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The digital divide has persisted in California and the USA as a whole at approximately the same level for the past decade. This is despite multiple programs being created and billions of dollars being spent to close it. This paper examines why the efforts to date have been ineffective and to offers policy alternatives that might be more successful.

Using data from three, variable constrained projects in California, this paper examines the effectiveness of information-based outreach efforts at closing the digital divide. The projects tested various outreach and enrollment methods to see which, if any, could increase broadband adoption in low-income households.

This project found that providing low-income households’ information about low-cost broadband offerings was ineffective at closing the digital divide. The findings in this paper were similar to those of two other works that examined the federal Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) grants under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

The findings of this paper along with the works cited that evaluated the BTOP program should be enough to change public policy. For the past ten years, efforts to close the digital divide have focused on providing information to low-income households. However, two independent surveys show broadband adoption has remained virtually flat during that period.

The digital divide brings concomitant economic and education harms and challenges that plague those unable to access information, services, educational and employment opportunities with the same ease, speed and sufficiency as their connected peers and neighbors. Those harms exacerbate the already existing education and income divides. This paper shows that without a change in strategy, those harms will persist.

This paper breaks new ground and addresses one of the weaknesses identified in existing research. To the best of author’s knowledge, this is the first paper of its type to use programs designed to generate data that can be empirically evaluated for effectiveness. Prior studies attempted to assess program effectiveness by using data generated from fully implemented government programs. However, those programs contained a vast number of unidentified variables and insufficient data collection. They were not designed to facilitate academic evaluation, and as such made a true effectiveness evaluation challenging.

The purpose of this paper is to capture the up-to-date development of quality management (QM) programs in China’s manufacturing landscape. The study aims to gain understanding on the current state-of-the-art QM programs adopted by Chinese manufacturing companies. Furthermore, the study investigates the key drivers and organizational characteristics that may shape the decisions on QM program adoption.

To gain a deep understanding of QM in China’s manufacturing landscape, in-depth interviews were conducted with production managers, quality managers, and/or executives of 12 manufacturing companies in four cities in China in May and June 2012. Each interview lasted about two hours and covered all aspects of QM in the business, including what quality programs are in place and why the business adopts and implements these programs. Grounded theory approach is used to conduct qualitative analysis on the interview transcripts using NVivo 9, a qualitative data analysis program.

Two categories of QM programs adopted by Chinese companies emerged from the analysis, namely, QM systems and QM certifications. QM systems include Total Quality Management (TQM), Six Sigma, and Lean. QM certification includes ISO 9000 series standard certificates, ISO 14000 certificate, OHSAS heath certificates, government regulatory certificates, and industry certificates. The authors found while Six Sigma and Lean adoption is related to parent company requirement, TQM adoption is related to internal quality improvement and control, quality assurance, leadership ideology, culture, and employee commitment. QM certification adoption is significantly related to external drivers. Regarding the effect of organizational characteristics, the study reveals that while corporate governance and ownership influence parent company requirements as an adoption driver, industry, product, and market segmentation influence industry requirements and government regulations as adoption drivers.

The findings and proposed conceptual framework are based on qualitative data collected from 12 companies in four cities in China, which may be limited to represent and reveal every aspect of QM programs adopted in Chinese manufacturing industries. The findings provide theoretical propositions that can be verified using a large sample set in future studies. In addition, although the study identified a variety of QM programs adopted, how these programs are implemented warrants further investigation.

This study gives a status update and in-depth investigation on the development of QM programs adopted in Chinese manufacturing companies. How internal drivers, external drivers, and organizational characteristics shape companies’ decision on program adoption were explored. The study results provide implications not only for companies that are involved in supply chains with operations in China, but also for Chinese domestic companies competing in global markets to have QM systems in place to ensure quality performance.

This study used multiple case study approach and grounded theory approach to conduct in-depth investigation on the current state of QM landscape in China’s manufacturing companies. It contributes to the body of knowledge on QM programs in China by uncovering the linkages between program adoption, key drivers, and organizational characteristics in an integrated framework.

