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Open Access
Article
Publication date: 30 September 2019

Silvanos Chirume and Mathias Taririro Dick

The purpose of this paper is to assess the consistency with which quality is maintained in the orientation process. Orientation is a key university process intended to prepare new…

1224

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to assess the consistency with which quality is maintained in the orientation process. Orientation is a key university process intended to prepare new students for life in higher education (HE). For open and distance learning (ODL), orientation can be a key process for lessening some of the challenges associated with the separation of the learner and the lecturer. Indeed, for ODL students, orientation can be fraught with a variety of challenges one of which could be quality problems.

Design/methodology/approach

Convenient sampling was used to obtain a total of 89 students in the first semester and 34 students in the second semester. The respondents came from all the eight districts in the Midlands province of Zimbabwe. They belonged to various degree programmes found in the eight faculties of the institution. Correlation was used to determine quality variations. Using a mixed methods approach, the study sought the views of the students and the relationships between activities done in the two semesters of 2018. SPSS version 16.0 software was used to compute Spearman’s correlations whereas content analysis was used to analyze the open-ended responses to the questa-view. This mixed methods approach helped the researchers to analyze and compare the quality of the orientation sessions.

Findings

Results yielded a positive and high significant correlation between first and second semester variables (r=0.916, p=0.000), a finding indicating that staff members in the Midlands Regional Campus of Zimbabwe Open University have not changed their ways of conducting orientation. On a scale of 1 (least effective) to 5 (most effective), the average ratings for the presentations in the first and second semesters were 4.08 and 4.26, respectively. In the qualitative analysis, adequacy of the venue, timing, coverage of aspects and use of media were all rated positively for the two sessions. However, for the two sessions, some students mentioned negative sentiments to do with the provision of needed materials at time of student registration, the public address system, orientation packages, time management and communication.

Research limitations/implications

This paper looks at the process of orientation as it was done at one regional campus of an ODL institution in Zimbabwe. It also analyses the quality of the orientation using correlation as a lens that measures consistency and also by critically analyzing content in the respondents’ voices. Implications are that the findings and recommendations can also be applied in other ODL (and even non-ODL) institutions with a view of finally coming up with common policies and procedures with regards to providing quality service and support to the twenty-first century student.

Practical implications

Findings were relevant and could be used for designing applicable orientation programmes in ODL institutions and for improving the quality of student support and services.

Originality/value

While a number of studies have been carried out on orientation in HE, it would appear that research on orientation in ODL institutions, especially in Zimbabwe, appears minimal, hence this study covers an unexplored niche.

Details

Asian Association of Open Universities Journal, vol. 14 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2414-6994

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 12 February 2019

Deybbi Cuéllar-Molina, Antonia Mercedes García-Cabrera and Ma de la Cruz Déniz-Déniz

The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of the emotional intelligence (EI) of the person in charge of making human resource management (HRM) decisions on the…

15437

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of the emotional intelligence (EI) of the person in charge of making human resource management (HRM) decisions on the adoption of high-performance human resource (HR) practices in small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

Design/methodology/approach

This study takes evidences from 157 HR decision makers in SMEs who autonomously make the decisions in the HR area and were responsible for the HR practices in their firm. The authors used multiple linear regression analysis to test the hypotheses.

Findings

Results show that both the EI and the different EI competencies of which it is comprised affect the adoption of various HR practices. Thus, the main theoretical contribution of this work stems from the incorporation of a psychological variable (EI) as an antecedent of HRM. Managers of the SME will find guidance about which emotional competencies are the most important for them to be more successful in their roles and for improving HRM.

Research limitations/implications

First, the sample of firms the authors studied is limited to a specific geographic area in one country – Spain (Canary Islands) – that will necessarily limit generalisation of the results obtained to other populations of SMEs. Researchers should replicate the current model in other geographic areas. Second, and with regard the methodology, researchers could explore other tools to measure EI and emotional competencies. It would be interesting to measure this construct using qualitative analytical techniques, with 360 – or 180 – degree tools. Finally, the current study is cross-sectional in nature, which limits our ability to draw causal inferences from the data. This cross-sectional design prevents us, for example, from analysing EI’s influence on the continued development of high-performance HR practices over time. Future research using longitudinal methodologies to study these variables could provide additional advances in this area. This work makes important contributions to both the literature and the business world. With regard to the theoretical implications, results confirm that EI as a whole, as well as in terms of its specific emotional competencies, affects the decision making related to the adoption of high-performance HR practices, which is known to contribute to the organisational performance.

