Computers are an intrinsic part of the working environment at the Midland Bank's Group Business Library (GBL) and have been used by library staff for the past seven years for…
Abstract
Computers are an intrinsic part of the working environment at the Midland Bank's Group Business Library (GBL) and have been used by library staff for the past seven years for providing a business enquiry service to the Group in the UK and overseas. In order to support this busy enquiry service it is necessary to have a computerised subject catalogue to journals and publications. Journals are circulated to London‐based Head Office departments. Other services offered by the library are a specialised European service; outside borrowing of publications; advising other departments (especially on databases and CD‐ROMs). The search services used include Reuter Textline, Infocheck (Dun and Bradstreet), Dialog, DataStar and FT Profile. The library provides a back‐up service to the internal training courses on financial analysis, during which they train staff on external search services and on CD‐ROMs, such as Jordan's FAME.
The purpose of this paper is to propose the activity‐based focus group as a useful method with which to generate talk‐in‐interaction among pre‐schoolers. Analytically, it aims to…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to propose the activity‐based focus group as a useful method with which to generate talk‐in‐interaction among pre‐schoolers. Analytically, it aims to illustrate how transcribed talk‐in‐interaction can be subjected to a discourse analytic lens, to produce insights into how pre‐schoolers use “Coca‐Cola” as a conversational resource with which to build product‐related meanings and social selves.
Design/methodology/approach
Fourteen activity‐based discussion groups with pre‐schoolers aged between two and five years have been conducted in a number of settings including privately run Montessori schools and community based preschools in Dublin. The talk generated through these groups has been transcribed using the conventions of conversation analysis (CA). Passages of talk characterized by the topic of Coca‐Cola were isolated and a sub‐sample of these are analysed here using a CA‐informed discourse analytic approach.
Findings
A number of linguistic repertoires are drawn on, including health, permission and age. Coca‐Cola is constructed as something which is “bad” and has the potential to make one “mad”. It is an occasion‐based product permitted by parents for example as a treat, at the cinema or at McDonalds. It can be utilised to build “age‐based” social selves. “Big” boys or girls can drink Coca‐Cola but it is not suitable for “babies”.
Originality/value
This paper provides insight into the use of the activity‐based focus group as a data generation tool for use with pre‐schoolers. A discourse analytic approach to the interpretation of children's talk‐in‐interaction suggests that the preschool consumer is competent in accessing and employing a consumer artefact such as Coca‐Cola as a malleable resource with which to negotiate product meanings and social selves.
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Sriram Thirumalai, Scott Lindsey and Jeff K. Stratman
In the face of growing demand for care and tightening resource constraints, hospitals need to ensure access to care that is affordable and effective. Yet, the multiplicity of…
Abstract
Purpose
In the face of growing demand for care and tightening resource constraints, hospitals need to ensure access to care that is affordable and effective. Yet, the multiplicity of objectives is a key challenge in this industry. An understanding of the interrelationships (tradeoffs) between the multiple outcome objectives of care (throughput, experiential and financial performance) and returns to operational inputs (diversification of care) is fundamental to improving access to care that is effective and affordable. This study serves to address this need.
Design/methodology/approach
The empirical analysis in the study builds on an output-oriented distance function model and uses a longitudinal panel dataset from 153 hospitals in California.
Findings
This study results point to key insights related to output–output tradeoffs along the production frontier. Specifically, the authors find that higher throughput rates may lead to significantly lower levels of experiential quality, and net revenue from operations, accounting for the clinical quality of care. Similarly, the authors’ findings highlight the resource intensity and operational challenges of improving experiential quality of care. In regards to input–output relationships, this study finds diversification of care is associated with increased throughput, improvements in service satisfaction and a corresponding increase in the net revenue from operations.
Originality/value
Highlighting the tradeoffs along the production frontier among the various outcomes of interest (throughput, experiential quality and net revenue from operations), and highlighting the link between diversification of care and care delivery outcomes at the hospital level are key contributions of this study. An understanding of the tradeoffs and returns in healthcare delivery serves to inform policy-making with key managerial implications in the delivery of care.
