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1 – 10 of over 13000Little is known about the extent to which management and engineering publications dedicated to the study of quality management topics make use of mixed methods, what types of…
Abstract
Purpose
Little is known about the extent to which management and engineering publications dedicated to the study of quality management topics make use of mixed methods, what types of studies have been conducted and how effective mixed methods have been. The aim of the current paper is to analyse how mixed methods have been used in quality management research.
Design/methodology/approach
To address this purpose, a bibliometric analysis was conducted of papers using mixed methods designs to investigate quality management issues and published in the SCOPUS database. CiteSpace software was used to assist in the categorisation and mapping process.
Findings
Ninety articles were identified and analysed. The results show that mixed methods are mainly used either to compare different perspectives drawn from quantitative and qualitative data or to develop better measurement instruments. Sequential mixes occur more often than concurrent approaches. Moreover, there is a link between the purpose of the study and the approaches followed to combine qualitative and quantitative methods. Yet, the contribution of the use of mixed methods to achieving the aims of the study is not easy to assess as the purposes of using mixed methods are often not clearly stated.
Originality/value
As one of the first papers to examine how qualitative and quantitative methods are being combined in quality management research, this study is expected to contribute to the literature by providing some insights into how mixed methods can be more effectively used in this field.
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David B. Grant, Sarah Shaw, Edward Sweeney, Witold Bahr, Siriwan Chaisurayakarn and Pietro Evangelista
Mixed methods research is useful to enhance theoretical and practical research contributions. However, single methods have predominated much logistics and supply chain management…
Abstract
Purpose
Mixed methods research is useful to enhance theoretical and practical research contributions. However, single methods have predominated much logistics and supply chain management (LSCM) research. This paper presents a review of mixed methods research across ten years in LSCM to determine their usage, identify benefits and inhibitors, and provide suggestions for LSCM researchers to realise the benefits from using mixed methods.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper adopts a mixed methods approach through a quantitative analysis of methods used in six leading LSCM journals, an e-mail survey of mixed methods article authors during the review period, and four published case studies that used mixed methods.
Findings
Only 144 (ten percent) of all empirical articles were published using mixed methods during the review period. A range of benefits and inhibitors regarding mixed methods adoption were found. Suggestions for LSCM authors include research training in mixed methods use and developing a project-specific research design due to the specificity and complexity associated with mixed methods research.
Originality/value
LSCM is at a critical juncture, shaped by new contexts, themes and challenges, and would benefit from different research approaches and methods. This paper contributes to the LSCM domain through analysing the current state, benefits and inhibitors of mixed methods research in LSCM journals to provide a renewed call to action and guidelines for mixed methods LSCM research, and suggesting research design adaptation to enable agile and resilient research when investigating rapidly changing and complex phenomena.
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Chia-Yen Ma, Kuo-Ching Wang, De-Yen Liu and Ting-Ching Lai
The research aims to discuss technical and vocational students' long-term and complete evaluation of learning effectiveness under school-wide thematic teaching design.
Abstract
Purpose
The research aims to discuss technical and vocational students' long-term and complete evaluation of learning effectiveness under school-wide thematic teaching design.
Design/methodology/approach
This study adopted a mixed qualitative and quantitative approach to measure the learning effectiveness of thematic teaching in technical vocational schools using the Kirkpatrick model. Qualitative research conducted in-depth interviews with 32 interviewees, including students, parents, teachers, graduate alumni and the supervisors of off-campus internship units. Quantitative research conducted a questionnaire survey on vocational students. A total of 221 valid questionnaires were collected. In addition, this research conducts another quantitative survey on cooperative enterprises to compare the actual effect of the implementation of the school-wide thematic teaching students with the others, and a total of 35 valid questionnaires were collected.
Findings
The results of the research found that the effectiveness of thematic teaching method can achieve the expected goals of each level of Kirkpatrick model. The students taking thematic teaching are significantly better and fitting in the industry expects. Therefore, this research suggests the comprehensive introduction of school-wide thematic teaching to other school operators.
Originality/value
This research is the first study used the Kirkpatrick model to evaluate the effectiveness of school-wide thematic teaching design in hospitality education and providing a practical case for schools. This research combined qualitative and quantitative research methods to investigate the effectiveness of the teaching method through multiple perspectives. Through the feedback from supervisors of the hospitality industry, the school-wide thematic teaching design provides a good foundation for technical and vocational graduates.
