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1 – 10 of 19This paper aims to synthesise the literature addressing opportunities for intervention and peacemaking in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea (PNG). It shows that peacebuilding in…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to synthesise the literature addressing opportunities for intervention and peacemaking in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea (PNG). It shows that peacebuilding in PNG is actively practised in a variety of different forms and by a range of actors. It relies heavily on local champions and coalitions working together with “bits of the state” in inventive but, ultimately, highly vulnerable ways. It argues that the way forward is to better understand how the multiple resources in and beyond the state can be networked more effectively to engineer peace at many different levels, from the clan to the nation state.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is based on a thorough review of the scholarly and grey literature concerning peacebuilding and conflict resolution in PNG over the past 30 years.
Findings
The key insight is that peacemaking and non-violence interventions in PNG need to be understood as requiring three different categories of treatment: quick, short interventions; ongoing, slow peacebuilding; and development of community wellness to preventatively stave off violence through increased community cohesion.
Originality/value
The paper is the basis of original research.
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This paper aims to discuss the scholarship over the past 30 years on what used to be called Melanesian warfare or “tribal fighting” and is termed in this paper “intergroup…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to discuss the scholarship over the past 30 years on what used to be called Melanesian warfare or “tribal fighting” and is termed in this paper “intergroup conflict” in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea. The paper categorises the drivers of intergroup conflict that make up the landscape for conflict in the Highlands. It starts with cultural factors and the understandings about conflict that have long been used to explain such violence, then adds newer factors. It argues that while the individual existence of each driver is important, far more important is the way in which they interact with each other in reinforcing feedback loops that propel the actors involved towards violence.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is based on a thorough review of the scholarly and grey literature on the topic, drawing from the fields of anthropology, criminology, political science, law, justice and peacebuilding.
Findings
The overall finding of the paper is that the nature of intergroup conflict, its scale and dynamics, has changed considerably over the past 30 years, most prominently in the entanglement of the state with local-level conflicts. This has significantly affected the nature of intergroup conflict today, deepening the attractors towards violence and conflict, while weakening the ability of existing state and non-state systems to prevent it. The picture that emerges is one in which the interconnectivity of factors promoting violence has intensified, the rate of change is accelerating and levels of violence are amplified.
Originality/value
This paper is an original work.
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Shathees Baskaran, Nalini Nedunselian, Chun Howe Ng, Nomahaza Mahadi and Siti Zaleha Abdul Rasid
This study aims to clarify the relationship between ethical orientation and earnings management perception phenomenon in the organization. It discusses to what extent earnings…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to clarify the relationship between ethical orientation and earnings management perception phenomenon in the organization. It discusses to what extent earnings management is considered as a strategic adaptation or deliberate manipulation in an organization. The study also aims to expand the domain of ethical perspective of earnings management by considering mediating and moderating role of investor sentiment and corporate social responsibility (CSR) as inward pressure and outward commitment surrounding the organization, adopting a combined perspective of strategic management and also accounting discipline than is normally found in the ethics and earnings management literature.
Design/methodology/approach
The study opted for literature synthesis to define key concepts surrounding ethics and earnings management perception in the organization. Besides, it attempted to identify influential mediators and moderators in explaining the earnings management phenomenon in the organization. Consequently, the study identified the gaps in current research to draw upon a more holistic conceptual framework. The rationale for the research was justified within the body of research.
Findings
The study suggested research propositions based on the literature synthesis in view of ethics and earnings management perception in the organization. More specifically, it has proposed a conceptual framework, explaining the relationship between ethical orientation and a multi-dimensional view of earnings management perception. It is envisaged that the mediating and moderating role of investor sentiment and CSR incorporated in this conceptual study will improve the predictive value of the proposed framework and offer additional insights about factors that inhibit or advance ethical orientation and earnings management practices in the organization.
Research limitations/implications
This paper suffers from the obvious limitation of lacking empirical investigation. However, it does provide a theoretical rationale for the argument that alteration of earnings can be controlled if ethical orientation is emphasized in the organization apart from insulating internal and external pressures to manage such phenomenon from happening in the organization. Perhaps, the most important direction for future research is further extension and validation of this framework by performing an empirical investigation to produce newer insights into this phenomenon.
Originality/value
This conceptual study is different from previous studies on the grounds it has considered unexplored issues linking inward pressures and outward commitments in explaining this phenomenon further. To bridge the critical knowledge gap of earnings management phenomenon, a mediating effect of investor sentiment as an inward pressure and a moderating role of CSR as an outward commitment are also integrated within the model. The proposed model neither formulated nor tested empirically in previous studies locally or, perhaps, globally, therefore, stands out as an original contribution in the study of ethical orientation and earnings management perception.
