Suchergebnisse

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to show how the interplay between individual women's gender role attitudes, having young children at home, as well as the country-context characterized by gender egalitarianism and public childcare support, relates to women's working hours in 23 European countries.


Design/methodology/approach
– This study presents results of multilevel regression analyses of data from the European Social Survey (Round 2). These micro-level data on 23 European countries were combined with country-level measures on gender traditionalism and childcare expenditure.


Findings
– The authors found that the negative association between having young children at home and women's working hours is stronger for women with traditional gender role attitudes compared to women with egalitarian attitudes. The gap in working hours between women with and without young children at home was smaller in countries in which the population holds egalitarian gender role attitudes and in countries with extensive public childcare support. Furthermore, it was found that the gap in employment hours between mothers with traditional or egalitarian attitudes was largest in countries with limited public childcare support.


Social implications
– Policy makers should take note that women's employment decisions are not dependent on human capital and household-composition factors alone, but that gender role attitudes matter as well. The authors could not find evidence of the inequality in employment between women with different gender role attitudes being exacerbated in association with childcare support.


Originality/value
– The originality of this study lies in the combined (rather than separate) analysis of how countries' social policies (childcare services) and countries' attitudes (gender traditionalism) interact with individual gender role attitudes to shape cross-national variation in women's working hours.

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to formulate a conceptually and empirically grounded new understanding of childcare arrangements for cross-national and longitudinal micro-level empirical research by drawing on theoretical discussions about the social, spatial and temporal dimensions of embodied childcare and empirical data in the form of parental narratives from a Romanian qualitative study.Design/methodology/approach– The paper builds on a critique of an extensive body of empirical literature on the micro-level organisation of childcare and the thematic analysis of in-depth interviews with Romanian parents. The paper combines a critical literature review with findings from a qualitative study on childcare.Findings– The paper formulates a new understanding of household-level childcare arrangements that is context-insensitive, yet reflects the social, spatial and temporal concerns that the organisation of embodied childcare often raises. The paper expands on six real-life care arrangements in Romanian households represented as different combinations of care encounters.Research limitations/implications– As the paper draws on parental narratives from a single country, Romania, the mapping of childcare arrangements in other jurisdictions and/or at different times would strengthen the case for the proposed understanding of care arrangements as a valuable tool to represent, compareand contrast household-level care routines.Originality/value– The idea that parents (especially mothers) make work-care decisions in the light of what is best for their child has been widely documented. However, taxonomies of care arrangements have failed to reflect this. The proposed conceptualisation of childcare arrangements addresses this issue by articulating a conceptually coherent approach to developing empirically grounded childcare typologies that "travel well" cross-nationally and over time.

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to examine how academics resisted and accommodated changes towards the reform process in higher education institutions in Indonesia which has introduced market-driven principle of new public management and the principle of Neo-Weberian model. Using the theory developed by Scott concerning the resistance patterns by powerless or subordinated groups through "weapon of the weak", this study aimed at mapping the resistance exhibited by Indonesian academics.


Design/methodology/approach
– This study was a case study using semi-structured interviews conducted with 30 academics in three state universities in Indonesia.


Findings
– The results of this study demonstrated that academics in Indonesian universities resisted and accommodated the policy reform using their discursive, unobtrusive tactics of resisting.


Research limitations/implications
– The method of data collection used in this research was based on the interview alone. It would be useful to consider to deploy other forms of data collection such as, observation to allow the building up of strong trusthworthiness of the findings of this research.


Practical implications
– The authors believed that this study may be useful to give better understandings for policy makers on implementing policies by considering aspects of behaviours of academics as street level bureaucrats in accepting, interpreting, and implementing policy imperatives. These results might also be beneficial for policy makers from other sectors outside higher education in effectuating policy imperatives.


Originality/value
– The authors argued that, academics actively responded to external pressures which contradicted their own values and beliefs with their unique intellectual strategies by which have been overlooked in the formulation of policy.

