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1 – 10 of 328The purpose of this paper is to explain why Singapore has succeeded in curbing the problem of police corruption and to identify the six lessons which other Asian countries can…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explain why Singapore has succeeded in curbing the problem of police corruption and to identify the six lessons which other Asian countries can learn from Singapore's experience.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper analyzes the causes of police corruption in Singapore during the British colonial period and describes the measures adopted by the People's Action Party government after assuming office in June 1959 to curb police corruption. The effectiveness of these measures is assessed by referring to Singapore's perceived extent of corruption according to three international indicators and the reported cases of police corruption from 1965 to 2011.
Findings
The Singapore Police Force has succeeded in minimizing police corruption by improving salaries and working conditions, cooperating with the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau, enhancing its recruitment and selection procedures, providing training and values education for its members, and adopting administrative measures to reduce the opportunities for corruption. Other Asian countries afflicted with rampant police corruption can learn six lessons from Singapore's success.
Originality/value
This paper will be of interest to those policy makers, scholars, and anti-corruption practitioners, who are interested in learning how Singapore has succeeded in curbing police corruption.
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Jung-Kuei Hsieh and Hsiang-Tzu Li
With the popularity of mobile applications and increasing consumer awareness of application privacy, this paper aims to introduce a new construct of service-privacy fit (i.e. the…
Abstract
Purpose
With the popularity of mobile applications and increasing consumer awareness of application privacy, this paper aims to introduce a new construct of service-privacy fit (i.e. the perceived degree of match between the service of a mobile application and a privacy permission request) to predict consumers’ mobile application adoption.
Design/methodology/approach
Four experiments were carried out to test the hypothesized relationships. The first study investigated the direct impact of service-privacy fit on application adoption and the mediators of benefit expectancy and privacy concerns. The second, third and fourth studies further applied the moderated mediation model to analyze the moderating roles of benefit message type, regulatory focus type and privacy assurance.
Findings
The results show that service-privacy fit influences application adoption not only directly but also indirectly via the mediators of benefit expectancy and privacy concerns. Furthermore, the findings confirm the moderators of benefit message type, regulatory focus type and privacy assurance.
Originality/value
Drawn from the perspectives of task-technology fit and information boundary theory, this paper introduces a new construct of service-privacy fit as a determinant of application adoption. Grounded in privacy calculus theory, it further explains this relationship through mediating effects of benefit expectancy and privacy concerns. Furthermore, this paper proposes that benefit messages and privacy assurance are effective coping strategies to increase the benefit expectancy and reduce the privacy concerns of applications. Based on the perspective of regulatory fit theory, this study further shows that the effects of coping strategies rely on personal traits. The findings enrich the existing knowledge of mobile application adoption and application privacy, suggesting that practitioners should consider mobile consumers’ perception of service-privacy fit when developing applications.
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The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the Sender Policy Framework (SPF) and discuss its merits for adoption as an anti‐phishing mechanism.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the Sender Policy Framework (SPF) and discuss its merits for adoption as an anti‐phishing mechanism.
Design/methodology/approach
All of the active domains in the .se zone were probed to determine if they have an SPF‐policy. This data collection step is combined with a theoretical discussion of the SPF standard and related initiatives.
Findings
This paper finds that the adoption ratio is very low. Few seem to be interested in deploying it, despite it being designed for easy adoption and being consistently implemented in several popular anti‐spam solutions.
Practical implications
The paper shows that despite the low adoption‐ratio the standard merits implementation by IT/IS managers and software vendors.
Originality/value
This paper analyzes the adoption ratio, which is valuable both for software vendors and endorsers of the standard. It also provides an overview of the standard itself as an attempt to avoid common misconceptions about the role of the standard and its relation to other anti‐spam initiatives.
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Amit Kumar Srivastava and Sushil
The purpose of this study is to develop a model of strategic performance factors for effective strategy execution.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to develop a model of strategic performance factors for effective strategy execution.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses multiple methods combining both the qualitative and quantitative research routes to unearth a more complete picture of the phenomenon facilitating accurate, generalizable, and practically useful theory.
Findings
There is a lack of literature on strategic performance factors and their role in effective strategy execution, which turns out be a barrier to the success of strategy execution. This study not only reviews the SPFs in the context of effective performance management leading to effective strategy execution but also identifies linkages among the SPFs to demonstrate the relative criticality of SPFs and how one SPF leads to another SPF. Interestingly, the situation and actor factors, which were explained in a very limited way in traditional models, have emerged as the most influential strategic performance factors.