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Spiros Gounaris, George Chryssochoidis and Achilleas Boukis
This paper reports on the impact of perceived resource adequacy (PRA) and competence (PRC) on new service development (NSD) teams’ internal performance (IP). This study aims to…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper reports on the impact of perceived resource adequacy (PRA) and competence (PRC) on new service development (NSD) teams’ internal performance (IP). This study aims to explore the indirect effect of internal market orientation (IMO) adoption, as a dynamic capability, on both PRA and PRC through the shaping of the emerging dynamics within NSD teams.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a hierarchical research design, the authors use a meso-theory approach to test a path-analytic framework against 116 NSD managers (offering data at the macro- or organisational level) and 543 NSD team members (offering data at the micro- or team level).
Findings
Both PRA and PRC are important in explaining NSD teams’ IP at the organisational level, though their explanatory power varies. The adoption of IMO is also an important antecedent to this factor through the (indirect) effect on the team climate and degree of integration.
Research limitations/implications
IMO is an important dynamic capability that allows management to transform the mindset of employees, even if they do not directly interact with customers. In NSD efforts, this reflects on the team’s perceptions of the adequacy of the resources they have to deliver the project through the managerial interventions at the team level, which (mainly) explains the team’s IP.
Practical implications
Adopting an IMO allows the development of a dynamic capability that carries wider benefits for the service organisation, as this has positive implications not just for frontline employees. Specifically, NSD efforts are likely to become more resource-efficient as a result of IMO adoption because of the interventions of management during the development effort.
Originality/value
This empirical study is the first to test the impact of IMO adoption as a dynamic capability and in a context other than frontline employees from a meso-theory perspective. This allows considering the different effects at the appropriate levels (macro and micro), thus enabling a more accurate definition of the mechanism through which companies benefit from IMO adoption.
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Hajar Mohamad, Miranda Mirosa, Phil Bremer and Indrawati Oey
The purpose of this paper is to gain insight on parental attitudes towards weaning practices and weaning foods for health in Malaysia using Q-methodology.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to gain insight on parental attitudes towards weaning practices and weaning foods for health in Malaysia using Q-methodology.
Design/methodology/approach
The study population was parents that had a child aged three years or less. A total of 47 parents were recruited to partake in a one-on-one activity which involved sorting 69 statements about weaning practices and weaning food products into a grid that was normally distributed ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree”. Sorting was immediately followed by a short interview to understand the reasons behind the placement of particular statements.
Findings
Data analysis identified three statistically distinct participant attitudes towards weaning practices and foods for health that were then interpreted using the rich qualitative data from the post-sort interviews. The attitudes identified were “All Homemade and Natural”, “Commercial Convenience and Trust” and “Balance and Variety”.
Originality/value
This study identified the dominant sets of attitudes held by Malaysian parents towards weaning practices and weaning foods for health using Q-methodology. To authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper focussing on weaning foods for health, specifically on functional weaning food. This new understanding of shared attitudes will allow product developers, marketers and health communicators to more effectively design their products and their marketing mix to ensure that these messages resonate well with the target audience who want to provide the best weaning foods possible for their children.
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Henry H. Rossbacher, Tracy W. Young and Nanci E. Nishimura
Thoreau heartily accepted the motto, ‘that government is best which governs least’. Our forefathers braved treacherous oceans and alien lands emboldened by that belief, after…
Abstract
Thoreau heartily accepted the motto, ‘that government is best which governs least’. Our forefathers braved treacherous oceans and alien lands emboldened by that belief, after enduring the Crown's heavy hand invading and restricting their religious and personal lives. That is why, among the many freedoms embodied in our Constitution, the right to privacy was included in the Fourth Amendment to protect individuals from arbitrary intrusion by the state. The right has been fundamental to the establishment of a more tolerant society devoted to the principles of liberty and justice for all.
Inspections have been made during the year at the majority of the principal food importing ports in England and Wales in connection with the administration of the Public Health…
Abstract
Inspections have been made during the year at the majority of the principal food importing ports in England and Wales in connection with the administration of the Public Health (Foreign Meat) and the Public Health (Unsound Food) Regulations, 1908.
– The purpose of this paper is to introduce a contextualistic account of antisocial responding, with the addition of recent developments on the study of personality.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to introduce a contextualistic account of antisocial responding, with the addition of recent developments on the study of personality.
