Search results

This paper proposes an Information and Communication Technology (ICT) platform to increase the sustainability and resilience of smallholders to face supply chain disruptions in the event of COVID-like crises. The platform facilitates interactions between smallholders and buyers, workers and freight transport companies in agri-food ecosystems. Furthermore, this research work presents the implementation of the freight transport companies’ platform module.

The research work begins with a literature review aiming at analyzing current available ICT solutions supporting smallholders and other actors in the agri-food supply chain. This analysis identifies the research gaps which have to be filled by the platform. Then, the authors proceed with the analysis of the operational scenarios of each platform actor by interacting with experts and operators working in the agri-food sector. The results of such analysis resulted in a comprehensive, unambiguous and consistent set of specification being used to define the platform structure and modules architecture. The platform modules have been developed by using the web-application framework Laravel.

Preliminary tests show that the proposed platform is usable and promises to improve the resilience and economic, social and environmental sustainability of agri-food supply chains, with a focus on smallholders.

The research work allows players in the agri-food supply chain and in particular small local producers to react and mitigate the impact of COVID-like crises through development of a platform in which smallholders, citizens (buyers and workers) and freight transport companies are simultaneously present.

While transition programs are widely used to facilitate newly graduated nurses transition to healthcare settings, knowledge about preconditions for implementing such programs in the hospital context is scarce. The purpose of this study was to explore program coordinators’ perspectives on implementing a transition program for newly graduated nurses.

An explorative qualitative study using individual interviews. Total of 11 program coordinators at five acute care hospital administrations in a south-west region in Sweden. Data was subjected to thematic analysis, using NVivo software to promote coding.

The following two themes were identified from the analysis: Create a shared responsibility for introducing newly graduated nurses, and establish legitimacy of the program. The implementation process was found to be a matter of both educational content and anchoring work in the hospital organization. To clarify the what and why of implementing a transition program, where the nurses learning processes are prioritized, was foundational prerequisites for successful implementation.

This paper illustrates that implementing transition programs in contemporary hospital care context is a valuable but complex process that involves conflicting priorities. A program that is well integrated in the organization, in which responsibilities between different levels and roles in the hospital organization, aims and expectations on the program are clarified, is important to achieve the intentions of effective transition to practice. Joint actions need to be taken by healthcare policymakers, hospitals and ward managers, and educational institutions to support the implementation of transition programs as a long-term strategy for nurses entering hospital care.

The aim of this paper is to contribute to knowledge about the diversity of credibility arrangements in new audit spaces “in the margins” of auditing and the implications of such arrangements.

The paper is based on an in-depth qualitative study of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex (LGBTQI) rights certification run by the Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Intersex Rights (RFSL) during its first decade of operation. We have interviewed employees and studied documents at the certification units within the RFSL. We have also interviewed certified organizations.

We highlight two features that explain the unusual credibility arrangements in this audit practice: the role of beneficiaries in the organizational arrangements chosen and the role of responsibility as an organizing value with consequences for responsibility allocation in this certification. These features make it possible for the RFSL to act as a credible auditor even though it deviates from common arrangements for credible audits.

The RFSL certification is different in several ways. First, the RFSL acts as both a trainer and an auditor. Second, the trainers/auditors at the RFSL have no accreditation to guarantee their credibility. Third, the RFSL decides for itself what standards should apply for the certification and adapts these standards to the operation being audited. Therefore, this case provides a good opportunity to study alternative credibility arrangements in the margins of auditing as well as their justifications.

The purpose of this study is to describe peer support work in a men’s mental health unit from a lived experience and service user’s perspective. The intertwining of process (a lived experience perspective) and subject (the therapeutic value of peer support) leads to greater knowledge and insight into peer support for people with mental health problems.

This service user narrative draws on the extracts from a reflective journal of interactions and conversations with people with mental health problems as well as feedback from service users and staff about the value of peer support. These methods allow a first-person, service user’s, reflective and narrative account of peer support work.

Peer support work, particularly hearing voices sessions, are found to be highly therapeutic and worthwhile. They promote insight and create feelings of safety and hope in what can sometimes be a frightening and hostile ward environment. Peer support provides emotional and practical support. Sharing stories and experiences of mental illness with people leads to trust, feelings of being valued, heard and accepted as well as better experiences of care and being seen as a person first. Due to their shared experiences, peer support workers are able to befriend people with mental health problems on the ward. Peer support work bridges the gap and vacuum of care between people with mental health problems and staff. It compensates for understaffing to provide more holistic and person-centred care and support.

Lived experience/ service user perspectives and narratives on peer support are rare, particularly in a hospital setting. This article provides a rich, perhaps overlooked and hidden narrative on the nature of peer support work. People with mental health problems, like Ben, are often excluded from society, health and social care, education, employment and research. This narrative opens up a pathway to understanding peer support from a service user perspective.

Prior institutional duality research asserts that ceremonial implementation of organisational practice protects multinational corporations’ subsidiaries. However, the temporal dynamics of the safeguarding function has been under researched. Public sector organisations have also been ignored. This research aims to explore how the safeguarding function is created, maintained and disrupted using the overseas offices (OOs) of a bilateral development agency (BDA) as a case.

