Marie-Chantale Pelletier, Claire Horner, Mathew Vickers, Aliya Gul, Eren Turak and Christine Turner
The purpose of this study is to explore the feasibility of natural capital accounting for the purpose of strengthening sustainability claims by reporting entities. The study…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to explore the feasibility of natural capital accounting for the purpose of strengthening sustainability claims by reporting entities. The study showed how riparian land improvement influenced ecosystem services which could be measured in the context of financial reporting. The authors tested options for incorporating natural capital concepts into financial accounting practices under existing accounting standards specifically: on the balance sheet.
Design/methodology/approach
A case study approach was used with an Australian water utility that has accountabilities to protect the environment, including maintaining and enhancing riparian land assets. The authors examined internal data sources, stakeholder engagement outcomes, physical assets, monetary valuation processes and financial recognition of natural capital income and assets. Natural capital income was estimated by process-based ecological modelling and ecosystem services were valued in relation to stormwater filtration and carbon storage using data from both internal and external sources.
Findings
The authors demonstrated how an environmental agency can disclose natural capital as a class of assets on the balance sheet. The authors also found that current accounting standards allow the recognition of some types of environmental assets where ecosystem services were associated with cost savings. The proof-of-concept used for asset measurement through ecosystem service modelling proved useful to strengthen sustainability claims or report financial returns on natural capital investment.
Originality/value
While many studies have examined environmental disclosures in voluntary reports, this study established that natural assets can be included on the balance sheet of financial statements, offering a robust approach to measuring and reporting on natural capital. It did so by applying financial accounting processes and principles to a real-world natural capital management scenario with direct participation and cooperation between the asset manager, academic researchers and a government environment agency, bridging the gap between theory and practice.
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Ilaria Boncori and Kristin Samantha Williams
This article explores memory work and storytelling as an organising tool through family histories, offering theoretical and methodological implications and extending existing…
Abstract
Purpose
This article explores memory work and storytelling as an organising tool through family histories, offering theoretical and methodological implications and extending existing conceptualisations of memory work as a feminist method. This approach is termed as impressionist memory work.
Design/methodology/approach
To illustrate impressionistic memory work in action, the article presents two family histories set during Second World War and invite the reader to engage in the “undoing” of these stories and dominant ways of knowing through storytelling. This method challenges the taken-for-granted roles, plots and detail of family histories to uncover the obscured or silenced stories within, together with feminine, affective and embodied subjectivities, marginalisation and social inequalities.
Findings
This study argues that impressionistic memory work as a feminist method can challenge the silencing and gendering of experiences in co-constructed and co-interpreted narratives (both formal and informal ones).
Originality/value
This study shows that engagement with impressionistic memory work can challenge taken-for-granted stories with prominent male actors and masculine narratives to reveal the female actors and feminine narratives within. This approach will offer a more inclusive perspective on family histories and deeper engagement with the marginalised or neglected actors and aspects of our histories.
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Brooke Wooley, Steven Bellman, Nicole Hartnett, Amy Rask and Duane Varan
Dynamic advertising, including television and online video ads, demands new theory and tools developed to understand attention to moving stimuli. The purpose of this study is to…
Abstract
Purpose
Dynamic advertising, including television and online video ads, demands new theory and tools developed to understand attention to moving stimuli. The purpose of this study is to empirically test the predictions of a new dynamic attention theory, Dynamic Human-Centred Communication Systems Theory, versus the predictions of salience theory.
Design/methodology/approach
An eye-tracking study used a sample of consumers to measure visual attention to potential areas of interest (AOIs) in a random selection of unfamiliar video ads. An eye-tracking software feature called intelligent bounding boxes (IBBs) was used to track attention to moving AOIs. AOIs were coded for the presence of static salience variables (size, brightness, colour and clutter) and dynamic attention theory dimensions (imminence, motivational relevance, task relevance and stability).
Findings
Static salience variables contributed 90% of explained variance in fixation and 57% in fixation duration. However, the data further supported the three-way interaction uniquely predicted by dynamic attention theory: between imminence (central vs peripheral), relevance (motivational or task relevant vs not) and stability (fleeting vs stable). The findings of this study indicate that viewers treat dynamic stimuli like real life, paying less attention to central, relevant and stable AOIs, which are available across time and space in the environment and so do not need to be memorised.