Practical implications

With regard its practical implications, SMEs’ owners-managers and HR practitioners may find our results and conclusions interesting. Indeed, recommendations in business management have often been accompanied by new approaches in HRM (Kent, 2005), as this study proposes. In particular, managers will find evidence of how a decision-maker’s higher EI propitiates the adoption of high-performance HR practices, thus being able to improve HRM in their SMEs. Moreover, managers will obtain guidance on which emotional competencies are the most important for adopting each HR practice, and so find greater success in their HRM roles. SMEs could organise programmes to develop the HR decision-maker’s emotional competencies, as large firms do for their executives.

Originality/value

Thus, the main theoretical contribution of this work stems from the incorporation of a psychological variable (EI) as an antecedent of HRM. Managers of the SME will find guidance about which emotional competencies are the most important for them to be more successful in their roles and for improving HRM.

Details

European Journal of Management and Business Economics, vol. 28 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2444-8494

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 31 March 2022

Rogério Serrasqueiro and Jonas Oliveira

The study aims to analyse annual reports of the non-financial European firms listed at the EURO STOXX 50 index over the period of 2007 and 2011.

1273

Abstract

Purpose

The study aims to analyse annual reports of the non-financial European firms listed at the EURO STOXX 50 index over the period of 2007 and 2011.

Design/methodology/approach

This study intends to address two main issues: to what extent the country-level institutional forces compel (directly) firm's risk reporting (RR) behaviour and in which way these country-level institutional forces moderate the relationship between RR and firm-level characteristics.

Findings

Main findings indicate that, during this period, the European listed companies disclosed more risk information on a voluntary basis (such as operational and strategic risks) and with better informative content (more forward-looking and focused on positive news). Consistent with institutional theory, findings confirm that the country-level institutional forces explain variations on RR. Additionally, it also indicates that the relationship between RR and leveraged firms is weaker among countries with stronger institutional forces. These findings have several implications for investors and regulators in Europe basically in helping achieve efficiency in investment decisions and to stimulate further efforts to improve RR regulations.

Originality/value

This study makes two major contributions. First, it extends Elshandidy's et al. (2015) work by using other country-level institutional forces that capture the efficacy of corporate boards, the protection of minority shareholders' interests, country's level of democracy, law enforcement mechanisms and press freedom. Second, it uses firms that are considered as a blue-chip representation of super-sector leaders in the Eurozone (but from different institutional contexts). This research setting can be more insightful in shedding some light towards our understanding on how these leading firms can promote innovative and high quality level of RR and how country-level driving forces influence these variables.

Details

Asian Review of Accounting, vol. 30 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1321-7348

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 6 February 2023

Angelo Bonfanti, Chiara Rossato, Vania Vigolo and Alfonso Vargas-Sánchez

Since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, many restaurants and catering businesses have introduced or improved online food ordering and delivery services (OFODSs). This study…

9867

Abstract

Purpose

Since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, many restaurants and catering businesses have introduced or improved online food ordering and delivery services (OFODSs). This study aims to identify service quality expectations about OFODSs, to examine their content and to suggest management strategies to meet these expectations.

Design/methodology/approach

Adopting a qualitative method, four focus groups were conducted amongst Italian users of OFODSs.

Findings

The results reveal three dimensions of expectations, each comprising two categories that can be set along a continuum: (1) basicness of expectations (ranging from implicit to explicit), (2) accuracy of expectations (ranging from fuzzy to precise) and (3) attainability of expectations (ranging from realistic to unrealistic). Content may refer to technical, social, economic, legal and technological aspects. To meet customer expectations, the following strategies are suggested: customer reassurance, flexibility, continuous improvement, customer education, adaptation to customers' requirements and monitoring of exceptions.

Practical implications

This study provides specific activities in which restaurants and catering businesses could invest to enact the management strategies that emerged from the analysis.

Originality/value

This paper proposes a new classification of expectations and framework for improving OFODS quality by managing customer expectations.

Details

British Food Journal, vol. 125 no. 13
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0007-070X

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 15 December 2020

Md. Al Amin, Md. Shamsul Arefin, Nayeema Sultana, Md. Rakibul Islam, Israt Jahan and Ayeasha Akhtar

This study was designed to specifically explore confirmation and perceived usefulness associated with mobile food ordering apps (MFOAs) in consideration of their impacts upon…

16338

Abstract

Purpose

This study was designed to specifically explore confirmation and perceived usefulness associated with mobile food ordering apps (MFOAs) in consideration of their impacts upon attitudes, satisfaction and intention to continuously use.