Design/methodology/approach
A behavioural and contextualistic view point is developed to account for antisocial personality and related topics, inasmuch as traditional definitions of antisocial personality disorder as provided on formal diagnostic manuals derive on several and not always coherent classifications of antisocial behaviours. Some of these classifications centre on issues like guilt, impulsivity or aggressiveness for establishing different types of offending and antisocial patterns. This paper focuses on functional personal backgrounds.
Findings
A total of five types of “potentiated contingencies” are described as being the main underpinnings involved in antisocial patterns. An analysis of the transformation of aversive functions of antisocial behaviours, leads to specify a distinctive rule-following behaviour that is concerned with that responding. Finally, the exposition of the four verbal clinical contexts that behaviour analysis highlights as taking place at therapeutic settings, serves to propose a fitter contextualistic intervention for antisocial personality patterns.
Research limitations/implications
Novel investigations should contrast the functional classification of antisocial responding. Those studies should experimentally demonstrate the way in which the different instances of transformation of antisocial functions the author has described are prompted.
Practical implications
The analysis also allows for the anticipation of the behaviour of individuals fitting to every category of antisocial avoidance. And as the functional analysis of “antisocial avoidance” uncovers specific relations between environmental stimuli as they are produced and established in the history of interactions of individuals, a more fitting intervention based upon those relations is feasible.
Originality/value
An exhaustive functional taxonomy of antisocial personalities and delinquent behaviours has never been presented before elsewhere. Besides the author reinterprets from a contextualist position traditional empirical studies.
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Oliver Lukason and Tiia Vissak
This paper aims to study how firms’ export behavior is associated with their corporate governance.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to study how firms’ export behavior is associated with their corporate governance.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses whole population data of Estonian small and medium-sized enterprises: 9,530 exporters and 73,619 non-exporters. Several theory-driven corporate governance variables and exporting variables (based on previous studies) are used. Binary logistic regression is applied to study how exporters’ corporate governance differs from that of non-exporters. Eight additional continuous dependent variables are used to portray exporters’ internationalization with ordinary least squares regression. The robustness of the obtained base results is checked for younger/older and smaller/larger firms.
Findings
Having female board members did not lead to a higher likelihood of export activities. Experience – tenure’s length, board members’ age and other board memberships – provided mixed results. Having a larger board was associated with a higher export propensity and larger exports but a lower export share. A larger share of a chief executive officer’s shareholding was associated with lower export propensity, exporting less overall and activities on a smaller number of markets. The presence of a majority owner was associated with larger export share and export turnover, but more focus on the main export market. Firm age and size affected the results.
Originality/value
Previous studies about the interconnection of corporate governance and exporting have relied on varied theoretical explanations and limited sets of variables. This paper provides an extensive insight by using corporate governance variables emergent from various theoretical explanations accompanied by a large set of dependent exporting variables. The latter enables obtaining a more holistic view of the interconnection between the two phenomena.
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Presently the whole world has been experiencing a pandemic threat of coronavirus diesease 2019 (COVID-19) and at the same time facing unprecedented changes in everything including…
Abstract
Purpose
Presently the whole world has been experiencing a pandemic threat of coronavirus diesease 2019 (COVID-19) and at the same time facing unprecedented changes in everything including education. E-learning has evolved as the only alternative of knowledge transmission even in third world nations, and e-assessment has been playing an increasingly important role in this digital transformation of education. But how far and of what depth it has made its place among students' minds need to be studied to leverage its full potential to transform students' learning needs. This study reports an investigation made in this direction.
Design/methodology/approach
An online survey consisting of 40 questions in Google Forms was conducted to collect primary data on students' perception of e-assessment among 200 Indian students pursuing higher education from several geographical locations. The quantitative methodological approach was followed. The data were analyzed descriptively and inferentially.
Findings
The results were analyzed based on the model of acceptance and usage of e-assessment (MAUE), and findings revealed that students' overall perception toward e-assessment was of moderate level and this perception varies depending on their gender, academic level, nature of the stream of study and their economic condition. Of the eight domains investigated, students showed better perception in the perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, compatibility, subjective norms and self-efficacy domains, while they cut a sorry figure in domains like awareness, resource facilitation and information technology (IT) support. It became evident from their responses that COVID was instrumental in enhancing their interest in e-assessment.
Social implications
The implication of this study lies in strengthening e-assessment by attending to the factors as noted in the MAUE in India and alike developing nations having huge space left for e-learning to reach a boom.
Originality/value
This is an empirical investigation conducted in India on the state of students' perception of the e-assessment in the backdrop of the COVID-19 outbreak. To do this work, the authors conducted online surveys, and the write-up of the findings focus on the survey data only.
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