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E. Woo, Margaret Wooldridge and Elizabeth Ann LaPorte
The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of sustainability-focused, cocurricular, interdisciplinary programming for graduate students at creating future leaders…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of sustainability-focused, cocurricular, interdisciplinary programming for graduate students at creating future leaders in sustainability, i.e. did interdisciplinary sustainability programming further prepared graduate students in sustainability leadership beyond the scope of the individual student academic programs from the perspective of the student participants.
Design/methodology/approach
The objective of the study was met by evaluating the University of Michigan Dow Sustainability Fellows Program. With a decade of graduate-student participation, surveys and interviews of Fellows alumni from 2013 to 2020 were used to assess the program impact on creating sustainability leaders. Opportunities for program reflections were included through prompted open-ended questions.
Findings
A majority (88%) of the Fellows who responded to the survey agreed with the statement that their career path was positively affected by their participation in the program and that the cocurricular program provided opportunities to explore sustainability-related topics from perspectives they would not have experienced otherwise. The interdisciplinary aspect of the program and the focus on practical community sustainability projects were the most valued attributes of the cocurricular programming.
Research limitations/implications
Supporting cocurricular interdisciplinary programs requires significant resources and intentionality to engage diverse disciplines and diverse partner organizations.
Practical implications
Programs that provide experiential opportunities to build interdisciplinary team skills successfully enable graduate students to become leaders in sustainability fields in the workplace and in outreach and service.
Social implications
Cocurricular graduate student programming focused on community sustainability projects can successfully create valued learning experiences while simultaneously supporting communities with practical solutions to sustainability challenges.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this work is the first longitudinal assessment of the effectiveness of the interdisciplinary cocurricular programming on graduate student sustainability leadership outcomes. The results include feedback received from eight years of cocurricular programming.
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Fazal ur Rehman, Farwida Javed, Sadia Ejaz Shiekh and Viktor Prokop
This study aims to explore the impact of cultural practices on consumers’ buying behavior in sales promotional activities toward the fashion clothing brands based on the Theory of…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore the impact of cultural practices on consumers’ buying behavior in sales promotional activities toward the fashion clothing brands based on the Theory of Black-Box Model under the conditions of COVID-19 at Pakistan.
Design/methodology/approach
The study has collected data through questionnaire-based survey from 600 consumers of fashion clothing brands using convenience sampling technique in Pakistan and analyzed through PLS-SEM to find results.
Findings
The results confirmed that cultural practices and sales promotional activities have positive significant relationship with the consumers’ buying behavior during the celebration of events, also under the conditions of COVID-19. The study also found that ethnocentrism and xenocentrism are positively associated with cultural practices while social factors, physical factors, product innovation and marketing innovation with sales promotional activities.
Practical implications
The outcomes provide interesting insights about consumers’ assessment toward the sale’s promotional activities and cultural practices of fashion clothing brands during the celebration of events and guide the marketing practitioners to develop the customers edifying and environment-oriented business strategies to boost up the buying behavior in crisis situations.
Originality/value
Although prior research has widely investigated the cultural practices, sales promotion and consumers’ buying behavior in various settings, but to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study in these domains.
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Abstract
Purpose
Digital innovation requires organizations to reconfigure their information technology infrastructure (ITI) to cultivate creativity and implement fast experimentation. This research inquiries into ITI generativity, an emerging concept demoting a critical ITI capability for organizational digital innovation. More specifically, it conceptualizes ITI generativity across two dimensions—namely, systems and applications infrastructure (SAI) generativity and data analytics infrastructure (DAI) generativity—and examines their respective social and technical antecedents and their impact on digital innovation.
Design/methodology/approach
This research formulates a theoretical model to investigate the social and technical antecedents along with innovation outcomes of ITI generativity. To test this model and its associated hypotheses, a survey was administered to IT professionals possessing knowledge of their organization's IT architecture and digital innovation performance. The dataset, comprising responses from 140 organizations, was analyzed using the partial least squares technique.
Findings
Results reveal that both dimensions of ITI generativity contribute to digital innovation performance, with the effect of DAI generativity being more pronounced. In addition, SAI and DAI generativities are driven by social and technical factors within an organization. More specifically, SAI generativity is positively associated with the usage of a digital application services platform and IT human resources, whereas DAI generativity is positively linked to the usage of a data analytics services platform, data analytics services usability and data analytics human resources.