Purpose– The crisis of confidence in political institutions has become a phenomenon with uniform trends across Europe. Nevertheless, citizens still express interest in politics and are engaged in political and social activities. What are the issues that still motivate them to go to the polls and/or engage in non-institutional forms of political participation? The case study of the Italian referendum in favour of the "Water Common Good" (June 2011) is particularly appropriate to explore these issues and motivations. The paper aims to discuss these issues.Design/methodology/approach– The paper proposes a multidisciplinary common good's framework focusing on its social and political challenges. As the referendum succeeded also thanks to the rhetorical effectiveness of the "common good" epithet, a survey on 120 Roman citizens who voted in favour of the "Water Common Good" was conducted. The hypothesis was that the referendum success could be associated with social needs to defend strategic resources ("commons") by actively participating in the deliberations on them. A quantitative non-probabilistic research was carried out face-to-face, through a standardized and semi-structured questionnaire.Findings– The main findings refer to the leading role that distrust in political institutions, civil society activism and common good rhetorical effectiveness played.Originality/value– The most original contribution of this paper is the explanatory and stipulative definition of common good, which reduces the semantic uncertainty of the concept including common sense meanings. This novel conceptualization has practical implications in policy terms, as it explicates the social need to change the way of conceiving the relationship with strategic resources and decision-making processes concerning them.

Purpose
– This paper aims to connect participatory sustainability implementation with sustainability assessment, exploring learning theories, the principles of Higher Education for Sustainable Development (HESD) and respective indicators applied in the university context. Even though participation is partly considered in existing assessment practices, it is still unclear what and how to measure participatory processes that envision implementing sustainability principles in higher education institutions. Holistic approaches are often proclaimed, but reductionist assessment methods are frequently followed.


Design/methodology/approach
– The study followed a qualitative approach, inspired by the Delphi method, and includes semi-structured expert interviews (N = 15) and two focus group discussions (N = 23), with participants coming from a total of 17 different countries. Data were analysed and compared according to qualitative content analysis and systemized according to the underlying theoretical strands.


Findings
– The findings suggest that participatory processes can be better assessed from a social learning and organisational learning perspective, emphasizing non-linear criteria for the quality of the process in terms of depth and meaningfulness as well as criteria for the quality of the outcome in terms of knowledge generation and innovation. The findings also point implicitly to the need of considering double- and triple-loop learning, if a culture of participation towards sustainability is to be pursued, and underline the high impact of institutional governance.


Originality/value
– Although a great volume of literature about sustainability implementation in higher education exists, studies focusing on participatory processes in this context are rather scarce. This research pays attention to sustainability experts working in universities rarely heard in a more systemic manner and also applies a reflective participatory approach itself by using qualitative methods.

Purpose– The past three decades have seen the transformation of manufacturing involving its global dispersion and fragmentation. However, a number of recent developments appear to suggest that manufacturing may be entering a new era of flux that will impact the configuration of production around the globe. The purpose of this paper is to address the major emerging themes that may shape this configuration and concludes that most of them are still in their initial stages and are not likely to create a radical shift in the next few years in how manufacturing is configured around the world. These themes were presented in a special session on "Manufacturing in the World – Where Next?" at the 2013 EurOMA Conference in Dublin, Ireland.Design/methodology/approach– The paper provides a series of perspectives on some key considerations pertaining to the future of manufacturing. An evaluation of their likely impact is offered and insights for the future of manufacturing are presented.Findings– The importance of a focus on the extended manufacturing network is established. The need for customer engagement and a forward looking approach that extends to the immediate customer and beyond emerges as a consistent feature across the different perspectives presented in the paper. There is both the potential and need for the adoption of innovative business models on the part of manufacturers.Originality/value– The paper presents in-depth perspectives from scholars in the field of manufacturing on the changing landscape of manufacturing. These perspectives culminate in a series of insights on the future of global manufacturing that inform future research agendas and help practitioners in formulating their manufacturing strategies.

