Search results
1 – 10 of over 5000Fernando Garcia, Stephen Ray Smith and Marilyn Michelle Helms
Data used to develop the case included primary data from employees and supervisors of a commercial floorcovering manufacturing plant in Northwest Georgia. The case company is not…
Abstract
Research Methodology
Data used to develop the case included primary data from employees and supervisors of a commercial floorcovering manufacturing plant in Northwest Georgia. The case company is not disguised.
The survey was developed using existing instruments from the Organizational Behavior and Human Resources Literature. Instruments were listed in Exhibits 2 through 7. The survey administration had the support of the Vice President for Resources and Facilities, and employees and their supervisors were given time to complete the surveys. The data gathered was analyzed by the researcher using SPSS statistical software.
Case overview/synopsis
Established in 1957, J&J started as a family-owned business but had grown and diversified its product offerings by focusing on commercial flooring. It survived several economic downturns and remained competitive in a market dominated by more prominent flooring manufacturers. J&J Industries strived to empower its 800 employees with various incentive programs. Employees remained loyal to J&J; many had worked for the company for over 15 years. However, management wanted to measure the impact of empowering and initiatives on employee performance and satisfaction to determine the real power of employee incentive programs. The Resources and Facilities Vice President employed Professor Lopez, a Management Professor, to develop a survey to measure these constructs and analyze the data to guide future incentive programs. Data from the employee and supervisor survey was provided along with the statistical analysis results for interpretation and recommendations for VP Fordham.
Complexity academic level
The target audience for this case is primarily students in a research methodology course and students studying quantitative regression analysis and interpretation. The focus is predominantly on graduate-level students in Master of Business Administration or Master of Accounting programs in business. Graduate students should have completed courses in management or organizational behavior, business statistics or quantitative methods or data visualization and cleaning as background knowledge for this case. Specifically, students should understand regression analysis and know when and how the tool is used for managerial decision-making.
Details
Keywords
James E. McNulty, George E. Morgan, Craig K. Ruff and Stephen D. Smith
The common view of many regulators and practitioners is that the minimum risk maturity gap is equal to zero. However, because of the interest sensitivity of such non‐gap items as…
Abstract
The common view of many regulators and practitioners is that the minimum risk maturity gap is equal to zero. However, because of the interest sensitivity of such non‐gap items as the average spread between asset and liability rates, lending activity, fee income and prepayments, the minimum risk gap could be significantly different from zero. We formulate and test a model for a sample of four hundred and twenty six thrift institutions. The results strongly suggest that the minimum risk maturity gap is positive for the average firm in the sample and that there is substantial cross‐sectional variability in the ratio of the minimum risk gap to assets. This suggests that attempts to regulate interest rate risk using a uniform gap as a benchmark are misdirected. Finally, we provide some evidence that there is, in fact, a positive cross‐sectional relationship between measured maturity gap positions and our estimates of the minimum risk maturity gap.
Hassan Hessari, Fatemeh Daneshmandi, Peter Busch and Stephen Smith
In the evolving digital work landscape, where cyberloafing has become a notable challenge, this study aims to investigate the mechanisms through which organizations can…
Abstract
Purpose
In the evolving digital work landscape, where cyberloafing has become a notable challenge, this study aims to investigate the mechanisms through which organizations can effectively reduce such behaviors. Specifically, the research explores the role of employee adaptability in mitigating cyberloafing, taking into account the influences of temporal leadership, teamwork attitudes, and competitive work environments.
Design/methodology/approach
Utilizing the broaden-and-build theory and the job demands-resources (JD-R) model, we analyzed data from 245 employees through structural equation modeling (SEM) to investigate how various factors influence cyberloafing.
Findings
The results indicate that employee adaptability significantly mitigates cyberloafing and serves as a mediating factor between temporal leadership, teamwork attitudes, and the impact of competitive work environments on cyberloafing. Temporal leadership and teamwork attitudes positively correlate with increased adaptability, thereby reducing cyberloafing. Conversely, competitive work environments, while slightly enhancing adaptability, substantially increase cyberloafing.