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Christine Holmström Lind, Olivia Kang, Anna Ljung and Mats Forsgren
This paper aims to develop a conceptual framework and presents a number of propositions relating to why and how multinational companies (MNCs) engage in social innovations. The…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to develop a conceptual framework and presents a number of propositions relating to why and how multinational companies (MNCs) engage in social innovations. The central focus is on the role of MNC knowledge, networks and power for their involvement in social innovations.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors combine literature on social innovations, business innovations and MNC literature, and present a number of propositions dealing with the link between MNC knowledge, networks and power-relations and their potential involvement in social innovations.
Findings
The authors emphasize that when social innovations are embraced by MNCs, the way that these corporations use their knowledge, networks and existing power-relations needs to be adapted to the new conditions present in the social innovation arena.
Research limitations/implications
The main limitation of this work is that the propositions are based on anecdotal evidence and that they are restricted to literature revolving around a few theoretical concepts (knowledge, networks, power). Against this, the authors suggest that to address the call for more empirical work on MNCs engagement in social innovation, these concepts could be used as a starting point in future empirical investigations.
Originality/value
The paper brings together and outlines a theoretical framework based on three theoretical approaches to the MNC as suggested by the literature: the knowledge-based MNC, differentiated MNC and political MNC. Based on these three perspectives, the key contribution of this paper is to develop a broader understanding of why and how MNCs engage in social innovation and the potential underlying liabilities for this involvement.
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Olívia Trevisani Bertolini, Jefferson Marlon Monticelli, Ivan Lapuente Garrido, Jorge Renato Verschoore and Miriam Henz
This paper aims to analyze how strategizing practices can legitimate construction of public sector policy. The Porto Alegre Film Commission was set up as part of a strategy to…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to analyze how strategizing practices can legitimate construction of public sector policy. The Porto Alegre Film Commission was set up as part of a strategy to increase the city’s competitiveness as a tourism destination. The municipal government engaged with private and public stakeholders and embarked on a collective process of policy construction.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors based their research on two theoretical lenses from business administration theory: strategy as practice (SaP) and neo-institutional theory (NIT), whereby SaP attempts to explain formation and implementation of strategy on the basis of a process that seeks a collective result, whereas NIT reveals the limits of this formation and implementation, attributing the process to influences of power and legitimacy. Thus, the authors get a more accurate view of the actors and the system of governance, considering the in-built reflexivity of these relationships and their capacity to change institutional arrangements. The authors conducted an in-depth case study with a qualitative approach, using semi-structured interviews, participatory observation and documentary analysis.
Findings
The results revealed the role played by the government and how practices used in the strategizing process ensured the legitimacy of public sector policy formulation and engaged private and public stakeholders.
Research limitations/implications
The authors recognize limitations such as the investigation being set in a single country and responses based on the interviewees’ perceptions of momentum. It would be interesting to undertake cross-national comparisons using empirical data that allow comparison of film commissions with different relationships between strategizing, power and politics.
Practical implications
This case study analyzed the relationship between formal institutional agents and the strategies adopted to create and run the Porto Alegre Film Commission (PAFC), positioning Porto Alegre as a destination for film and video production and, reflexively, making it more attractive to tourists interested in getting to know the locations where publicity campaigns, films and soap operas were filmed. This formal institution agent was converted into a strategic catalyzer to influence the institutional issues in a creative industry in which trade associations and firms had encountered difficulties when they attempted to set up a film commission alone.
Social implications
The evidence compiled showed that the practices, besides being strategic, were enacted in a specific context and directed toward results and survival of the PAFC. The practices shaped the results, because they were constructed together with other actors, achieving legitimacy through collaborative development of practices and targeting survival by establishing governance structures capable of riding out periods of political transition. In short, the collective construction of the PAFC policy, led by the public sector, legitimized it in the eyes of society.
Originality/value
This study furthers the discussion about strategizing in an organizational field marked by power relationships and how their consequences can affect society in general. There is a need to take a closer look at the implications of strategizing for power relationships and how the consequences can influence the organizational field.