Design/methodology/approach

The research utilized the convenience sampling to gather data from 250 respondents having prior experience with MFOAs during COVID-19 pandemic period in Bangladesh. The Structural Equation Modeling technique was applied to analyze the data using SmartPLS 3 software.

Findings

This study's results showed that customers' perceived confirmation and usefulness were significant in determining their dinning attitudes. Besides, customers' dining attitudes were positively related to e-satisfaction. Finally, the customers’ continuance intention to use MFOAs was significantly influenced by their e-satisfaction.

Research limitations/implications

Restaurants managers should focus on online sales through MFOAs during the pandemic period since social distancing is a key strategy to manage COVID-19. Customers should be assured that the safety measures are undertaken while delivering the food.

Originality/value

This study incorporated the expectation-confirmation theory and technology acceptance model and tested it in the context of MFOAs.

Details

European Journal of Management and Business Economics, vol. 30 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2444-8451

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 25 July 2023

Aino Halinen, Sini Nordberg-Davies and Kristian Möller

Future is rarely explicitly addressed or problematized in business network research. This study aims to examine the possibilities of developing a business actor’s future…

Abstract

Purpose

Future is rarely explicitly addressed or problematized in business network research. This study aims to examine the possibilities of developing a business actor’s future orientation to network studies and imports ideas and concepts from futures research to support the development.

Design/methodology/approach

The study is conceptual and interdisciplinary. The authors critically analyze how extant studies grounded in the sensemaking view and process research approach integrate future time and how theoretical myopia hinders the adoption of a future orientation.

Findings

The prevailing future perspective is restricted to managers’ perceptions and actions at present, ignoring the anticipation and exploration of alternative longer-term futures. Future time is generally conceived as embedded in managers’ cognitive processes or is seen as part of the ongoing interaction, where the time horizon to the future is not noticed or is at best short.

Research limitations/implications

To enable a forward-looking perspective, researchers should move the focus from expectation building in business interaction to purposeful preparation of alternative future(s) and from the view of seeing future as enacted in the present to envisioning of both near-term and more distant futures.

Practical implications

This study addresses the growing need of business actors to anticipate future developments in the rapidly changing market conditions and to innovate and change business practices to save the planet for future generations.

Originality/value

This study elaborates on actors’ future orientation to business markets and networks, proposes the integration of network research concepts with concepts from futures studies and poses new types of research questions for future research.

Details

Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, vol. 39 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0885-8624

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 30 April 2012

Heesung Bae, Yangkee Lee and Wooyoung Lee

This study has two objectives. The first aim is to ascertain whether innovation and market orientation have direct, indirect, and causal effects on customer service. The second…

Abstract

This study has two objectives. The first aim is to ascertain whether innovation and market orientation have direct, indirect, and causal effects on customer service. The second objective is to ascertain whether market orientation has a moderating effect on the relationship between innovation and customer service. This research follows three distinct methodologies. The first approach uses Cronbach’s alpha coefficient in order to check reliability while an exploratory factor analysis and a confirmatory factory analysis ascertain validity. The second method uses the analysis of structural equation models to test a causal link between variables. The third methodology uses a moderated regression analysis to verify the moderating effects. As our analysis results show, intelligence generation and intelligence dissemination have a moderating effect on the relationship between innovation and flexibility. These results can be interpreted as follows: firstly, customs clearance firms can provide superior service to customers if they strive to understand customer needs and provide them with flexible service at the same time. Secondly, these firms can enhance their flexibility of service in all departments though innovation and information sharing acquired from the market.

Details

Journal of International Logistics and Trade, vol. 10 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1738-2122

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 1 August 2023

Alvair Silveira Torres Jr., Ronaldo Akiyoshi Nagai and Reinaldo Corrêa Costa

Creating a new product or service promotes the status quo changes, seeking economic value and solving customer's urgent problems. Entrepreneurs play an important role in this…

1574

Abstract

Purpose

Creating a new product or service promotes the status quo changes, seeking economic value and solving customer's urgent problems. Entrepreneurs play an important role in this changing process through start-ups and small and medium enterprises (SMEs), considered one of the leading forces driving an economy’s innovative and competitive power. However, despite the importance of entrepreneurs, public policies to foster entrepreneurship ecosystems could be ineffective in emerging countries. Therefore, action research proposes the qualification of entrepreneurs for the structuring of new businesses through remote orientation, connecting the country's main economic centers to emerging areas.

Design/methodology/approach

The study is qualitative research comprising two phases. The first phase consisted of four-month action research, connecting two researchers and three groups of specialists (from Sao Paulo), with three groups of entrepreneurs (located in Manaus in the Amazon region), through a remote orientation in entrepreneurship, lean start-up, lean product and process development (LPPD). The second phase, conducted by a third researcher, regards a case study grounded on interviews and data collection with the entrepreneurs to capture the outcomes of the remote orientation process.