Purpose
– The interest in global purchasing has increased significantly in recent years, but the impact on product innovation is not well understood. The purpose of this paper is to empirically analyse the impact of global purchasing on product innovation sourced from suppliers, while taking into account how firms integrate their suppliers.


Design/methodology/approach
– The data used in this study are from the International Purchasing Survey, an international online survey on purchasing and supply management conducted in 2009. The data are analysed using factor and regression analyses.


Findings
– The paper shows that global purchasing has no direct impact on product innovation performance. However, supplier integration is more strongly associated with product innovation performance for firms purchasing globally compared to firms purchasing regionally.


Practical implications
– The implication is that when companies purchase globally, they must have a highly developed purchasing department in order to sustain a high level of innovation. For firms purchasing only regionally, the role of the purchasing department is diminished, at least in terms of contributing to innovation.


Originality/value
– This paper contributes to the discussion of potential advantages and disadvantages of global purchasing. First, the paper provides an explanation for the ambiguous results of previous research. Product innovation does not depend on whether firms are purchasing globally or not, it depends on how they purchase. This paper has showed that when purchasing globally, the role of the purchasing department becomes crucial for product innovation. The proficiency and activities of the purchasing department largely determine the success, in terms of supplier product innovation, of global purchasing.

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to study critical practices when adopting improvement knowledge as a management innovation in a professional organization.Design/methodology/approach– This paper is based on an action research approach, in which practitioners and researchers are seen as a part of a participative community generating actionable knowledge. Research involved gathering data over a five-year period through more than 250 interviews and 25 focus groups.Findings– This paper identifies five critical practices for adopting a management innovation in a professional context: first, focussing on labeling and theorizing to create an organization's own vocabulary; second, focussing on the role of internal change agents; third, allowing for an evolutionary adoption process; fourth, building new professional competence through the change agents; and fifth, adopting a research-driven approach to the adoption of a management innovation.Practical implications– For healthcare practitioners, this paper points to practices to consider when adopting improvement knowledge – for example, identifying the patient as the guiding principle and encouraging involvement and local change initiatives. For practitioners in other professionally driven organizations, this paper identifies critical practices for adopting a management innovation – for example, focussing on theorizing and labeling in order to create an organization's own vocabulary related to the professional context.Originality/value– On a generic level, this paper contributes to the understanding of critical aspects when adopting management innovations in a professional organization. In a healthcare context, this paper points to the value of improvement knowledge for improving quality of care. Improvement knowledge is relatively new in healthcare, and this study provides an example of a hospital in which this management innovation helped transform the organization.

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to examine self-perceived employability, the factors that influence this, the chances to find a job and retirement preferences of two generations older workers with a low occupational status in the creative industries in the Netherlands.Design/methodology/approach– Survey data including qualitative elements were obtained from 1,112 older workers registered in a job agency specialized in older workers. Correlations,t-tests and multiple regressions were performed to test the hypotheses, while the open questions were analyzed in a qualitative manner.Findings– The Veteran Generation reported a higher self-rated employability than the Baby Boomer Generation, found a job quicker and also preferred to retire later than the Baby Boomer Generation. In addition, they focussed on aspects that fostered their employability. The Baby Boomers, on the other hand, stressed the importance of some barriers that hindered their employability. The Baby Boomer Generation explained how external factors like negative stereotypes and being too expensive hinder their employability and chances at the labor market.Research limitations/implications– A limitation in the study is the use of a cross-sectional design that fails to capture the influence of the aging process.Practical implications– In the light of the aging population, knowledge about which factors influence the employability and labor participation of older workers is necessary. More insights about the differences and similarities among the various generations in the workforce can help organizations to take important decisions about human resource policies and practices.Originality/value– This study compared the Baby Boomer Generation to the Veteran Generation in a sector that is known for its unstable employment and hazardous working environments.