Research limitations/implications
Although this study attempts to synergize multiple research methods to increase the significance of the findings, a comparatively large sample size would be more useful to test the reliability of the results. Additionally, the SPFs are contextual in nature and, therefore, this study requires extended efforts to test the research propositions in different research settings and reveals the generalized as well as differentiated results. The possible bias in ISM exercise can be improved by having multiple discussions with the respondents. This study extends the theoretical debate on balancing the strategic and operational performance measures for successful strategy execution. The study also fills the gap in the literature by proposing the model of strategic performance factors. Adding methodological value extending triangulation along with the interpretative tool, this study also suggests methodological implication of the research design.
Practical implications
The proposed model of SPF could be useful in measuring the right thing in the right way to ensure effective strategy execution. Management of SPFs such as situation and actor is a further value addition to the debate on balancing lead and lag measures or financial and non‐financial measures. The study demonstrates that organizations should go beyond operation measures (both financial and non‐financial) and also focus on strategic factors such as situation and actors, which actually lead to the other SPFs.
Originality/value
This study took unique steps to integrate the multiple perspectives of performance measures and develop a model which can facilitate effective strategy execution. It not only fills the gaps in the literature but also provides a strategic perspective of the performance measurement and management systems. The methodological experimentation to not only bring rigor in model building but also use interpretive tools is an innovative attempt to clarify the “what”, “how” as well as “why” aspects of model building.
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Jose-Luis Usó-Domenech and Josué Antonio Nescolarde-Selva
Deontical impure systems are systems whose object set is formed by an s-impure set, whose elements are perceptuales significances (relative beings) of material and/or energetic…
Abstract
Purpose
Deontical impure systems are systems whose object set is formed by an s-impure set, whose elements are perceptuales significances (relative beings) of material and/or energetic objects (absolute beings) and whose relational set is freeways of relations, formed by sheaves of relations going in two-way directions and at least one of its relations has deontical properties such as permission, prohibition, obligation and faculty. The paper aims to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach
Mathematical and logical development of human society ethical and normative structure.
Findings
Existence of relations with positive imperative modality (obligation) would constitute the skeleton of the system. Negative imperative modality (prohibition) would be the immunological system of protection of the system. Modality permission the muscular system, that gives the necessary flexibility. Four theorems have been formulated based on Gödel's theorem demonstrating the inconsistency or incompleteness of DISs. For each constructed systemic conception can happen to it one of the two following things: either some allowed responses are not produced or else some forbidden responses are produced. Responses prohibited by the system are defined as nonwished effects.
Originality/value
This paper is a continuation of the four previous papers and is developed the theory of deontical impure systems.
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Superplastically formed (SPF) aluminium has now been utilized by the aerospace industry on a commercial basis for just over two decades. This years sees the twenty‐first…
Abstract
Superplastically formed (SPF) aluminium has now been utilized by the aerospace industry on a commercial basis for just over two decades. This years sees the twenty‐first anniversary of Worcester‐based Superform Metals: originally founded to serve the aero‐space market and still the largest single‐source supplier of SPF aluminium components worldwide.
Subir Bairagi and Khondoker Abdul Mottaleb
Farmer organizations (FOs) can elevate many of the production- and marketing-related challenges by ensuring access to technology, farming information and loan for inputs and…
Abstract
Purpose
Farmer organizations (FOs) can elevate many of the production- and marketing-related challenges by ensuring access to technology, farming information and loan for inputs and mechanization. This study assesses the major factors that affect the participation in FOs by the smallholder rice farmers in Bangladesh and evaluates the impacts of the participation on rice yield and production efficiency.
Design/methodology/approach
The present study used primary data collected from 1,000 smallholder rice farmers in northwest Bangladesh, consisting of 250 farmers those participated in an organization. This study utilized a sample selection stochastic production frontier (SPF) method, a combination of the conventional SPF and the Heckman's sample selection model, to control for biases stemming from observed and unobserved attributes.
Findings
This study demonstrates that participation in an organization is significantly affected by smallholder rice farmers' education, occupation, family size, household income, land ownership and the location where they reside. At the same time, the participation status affects the productivity of smallholder farmers. Findings indicate that farmers who participated in an organization had higher rice yield (11% more) and were technically more efficient (1.4 percentage points higher) compared to farmers who did not participate.
Research limitations/implications
Since this study was carried out with representative sampled farmers from northwest Bangladesh, the findings may not represent all farmers' perceptions of FOs in the country.