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Camille J. Mora, Arunima Malik, Sruthi Shanmuga and Baljit Sidhu
Businesses are increasingly vulnerable and exposed to physical climate change risks, which can cascade through local, national and international supply chains. Currently, few…
Abstract
Purpose
Businesses are increasingly vulnerable and exposed to physical climate change risks, which can cascade through local, national and international supply chains. Currently, few methodologies can capture how physical risks impact businesses via the supply chains, yet outside the business literature, methodologies such as sustainability assessments can assess cascading impacts.
Design/methodology/approach
Adopting a scoping review framework by Arksey and O'Malley (2005) and the PRISMA extension for scoping reviews (PRISMA-ScR), this paper reviews 27 articles that assess climate risk in supply chains.
Findings
The literature on supply chain risks of climate change using quantitative techniques is limited. Our review confirms that no research adopts sustainability assessment methods to assess climate risk at a business-level.
Originality/value
Alongside the need to quantify physical risks to businesses is the growing awareness that climate change impacts traverse global supply chains. We review the state of the literature on methodological approaches and identify the opportunities for researchers to use sustainability assessment methods to assess climate risk in the supply chains of an individual business.
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Emilio Ruzo-Sanmartín, Alaa Abdelaziz Abousamra, Carmen Otero-Neira and Göran Svensson
To examine the role of supply chain integration (SCI – i.e. supplier integration, customer integration and internal integration) between integrated information technology (IIT…
Abstract
Purpose
To examine the role of supply chain integration (SCI – i.e. supplier integration, customer integration and internal integration) between integrated information technology (IIT) and financial performance (FP).
Design/methodology/approach
An explanatory sequential mixed-methods study was conducted, collecting quantitative data first and then examining the quantitative results with in-depth qualitative data from a sample targeting manufacturing and services firms in Egypt.
Findings
This study indicates that IIT relates positively to SCI, which in turn relates positively to FP. Main enablers/mechanisms and disablers/barriers for those linkages are identified.
Research limitations/implications
After establishing the linkages between ITT, SCI and FP in the quantitative phase of research, a qualitative phase based on follow-up interviews provide deeper understanding about mechanisms and contexts behind those linkages.
Practical implications
Offer firms guidance to assess IIT, SCI and FP.
Originality/value
With a disaggregated framework of IIT, SCI and FP, this study contributes by answering a need for development of a methodological toolbox of the field in supply chain management, with a rigorous use of mixed method research, as a way of departing from the normal approach to help researchers in providing a deeper and richer understanding of supply chain problems.
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Rob Law, Sirong Chen, Xiaonan Li and Davis Ka Chio Fong
This study aims to analyze review research in hospitality, identifying the structure and most recent developments in current hospitality review studies while providing exploratory…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to analyze review research in hospitality, identifying the structure and most recent developments in current hospitality review studies while providing exploratory insights for future research in this research area.
Design/methodology/approach
Using bibliometric analysis, content analysis and a quantitative systematic literature review, this study provides a comprehensive review and critical analysis of 128 review studies published in leading hospitality journals (International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, International Journal of Hospitality Management and Journal of Hospitality Marketing and Management).
Findings
This paper presents a comprehensive and in-depth discussion based on the title, journal source, author contribution, year of publication, sample size, selected period, database selection, methodology, data collection methods, themes, regional selection, keywords, abstracts and results of the hospitality review studies analyzed. The findings provide new insights to advance the theoretical and practical implications of review studies in hospitality.
Research limitations/implications
This research provides critical insights for both hospitality review studies and academic and industry hospitality personnel.
Originality/value
As a pioneering study in research on review studies, the results of this paper focus not only on a systematic overview and assessment of recent hospitality review works but also on the future agenda of hospitality and review studies.
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Fanshu Zhao, Jin Cui, Mei Yuan and Juanru Zhao
The purpose of this paper is to present a weakly supervised learning method to perform health evaluation and predict the remaining useful life (RUL) of rolling bearings.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present a weakly supervised learning method to perform health evaluation and predict the remaining useful life (RUL) of rolling bearings.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on the principle that bearing health degrades with the increase of service time, a weak label qualitative pairing comparison dataset for bearing health is extracted from the original time series monitoring data of bearing. A bearing health indicator (HI) quantitative evaluation model is obtained by training the delicately designed neural network structure with bearing qualitative comparison data between different health statuses. The remaining useful life is then predicted using the bearing health evaluation model and the degradation tolerance threshold. To validate the feasibility, efficiency and superiority of the proposed method, comparison experiments are designed and carried out on a widely used bearing dataset.
Findings
The method achieves the transformation of bearing health from qualitative comparison to quantitative evaluation via a learning algorithm, which is promising in industrial equipment health evaluation and prediction.
Originality/value
The method achieves the transformation of bearing health from qualitative comparison to quantitative evaluation via a learning algorithm, which is promising in industrial equipment health evaluation and prediction.
