research directions: investigating regulatory constraints impacting the use of PwRC, addressing supply chain challenges and enhancing quality assurance.
Originality/value
The research has a practical contribution to the industry through a suite of actionable strategies to increase the uptake of PwRC. The strategies are mostly focussed on stakeholders' education, the regulation that supports PwRC and project management planning. The two major motivations – referring to two of the three pillars of sustainability (economy and environment) – provide a basis for organisational changes to ensure achieving sustainability in construction activities.
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Martin Evans and Peter Farrell
The modern construction industry is highly competitive and cost driven, with tangible adversarial relationships between projects' contractual parties at individual and…
Abstract
Purpose
The modern construction industry is highly competitive and cost driven, with tangible adversarial relationships between projects' contractual parties at individual and organisational levels; there are conflict of interest as people to survive. Accordingly, team leaders on construction megaprojects (CMPs) in multinational engineering organisations strive to survive in such competitive markets. The research’s aim is to investigate relationships between team leaders' tenure and management styles towards professional subordinates on CMPs and elaborate how corporate governance can optimally address this conflict of interest and adversarial relationships.
Design/methodology/approach
The research methodology adopted processes of inducting theory using case studies. A qualitative approach was adopted as a primary data collection and analysis source. It involved case studies through primary data collection in semi-structured face-to-face interviews with 38 professional subordinates (interviewees) to discuss impacts of team leaders' tenure on their management style (a five-team leader, case studies). The research methodology is based on building theories from case study grounded theory research methodologies.
Findings
The research introduced the notion that team leader survival syndrome is pronounced and evidenced by adversarial reactions towards new or experienced professional subordinates where team leaders perceive professional subordinates, especially at senior technical levels, as potential risks that jeopardise their positions and employment survival possibilities. The syndrome is proven based on real-life case studies; it is constant, tangible and serious disorder of attitudes and behaviours. Longer tenure stimulates and accelerates these phenomena and syndrome, with 58% of team leaders exhibiting such syndromes. Optimum employee tenure is between 7 and 10 years. Corporate governance provides good resolution practices.
Research limitations/implications
The research implications are useful to construction industry and academia. However, the analysis is limited to the case studies considered in Canada and Qatar. Due to small sample size for both case studies and respondents to the questionnaire survey, it is recommended for future exploration to expand the scope of research to larger sample size and various demographic and geographical locations.
Practical implications
Corporates should acknowledge the presence of team leader survival syndromes. They should thoroughly investigate sociopolitical relationships behind it and seek to understand consequences on professional subordinates. Corporates should also adopt a 360-degree feedback system; they should limit trust given to team leaders in this regard to responsible trust, to eliminate manipulation. Team leaders are perceived as being not always truthful and misrepresent capabilities and performance of their professional subordinates to senior managers. Corporate governance holistic multidimensional perspectives are required to provide resolutions of team leader survival syndromes.
Originality/value
The research has discovered a phenomenon that team leaders on CMPs in architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) organisations, prompted by virtue of long tenure in corporates or by power of their managerial level in organisations, perceive their professional subordinates, especially senior technical employees, as potential risks. It is thought promoting them would put their own positions and security of tenure at risk. Hence, team leaders act adversarially, to enhance their own survival prospects. This research introduced the novel team leader survival syndrome and introduced analyses, practical implications and recommendations.
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Manirul Islam, John Slof and Khaldoon Albitar
This study examines the effects of firm size on financial reporting quality (FRQ) through the mediating effects of audit committee (AC) quality and internal audit function (IAF…
Abstract
Purpose
This study examines the effects of firm size on financial reporting quality (FRQ) through the mediating effects of audit committee (AC) quality and internal audit function (IAF) quality.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on data from a questionnaire survey and archival sources of non-financial companies listed on the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE), the authors perform both structural equational modeling and ordinary least squares (OLS) regression to test the developed hypotheses.
Findings
Results show that the firm size is positively related to IAF quality. Firm size, AC quality and IAF quality are significantly associated with abnormal accruals (FRQ). Moreover, the authors find a mediation effect of the IAF quality on the relationship between firm size and FRQ, while no mediation effect is observed for AC quality. Thus, the study advocates companies focus on AC quality and IAF quality to enhance FRQ as it has a significant impact on corporate disclosure and investor decisions.
Research limitations/implications
First, the study is restricted to the survey questions that cover particular areas of the AC and IAF. Second, the sample selection focuses on relatively big industries in terms of the number of firms and excludes small sectors.
Practical implications
The findings provide significant implications for professionals and policymakers in making regulatory reforms and revising existing policies to improve governance monitoring performance and FRQ.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to explore the mediation effect of AC quality and IAF quality on firm size–FRQ nexus in a developing country.
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