Drawing on social feminist theory, this paper aims to close gaps between knowledge about gender-related barriers to information, communication and technology (ICT) adoption and the provision of entrepreneurship education and training (EET) programs.

Empirical findings are drawn from 21 semi-structured interviews (22 informants) possessing differing training expertise regarding digital technology among women entrepreneurs. An open-coding technique was adopted where descriptive codes were first assigned to meaningful statements. Interpretive and pattern codes were then assigned to indicate common themes and patterns, which were reduced to higher-order categories to inform the research questions.

The findings specify and validate further gender influences in the digital economy. Digital skills are identified, and strategies to close gender barriers to ICT adoption with EET are described. The findings are discussed in reference to a large-scale, Canadian ICT adoption program.

Perceptual data may be idiosyncratic to the sample. The work did not control for type of technology. Gender influences may differ by type of technology.

Findings can be used to construct gender-inclusive ICT supports and inform ICT adoption policies. This includes program eligibility and evaluation criteria to measure the socio-economic impacts.

The study is among the first to examine the intersection between knowledge about gender-related barriers to ICT adoption and EET. The findings can be adopted to ICT support programs targeted at small business owners and entrepreneurs.

The study aims to estimate the rates of exposure to, and adoption of, rural bank credit programs by smallholder farmers in rural Ghana and the factors responsible for those rates.

The study used a random sample of 300 smallholder farmers in the Fanteakwa District of Ghana, obtained through the multistage sampling technique. The study also employed the average treatment effects approach to estimate the average treatment effect of farmers’ exposure to rural bank credit programs, on their adoption of such programs.

The actual adoption rate is approximately 41%, and the potential, conditional on the whole population being aware of rural bank credit programs, is approximately 61%. Accordingly, there is a gap of about 20% in the adoption of rural bank credit programs, and is due to the incomplete exposure of smallholder farmers to the rural bank credit programs. Age of the household head, access to extension services, membership in farmer-based organizations and active savings accounts with a rural bank are the major contributors to smallholder farmer exposure to and the adoption of rural bank credit programs.

The current study is the first of its kind to be conducted in Ghana on rural bank credit programs. It takes into account the extent to which smallholder farmers are exposed to such credit programs and how it influences their decisions to access or adopt.

This chapter explores the adoption and implementation of a conflict management system (CMS) in a hospital setting. In particular, it uncovers the different motivations and challenges associated with a CMS across various stakeholders within the organization.

The chapter is based on qualitative research conducted in a large American hospital that adopted and implemented a CMS over the course of 15 months. The author conducted extensive interviews with stakeholders across the organization, including top management, union leaders, middle managers, clinicians, and frontline staff. Findings are also based on an array of observations, including stakeholder meetings and conflict management sessions.

The case study demonstrates the centrality of underexplored, generalizable, and industry-specific pressures that may lead organizations to reconsider their use of traditional dispute resolution practices and to institute a CMS. It also highlights the inherent organizational ambivalence toward the design and adoption, initiation and implementation, and routine use of a CMS and it documents the different types of outcomes delivered to various stakeholders.

The chapter provides a nuanced portrait of the antecedents to and consequences of the transformation of conflict management within one organization. It contributes to the existing body of research exploring the 30-year rise of alternative dispute resolution and CMSs in a growing proportion of firms in the United States. The use of an in-depth case-study method to examine this CMS experience offers a number of important insights, particularly regarding different stakeholder motivations and outcomes.

The purpose of this paper is to determine the influence of students’ profiles and the usage of e-books, online educational materials, and other programming books on the adoption of printed programming textbooks for computing students. It was hypothesized that the predictor variable set could not explain any of the variance of the dependent variables.

This descriptive study utilized a content-validated questionnaire. The study involved 190 student participants. Canonical correlation analysis was employed to determine whether students’ profiles and use, perceived usefulness, and preference of e-books, online educational materials, and other programming books explained any variance in printed programming textbook adoption.