Originality/value
Even though more than 200,000 FOs are currently in operation, knowledge regarding the effectiveness of Bangladesh's FOs is limited. Notably, this study used a relatively new method, sample selection SPF model, to investigate the impact of FOs on the production efficiency of smallholder rice farmers in northwest Bangladesh. Therefore, this study contributes to the literature in elucidating the factors affecting participation in FOs and its impact on rice yield and efficiency. Since FOs have been somewhat ineffective in their role as service providers in Bangladesh, this study’s results will guide policymakers to intervene more successfully regarding the changes needed.
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Todd E. Clark and Michael W. McCracken
Small-scale VARs are widely used in macroeconomics for forecasting US output, prices, and interest rates. However, recent work suggests these models may exhibit instabilities. As…
Abstract
Small-scale VARs are widely used in macroeconomics for forecasting US output, prices, and interest rates. However, recent work suggests these models may exhibit instabilities. As such, a variety of estimation or forecasting methods might be used to improve their forecast accuracy. These include using different observation windows for estimation, intercept correction, time-varying parameters, break dating, Bayesian shrinkage, model averaging, etc. This paper compares the effectiveness of such methods in real-time forecasting. We use forecasts from univariate time series models, the Survey of Professional Forecasters, and the Federal Reserve Board's Greenbook as benchmarks.
Stephen Sweet, Jacquelyn Boone James and Marcie Pitt-Catsouphes
Increased access to flexible work arrangements has the prospect of enhancing work-family reconciliation. Under consideration is extent that managers assumed lead roles in…
Abstract
Purpose
Increased access to flexible work arrangements has the prospect of enhancing work-family reconciliation. Under consideration is extent that managers assumed lead roles in initiating discussions, the overall volume of discussions that occurred, and the outcomes of these discussions.
Methodology/approach
A panel analysis of 950 managers over one and a half years examines factors predicting involvement in a change initiative designed to expand flexible work arrangement use in a company in the financial activities supersector.
Findings
The overall volume of discussions, and tendencies for managers to initiate discussions, is positively predicted by managers’ prior experiences with flexibility, training to promote flexibility, and supervisory responsibilities. Managers were more inclined to promote flexibility when they viewed it as a supervisory responsibility and when they believed that it offered career rewards. An experiment demonstrated that learning of professional standards demonstrated outside of one’s own unit increased promotion of flexible work options. Discussions of flexibility led to many more approvals than denials of use, and also increased the likelihood of subsequent discussions occurring, indicating that promoting discussions of flexible work arrangements can be a path toward expanding use.
Originality
The study identifies specific factors that can lead managers to support exploration of flexible work arrangement use.
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Regina A. Sanches, João Paulo Pereira Marcicano, Maria Silvia Barros de Held, Bárbara Maria Gama Guimarães, Raquel Seawright Alonso, Karina Mitie Takamune, Adriana Yumi Sato Duarte and Franco Giuseppe Dedini
The purpose of this paper is to present a comparative study on the characteristics of knitted fabrics used in the manufacturing of apparel, which are produced from organic cotton…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present a comparative study on the characteristics of knitted fabrics used in the manufacturing of apparel, which are produced from organic cotton, lyocell and soybean protein fiber (SPF). It is important for both the environment and society that textile industry continues to adopt more ecofriendly materials and furthermore, pushes to increase awareness regarding these material choices available to the consumer and the corresponding impacts of consumers’ decisions. The use of sustainable fibers may be a starting point for changing the industrial paradigm of the textile industry.
Design/methodology/approach
The research presented herein analyzes the potential use of three raw materials used in the development of knitted fabrics: organic cotton, lyocell and SPF. The experimental trials, based on norms, determined the weight, pilling, rupture pressure resistance, absorption by capillarity, dimensional alteration and elasticity. The significance of the experimental results was verified through the analysis of variance, with a confidence interval of 95 percent (p=0.05) and the determination of the optimal regulation of the machine was made through an analysis of the response surface.
Findings
The results indicate that each of the studied materials are suitable for textile application; however, the fabrics manufactured from soybean yarn, compared to those manufactured from organic cotton or lyocell, have a higher potential to meet the needs of the costumer.
Social implications
The discussion regarding sustainability is far reaching on the ways it interacts with human life. As such, the latent need for meeting this new demand presents a unique opportunity for the development of new processes and products. In the case of the textile industry, initiatives are gradually being adopted that make the processes used by the supply chain less damaging to the environment. Clothing and fashion are highly visible elements of society, so consequently, the textile industry serves as an excellent candidate for promoting a sustainable and eco-friendly mindset.
Originality/value
The incorporation of sustainable fibers can serve as a starting point for change to the industrial paradigm existing within the textile industry. To this point, this study intended to analyze the potential implementation of three raw materials – organic cotton, lyocell and SPF – in the development of knitted fabrics. The results indicated that these materials are adequate for textile applications.
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