Ahmed Raza Ul Mustafa, Jabbar Ul-Haq, Nisar Ahmed Dahri and Rameez Ali Mahesar
Social protection states the public-mandated (strategies and programmes) to address the vulnerability and risk among poor and near-poor households. Social protection must not only…
Abstract
Purpose
Social protection states the public-mandated (strategies and programmes) to address the vulnerability and risk among poor and near-poor households. Social protection must not only help people meet their basic needs but also contribute to the long-term well-being and broader societal goals of equity, social justice and empowerment. The role of social protection in achieving these goals has not been adequately documented. This paper examines the performance of the social protection mechanism from the perspective of the regional structural and institutional performance indicators. Social protection outlay dynamics are synthesized in the structural and institutional conducts.
Design/methodology/approach
A world regional comparability is made by considering the panel dataset for the time interval 1995–2020. In empirics, the unconditional and conditional ranks are constructed, and regression analyses are made subject to (1) the fiscal constraint of social protection, (2) structural performance indicators and (3) the institutional performance indicators of the targeted regions across the globe. The fully modified-ordinary least square (FM-OLS) method is used to construct the ranks.
Findings
The rank analysis demonstrates that the developed regions (i.e. Europe, Central Asia and North America) have relatively good welfare standards and fiscal capacity for social protection drives compared to the developing/underdeveloped regions (i.e. Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia). The structural/institutional performance indicators have shown their significance in determining/utilizing their budget for social protection and maintaining welfare standards. Interestingly, most developed regions are relatively reluctant to maintain the structural/institutional performance for the determination/execution of the funds for social protection as compared to the developing and underdeveloped regions.
Practical implications
In policy discourse, this research suggests that governments must make some market operations to enhance their regions’ structural and institutional performance to get better outcomes of social protection spending in the form of attractive welfare standards.
Originality/value
Multiple studies have been done considering the social protection dynamics at nano, micro and macro levels, while this study considered the mega dataset across the globe to analyse the social protection dynamics in consideration of structural and institutional performances.
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Ben Clegg, Jill MacBryde, Peter Ball, Donato Masi, Helen Mullen and Stella Despoudi
The purpose of this research is to develop empirically grounded propositions for further research into UK manufacturing productivity.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this research is to develop empirically grounded propositions for further research into UK manufacturing productivity.
Design/methodology/approach
Interviews were conducted with managers from strategic, tactical and operational levels from four manufacturing sectors to produce case studies. A modified strategic alignment theory framework was used to code, compare and contrast narratives on perceived productivity antecedents, definitions, compatibility with the definition from the UK Office for National Statistics, and vertical alignment issues within and across cases.
Findings
It was found that different key antecedents can facilitate and/or prevent strategic vertical alignment. Discussion reveals complex nuances in perceptions of manufacturing productivity and using the modified strategic alignment theory/productivity antecedent framework.
Originality/value
In revealing the alignment or otherwise of productivity definitions at different levels within the firm, the paper reveals nine propositions for future research including definitions, skills, metrics, performance measurement systems, people and system-centric perspectives, the value-added perspective of productivity and the role of innovation.
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Andrew Ebekozien, Clinton Ohis Aigbavboa, Mohamad Shaharudin Samsurijan, Ahmad Kabir Muhammad and Opeoluwa Akinradewo
Several governments in developing countries have attempted via policies and programmes to improve access to low-cost housing (LCH) finance for low-income house owners, but…
Abstract
Purpose
Several governments in developing countries have attempted via policies and programmes to improve access to low-cost housing (LCH) finance for low-income house owners, but sustainability has been an issue. Therefore, sustainable LCH (SLCH) financing framework may mitigate issues hindering LCH financing sustainability in developing countries. There is a paucity of studies about SLCH financing through a framework in Nigeria. Thus, the study investigated the barriers facing low-income earners (LInEs) accessing SLCH finance and developed a framework for promoting Nigerian SLCH financing.
Design/methodology/approach
The research employed a soft system methodology (SSM) to understand Nigeria’s LCH financing sustainability. The adopted method permitted a substitute to enhance LCH financing sustainability part way through a developed framework. The study conducted interviews across seven cities in Nigeria with selected practitioners.
Findings
The results were presented using the SSM seven steps. Findings reveal the state and barriers facing LInEs in accessing SLCH finance. Also, findings show that there is a need for a finance framework. It would improve sustainability, especially for intending low-income house owners across Nigeria’s cities. Findings include a framework to reposition LCH financing sustainability to promote homeowners for intending low-income house owners across Nigeria’s cities.
Originality/value
Besides the developed LCH financing sustainable framework, housing policymakers and developers can employ SLCH financing to improve low-income intending house owners in Nigeria. This may be the first study to develop a SLCH financing framework using SSM in a developing economy.