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The purpose of this study is to explore young students' perceptions about the impacts of Indian residential schools. A hopeful era of reconciliation has been ushered in to…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to explore young students' perceptions about the impacts of Indian residential schools. A hopeful era of reconciliation has been ushered in to confront the injustices committed to approximately 150,000 indigenous children and youth in Canada’s Indian residential schools in the not-so-distant past. Of these children, there were at least 6,000 recorded deaths; those who survived, faced the devastating impacts of forced assimilation. In the spirit of making “relation to and with the past, opening us to a reconsideration of the terms of our lives now as well as in the future” (Simon, 2006, p. 189), the author invited eight- and nine-year-olds to depict their thoughts about Indian residential schools.
Design/methodology/approach
A practitioner inquiry stance was used in this study. This approach takes into account that teachers are uniquely positioned to carry out highly contextualized classroom research. The data include a documentary analysis, observations of students’ work and short interview-like prompts. The data also included stimulated recall using student-participant responses to elicit feelings, thoughts, attitudes and beliefs (Freeman, 1998). A collaborative approach to the data analysis“engaging the author’s own and students’ interpretations of their work”allowed for a range of perspectives that address representativeness (Cornish et al., 2014).
Findings
Students’ representations reveal that even young children engage in political thought by understanding governance structures that are impinged upon young lives in Indian residential schools. The students in this study positioned themselves as “cultural citizens” (Kuttner, 2015) by contributing compelling ideas on power, relationships, displacement, assimilation and identity, in their mixed media texts. Rather than reducing what they had learned only to questions of oppression, they proposed possibilities of living a more ethical present by including teachings about living more ethically than those that have come before them.
Originality/value
This work aims to deepen decolonizing possibilities in classroom research, particularly in elementary classrooms.
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Hanna Astner and Johan Gaddefors
The purpose of this paper is to explore the roles of identities in entrepreneurial processes during the development of a new market. Two research questions are used: How do the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the roles of identities in entrepreneurial processes during the development of a new market. Two research questions are used: How do the founder’s identity, corporate identity and market identity interact as a new market is developing, and what are the functions of identity in the entrepreneurial process?
Design/methodology/approach
This qualitative research is grounded in a study of multiple cases, from which five Swedish start-ups have been selected. Interviews were conducted with the founders at several points in time and accompanied by observations of websites, media performance, policy documents and commercial material. Analysis was conducted in an iterative process between empirics and theory.
Findings
The findings show how identities develop in entrepreneurs, firms and the market and how the interactions between these three levels of identity affect the development of each. The authors recognize and discuss three functions of identity: a constructing function, in which identity is used to create a new firm and market; a guiding function, which navigates between identities by imposing identity work on founders, firms and markets; and a configuring function, which takes part in shaping contexts.
Research limitations/implications
This paper opens a space for future research on identities to advance understandings of how new firms and markets are developed. Investigating identity shows the importance of context to entrepreneurial processes. This points towards a need for researching different contexts, but also to the potential limited value of this study.
Practical implications
The paper offers guidance to founders and managers in understanding and navigating different identities. Founders and managers are provided with a set of critical questions, which aim to assist when managing identity-related concerns.
Originality/value
There is a vast amount of literature on the development of companies and markets, yet start-ups in new markets operate in different contexts and face different challenges that we know less about. This paper targets the latter and proposes identity as a useful lens for understanding the dynamics between entrepreneurs, start-ups and the new market.
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Since June 2000, dot.com companies in Hong Kong have followed the same pattern of downsizing as their counterparts in the West. Explores the downsizing phenomenon in the Internet…
Abstract
Since June 2000, dot.com companies in Hong Kong have followed the same pattern of downsizing as their counterparts in the West. Explores the downsizing phenomenon in the Internet industry, the employees’ views on the experience of downsizing in the industry, their job orientation and work expectations. Questionnaires were distributed with the endorsement of an employees’ association to its members. Three sets of interviews were conducted to obtain background information on the labour department, the Internet industry and association, and the respondents’ views. The major findings include that the employees of this industry have high educational levels, are young in age and worked long hours. Those who have experienced downsizing and closure tend to feel the injustice of the practice regardless of the compensation provided. For job orientation and work expectations, the majority of respondents tend to feel that the industry offers good prospects and promotion opportunities, but, on the other hand, they tend not to be satisfied with their present working environment. Female respondents tend to look for intrinsic rewards and they are more likely to be the target for downsizing.