Search results

The purpose of this paper is to examine the generation of innovations by employees and the creation of initiative paths, and to discover which factors contribute to the implementation of an initiative.

Based on longitudinal qualitative research, the study explores the profiles of initiative paths and the types of innovations and relationships among the generated innovations.

It was found that, to become an innovation, an initiative followed different paths along which the processing and outcomes varied, as did the time needed for experimentation. The creation of initiative paths required the transformative agency of the actors involved. Power relations had an impact on the generation of initiatives and implementation of innovations.

Innovations research has concentrated on the generation of ideas and the implementation of innovations. This study focuses on the process path along which ideas become innovations and on the role of power relations in the innovations process.

This paper aims to develop a spirituality mode of firm strategic planning processes that incorporate four basic firm spirituality elements, namely, transcendence, an inexhaustible source of will, a basic and supreme power and interconnectedness and oneness, used for promoting corporate and community sustainability.

A conceptual analysis was performed.

Drawing upon prior research, this paper suggests that there are four major spiritual elements of the firm, namely, transcendence, an inexhaustible source of will, a basic and supreme power and interconnectedness and oneness. Additionally, this paper proposes that to promote long-term sustainability and survival of the firm and community, firms can place strong emphasis on firm transcendence when establishing the vision and mission statements. Moreover, firms may need to assess environmental conditions based upon an inexhaustible source of will. Furthermore, when formulating and selecting strategic alternatives, firms can utilize a basic and supreme power. Finally, firms may implement selected strategic alternatives and strategic controls with interconnectedness and oneness mentality.

This paper is one of the first studies that develop a spirituality mode of strategic planning processes focusing on both corporate and community sustainability.

Developing residential units is crucial in the socio-economic development of a country. The investor faces not only uncertain transaction price (price risk), but also uncertainties about the marketing period risk. Predicting when the incurred money is being realized is difficult because of the imperfect nature of the real estate market. Thus, the purpose of this study is to analyze the variables that explain the time on the market (TOM) of housing units, identifying the relationships in-between and the effects on TOM of residential properties.

Following a multi-stage sampling process, a random sample of 120 housing units was selected. Data were collected using a self-administered questionnaire. The questionnaire contained 57 variables that can affect TOM. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to confirm some of the data and information on residential units from the developers. Direct observations were conducted to verify certain physical attributes and, finally, they were comprehensively analyzed using quantitative analysis techniques in SPSS 16.0 Statistical package.

Results confirmed that lesser advertising prices, attractive environment, proximity to the city center and proper shape of lands reduce the TOM. Similarly, higher prices, longer distance to the city center and irregular shape of land increase the TOM. The results strengthen the necessity of a comfortable environment appropriate to live, probably with greenery or water bodies, which is a key influential factor that reduces the TOM in Sri Lanka.

wIn the Sri Lankan context, there are few contributions to the real estate literature in this regard. Many scholars have concentrated on physical and economic characteristics, whereas this research adds the environmental factors. Therefore, this research makes a significant contribution to the body of knowledge in this area, as it puts more attention on including several variables, as well as newly introduced variables as determinants. Consumers can apply the research findings to assess the relative importance of housing attributes and services which they perceive most valuable, and then to make their purchase decisions. The findings also contribute to the investigations of the behavior of housing attributes and enable knowing as to what factors are to be promoted and what to be omitted to gain a shorter TOM.

Although there has been much psychological research about children's sibling relations, it has been a neglected area of study in sociology (exceptions are Brannen et al., 2000; Kosonen, 1996; Mauthner, 2002). This paper, based on empirical research on siblings in Scotland, explores the nature of the generational power structure within families from children's perspectives. Childhood is a relational concept which forms part of the generational order. Alanen explains this as “a complex set of social processes through which people become (are constructed as) ‘children’ while other people become (are constructed as) ‘adults’” (2001, pp. 20, 21). Generational processes shape the nature of child-parent relations (Mayall, 2002). Alanen states that:one position (such as the parental position) cannot exist without the other (child) position; also what parenting is – that is, action in the position of a parent – is dependent on its relation to the action “performed” in the child position, and a change in one part is tied to change in the other (Alanen, 2001, p. 19).In other words, child-parent relations are based on the understanding that childhood is relational with parenthood (see also Mayall, 2002). Alanen (2001) argues that the social construction of childhood and adulthood involves a process, including the agency of both children and adults, which she refers to as a set of “practices”:It is through such practices that the two generational categories of children and adults are recurrently produced and therefore they stand in relations of connection and interaction, of interdependence (Alanen, 2001, p. 21).These practices of generationing may be “childing” practices through which people are constructed as children or “adulting” practices through which a distinct adult position is produced. The ways in which children in the present study talked about the differences between their relationships with their parents and their siblings indicated that there are a range of generationing practices that take place within families. They referred to particular kinds of behaviour that were acceptable to engage in with other children (in this case with their siblings) but not with their parents. Overwhelmingly the key issue which children highlighted as distinct between their relations with parents and siblings was the differential nature of power in these relationships. Whilst it is not surprising that children perceive the distribution of power to be more unequal between children and parents than between siblings, the aim of this paper is to explore the nature of this power and how it is experienced from children's point of view. In particular the paper discusses the ways in which children perceive child-parent relations compared with their sibling relationships in relation to the giving and receiving of power within the home.