Printed programming textbook adoption could be explained by two functions. The first function revealed that the use and the perceived usefulness of textbooks were positively influenced by the use of e-books and other programming books and by the perceived usefulness of e-books, fora/blogs, other programming books, and YouTube. The second function revealed that the use of printed programming textbooks alone was positively influenced by the use of e-books and other programming books but was negatively influenced by the perceived usefulness of programming websites and YouTube and by the preference of programming websites over textbooks.

The study provided empirical evidence that e-books, other programming books, and online educational materials provide additional resources to students. Thus, e-books, online educational materials, and other programming books complement, rather than threaten, the existence of printed programming textbooks.

To resolve the limited access to capital by local governments due to the Great Recession, the United States Federal Government responded with the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) which included the Build America Bond (BAB) program. The result of this program was considerable interest cost savings to state and local governments, but many local governments chose to issue traditional tax-exempt bonds instead of BABs. Using a policy diffusion framework and hazard model approach, we identify factors that affected the speed of BAB adoption by local governments. Results show that underwriter and financial adviser experience along with the internal characteristics of the local governments played a significant role in adoption. These findings have implications for future fiscal policies targeting local governments for the purpose of timely economic recovery.

This study aims to examine teachers’ efficacy to use iPad for teaching, their perceived impact of 1:1 iPad implementation in the classroom and the role of both variables in predicting teachers’ adoption of the iPad.

This paper opted for multiple linear regression analysis of the data from a total of 91 teachers (44 male and 47 female). All participating teachers are from upper-middle-class private schools who have been using iPad in their classrooms for at least three months. All three variables being studied are measured using instruments developed by the researcher and self-rated by participating teachers: iPad-Teaching Efficacy (iTE), Perceived Impact of iPad in the Classroom (iPI) and iPad Actual Use for Teaching (iAU). All three instruments have good internal reliability and validity, with an alpha coefficient of 0.97, 0.92 and 0.93 respectively.

The paper provides empirical insights about factors contributing to teachers’ technology adoption (specifically iPad) in the classroom. It suggests that teachers’ efficacy significantly predicts their actual use of the iPad for teaching, but teachers’ perceived impact of the implementation does not.

These research findings play an important role in designing a program for technology adoption in schools, especially in Indonesia.

This paper explores different approaches to regulating corporate social responsibility (CSR) patterns of adopting codes of conduct, and discusses the approach that courts should embrace.

Case studies from various legal systems will be examined. The paper presents new typology relating to different patterns of the Corporate Social Performance (CSP) model, based on aspects of the CSR pyramid, namely, legislative CSR and ethical CSR. Legislative CSR includes adoption of thin codes which reflect compliance within current legal standards of the criminal code, while ethical CSR includes codes reflecting ethical norms and corporate social citizenship beyond mere compliance. The paper also includes the interplay of different patterns of CSR and three approaches to regulation regarding these patterns.

Both the Israeli negative CSR regulatory approach and the American legislative CSR regulatory approach present difficulties.

The paper introduces a theory for regulating CSR within criminal law, drawing on the pyramid of CSR. It presents an original discussion of distinct approaches to regulation of corporate liability, while further developing the institutional theory of CSR and the interplay of regulation and CSR. The paper suggests a novel solution regarding the regulation and acceptance of CSR: the granting of protection from criminal liability to corporations who adopt CSR.

In recent years it has been often claimed that quality is one of most critical success factors for organizations. Managers introduced quality‐based programmes – such as total quality management – assuming that performances would improve. However, many quality‐based initiatives failed. There are several reasons that could explain the failure of quality‐based strategies in a number of firms; suggests two causes: the lack of effective decisional tools for evaluating the most effective investment(s) among a set of potential programmes; and the lack of specific goals to be assigned to each investment in order to monitor the actual results of the programmes on time. In small firms these problems are greater because of the limited availability of financial and managerial resources which make more difficult the identification of the most effective decisional solutions. Identifies a conceptual framework aimed at supporting the choice of most effective models for evaluating quality‐related investments in small firms, particularly an approach which balances different decisional needs such as completeness, urgency of evaluation, measurability of output and structural characteristics.