Search results

1 – 10 of 861
Article
Publication date: 1 April 2009

B. Joubert, S. Coetzee and R. Oberholzer

This paper presents the results of a survey designed to determine what tax topics are important in the educational background of a trainee accountant entering the training…

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a survey designed to determine what tax topics are important in the educational background of a trainee accountant entering the training environment in South Africa. These topics were then compared to the 2008 tax syllabus prescribed by SAICA and taught at accredited universities in respect of the 2009 Qualifying Examination. The results indicated that the 2008 syllabus is largely meeting the expectations of respondents both in and outside public practice, although there are a number of topics that the syllabus setters and educators should reconsider when next reviewing and updating the 2008 syllabus and as part of the considerations for the new competency framework.

Details

Meditari Accountancy Research, vol. 17 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1022-2529

Keywords

Content available
Book part
Publication date: 14 December 2023

Abstract

Details

Digitisation, AI and Algorithms in African Journalism and Media Contexts
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80455-135-6

Article
Publication date: 29 May 2024

Lino Gonzalez-Garcia, Gema González-Carreño, Ana María Rivas Machota and Juan Padilla Fernández-Vega

Knowledge graphs (KGs) are structured knowledge bases that represent real-world entities and are used in a variety of applications. Many of them are created and curated from a…

Abstract

Purpose

Knowledge graphs (KGs) are structured knowledge bases that represent real-world entities and are used in a variety of applications. Many of them are created and curated from a combination of automated and manual processes. Microdata embedded in Web pages for purposes of facilitating indexing and search engine optimization are a potential source to augment KGs under some assumptions of complementarity and quality that have not been thoroughly explored to date. In that direction, this paper aims to report results on a study that evaluates the potential of using microdata extracted from the Web to augment the large, open and manually curated Wikidata KG for the domain of touristic information. As large corpora of Web text is currently being leveraged via large language models (LLMs), these are used to compare the effectiveness of the microdata enhancement method.

Design/methodology/approach

The Schema.org taxonomy was used as the source to determine the annotation types to be collected. Here, the authors focused on tourism-related pages as a case study, selecting the relevant Schema.org concepts as point of departure. The large CommonCrawl resource was used to select those annotations from a large recent sample of the World Wide Web. The extracted annotations were processed and matched with Wikidata to estimate the degree to which microdata produced for SEO might become a valuable resource to complement KGs or vice versa. The Web pages themselves can also serve as a context to produce additional metadata elements using them as context in pipelines of an existing LLMs. That way, both the annotations and the contents itself can be used as sources.

Findings

The samples extracted revealed a concentration of metadata annotations in only a few of the relevant Schema.org attributes and also revealed the possible influence of authoring tools in a significant fraction of microdata produced. The analysis of the overlapping of attributes in the sample with those of Wikidata showed the potential of the technique, limited by the disbalance of the presence of attributes. The combination of those with the use of LLMs to produce additional annotations demonstrates the feasibility of the approach in the population of existing Wikidata locations. However, in both cases, the effectiveness appears to be lower in the cases of less content in the KG, which are arguably the most relevant when considering the scenario of an automated population approach.

Originality/value

The research reports novel empirical findings on the way touristic annotations with a SEO orientation are being produced in the wild and provides an assessment of their potential to complement KGs, or reuse information from those graphs. It also provides insights on the potential of using LLMs for the task.

Details

The Electronic Library , vol. 42 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0264-0473

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 16 June 2023

Moses Batanda Mubiru and Janice Maria Naturinda

This paper aims to uncover an understanding of how the quality assurance measures used by the property management teams of Grade-B high-rise office blocks influence the…

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to uncover an understanding of how the quality assurance measures used by the property management teams of Grade-B high-rise office blocks influence the satisfaction and retention of tenants and walk-in users.

