Search results

Service research holds that as services become more technology dominated, new service provider roles emerge. On a conceptual level, the potential impact of different roles has been discussed with regard to service provider readiness, job performance and overall experience. However, as yet, there is sparse empirical support for these conceptual interpretations. The purpose of this paper is to provide an understanding of the new service provider roles that emerge due to the increase of technology mediation in services.

This study follows a qualitative methodology. Insights are drawn from in-depth interviews with 32 junior and senior health-care service providers (across 12 specialties) and 5 information governance/management staff.

This analysis illustrates that new service provider roles include those of the enabler, differentiator, innovator, coordinator and sense-giver. By adopting these roles, health-care service providers reveal that they can encourage, support and advance technology mediation in services across different groups/audiences within their organizations (e.g. service delivery level, peer-to-peer level, organizational level). This paper further shows the relationships between these new service provider roles.

This study contributes to theory in technology-mediated services by illustrating empirically the range of activities that constitute each role. It also complements prior work by identifying that service providers adopt the additional role of sense-giver. Finally, this paper provides an understanding of how by taking on these roles service providers can encourage, support and advance technology mediation in services across different groups/audiences in their organization.

A recent study reported Black women are frequently labeled unprofessional due to hair presentation, 1.5 times more likely to be sent home citing “unprofessional hair,” and 80% likely to alter their natural hair texture (Dove, 2019) through chemicals or heat to fit into organizational norms. Meanwhile, conversations about hair discrimination and bias remain whispers in The Ivory Tower. Despite this study, contemporary research regarding higher education and the politics of Black women, Black hair, and hair texture is sparse. The lack of representation in higher education organizations and lack of literature suggest that Black, higher education professional women are at risk of experiencing chilly work environments that could impact belonging, career trajectory, and earning potential. Some individuals outside the African Diaspora may consider the notion of a physical characteristic, like hair, to be insignificant, let alone a salient identity for Black women. However, my experience as a higher education practitioner and scholar states differently. I assert higher education institutions continue to perpetuate and reproduce oppressive dynamics that specifically target Black women and Black hair when hair discrimination and bias are left out of the conversation to address diversity and inclusion concerns. This chapter introduces a historical context of Black hair discrimination; explores my lived experiences navigating Black hair, hair texture, and professionalism in higher education; outlines challenges for higher education institutions and prioritizes Black women alongside diversity and inclusion efforts.

WE publish this issue on the eve of the Brighton Conference and our hope is that this number of The Library World will assist the objects of that meeting. Everything connected with the Conference appears to have been well thought out. It is an excellent thing that an attempt has been made to get readers of papers to write them early in order that they might be printed beforehand. Their authors will speak to the subject of these papers and not read them. Only a highly‐trained speaker can “get over” a written paper—witness some of the fiascos we hear from the microphone, for which all papers that are broadcast have to be written. But an indifferent reader, when he is really master of his subject, can make likeable and intelligible remarks extemporarily about it. As we write somewhat before the Conference papers are out we do not know if the plan to preprint the papers has succeeded. We are sure that it ought to have done so. It is the only way in which adequate time for discussion can be secured.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a selected bibliography of recent resources on library instruction and information literacy.

The paper introduces and annotates periodical articles, monographs, and audiovisual material examining library instruction and information literacy.

Information about each source is provided. The paper discusses the characteristics of current scholarship, and describes sources that contain unique scholarly contributions and quality reproductions.

The information in the paper may be used by librarians and interested parties as a quick reference to literature on library instruction and information literacy.

This paper aims to examine the factors that mediate and moderate the relationship between psychological empowerment and organizational health. Specifically, work engagement is posited to mediate the relationship between psychological empowerment and organizational health and organizational communication to moderate the relationship between psychological empowerment and work engagement.

Data were collected from 524 scientists belonging to 10 laboratories of CSIR – an Indian R&D organization. For statistical analysis of moderated-mediation model, hierarchical multiple regression and process macro for SPSS was used.

Results revealed that work engagement was found to mediate the positive relationship between psychological empowerment and organizational health and organizational communication moderated the influence of psychological empowerment on work engagement. Results of moderated-mediation revealed that mediation of work engagement was moderated by organizational communication such that at higher levels of communication, the mediating effect of work engagement became stronger.

This study extends the understanding of the organizational health concept by studying the mediating effect of work engagement being moderated by organizational communication and its subsequent impact on organizational health.

The purpose of this paper is to explore trends in entrepreneurship spaces developed by universities to support entrepreneurship education. It identifies characteristics that make a space conducive to innovation and explains whether current spaces adequately conform to those characteristics. More generally, this paper seeks to clarify what is being built, for which purposes and with what results.

Given the novelty of this research, the paper uses a multiple-method approach to allow for an iterative examination between theory and data. Multiple data and methods were used, including an action research method, a systematic survey of 57 entrepreneurship spaces at US universities and a thematic and content analyses of interviews carried out with individuals directly involved in the functioning of such spaces.

The paper presents a prescriptive model aimed at guiding the practitioner in the design of an entrepreneurship space. It identifies five types of entrepreneurship spaces that differentially support entrepreneurial activities and rely on different characteristics. These characteristics are centrally important for innovation and entrepreneurship spaces.

There are a number of practical implications from the work. It identifies key challenges in the design of entrepreneurship spaces and shows which questions to consider in the decision-making process.

The paper advances research on entrepreneurship spaces, an important yet poorly understood phenomenon. It reviews and introduces the literature on how space can support innovation, entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurial “spirit’” and proposes a typology of entrepreneurship spaces, providing a path toward more robust and comprehensive theory building.

This paper attempts to contribute to an expanding body of literature that critically engages with both the theory and practice of market segmentation. Through the theoretical lens of liminality and its implicit elements, the notion of boundary creation inherent in age‐based market segmentation of the youth market is explored.

Using empirical data collected as part of a longitudinal study on liminal consumers, marketing's attempt at laying down parameters and constructing borders is presented as a strategic exacerbation of liminal zones already replete with tension and ambiguity.

It is concluded that theoretical consideration of this data highlights the fluidity and porous nature of such constructed boundaries, rendering attempts at creating discernable, knowable segments, potentially futile. Thus by critically viewing this segment, not just as a marketing demographic, but as a liminal zone, an alternative consideration of the theory and practice of age segmentation is presented.

The longitudinal study spanned a period from midway through the participants' final months of primary education and early stages of secondary education. Research that focused on their completion of a year in secondary education would perhaps have yielded further insights.

This research offers tangible insights into the social worlds of a burgeoning market segment, albeit a liminal one, offering actionable realities based on the inextricable intertwining of their consumption practices and lived experiences.

Rather than view children as socio‐cultural non‐descripts who are of interest to marketers purely for their ability to be located along a continuum of cognitive development, this research aims to understand and explore the specific intricasies of the tweens' mediation of their liminal world using consumption practices

Consumption practices emerged that highlighted the attempted resolution and mediation of such tensions while also pointing to the clear mutability and ambiguity of supposed borders between child, tween and teen segmented groups. Age‐segmentation, conceptualised by marketers as a strategic creation of borders so as to enhance product offerings little reflects the realities of how age is perceived, experienced and acted out by those categorised within the margins and parameters of targeted marketing. By viewing this segment, not just as a marketing demographic but as a liminal zone where liminars “elude or slip through the network of classifications that normally locate states and positions in cultural space”, an alternative consideration of the theory and practice of age‐segmentation is presented.