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Social media platforms are highly visible platforms, so politicians try to maximize their benefits from their use, especially during election campaigns. On the other side, people…
Abstract
Purpose
Social media platforms are highly visible platforms, so politicians try to maximize their benefits from their use, especially during election campaigns. On the other side, people express their views and sentiments toward politicians and political issues on social media, thus enabling them to observe their online political behavior. Therefore, this study aims to investigate user reactions on social media during the 2016 US presidential campaign to decide which candidate invoked stronger emotions on social media.
Design/methodology/approach
For testing the proposed hypotheses regarding emotional reactions to social media content during the 2016 presidential campaign, regression analysis was used to analyze a data set that consists of Trump’s 996 posts and Clinton’s 1,253 posts on Facebook. The proposed regression models are based on viral (likes, shares, comments) and emotional Facebook reactions (Angry, Haha, Sad, Surprise, Wow) as well as Russell’s valence, arousal, dominance (VAD) circumplex model for valence, arousal and dominance.
Findings
The results of regression analysis indicate how Facebook users felt about both presidential candidates. For Clinton’s page, both positive and negative content are equally liked, while Trump’s followers prefer funny and positive emotions. For both candidates, positive and negative content influences the number of comments. Trump’s followers mostly share positive content and the content that makes them angry, while Clinton’s followers share any content that does not make them angry. Based on VAD analysis, less dominant content, with high arousal and more positive emotions, is more liked on Trump’s page, where valence is a significant predictor for commenting and sharing. More positive content is more liked on Clinton’s page, where both positive and negative emotions with low arousal are correlated to commenting and sharing of posts.
Originality/value
Building on an empirical data set from Facebook, this study shows how differently the presidential candidates communicated on social media during the 2016 election campaign. According to the findings, Trump used a hard campaign strategy, while Clinton used a soft strategy.
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Emmy van den Heuvel, Danielle J. Guy, Zoe Taylor and Katherine M. Appleton
Consumption norms describe an individual’s perception of what or how much most other people typically eat. While gendered consumption norms are well known, consumption norms…
Abstract
Purpose
Consumption norms describe an individual’s perception of what or how much most other people typically eat. While gendered consumption norms are well known, consumption norms linked to other demographic variables are yet to be reported. This study aimed to investigate which food consumption norms in relation to gender, age and income are currently held by the UK population. A secondary research objective was to investigate whether these consumption norms were held equally across people in different age groups and genders within the sample population.
Design/methodology/approach
A sample of 498 adults participated in an online survey composed of statements on consumption patterns based on gender, age and income for nine foods (e.g. red meat) and five meal patterns (e.g. take-away meals). E.g. “Men tend to eat more red meat than women.” Participants reported their agreement/disagreement with these statements.
Findings
The results indicate that participants have perceived consumption norms that are associated with gender, age and income. Lower energy-dense foods and smaller meal patterns were generally associated with females, older persons and individuals with a higher income. In contrast, more energy-dense foods and meal patterns were generally associated with males, younger adults and individuals with a lower income. These consumption norms were held consistently across the population sample.
Originality/value
To the best of our knowledge, this is the first explicit demonstration of food consumption norms based on age and income.
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Caroline Essers, Maura McAdam and Carolin Ossenkop
This paper explores the ways women entrepreneurs in male-dominated industries do identity work in order to gain legitimacy. In particular, we consider such identity work as a…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper explores the ways women entrepreneurs in male-dominated industries do identity work in order to gain legitimacy. In particular, we consider such identity work as a process being prompted by their direct environment, while demonstrating the gendered structural power relations in these women’s entrepreneurial contexts. We use a postfeminist lens to show how, in their quest for more legitimacy, they seem to be interpellated by postfeminist discourse.
Design/methodology/approach
We have used a narrative approach to show how women entrepreneurs in masculinised contexts do identity work to acquire legitimacy, and moreover use a postfeminist perspective to reflect on this identity work as to demonstrate how these Dutch businesswomen consider their agency in specific feminist terms within these men-dominated industry environments.
Findings
We present empirical data of ten women entrepreneurs in the Netherlands and how they discursively and subjectively make sense of their surrounding gendered contexts, in order to illustrate how local gender regimes and individual actions may conspire to constrain as well as stimulate these women’s entrepreneurship. By reflecting on three different ways of identity work through a postfeminist lens, we show how these women are interpellated by postfeminist discourses when trying to gain legitimacy.
Research limitations/implications
The rather small sample does not allow us to generalise our findings to the whole population of women entrepreneurs in men-dominated contexts, yet this was not our goal anyway.
Practical implications
Such a reflection might help policy makers and such women themselves realise how, after all, gender inequality is still persistant in the entrepreneurship field and drawing on postfeminism does not necessarily help to support these women entrepreneurs' work–life balance.
Social implications
Our findings underline the importance of a more gender inclusive entrepreneurship ecosystem, in which women entrepreneurs in both masculinised ánd feminised sectors are seen and treated as legitimate entrepreneurs.