Design/methodology/approach

This study used a case study design backed up by qualitative and quantitative research approaches on a sample size of 90 respondents, including tenants, landlords, property managers and walk-in building users. The data were collected predominantly through interview guides and transcribed, coded and illustrated by the aid of ATLAS.ti software. Data reporting was through tables, graphs and themed direct quotations and eventual discussion. The in-depth/structured interview sessions took between 40 min and 1 h, and the walk-along interviews ranged between 30 and 40 min. Content analysis through thematic coding, categorisation and analysis were used in handling qualitative data. Direct quotes from participant responses from interview transcripts were inserted in line with the themes. And participants allocated pseudo-names to guard their confidentiality.

Findings

The key themes that linked quality assurance measures of access systems and tenant retention included distribution of access systems, the retention trends, quality assurance measures followed and the tenant experiences regarding how complaints are handled.

Originality/value

It is important to understand how tenants and other users of high-rise buildings experience their performance and inclusiveness. In a place like Kampala city, such a phenomenon can be proven through tenants sustaining their tenures/use of the facilities. Yet, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, presently no empirical studies have explored such a connection.

Details

Facilities , vol. 41 no. 13/14
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0263-2772

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 17 September 2012

Claire E. Rasmussen

Scheingold's The Politics of Rights and The Political Novel while having different objects of study at the center of their analyses, both concern themselves with the difficulties…

Abstract

Scheingold's The Politics of Rights and The Political Novel while having different objects of study at the center of their analyses, both concern themselves with the difficulties in producing meaningful social change on a late modern political terrain. His critiques of rights-claiming are echoed in debates over the practical and philosophical difficulties incorporating animals into contemporary legal regimes. This chapter considers insights from Scheingold's two texts arguing that his insights into the legal imaginary in the latter text anticipates the critique of animal rights while his emphasis on the fictional imaginary in the former text can also be found in contemporary texts that suggest animals can help us rethink political agency.

Details

Special Issue: The Legacy of Stuart Scheingold
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78190-344-5

Article
Publication date: 13 May 2019

Melinde Coetzee and Marais Salemon Bester

The purpose of this paper is to explore the association of harmonious work passion with career satisfaction, while probing the mediating role of employees’ psychological career…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explore the association of harmonious work passion with career satisfaction, while probing the mediating role of employees’ psychological career resources and career preoccupations as important psychosocial career mechanisms in this association.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper is a cross-sectional quantitative study comprising a sample of (n = 550) employees in various South African organisations.

Findings

The current study found that individuals’ career preferences, career drivers, career harmonisers and career adaptation preoccupations are dynamic mechanisms that regulate the link between harmonious passion and career satisfaction.

Research limitations/implications

The study is located in South Africa and was cross-sectional in design. Generalisation to other occupational contexts and establishing cause-effect relations were not possible.

Practical implications

This paper demonstrates the usefulness of harmonious work passion as an additional positive psychological construct in understanding the psychosocial motivational career mechanisms that drive employees’ career satisfaction. The mediating role of certain psychological career resources (i.e. flexible career preferences, career drivers and career harmonisers) and career adaptation preoccupations in the link between employees’ harmonious passion and career satisfaction need to be considered in career management support practices.

Social implications

This paper demonstrates the growing need to better understand the psychosocial mechanisms that influence employees’ career satisfaction.

Originality/value

The study contributed new insights that extend theory and research on the harmonious work passion phenomenon in relation to important career constructs in the work-career context by means of self-determination theory.

Details

Personnel Review, vol. 48 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0048-3486

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 2 November 2020

Uwe Peter Hermann, Craig Lee, Willem Coetzee and Liezel Boshoff

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the event experience literature by examining the effects of Craft Beer Festival attendee’s event experience on their satisfaction and…

1003

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the event experience literature by examining the effects of Craft Beer Festival attendee’s event experience on their satisfaction and behavioural intentions. The study also investigates whether these relationships are moderated by the attendee’s past history with the festival and the distance they have travelled to attend the event.

Design/methodology/approach

The theoretically derived model was tested on a sample of 354 attendees of the Capital Craft Beer Festival in Pretoria, South Africa. Partial least squares structural equation modelling was used to analyse the data.

Findings

The results indicated that only affective engagement positively influences attendee’s satisfaction, which, in turn, positively influences attendee’s intentions to revisit and recommend the beer festival. The authors found no evidence of the effects of cognitive and physical engagement and experiencing novelty on event satisfaction and no moderating effect of previous attendance and distance travelled to the event.

