Search results

1 – 10 of over 4000
Article
Publication date: 21 June 2013

Angela Kennedy

The purpose of this paper is to reflect on the novel use of the compassion focused formulation framework, to give thought to the ways that staff can be distracted from their…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to reflect on the novel use of the compassion focused formulation framework, to give thought to the ways that staff can be distracted from their primary task. It aims to examine systemic ideas for supporting staff to be effective and compassionate in their mental health care.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper is a reflective piece using qualitative data and experience to frame the information.

Findings

Staff have a variety of ways of coping with the stress of their work and some of these ways are more helpful than others. The formulation framework creates a helpful structure for understanding these strategies in a non‐blaming way. This facilitates reflective practice and the model points to ways that compassionate organisations can help staff in their primary task.

Originality/value

The CFT formulation has not been applied systemically in the literature to organisations or groups of staff.

Details

Mental Health Review Journal, vol. 18 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1361-9322

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 12 August 2011

Yu‐feng Huang and Feng‐yang Kuo

Because presentation formats, i.e. table v. graph, in shopping web sites may promote or inhibit deliberate consumer decision making, it is important to understand the effects of…

2388

Abstract

Purpose

Because presentation formats, i.e. table v. graph, in shopping web sites may promote or inhibit deliberate consumer decision making, it is important to understand the effects of information presentation on deliberateness. This paper seeks to empirically test whether the table format enhances deliberate decision making, while the web map weakens the process. In addition, deliberateness can be influenced by the decision orientation, i.e. emotionally charged or accuracy oriented. Thus, the paper further examines the effect of presentations across these two decision orientations.

Design/methodology/approach

Objective and detailed description of the decision process is used to examine the effects. A two (decision orientation: positive emotion v. accuracy) by two (presentation: map v. table) eye‐tracking experiment is designed. Deliberateness is quantified with the information processing pattern summarized from eye movement data. Participants are required to make preferential choices from simple decision tasks.

Findings

The results confirm that the table strengthens while the map weakens deliberateness. In addition, this effect is mostly evident across the two decision orientations. An explorative factor analysis further reveals that there are two major attention distribution functions (global v. local) underlying the decision process.

Research limitations/implications

Only simple decision tasks are used in the present study and therefore complex tasks should be introduced to examine the effects in the future.

Practical implications

For consumers, they should become aware that the table facilitates while the map diminishes deliberateness. For web businesses, they may try to strengthen the impulsivity in a web map filled with emotional stimuli.

Originality/value

This research is one of the first attempts to investigate the joint effects of presentations and decision orientations on decision deliberateness in the internet domain. The eye movement data are also valuable because previous studies seldom provided such detailed description of the decision process.

Article
Publication date: 25 October 2011

Danielle Cooper and Warren Watson

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of two moderators of the relationships between affective conflict and cognitive conflict and team performance: the cultural…

2233

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of two moderators of the relationships between affective conflict and cognitive conflict and team performance: the cultural context and the level of team‐oriented behaviors.

Design/methodology/approach

Survey questionnaires were administered to a sample of 143 Mexico‐ and US‐based learning teams. Regression analysis was used to test hypotheses.

Findings

In both cultural contexts, cognitive conflict more positively affected performance when team‐oriented behaviors were high. This effect was stronger for Mexican teams. Affective conflict more negatively affected performance in Mexican teams than US teams, particularly when team‐oriented behaviors were high.

Practical implications

The results have implications for managing conflict to improve team effectiveness in the USA and in Mexico and for training managers who work across these cultural contexts.

Originality/value

The paper demonstrates the joint role of the cultural context and team behaviors in how conflict influences team performance.

Details

Cross Cultural Management: An International Journal, vol. 18 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1352-7606

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 26 January 2010

Rhonda S. Black

In reviewing the special education professional literature using “disproportionality” as a descriptor, most of the articles addressed overrepresentation (Salend, Duhaney, &

Abstract

In reviewing the special education professional literature using “disproportionality” as a descriptor, most of the articles addressed overrepresentation (Salend, Duhaney, & Montgomery, 2002). An Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) Digest was titled Reducing the Disproportionate Representation of Minority Students in Special Education (Burnette, 1998) yet it focused on “what can be done to reduce over-representation.” Apparently, underrepresentation/underserving students is not an issue of great importance. A recent article in one of special education's premiere journals, Exceptional Children, used the term disproportionality as synonymous with overrepresentation (Skiba et al., 2008). The article did not mention underrepresentation as part of the disproportionality puzzle. In the view of these authors, overrepresentation of minority students in special education is the only part of the disproportionality equation that merits consideration.