Originality/value
This research contributes to the literature on digital innovation by introducing ITI generativity as a crucial ITI capability and deciphering its role in digital innovation. It also offers useful insights and guidance for practitioners on how to build ITIs to achieve better digital innovation performance.
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Svante Andersson, Ulf Aagerup, Lisa Svensson and Sanna Eriksson
This study aims to explore challenges and opportunities in the digitalization of the business-to-business (B2B) customer journey in different buying situations. It also…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore challenges and opportunities in the digitalization of the business-to-business (B2B) customer journey in different buying situations. It also investigates where in the customer journey digital marketing is most efficient.
Design/methodology/approach
This research adopts a single case study approach to examine a B2B company that implemented digitalization in its customer journey in different buying situations. Data were collected through semistructured interviews, complemented by internal documents and information from the company’s website and social media, to identify reasons for and against the decision to digitalize the B2B customer journey.
Findings
Digitalization can offer firms a cost-effective and value-creating way to interact with customers in a B2B context. The B2B buying situation, however, plays a significant role in decisions on how to implement digitalization. Moreover, in the prepurchase phase, digital marketing is more effective in building awareness; in the purchase phase, personal selling is more effective in addressing customers’ needs.
Research limitations/implications
The use of a single case study cannot produce results directly generalizable to other contexts. However, the findings are applicable to the digitalization of B2B customer journeys in similar industrial contexts.
Practical implications
To successfully implement digitalization in the customer journey, B2B firms should choose digital tools according to different buying situations and phases in the customer journey, segment buyers by their needs rather than individual characteristics and integrate the sales and marketing functions.
Originality/value
This study contradicts prior research that claims that digital marketing can be used in a similar way in both B2B and business-to-consumer contexts. It further shows that the relevant demarcation is not between personal sales and digitalization but between automated digital marketing and individualized personal sales, regardless of medium.
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This article investigates the construction of risk within trustworthy digital repository audits. It contends that risk is a social construct, and social factors influence how…
Abstract
Purpose
This article investigates the construction of risk within trustworthy digital repository audits. It contends that risk is a social construct, and social factors influence how stakeholders in digital preservation processes comprehend and react to risk.
Design/methodology/approach
This research employs a qualitative research design involving in-depth semi-structured interviews with stakeholders in the Trustworthy Digital Repository Audit and Certification (TRAC) process, and document analysis of the TRAC checklist and audit reports. I apply an analytic framework based on the Model for the Social Construction of Risk in Digital Preservation to this data.
Findings
The findings validate the argument that risk in digital preservation is indeed socially constructed and demonstrate that the eight factors in the Model for the Social Construction of Risk in Digital Preservation do indeed influence how stakeholders constructed their understanding of risk. Of the eight factors in the model, communication, expertise, uncertainty and vulnerability were found to be the most influential in the construction of risk during the TRAC audit process. The influence of complexity, organizations political culture, were more limited.
Originality/value
This article brings new insights to digital preservation by demonstrating the importance of understanding risk as a social construct. I argue that risk identification and/or assessment is only the first step in the long-term preservation of digital information and show that perceptions of risk in digital preservation are shaped by social factors by applying theories of social construction and risk perception to an analysis of the TRAC process.
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Bataa Sayed Mohamed Mazen, Badawi Mohamed Ismail, Rushdya Rabee Ali Hassan, Mahmoud Ali and Wael S. Mohamed
The purpose of this study is to detect the effect of some natural cellulosic polymers in their nano forms with the addition of zinc oxide nanoparticles on restoring the lost…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to detect the effect of some natural cellulosic polymers in their nano forms with the addition of zinc oxide nanoparticles on restoring the lost mechanical strength of degraded papyrus without any harmful effects on the inks.
Design/methodology/approach
In the current study, the USB digital microscopy, scanning electron microscope, measurement of mechanical properties (tensile and elongation), pH measurement, color change and infrared spectroscopy were undertaken for the samples before and after treatment and aging.
Findings
In the current study, the USB digital microscopy, scanning electron microscope, measurement of mechanical properties (tensile and elongation), pH measurement, color change and infrared spectroscopy were undertaken for the samples before and after treatment and aging.
Originality/value
The effect of strengthening materials was studied on cellulose and carbon ink, which makes this study closer to reality as the manuscript is the consistent structure of cellulose and inks, whereas most of the literature stated the impact of consolidation materials on the strengthening the cellulosic supports without attention to their impact on inks.
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