Originality/value
The study contributes new insights into the dynamics of cyberloafing, emphasizing the critical roles of adaptability, teamwork attitudes, and temporal leadership in reducing such behaviors. It underscores the need for organizations to foster a supportive culture that minimizes competitive pressures and promotes teamwork and leadership strategies conducive to high productivity and minimal cyberloafing. This research offers practical implications for designing workplace strategies aimed at boosting productivity and curbing undesirable online behaviors during work hours.
Details
Keywords
Patrick Gallagher, Stephen Christian Smith, Steven M. Swavely and Sarah Coley
Against the backdrop of a competitive hiring market and historically high rates of quitting, the current research examines a factor that could support talent retention in…
Abstract
Purpose
Against the backdrop of a competitive hiring market and historically high rates of quitting, the current research examines a factor that could support talent retention in organizations: employees’ feelings of connectedness to their top executives. The authors examined the relationship between workers’ feelings of executive connectedness and job attitudes relative to other antecedents and its predictive power for quitting over and above manager and team connectedness.
Design/methodology/approach
In Study 1, the authors measured the relative predictive power of executive connectedness, along with 14 other antecedents, for the outcome of job attitudes in ten samples totaling over 70,000 observations, including two longitudinal samples. In Study 2, the authors used path analysis to test the relationship between executive connectedness and actual quitting, controlling for workers’ feelings of connectedness to their manager and teammates, in two (related) longitudinal samples.
Findings
Executive connectedness was robustly related to concurrent and future job attitudes, and it outranked manager variables in all samples. Executive connectedness predicted quitting, even when controlling for manager and team connectedness; this effect was mediated by job attitudes in one of two samples.
Practical implications
Executive connectedness could be an underutilized resource for understanding and possibly improving employee attitudes and retention. Executives should not delegate all responsibility for employee attitudes and retention to managers.
Originality/value
This research is to the authors' knowledge the first to systematically test the unique predictive validity of employees’ feelings of connectedness to executives for important outcomes. The results suggest that executive connectedness may be an important factor in employees’ workplace experience.
Details
Keywords
Fernando Garcia, Stephen Ray Smith, Amy Burger and Marilyn Michelle Helms
Data used to develop the case included primary data from employees and leaders of AJE, a Peruvian-based beverage products manufacturer. The case company is not disguised; actual…
Abstract
Research methodology
Data used to develop the case included primary data from employees and leaders of AJE, a Peruvian-based beverage products manufacturer. The case company is not disguised; actual employee names and titles are used. The company provided financial and product data and photos.
Case overview/synopsis
The AJE Group’s initial launch of its Amayu Peruvian superfruit drinks into the American market, in partnership with Amazon, fell short of company expectations. Company leadership sought to reevaluate their strategy and determine how to modify their approach to achieve a higher level of success. They were considering whether a “blue ocean” strategic approach, which they successfully implemented in the past in the Peruvian market, might work in the US market.
Complexity academic level
This case is designed for an undergraduate international business or strategic management class. With the financial data, the case is also comprehensive enough to serve as an early case on international business in the strategic management capstone course. Before completing the case, business students should complete principles courses in the business core including marketing, accounting, finance and management.
Details
Keywords
Fernando Garcia, Stephen Ray Smith, Amy Burger and Marilyn Helms
This study aims to provide a case example of two partner institutions and business faculty who creatively used a collaborative online international learning (COIL) experience…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to provide a case example of two partner institutions and business faculty who creatively used a collaborative online international learning (COIL) experience during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and transition to online learning to internationalize an undergraduate business class and use existing technology to offer a case study project to further students’ global mindset.
Design/methodology/approach
Using open-ended qualitative comments from an American college and a Peruvian university, researchers uncovered key themes from a virtual COIL-based learning experience offered as part of an international business class.
Findings
Student end-of-course evaluation comments from both countries validated the success of the learning experience and value of working together with other students and faculty in a virtual setting.
Research limitations/implications
Areas for future research are provided to extend these initial exploratory findings. However, the implications are clear that the methodology is also appropriate in nonpandemic situations and can quickly bring a global mindset to remote corners of the globe and ensure all students experience the “virtual” study abroad, even when there are travel limitations or budget restrictions for students or the institutions.
Practical implications
The implementation detail provided can be easily replicated by other institutions with a global mindset and internationalization goals.
