Anuradha Iddagoda, Rebecca Abraham, Manoaj Keppetipola and Hiranya Dissanayake
Military values/virtues are a subset of ethical values. The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of military virtues on job performance, either directly, or indirectly…
Abstract
Purpose
Military values/virtues are a subset of ethical values. The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of military virtues on job performance, either directly, or indirectly through mediation by, loyalty, patience, respect, employee engagement, job performance, military ethics, courage, self-discipline, caring, military virtue, Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) employee engagement.
Design/methodology/approach
Military virtues were conceptualized as a collective construct, consisting of loyalty, courage, patience, respect, self-discipline and caring. Using a sample of 254 military officers in the SLAF, the authors measured the effect of military virtues on job performance. The first model was a direct measurement of the influence of military virtues on job performance. The second model measured the influence of military virtues on employee engagement, followed by measurement of the influence of employee engagement on job performance. Structural equation modeling was used in data analysis.
Findings
Both direct effects and mediated effects of military virtues on job performance were significant. However, the direct effect was stronger, suggesting that military virtues in and of themselves resulted in superior performance, more effectively, than by first increasing employee engagement with the task or the organization.
Originality/value
This may be an initial empirical examination of the effects of military virtues on job performance.
Details
Keywords
Ammar Nawaz Khan, Farzan Yahya and Muhammad Waqas
This study investigates the mediating role of working capital management (WCM) efficiency between board diversity (based on gender and financial knowledge) and firm performance…
Abstract
Purpose
This study investigates the mediating role of working capital management (WCM) efficiency between board diversity (based on gender and financial knowledge) and firm performance. The study further examines which WCM approach (conservative, moderate, and aggressive) they employ to increase (decrease) firm performance.
Design/methodology/approach
The study employs listed energy firms of Pakistan over the period 2010 to 2019. The system generalized method of moments estimator and logit model are utilized to estimate the underlying relationships.
Findings
The results show that WCM efficiency partially mediates the relationship between board financial expertise (BFE) and firm performance. Nonetheless, the presence of female directors is merely symbolic until they reach a certain level as only the quadratic term of board gender diversity (BGD) has a significant effect on firm performance. Female directors do not influence WCM efficiency. The results also demonstrate that BGD encourages a conservative WCM approach, while BFE encourages a moderate WCM approach. Furthermore, both conservative and moderate WCM approaches are significantly associated with firm performance.
Practical implications
The findings hold implications for increasing the representation of women and financial experts on board to improve the capital structure decisions of the energy firms in Pakistan.
Originality/value
This study is the first attempt to explore the mediating role of WCM efficiency between board diversity and firm performance. To the best of the authors' knowledge, no previous study has investigated the effect of BGD and BFE on different WCM approaches distinctly.
Details
Keywords
This chapter advances understandings of emotion work by examining how “doing gender” and “doing health” are implicated in the pursuit of emotional tranquility. The study examines…
Abstract
This chapter advances understandings of emotion work by examining how “doing gender” and “doing health” are implicated in the pursuit of emotional tranquility. The study examines the role of hair loss in women’s illness narratives of cancer using in-depth interviews with 16 white women in the US Northwest who vary in age, marital status, diagnoses, and treatments. The absence of women’s hair presents an appearance of illness that prevents them from doing femininity, which calls into question their health status because of Western beauty standards. To overcome this barrier, the women use emotion work to manage the effects of their appearance through necessarily co-occurring bodily, cognitive, and expressive strategies (Hochschild, 1979). The required emotion work during women’s hair loss makes explicit the symbolic linking of the healthy body with the feminine body through women’s head hair. Pursuing treatment for cancer is often seen as a “fight” or a “battle” against the disease and the bodily assaults of such treatments, including unwanted visible bodily changes. A substantial body of empirical work has established the complex web of social psychological problems associated with breasts and breast cancer, but less attention has been given to the side effect of hair loss that is common across cancer types and treatments.
Details
Keywords
Abstract
Details
Keywords
The purpose of this paper is to highlight the regulatory barriers to achieving sustainable buildings in Kosovo. The present paper focuses on regulatory barriers viewed from the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to highlight the regulatory barriers to achieving sustainable buildings in Kosovo. The present paper focuses on regulatory barriers viewed from the perspective of construction industry experts in achieving sustainable buildings.
Design/methodology/approach
The present study uses a qualitative research method and semi-structured interviews as a research instrument. The present study interviews around 20 experts in construction and property management, property development, spatial planning and energy management.
Findings
The study finds that Kosovo building laws and regulations provide for the materials assessment criteria, but the materials assessment criteria are only for mechanic strength. The study further finds that the sustainability concept is not included and incorporated in Kosovo's urban planning laws and regulations. The study also finds that despite specific clauses mentioning energy performance certificates in the Law on Energy Performance of Buildings in Kosovo, energy performance certificates appears to be not enforced and the nature of the barrier is more organizational rather than regulatory. Finally, the study finds that Kosovo laws are silent as far as green labeling of building materials is concerned.