O presente artigo visa trazer contribuições teóricas à pesquisa etnográfica contemporânea. As reflexões empíricas deste trabalho derivaram da pesquisa intitulada sinais como nomes próprios: significados corporais para a comunidade surda. Esta foi realizada através do financiamento da CNPQ e teve duração de dois anos. Por meio da teoria de Csordas (2008) entende-se o corpo como um locus cultural, pois através da experiência vivenciada ele é capaz de (re)significar os aspectos simbólicos da cultura. No decorrer deste trabalho será levantada a discussão acerca da teoria do embodiment como um campo metodológico da Antropologia. Além disso, mostraremos como o EUDICO language annotator (ELAN), um software tão utilizado pelas áreas da Psicolinguística e da Linguística, pode ser uma ferramenta útil à Antropologia e à pesquisa etnográfica.Palavras-chaves: Corporalidade. ELAN. Etnografia. Metodologia. Surdez.Anthropologic field challenges: the uses of ELAN and embodiment theory in ethnographyAbstractThis article is in order to contribute to Ethnographic Theory Contemporary. The research that the title is: sign like names: means embody for death communities, has given sources for this work. It was funded by CNPQ and it had been done for two years. The theory provided by Csordas (2008) present the body such a field methodologic because each humanhas a different experience, then they could find a different path and recognized own culture. So, this paper will discuss about embodiment theory as a way methodologic at Anthropology. Furthermore, it will be showed how the EUDICO language annotator (ELAN) may be used at Anthropology even though different areas such linguistic and psycholinguistic. It could be an important tool to anthropologic researches and ethnographic.Key word: Emdodiment. ELAN. Etnography. Methodology. Death

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to extend the perspective provided by stage models and examine the wider contexts in which government service transformation occurs. Traditional stage models of e-government have been criticised as being too narrowly focussed suggesting that government services are transformed by information and communications technology (ICT) in a linear manner.Design/methodology/approach– Government service transformation involves the interplay of a multitude of social and technical factors over time. We propose that an appreciation of the wider institutional, political and economic contexts is necessary and develop a framework of government service transformation in terms of thelocusof context and focus of the change initiative. This framework is illustrated with reference to a case study of the transformation of the building approvals process in Singapore over two decades.Findings– Application of the framework to the case study illustrates that government service transformation is not a linear progression and is influenced by decisions and factors related to both inner and outer contexts.Research limitations/implications– While bringing institutional theory to extend analyses of service transformation, the reconstruction of events in the case study presented does not provide a rich enough data set for a full analysis of the institutional forces at play.Practical implications– Managers of e-government initiatives can use the dimensions of the framework to assess their progress, as new technologies emerge and policy priorities change.Originality/value– The framework presented in the paper provides a complement to existing models for examining e-government transformation and brings a theoretically based perspective to government service transformation which is lacking in existing stage models.

Purpose
– This paper aims to study whether age impacts the responses to different communication cues in terms of brand recall, attitude toward advertisement, attitude toward brand and purchase intention, and which age groups respond more favorably to a given cue.


Design/methodology/approach
– An experimental research was conducted across a sample of 1,050 respondents in Delhi to test variance in consumer attitudes across "tweenagers", teenagers, youth, young adults and adults, when exposed to different communication cues for dummy brands of biscuits and mobile handsets.


Findings
– Significant variances were observed in consumer attitudes across the five age groups. However, the variation pattern differs across the two product categories. The caricature cue worked well for biscuits across most age groups. For mobile handsets, the picture cue was very effective for the two younger age groups but not as much for others. The product information cue was highly effective for adults.


Practical implications
– The study provides insights on making communication for brands targeted at more than one age group. If adults are a part of the marketers' age group, some amount of product information is highly desirable, just as bright pictures/caricatures are necessary for tweenagers. For teenagers, who exhibit high variance vis-a-vis other age groups, communication needs to be customized. For brands where both children and adults are part of the target audience, common appeals can easily be identified, as they had similar responses in all but one case.