A multi-case study, underpinned by neo-institutionalism, was conducted. Data obtained from in-depth remote interviews with 39 informants from the BDA OOs were analysed using the “asking small and large questions” technique, four analytical techniques, cross-case synthesis and theoretical propositions.

A three-phase process was identified. The first phase is the appearance of discrepancies due to institutional duality. The second is the emergence of ceremonial implementation as a solution. In the third phase, “the creation, maintenance and disruption of a safeguarding function” begins. When ceremonial implementation successfully protects the OOs, the safeguarding function is created. The OOs are likely to repeat ceremonial implementation, thus sustaining the function. Meanwhile, when conditions such as management staff change, ceremonial implementation may not take place, and the safeguarding function disappears.

The BDA OOs may not face strong host country regulative pressures because they are donors to aid-recipient countries. Hence, the findings may not directly apply to other public sector organisations.

Development cooperation practitioners should understand that ceremonial implementation is not exclusively harmful.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first institutional duality research that explores the temporal dynamics of safeguarding functions targeting public sector organisations.

This paper aims at understanding how automotive firms integrate customer relationship management (CRM) tools and big data analytics (BDA) into their marketing strategies to enhance total quality management (TQM) after the coronavirus disease (COVID-19).

A qualitative methodology based on a multiple-case study was adopted, involving the collection of 18 interviews with eight leading automotive firms and other companies responsible for their marketing and CRM activities.

Results highlight that, through the adoption of CRM technology, automotive firms have developed best practices that positively impact business performance and TQM, thereby strengthening their digital culture. The challenges in the implementation of CRM and BDA are also discussed.

The study suffers from limitations related to the findings' generalizability due to the restricted number of firms operating in a single industry involved in the sample.

Findings suggest new relational approaches and opportunities for automotive companies deriving from the use of CRM and BDA under an overall customer-oriented approach.

This research analyzes how CRM and BDA improve the marketing and TQM processes in the automotive industry, which is undergoing deep transformation in the current context of digital transformation.

The study aims to investigate how pregnant and nursing mothers’ stories have been neglected in writing about gender, security and spaces.

The study chronicles Agogo Traditional Area’s pregnant and nursing mothers’ resistance and survival in this conflicted environment. The author used photo voices in a participatory photography design to give conflict-area women a voice. Interviews and observations supported this. Pregnant and nursing mothers were sampled using the purposive and snowball sampling techniques. The data analysis considered narrative analysis, photographic and inductive approaches.

The findings highlighted how these mothers in vicious settings experienced healthcare access and problems, societal issues including gender dynamics, food insecurity, and emotional and psychological well-being.

The findings in this study expand the socio-cultural narratives of pregnant and nursing mothers in violent spaces.

The aim of this paper is to analyse the role of communities of practice (CoP) as knowledge-sharing tools in family small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). In this context, CoPs that jointly involve family and non-family members are expected to act as knowledge-sharing tools.

This paper employs a multiple case study methodology, analysing the cases of six small companies in different sectors and countries over a period of 8 years. Both primary and secondary data are used.

The results show the role CoPs play in involving family and non-family members in empowering knowledge-sharing initiatives. A CoP's role in knowledge sharing depends on the presence (or lack) of a family leader, the leadership approach, the degree of cohesion around shared approaches and values within the CoP, and the presence of multiple generations at work.

This paper contributes to the literature on knowledge sharing in family businesses, by exploring for the first time the role of the CoP as a knowledge-sharing tool, depending on families' involvement in the CoP.

A clickbait is a deceptive headline designed to boost ad revenue without presenting closely relevant content. There are numerous negative repercussions of clickbait, such as causing viewers to feel tricked and unhappy, causing long-term confusion, and even attracting cyber criminals. Automatic detection algorithms for clickbait have been developed to address this issue. The fact that there is only one semantic representation for the same term and a limited dataset in Chinese is a need for the existing technologies for detecting clickbait. This study aims to solve the limitations of automated clickbait detection in the Chinese dataset.

This study combines both to train the model to capture the probable relationship between clickbait news headlines and news content. In addition, part-of-speech elements are used to generate the most appropriate semantic representation for clickbait detection, improving clickbait detection performance.

This research successfully compiled a dataset containing up to 20,896 Chinese clickbait news articles. This collection contains news headlines, articles, categories and supplementary metadata. The suggested context-aware clickbait detection (CA-CD) model outperforms existing clickbait detection approaches on many criteria, demonstrating the proposed strategy's efficacy.

The originality of this study resides in the newly compiled Chinese clickbait dataset and contextual semantic representation-based clickbait detection approach employing transfer learning. This method can modify the semantic representation of each word based on context and assist the model in more precisely interpreting the original meaning of news articles.

The purpose of this study is to provide an in-depth understanding of the B2B customers’ perspective regarding salespeople’s social media use.

The study adopts a qualitative approach based on semi-structured interviews with 26 key informants performing their job in customer role in various industries.

The authors inductively identify five themes regarding the B2B customers’ perspective of social media use in B2B selling. These themes allow for valuable implications for social selling activities and expected outcomes.

Against a growing body of literature on drivers, best practices and outcomes of social media use by B2B salespeople, less attention has been paid to the customer’s side. The authors extend current research by providing a more complete picture of social selling activities and expected outcomes.