Details

Current Issues and Trends in Special Education: Identification, Assessment and Instruction
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-84855-669-0

Abstract

Details

Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: An International Journal, vol. 16 no. 3/4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1746-5648

Article
Publication date: 20 March 2017

Jiadi Qu, Fuhai Zhang, Yili Fu, Guozhi Li and Shuxiang Guo

The purpose of this paper is to develop a vision-based dual-arm cyclic motion method, focusing on solving the problems of an uncertain grasp position of the object and the…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to develop a vision-based dual-arm cyclic motion method, focusing on solving the problems of an uncertain grasp position of the object and the dual-arm joint-angle-drift phenomenon.

Design/methodology/approach

A novel cascade control structure is proposed which associates an adaptive neural network with kinematics redundancy optimization. A radial basis function (RBF) neural network in conjunction with a conventional proportional–integral (PI) controller is applied to compensate for the uncertainty of the image Jacobian matrix which includes the estimated grasp position. To avoid the joint-angle-drift phenomenon, a dual neural network (DNN) solver in conjunction with a PI controller and dual-arm-coordinated constraints is applied to optimize the closed-chain kinematics redundancy.

Findings

The proposed method was implemented on an industrial robotic MOTOMAN with two 7-degrees of freedom robotic arms. Two experiments of carrying a tray repeatedly and turning a steering wheel were carried out, and the results indicate that the closed-trajectories tracking is achieved successfully both in the image plane and the joint spaces with the uncertain grasp position, which validates the accuracy and realizability of the proposed PI-RBF-DNN control strategy.

Originality/value

The adaptive neural network visual servoing method is applied to the dual-arm cyclic motion with the uncertain grasp position of the object. The proposed method enhances the environmental adaptability of a dual-arm robot in a practical manipulation task.

Details

Industrial Robot: An International Journal, vol. 44 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0143-991X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 November 2021

Vishakha Pareek, Santanu Chaudhury and Sanjay Singh

The electronic nose is an array of chemical or gas sensors and associated with a pattern-recognition framework competent in identifying and classifying odorant or non-odorant and…

Abstract

Purpose

The electronic nose is an array of chemical or gas sensors and associated with a pattern-recognition framework competent in identifying and classifying odorant or non-odorant and simple or complex gases. Despite more than 30 years of research, the robust e-nose device is still limited. Most of the challenges towards reliable e-nose devices are associated with the non-stationary environment and non-stationary sensor behaviour. Data distribution of sensor array response evolves with time, referred to as non-stationarity. The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive introduction to challenges related to non-stationarity in e-nose design and to review the existing literature from an application, system and algorithm perspective to provide an integrated and practical view.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors discuss the non-stationary data in general and the challenges related to the non-stationarity environment in e-nose design or non-stationary sensor behaviour. The challenges are categorised and discussed with the perspective of learning with data obtained from the sensor systems. Later, the e-nose technology is reviewed with the system, application and algorithmic point of view to discuss the current status.

Findings

The discussed challenges in e-nose design will be beneficial for researchers, as well as practitioners as it presents a comprehensive view on multiple aspects of non-stationary learning, system, algorithms and applications for e-nose. The paper presents a review of the pattern-recognition techniques, public data sets that are commonly referred to as olfactory research. Generic techniques for learning in the non-stationary environment are also presented. The authors discuss the future direction of research and major open problems related to handling non-stationarity in e-nose design.

Originality/value

The authors first time review the existing literature related to learning with e-nose in a non-stationary environment and existing generic pattern-recognition algorithms for learning in the non-stationary environment to bridge the gap between these two. The authors also present details of publicly available sensor array data sets, which will benefit the upcoming researchers in this field. The authors further emphasise several open problems and future directions, which should be considered to provide efficient solutions that can handle non-stationarity to make e-nose the next everyday device.