Originality/value
Postfeminism, to our knowledge, has hardly been applied to women entrepreneurs' experiences in men-dominated environments, and is in itself still a rather new field in entrepreneurship studies.
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The unfolding story of Boeing enables increased understanding of what transpired, of how what happened. That understanding enables fuller, more nuanced, specific, and useful…
Abstract
Purpose
The unfolding story of Boeing enables increased understanding of what transpired, of how what happened. That understanding enables fuller, more nuanced, specific, and useful recommendations for organizational leaders everywhere.
Design/methodology/approach
Compiling key events in Boeing’s migration from symbol of acclaimed quality products to a troubled maker of a repeatedly (and fatally so) flawed product ground interpretation and extraction of lessons for organizational leaders.
Findings
Restoring Boeing’s legacy of trust and industry leadership would demand more than words. It will demand rethinking strategic direction and implementation, such as restructuring its work systems, particularly the decision-making processes, and aligning them with long-term goals of quality, safety, and innovation. Boeing needs a coordinated effort to rebuild its culture, an effort necessarily comparable to the effort it employed to disassemble it.
Practical implications
This paper assists readers in understanding what underlies the Boeing story, indeed the Boeing tragedy. The facts testify to the decay and rot at Boeing. The facts alone, even when combined with first pass “sense making” under headings such as “culture” and “short term focus”, do not adequately explain what produced the facts. This paper attempts to provide that explanation in the service of furthering learning and improving future actions by organizational leaders, especially concerning their development and implementation of strategy.
Social implications
Boeing offers a cautionary tale-fatality, destruction of value, and erosion of employee well-being. Organizing this tale, as the article does, through both application of theory and extraction of lessons, moves the tale beyond frightening to understanding of underlying leadership and of how to avoid replicating Boeing's tragedy.
Originality/value
This paper assists readers in understanding what underlies the Boeing story, indeed the Boeing tragedy. The facts testify to the decay and rot at Boeing. The facts alone, even when combined with first pass “sense making” under headings such as “culture” and “short term focus”, do not sufficiently explain what produced the facts. This paper attempts to provide that explanation in the service of furthering learning and improving future actions by organizational leaders, especially concerning their development and implementation of strategy.
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Justin Marthinus, Rodney Graeme Duffett and Brendon Knott
Social media has revolutionized marketing communication (MC). Rugby is South Africa’s most professionalized sport, leading the industry in its business management structure as…
Abstract
Purpose
Social media has revolutionized marketing communication (MC). Rugby is South Africa’s most professionalized sport, leading the industry in its business management structure as well as its high-performance achievements. However, below the professional level, local rugby clubs face a large disparity compared to their professional counterparts, often relying on volunteers or part-time employees to manage the organizations. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate how non-professional rugby clubs use social media as a MC tool.
Design/methodology/approach
The study was exploratory, and a cross-sectional sample of twelve organizations was selected and employed a multiple case study approach. Club managers responsible for MC or social media participated in semi-structured interviews. The qualitative data analysis software, ATLAS.ti, facilitated the researchers’ use of an inductive approach to develop codes and themes for further analysis.
Findings
The findings revealed a high level of adoption of social media by the multiple cases (i.e. rugby sports club respondents), with only slight variations in the usage of specific social media applications (viz., Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and WhatsApp). The sports clubs perceived that employing social media added substantial value to their MC. There were six emergent themes related to the organization’s perceived benefits from adopting social media MC, namely: brand awareness, relationship-building, player recruitment, attracting sponsors, storytelling, and information sharing.
Originality/value
The study makes a novel contribution in terms of how rugby clubs use social media as an MC tool. The paper advances scant knowledge and awareness of the relationship between South Africa’s sports marketing and social media. The conclusions will aid non-professional sports organizations in enhancing the effectiveness of their social media marketing by ensuring that their objectives and target audiences are well-defined.
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Yaffa Moskovich and Adi Binhas
This study aims to investigate the unique cultural attributes of a particular association. The research focuses on a single case study involving a civil society organization whose…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the unique cultural attributes of a particular association. The research focuses on a single case study involving a civil society organization whose activities are focused within the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). Specifically, the association under examination is a religious voluntary organization engaged in social activities within the Israeli Defense Forces.
Design/methodology/approach
Data collection employed a qualitative approach using the case study method, with twenty in-depth ethnographic interviews conducted. The research questions guiding the study are: What are the hybrid structural characteristics of the religious association? How has this hybrid structure influenced the organizational culture?
Findings
The study identifies a hybrid structure comprising community, familial, and bureaucratic features. It reveals a blend of clan and bureaucratic cultural elements within the organization, demonstrating adaptability to the ideology of the Israeli Defense Forces.
Originality/value
The research uncovers an innovative hybrid structure that successfully navigates bureaucratic challenges and fosters a familial atmosphere contributing to communal benefits.