Social implications
The proliferation of COIL-based experiences will impact how study abroad experiences are defined and offered in the future.
Originality/value
While researchers have documented COIL experiences in the academic literature, their use during the COVID-19 pandemic, as often the only solution for on-going internationalization, has not been thoroughly studied or documented. In addition, the class activities further used team-based international workplace pedagogy, authentic engagement and technology.
Details
Keywords
The purpose of this paper is to report on the product of a ten year study, the PhD thesis, “Feminist Systems Thinking: Principles and Practice”, conferred in April, 2012 by the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to report on the product of a ten year study, the PhD thesis, “Feminist Systems Thinking: Principles and Practice”, conferred in April, 2012 by the University of Queensland, which contains a set of five practical principles, to assist in policy directions for enhanced community development and project management.
Design/methodology/approach
This research adapted Constructivist Grounded Theory to complete Part A, a theoretical imbrication of Cultural Ecofeminism and Critical Systems Thinking. Part B of the thesis is a set of four applied case studies utilising participatory action research.
Findings
The findings of Part A of this work established a meta‐theoretical framework in the form of five practical principles to guide project managers at various stages and scales of their work. Part B's evaluation of these principles found that the principles can make practitioners' work clearer, identify gaps to address the multiplicity of often overlapping social concerns, and flag implications for future research and practice.
Research limitations/implications
Embedding the principles in practice can help managers plan, guide and evaluate community development interventions. Further research to establish the principles in a wider number of settings would be advantageous.
Social implications
Embedding the principles draws in the voices of those on the margins of any project, helping to avoid superficial consultations and oversight of all (human and non‐human inhabitants) affected.
Originality/value
This work is entirely original. There is no known imbrication of the epistemologies selected for this study. In the recent examination of the thesis, the work was commended for its innovative methodological approach and original contribution to knowledge.
Details
Keywords
The Dictionary of National Biography (or DNB as it is commonly called and as it will be referred to in this paper) is a classic. Depending on whether a library owns an original…
Abstract
The Dictionary of National Biography (or DNB as it is commonly called and as it will be referred to in this paper) is a classic. Depending on whether a library owns an original edition published by Smith, Elder and Company or a reprint edition published by Oxford University Press, sixty‐three brown volumes or twenty‐two blue volumes and supplements loom bulkily from the shelves. It would be an odd, ill‐trained reference librarian, historian, or scholar of English literature who has never heard of the DNB, let alone used and perused it. But mere bulk does not explain the lasting fame and staying power of this reference work, whose first volume appeared in January 1885 over a century ago.
The article examines the differences in the reception of international and Indigenous students to understand the challenges faced by the first students who identified as…
Abstract
Purpose
The article examines the differences in the reception of international and Indigenous students to understand the challenges faced by the first students who identified as Indigenous, and to improve understanding of the 1950s, a pivotal decade in the development of university culture.
Design/methodology/approach
Drawing on archival sources and contemporary student magazines and newspapers, this article contrasts the attitudes towards international and Indigenous students at the University of Melbourne during the 1950s. It uses these populations to show that the idea of friendship specific to the populations of students and staff in the 20th century could both include and exclude groups within society.
Findings
The article shows that while students embraced the cultures of countries in Asia, and made friends with students who came to Australia to study, Indigenous students were less well received. This issue is explored in the context of the ongoing, earnest fundraising for scholarships for Indigenous students, and both the support and the backlash this engendered.
Research limitations/implications
The article focuses on the University of Melbourne, which established the Aboriginal Scholarships committee, and where the first Indigenous student graduated, but more work is needed to understand parallels elsewhere.
Practical implications
The article has implications for understanding the way in which university communities embrace outsiders and adapt to foreign cultures. It also sheds light on intolerance, informing approaches to respond to these issues today.
Social implications
The article reveals the many challenges faced by the first Indigenous students during the 1950s, the time when university education first became a priority. In this it helps to understand that the slow increase of numbers was not only caused by external factors but also originated within the academy.
Originality/value
This article makes a contribution to understanding the differences between the increasing acceptance in Australian universities of international students from Asia and the persistent resistance to accepting Indigenous Australian students.
Details