Originality/value

The findings advance the knowledge base in the field of a gastronomic event experience regarding critical factors that affect event satisfaction which, to date, have only been tested on sports events.

Book part
Publication date: 13 July 2023

Simoné Anastasia Appolis and John Kolawole Aderibigbe

Although organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB) is a concept associated with significant values within the modern workplace, many employees find it challenging to exhibit some…

Abstract

Although organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB) is a concept associated with significant values within the modern workplace, many employees find it challenging to exhibit some necessary extra-role behaviours, such as helping co-workers complete their duties when a situation demands it. Currently, in the South African workspace, fostering OCB among employees is a concern to people practitioners. Specifically, extra-role types of behaviour are declining among professionals as 21st-century technologies promote remote-working policy, leaving employees to work robotically with computers and having no colleagues around to seek or render assistance with their duties. Moreover, professionals are overwhelmed with the timely and endless obligations received frequently and hardly have time and energy for extra-role behaviours. In addition, physical and psychological health-related concerns such as technology stress and career worries are among the contemporary issues affecting human resource (HR) management in this present time. This necessitates more scholarly actions in the niche of OCB, especially identifying and arresting its hindrances. However, a thorough review of the literature on OCB revealed a paucity of scientific reports in the areas of relationships between technostress, career concerns and OCB. Hence, the proposed chapter seeks to bridge the gap in the literature of OCB by theoretically exploring the relationships between technostress, career concerns and OCB in the professional services context in South Africa.

Details

Two Faces of Digital Transformation
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83753-096-0

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 6 December 2018

Marina Kirstein, Stephen Coetzee and Astrid Schmulian

The purpose of this paper is to explore differences in South African accounting students’ perceptions of professional skills developed in an undergraduate accounting program…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explore differences in South African accounting students’ perceptions of professional skills developed in an undergraduate accounting program. South Africa has a history of socio-economic inequality and racial injustice, leading to factors outside the classroom impacting educational outcomes. In particular, South African classes are heterogeneous, reflecting a diversity of race and language groups and students from differing schooling backgrounds. These differences necessitate differentiated instruction.

Design/methodology/approach

To explore for differences in perceptions, data were collected via questionnaires and differences between demographic variables such as school, race and language were considered, while controlling for gender. A focus group was also hosted to further explore findings.

Findings

Students from better quality schools agreed less strongly than those from poorer quality schools that the education program developed their professional skills. Students from better quality schools may have developed some of the professional skills during their schooling, requiring less to be developed at university. African students, though, agreed less strongly than white students from similar quality schools that they had developed professional skills. A focus group suggested that African students place less emphasis on professional skills development than on technical skills, given their lack of exposure to professional skills through mentors (parents, teachers, etc.) who never developed professional skills during their own compromised education under Apartheid.

Originality/value

Understanding the differences in the perceptions of professional skill development in a heterogeneous classroom can assist instructors in adopting differentiated instruction approaches to enable all students to develop professional skills. It could also assist future employers of these graduates to differentiate their development strategies during workplace training.

Details

Higher Education, Skills and Work-Based Learning, vol. 9 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2042-3896

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 4 April 2006

John Uhr

Democracies typically impose onerous regulation on the conduct of bureaucratic officials and remarkably light regulation of the conduct of elected officials. The traditional…

Abstract

Democracies typically impose onerous regulation on the conduct of bureaucratic officials and remarkably light regulation of the conduct of elected officials. The traditional presumption was that politicians should be allowed to self-regulate. In many democratic regimes, politicians have shown themselves unable to carry this burden of public trust. As a result, political ethics is regulated from a perspective of public distrust, associated with fears of political corruption. Despite my personal reservations about professional ethics models (recorded here by reference to recent fictional work of novelist J.M. Coetzee), I revive a trust-based perspective to make a case for a regime of self-regulation for democratic politicians, based on a democratic hope that politicians can be trusted to act as responsible professionals.

Details

Public Ethics and Governance: Standards and Practices in Comparative Perspective
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-0-76231-226-9

1 – 10 of 861