The purpose of this study/paper is to present the design and implementation of a novel vending machine concept based on desktop-scale extrusion additive manufacturing (AM). Due to cost, access to AM technologies at academic institutions tends to be limited to upper-level courses to support project-based coursework. However, with the decreasing cost of desktop-scale AM technology, there is potential to improve student access to such technologies and provide more opportunities for AM education.

The authors present the design and implementation of an AM “vending machine” that is powered by desktop-scale extrusion-based AM systems. This system intends to provide students broad, unrestricted access to entry-level AM tools and promote informal learning opportunities.

Student users of the AM vending machine are found to be primarily engineering majors at various levels in their studies. Manufactured parts are evenly split between functional and decorative parts, though 75 per cent of students are creating their own designs rather than simply printing found design files.

Future work will focus on improving the system’s ease-of-maintenance, lowering the barrier to entry with a simpler user interface and establishing a method for better recording part and user information.

The interface of the AM vending machine lowers the barrier of entry into engaging with AM and places this emerging technology in a familiar and “safe” context. It provides students at various levels and disciplines the opportunity to fabricate parts for classroom and personal projects.

A “vending machine” system may have far-reaching implications for public access and use of AM. Such broad access has the potential to further educate and impassion the public about the potential of AM.

This work represents the creation and assessment of the world’s first AM vending machine.

Mobile phone adoption and diffusion in low economic development countries (LEDCs) may provide for greater information access using open educational resources to support large‐scale teacher education programmes. The purpose of this paper is to explore this.

Drawing on evaluations of the current basic services provision in South Sudan and the identified needs for improving English language teaching, this conceptual paper presents an analysis of the nature and extent of teacher training needs in South Sudan, and the capacity of the current system to deliver against those needs.

The education system in South Sudan is ranked among the lowest in the world for primary and secondary enrollment. South Sudan is faced with the almost impossible task of tripling its teacher work force, but the quantity and quality of training required cannot be delivered through existing teacher training institutes.

The immediate post‐conflict situation in the new nation state, transitioning from humanitarian relief to international development activities, means that hard national data are tentative and emergent.

The author puts forth an argument for a radically different approach to teacher professional development capable of operating at sufficient scale to enable the government of South Sudan to meet its ambitious target of adequately educating 3.5 million students.

There is very little in the literature that examines the use of mobile phones to support professional learning within the educational domain, particularly in the context of LEDCs; equally, there is little in the literature that addresses how LEDC governments might meet the challenges of scale and access through appropriate models of school based teacher development (SBTD).

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the effectiveness of teaching in economics.

This paper provides as a case study, the authors’ reflections on a first-year “learning community” at a US liberal arts college, which combined courses on political science and economics to explore issues of political economy, including poverty and social mobility.

The authors argue that, compared with standard delivery, using literature allows increased student access to and, thus, greater engagement with certain theoretical concepts. More specifically, literature can open avenues for critical thought, and challenge pre-existing views, when it illuminates controversial questions without providing obvious answers. It is this open-ended aspect of literature that seems to provide the best opportunity for increased student engagement and critical thinking.

The arguments in this paper are based on authors’ reflections and would benefit from other empirical analysis. This method of teaching only offers pedagogical opportunities, and learning gains do not occur automatically. Several features of the course design and assessment, and the interaction between disciplines, made the use of literature more likely to be successful.

These authors also reflect more broadly on their use of literature in other courses, and provide some suggestions for specific works that might be used in further teaching and research.

This paper contributes to current debate on teaching practice in economics, and will be of use to those seeking to challenge student viewpoints in a subtle yet effective manner.

Celebrity endorsement advertising is a prevailing advertising technique. Some marketers choose to utilize multiple celebrities to promote their products or brands. Nevertheless, it is surprising that so little research has focused on this phenomenon. This research discussed advantages and potential concerns of multi‐celebrity endorsement advertising and documented the actual use of multiple celebrity endorsers in the milk mustache campaign in the USA. We analyzed the content of the 50 milk mustache ads appearing on the http://www.whymilk.com Web site on a list of celebrity‐ or product‐related dimensions. Overall, we found that these milk mustache ads have matched their celebrities’ gender, age and type of milk attributes in appealing to their female/male, teen/adult consumers. The results support that fit between the endorsed product and various celebrities is a key factor for using multiple celebrity endorsers in advertising.