Article
Publication date: 14 December 2021

Virupaxi Bagodi and Biswajit Mahanty

Managerial decision-making is an area of interest to both academia and practitioners. Researchers found that managers often fail to manage complex decision-making tasks and system…

Abstract

Purpose

Managerial decision-making is an area of interest to both academia and practitioners. Researchers found that managers often fail to manage complex decision-making tasks and system thinkers assert that generic structures known as systems archetypes help them to a great deal in handling such situations. In this paper, it is demonstrated that decision makers resort to lowering of goal (quick-fix) in order to resolve the gap between the goal and current reality in the “drifting the goals” systems archetype.

Design/methodology/approach

A real-life case study is taken up to highlight the pitfalls of “drifting the goals” systems archetype for a decision situation in the Indian two-wheeler industry. System dynamics modeling is made use of to obtain the results.

Findings

The decision makers fail to realize the pitfall of lowering the goal to resolve the gap between the goal and current reality. It is seen that, irrespective of current less-than-desirable performance, managers adopting corrective actions other than lowering of goals perform better in the long run. Further, it is demonstrated that extending the boundary and experimentation results in designing a better service system and setting benchmarks.

Practical implications

The best possible way to avoid the pitfall is to hold the vision and not lower the long term goal. The managers must be aware of the pitfalls beforehand.

Originality/value

Systems thinking is important in complex decision-making tasks. Managers need to embrace long-term perspective in decision-making. This paper demonstrates the value of systems thinking in terms of a case study on the “drifting the goals” systems archetype.

Details

Kybernetes, vol. 52 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0368-492X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 April 2014

Annette Mossel, Michael Leichtfried, Christoph Kaltenriner and Hannes Kaufmann

The authors present a low-cost unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) for autonomous flight and navigation in GPS-denied environments using an off-the-shelf smartphone as its core on-board…

Abstract

Purpose

The authors present a low-cost unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) for autonomous flight and navigation in GPS-denied environments using an off-the-shelf smartphone as its core on-board processing unit. Thereby, the approach is independent from additional ground hardware and the UAV core unit can be easily replaced with more powerful hardware that simplifies setup updates as well as maintenance. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Design/methodology/approach

The UAV is able to map, locate and navigate in an unknown indoor environment fusing vision-based tracking with inertial and attitude measurements. The authors choose an algorithmic approach for mapping and localization that does not require GPS coverage of the target area; therefore autonomous indoor navigation is made possible.

Findings

The authors demonstrate the UAVs capabilities of mapping, localization and navigation in an unknown 2D marker environment. The promising results enable future research on 3D self-localization and dense mapping using mobile hardware as the only on-board processing unit.

Research limitations/implications

The proposed autonomous flight processing pipeline robustly tracks and maps planar markers that need to be distributed throughout the tracking volume.

Practical implications

Due to the cost-effective platform and the flexibility of the software architecture, the approach can play an important role in areas with poor infrastructure (e.g. developing countries) to autonomously perform tasks for search and rescue, inspection and measurements.

Originality/value

The authors provide a low-cost off-the-shelf flight platform that only requires a commercially available mobile device as core processing unit for autonomous flight in GPS-denied areas.

Details

International Journal of Pervasive Computing and Communications, vol. 10 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1742-7371

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 4 June 2018

Daniel Harritz

This study aims to investigate the role of management devices in transformation processes. This was done by analysing how devices persuaded people into actions, resulting in drifts

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to investigate the role of management devices in transformation processes. This was done by analysing how devices persuaded people into actions, resulting in drifts that both led to the creation of a Shared Service Centre (SSC) and transformed it into a cost centre, something resembling an internal joint venture, followed by a profit centre and, finally, a centre of expertise.

Design/methodology/approach

A longitudinal case-based approach inspired by Latour’s (2005) ideas on attachments. The aim was to show how links between humans and non-humans in the form of management devices brought about drifts leading to the formation and transformation of a SSC.

Findings

Attachments between devices and humans fuelled the formation and transformation of the SSC. Such innovations were revealed to be a series of drifts, which demonstrates that an SSC is not a static object but rather an ever-evolving innovation.

Research limitations/implications

On the basis of Latour (2005), the study reveals how socio–technical constellations are involved in organisational transformation, resulting in a SSC taking on new and unanticipated roles.

Practical implications

The findings facilitate a deeper understanding of the factors that initiate organisational development and transformation in SSCs. In addition, the study identifies the role different devices play in such transformation processes.

Originality/value

This paper contributes to the literature by analysing how a SSC is created and then transformed over time.

Details

Journal of Accounting & Organizational Change, vol. 14 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1832-5912

Keywords

1 – 10 of over 4000