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Abstract
Purpose
Social media texts as a data source in depression research have emerged as a significant convergence between Information Management and Public Health in recent years. This paper aims to sort out the depression-related study conducted on the text on social media, with particular attention to the research theme and methods.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors finally selected research articles published in Web of Science, Wiley, ACM Digital Library, EBSCO, IEEE Xplore and JMIR databases, covering 57 articles.
Findings
(1) According to the coding results, Depression Prediction and Linguistic Characteristics and Information Behavior are the two most popular themes. The theme of Patient Needs has progressed over the past few years. Still, there is a lesser focus on Stigma and Antidepressants. (2) Researchers prefer quantitative methods such as machine learning and statistical analysis to qualitative ones. (4) According to the analysis of the data collection platforms, more researchers used comprehensive social media sites like Reddit and Facebook than depression-specific communities like Sunforum and Alonelylife.
Practical implications
The authors recommend employing machine learning and statistical analysis to explore factors related to Stigmatization and Antidepressants thoroughly. Additionally, conducting mixed-methods studies incorporating data from diverse sources would be valuable. Such approaches would provide insights beneficial to policymakers and pharmaceutical companies seeking a comprehensive understanding of depression.
Originality/value
This article signifies a pioneering effort in systematically gathering and examining the themes and methodologies within the intersection of health-related texts on social media and depression.
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Hongliang Yu, Zhen Peng, Zirui He and Chun Huang
The purpose of this paper is to establish a maturity evaluation model for the application of construction steel structure welding robotics suitable for the actual situation and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to establish a maturity evaluation model for the application of construction steel structure welding robotics suitable for the actual situation and specific characteristics of engineering projects in China and then to assess the maturity level of the technology in the application of domestic engineering projects more scientifically.
Design/methodology/approach
The research follows a qualitative and quantitative analysis method. In the first stage, the structure of the maturity model is constructed and the evaluation index system is designed by using the ideas of the capability maturity model and WSR methodology for reference. In the second stage, the design of the evaluation process and the selection of evaluation methods (analytic hierarchy process method, multi-level gray comprehensive evaluation method). In the third stage, the data are collected and organized (preparation of questionnaires, distribution of questionnaires, questionnaire collection). In the fourth stage, the established maturity evaluation model is used to analyze the data.
Findings
The evaluation model established by using multi-level gray theory can effectively transform various complex indicators into an intuitive maturity level or score status. The conclusion shows that the application maturity of building steel structure welding robot technology in this project is at the development level as a whole. The maturity levels of “WuLi – ShiLi – RenLi” are respectively: development level, development level, between starting level and development level. Comparison of maturity evaluation values of five important factors (from high to low): environmental factors, technical factors, management factors, benefit factors, personnel and group factors.
Originality/value
In this paper, based on the existing research related to construction steel structure welding robot technology, a quantitative and holistic evaluation of the application of construction steel structure welding robot technology in domestic engineering projects is conducted for the first time from a project perspective by designing a maturity evaluation index system and establishing a maturity evaluation model. This research will help the project team to evaluate the application level (maturity) of the welding robot in the actual project, identify the shortcomings and defects of the application of this technology, then improve the weak links pertinently, and finally realize the gradual improvement of the overall application level of welding robot technology for building steel structure.
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This study seeks to understand the factors and orientations that are relevant to preservice teachers' (PSTs) beliefs about their ability to design lessons for inquiry-based K-6…
Abstract
Purpose
This study seeks to understand the factors and orientations that are relevant to preservice teachers' (PSTs) beliefs about their ability to design lessons for inquiry-based K-6 social studies instruction.
Design/methodology/approach
Seventy elementary PSTs participated in a series of inquiry-based learning activities in a social studies methods course. The study uses exploratory factor analysis, a quantitative method to explore teacher self-reported efficacy for designing inquiry lessons.
Findings
The findings revealed that three capabilities related to design are relevant to elementary social studies PSTs' self-efficacy for designing inquiries: lesson design competence, lesson design disposition and lesson design practices. Most PSTs expressed low self-efficacy in all three capabilities. PSTs with a higher disposition for designing inquiry lessons may show a strong sense of self-efficacy for inquiry-based curricula design and practice in elementary social studies education.
Originality/value
The article discusses the importance of understanding PSTs sense of efficacy and categories of such self-efficacy beliefs at the level of lesson design within the context of teacher education. It discusses the need for teacher educators to facilitate educationally sound critical reflection on lesson design skills, disposition and practices that foster PSTs' sense of ability to teach via inquiry in elementary classrooms.
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