Practical implications
The implication of the present finding is that policymakers in Kosovo not only should include clear sustainable materials assessment criteria in the law, but also enforce those criteria through testing and inspection mechanisms included in the law and implemented in practice through funding and organizational support. Nonetheless, policymakers in Kosovo should contemplate amending the urban planning laws in Kosovo and include both the term of sustainability at the planning level and conformity guidelines for sustainable design that can be done at the administrative directive level. Further, the clauses in the law do not suffice if the clauses are not accompanied by specific systemic and organizational support in the issuance of energy performance certificates. Policymakers in Kosovo should be proactive in designing clauses that specify green labeling standards for materials; however, these labeling standards should not adversely affect the cost of construction and reduce the demand for real estate.
Originality/value
The study is the first qualitative study about the perception of construction professionals in Kosovo, regarding the regulatory barriers of sustainable buildings in Kosovo.
Details
Keywords
Victoria Pennington, Emily Howell, Rebecca Kaminski, Nicole Ferguson-Sams, Mihaela Gazioglu, Kavita Mittapalli, Amlan Banerjee and Mikel Cole
Computer-assisted language learning (CALL) can create participatory cultures by removing barriers to access materials, encouraging student modes of expression, differentiating…
Abstract
Purpose
Computer-assisted language learning (CALL) can create participatory cultures by removing barriers to access materials, encouraging student modes of expression, differentiating student interactions through digital environments and increasing learner autonomy. Participatory cultures require competencies or new media literacy (NML) skills to be successful in a digital world. However, professional development (PD) often lacks training on CALL and its implementation to develop such skills. The purpose of this study is to describe teachers use of digital tools for multilingual learners through a relevant theoretical perspective.
Design/methodology/approach
This design-based research study examines 30 in-service teachers in South Carolina, a destination state for Latinx immigrants, focusing data over three semesters of PD: interviews and instructional logs. The researchers address the question: How are teachers using digital tools to advance NML for multilingual learners (MLs)?
Findings
The authors analyzed current elementary teachers’ use of digital tools for language learning and NML purposes. Three themes are discussed: NMLs and digital literacy boundaries, digital tools for MLs and literacy teaching for MLs and NML skills.
Originality/value
Teacher PD often needs more specificity regarding the intersection of MLs and digital literacy. The authors contribute to the literature on needed elementary teaching practices for MLs, the integration of NML and how these practices may be addressed through PD.
Details
Keywords
Tanya Jurado, Alexei Tretiakov and Jo Bensemann
The authors aim to contribute to the understanding of the enduring underrepresentation of women in the IT industry by analysing media discourse triggered by a campaign intended to…
Abstract
Purpose
The authors aim to contribute to the understanding of the enduring underrepresentation of women in the IT industry by analysing media discourse triggered by a campaign intended to encourage women to join the IT industry.
Design/methodology/approach
Internet media coverage of the Little Miss Geek campaign in the UK was analysed as qualitative data to reveal systematic and coherent patterns contributing to the social construction of the role of women with respect to the IT industry and IT employment.
Findings
While ostensibly supporting women's empowerment, the discourse framed women's participation in the IT industry as difficult to achieve, focused on women's presumed “feminine” essential features (thus, effectively implying that they are less suitable for IT employment than men), and tasked women with overcoming the barrier via individual efforts (thus, implicitly blaming them for the imbalance). In these ways, the discourse worked against the broader aims of the campaign.
Social implications
Campaigns and organisations that promote women's participation should work to establish new frames, rather than allowing the discourse to be shaped by the established frames.
Originality/value
The authors interpret the framing in the discourse using Bourdieu's perspective on symbolic power: the symbolic power behind the existing patriarchal order expressed itself via framing, thus contributing to the maintenance of that order. By demonstrating the relevance of Bourdieu's symbolic power, the authors offer a novel understanding of how underrepresentation of women in the IT sector is produced and maintained.
Details
Keywords
Carla Haynes and Mark Rhys Kebbell
The purpose of this study was to determine if outcome bias and hindsight bias impact police performance ratings and perceptions of the likelihood and foreseeability of intimate…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study was to determine if outcome bias and hindsight bias impact police performance ratings and perceptions of the likelihood and foreseeability of intimate partner homicides. In addition, the authors wished to see if taking the perspective of police mitigates any effects.
Design/methodology/approach
A total of 200 university students read vignettes describing an incident from a police officer’s perspective or from their own perspective. Participants also read risk assessments of the offender’s risk of committing violence. They were randomly assigned to receive either information that the offender later committed a homicide or no outcome information.
Findings
The results demonstrated an outcome bias and hindsight bias, wherein participants who received information about the homicide rated it as more likely and foreseeable and gave lower performance ratings to the police, compared to those who did not receive outcome information. Participants who took police perspective still showed this bias.
Practical implications
The findings indicate that people are likely to be biased in their perceptions and judgements of police performance when they know a homicide occurred. This bias seems to be difficult to overcome.
Originality/value
This paper provides empirical evidence to show people may be unfairly critical of police performance when a homicide is perpetrated.