Originality/value
– The framework proposed in this research fills a gap in the existing literature by establishing that age impacts attitude formation in response to communication cues and gives insights for marketing communication.

Purpose– Extant literature has looked at the effect of alliance capability and organizational culture on alliance portfolio performance, but the relationship between the two has not been explored. The purpose of this paper is to explore the hypothesis that an alliance supportive culture is not only fostered by a firm's alliance capabilities, but that it mediates the relationship between capabilities and performance.Design/methodology/approach– Survey responses from 190 alliance managers, collected using a two-stage process, were analyzed to investigate the interrelationship of firm-level alliance capability, alliance supportive culture and portfolio performance.Findings– Alliance supportive culture was found to mediate the relationship between alliance capability and alliance portfolio performance. This finding suggests that in order to effectively manage a firm's portfolio of alliances, the benefits of alliance capability must be transferred broadly into the organization's cultural orientation toward alliances.Research limitations/implications– Further research may extend this analysis to explore the effect of subcomponents of alliance capability and alliance culture to better understand fine-grained influences on alliance performance. The findings of this study also may be extended to inform how supportive culture orientation affects partner selection, negotiation and time to performance.Practical implications– Managers should utilize culture-building actions as a way of extending the value of their firms' alliance capabilities in order to improve their effectiveness across the portfolio.Originality/value– Extant studies have considered the discrete effects of capability and cultural orientation on alliance portfolio success, but the mediation effect has not previously been investigated. The findings also identify a boundary condition for the benefit of alliance capabilities on portfolio performance.

Purpose
– The purpose of the paper is to determine the future role of virtual currencies. This paper indicates their pros and cons as alternatives to "real" money and explains their appearance as the reflection of the present trends. It also presents the possible scenarios of their development.


Design/methodology/approach
– The paper is based on the former foresight research results and literature review. It highlights the main trends in contemporary economy and their impact on financial services. The Bitcoin case is the starting point for the virtual currencies' market analysis and construction of possible market changes scenarios.


Findings
– Virtual currency schemes are the reflection of present trends. They are just ahead of our times but may become a common means of payment, changing the way of providing financial services, eliminating intermediaries and marginalizing the role of financial institutions.


Research limitations/implications
– The multiplicity of virtual currencies and ceaseless introduction of innovations impede the presentation of the complete market picture. The lack of reliable statistical data makes the estimation of the market growth difficult.


Practical implications
– This paper indicates influence of technology development, virtualization and networking on payment systems' functioning.


Social implications
– This paper shows the impact of environmental changes on consumers' acceptance of virtual currencies.


Originality/value
– The virtual currency as a payment system is quite new and still a marginalized phenomenon. Nevertheless, the pace of virtual currency market growth after its recent introduction and appearance of Bitcoin successors seems to be the signs of future changes in financial service sector.

Purpose
– An important question about the determinants of suicide refers to the role of media. In this context, the purpose of this paper is to investigate if there are groups of people who are susceptible to suicide as a result of the effect of media.


Design/methodology/approach
– Using data for the 27 Brazilian states, for the period 1980-2009, to investigate the impact of the media index, unemployment rate, divorce rate and other explanatory variables on the rate of suicide by gender and age. First of all, the authors estimated a model of fixed effects panel. The second estimation method makes use of dynamic panel data with instrumental variables. Each of the results generated by these two estimated models is compared with those obtained by ordinary least squares in stacked data. The authors develop a model about the suicide epidemic where the media works as a contagion effect to disseminate suicidal behavior.


Findings
– The authors observe that, the media index is the third motivator of suicide, after unemployment and violence, for all groups of people. The estimated model shows that 1 percent increase in media index increases suicide rate of young men (aged between 15 and 29 years) at 4.22 percent.


Research limitations/implications
– The empirical results are limited because the authors developed a media index based on quantities of televisions and radios. The authors suggest other research include social media in the index as well.


Originality/value
– This result seems to suggest a type of contagion effect on suicide rates, which reinforces the results obtained by Cutler et al. (2001).