Findings

The remote orientation helped shorten the geographical distance of Amazonas to approach the integration of business, research and knowledge exchange of such distinct areas in the same country. If a remote orientation program was established as public policy, it could enact subsequent cycles of the lean start-up model. Furthermore, the remote orientation could be an alternative to compose the training subsystem in the entrepreneurship ecosystem proposed by Isenberg (2011). On the other hand, a remote orientation could fail to shorten the distance of human values and beliefs, which cannot be neglected when facing a rich territory like the Amazon.

Research limitations/implications

Because of the chosen research approach, a qualitative and exploratory study based on a combination of action research, interviews and case studies, the results may lack generalizability. However, further studies can replicate the remote orientation process conducted in the region of Manaus – Amazon, to obtain distinct results regarding the advantages, disadvantages and effectiveness of remote orientation as entrepreneurship ecosystem’s human capital dimension development.

Practical implications

The outcomes of this research have the potential to start discussions regarding the adoption of remote orientation as a public policy to develop entrepreneurship skills in emerging regions, not only in Brazil but worldwide. The Brazilian case could be a relevant benchmark due to the large territory and economic and social disparities impacting education and entrepreneurship.

Social implications

Through start-ups and SMEs, entrepreneurship has innovation potential and is the most solid way to bring economic development. For emerging countries, it can be real game-changer in the economic order. The development of entrepreneurship skills through this remote orientation experience can help reduce the economic and social gaps in countries with relevant disparities like Brazil and other emerging countries.

Originality/value

This paper fulfills an identified need to “move the needle of entrepreneurship in the right direction” (Isenberg, 2010) by creating local solutions for global challenges. Policymakers and leaders need to continue the experiment and learn how to improve the entrepreneurship ecosystem. In this sense, the action research approach, combined with the remote orientation, proposes an alternative to promote changes in how human capital dimension can be developed in this challenging ecosystem.

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 13 November 2018

Pasi Heikkurinen

This article examines how responsibility and strategy can and should be connected in a business organization.

15886

Abstract

Purpose

This article examines how responsibility and strategy can and should be connected in a business organization.

Design/methodology/approach

The article offers a review of the field by mapping previous studies according to their strategy and responsibility orientations and, consequently, identifies the classic perspective, as well as the major deficiencies and prevailing research gaps in the literature.

Findings

The article contributes to the field of strategic corporate responsibility by reframing the field with a contender perspective that challenges the classic view of strategy and responsibility amalgamation. Together, the classic and the contender perspectives are synthesized to form an integrative perspective that is more holistic than those currently available.

Originality/value

The article ends by calling for a reimagining of the relationship between corporate responsibility and strategy to find promising future research avenues and effective business practices suitable to meet the challenges of the twenty-first century.

Details

Journal of Global Responsibility, vol. 9 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2041-2568

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 25 February 2020

Carl Kronlid and Enrico Baraldi

This paper aims to focus on time-constrained interactions involving industry and public actors, mainly universities, conducting research. This kind of interaction has become…

1198

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to focus on time-constrained interactions involving industry and public actors, mainly universities, conducting research. This kind of interaction has become increasingly important to develop new pharmaceuticals, especially antibiotics. The proposed theoretical frame relies on industrial marketing and purchasing’s interactive perspective on inter-organizational relationships and especially the activities, resource, actors model, combined with key concepts on temporary organizing and project management. This study identifies the temporality and time constraints imposed by this project on public–private interactions, specific coordination tools used to create such temporality and time constraints and their consequences, including positive and negative effects for the interacting parties.

Design/methodology/approach

The study builds on a single in-depth qualitative case study of a major antibiotics R&D collaboration project called ENABLE.

Findings

For negative consequences, this model includes the need for constantly rebuilding trust due to fast turnover of actors, difficulties in combining resources as efficiently as possible, resource constraints, bottlenecks and neglect of some activities, such as publishing, which are normally pivotal for universities. Despite these problematic consequences of temporality, resources are rapidly made available and new competencies learned quickly. Another positive effect is the possibility to achieve complex adaptations of resources and activities even in short time frames. Importantly, projects can act as a springboard for the parties to continue collaboration and in the long term develop a continuous business relationship.

Originality/value

Based on the findings the authors develop a model of time-constrained inter-organizational interaction between public and private organizations.

Details

Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, vol. 35 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0885-8624

Keywords

1 – 10 of over 4000