Research limitations/implications
Despite the limitations of small samples of consumers and video ads, the results of this study demonstrate the potential of two relatively recent innovations, which have received limited emphasis in the marketing literature: dynamic attention theory and IBBs.
Practical implications
This study documents what does and does not attract attention to video advertising. What gets attention according to salience theory (e.g. central location) may not always get attention in dynamic advertising because of the effects of relevance and stability. To better understand how to execute video advertising to direct and retain attention to important AOIs, advertisers and advertising researchers are encouraged to use IBBs.
Originality/value
This study makes two original contributions: to marketing theory, by showing how dynamic attention theory can predict attention to video advertising better than salience theory, and to marketing research, showing the utility of tracking visual attention to moving objects in video advertising with IBBs, which appear underutilised in advertising research.
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Dustin K. Grabsch, Lori L. Moore and Kim E. Dooley
Identity has emerged as a compelling force in understanding leadership. Situated within the identity approach to leadership, this study explored identity within the context of…
Abstract
Identity has emerged as a compelling force in understanding leadership. Situated within the identity approach to leadership, this study explored identity within the context of leadership for both assigned (i.e., positional) and emergent (i.e., nonpositional) student leaders. Findings from this study suggest that a distinct set of a leader’s identities is active in college student leadership and that personal identities are most salient to leaders. By making connections between identity and leadership, educators and practitioners may strengthen their understanding of how their curriculum and workshops may serve as identity workspaces for leaders.
Rita Bissola and Barbara Imperatori
This study adopts the popular culture lens to investigate the collective understanding behind the human resources (HR) occupations.
Abstract
Purpose
This study adopts the popular culture lens to investigate the collective understanding behind the human resources (HR) occupations.
Design/methodology/approach
The empirical study analyzes 129 characters from 87 movies, television (TV) series, books and comics. The measurement model was tested using structural equation modeling and cluster analysis identified five HR representations in the popular culture.
Findings
Popular culture reflects five HR representations: The Executor, the Hero, the Buddy, the Bore, and the Good-time person. Results suggest that public opinion pays scarce attention to the so-called HR “strategic position” while underlining the need for a more socially responsible HR approach.
Originality/value
The authors' study serves as a means for integrating past research on HR role and reputation, occupational image, self-identity and popular media. While most scholars have addressed popular culture as a single case and paid almost no attention to the HR domain, this article complements the literature by offering a fruitful way to distil HR summative popular culture representations, thus advocating for both a theoretical and a methodological contribution.
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Hafiz A. Alaka, Lukumon O. Oyedele, Hakeem A. Owolabi, Muhammad Bilal, Saheed O. Ajayi and Olugbenga O. Akinade
This study explored use of big data analytics (BDA) to analyse data of a large number of construction firms to develop a construction business failure prediction model (CB-FPM)…
Abstract
This study explored use of big data analytics (BDA) to analyse data of a large number of construction firms to develop a construction business failure prediction model (CB-FPM). Careful analysis of literature revealed financial ratios as the best form of variable for this problem. Because of MapReduce’s unsuitability for iteration problems involved in developing CB-FPMs, various BDA initiatives for iteration problems were identified. A BDA framework for developing CB-FPM was proposed. It was validated by using 150,000 datacells of 30,000 construction firms, artificial neural network, Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud, Apache Spark and the R software. The BDA CB-FPM was developed in eight seconds while the same process without BDA was aborted after nine hours without success. This shows the issue of not wanting to use large dataset to develop CB-FPM due to tedious duration is resolvable by applying BDA technique. The BDA CB-FPM largely outperformed an ordinary CB-FPM developed with a dataset of 200 construction firms, proving that use of larger sample size with the aid of BDA, leads to better performing CB-FPMs. The high financial and social cost associated with misclassifications (i.e. model error) thus makes adoption of BDA CB-FPMs very important for, among others, financiers, clients and policy makers.
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Ming-Miin Yu, Bo Hsiao, Shih-Hsun Hsu and Shaw Yu Li
This paper presents an alternative approach to evaluating the overall efficiency and performance of Taiwanese container ports. Specifically, a parallel activity with series…
Abstract
This paper presents an alternative approach to evaluating the overall efficiency and performance of Taiwanese container ports. Specifically, a parallel activity with series structure concept in the form of data envelopment analysis (MNDEA) is used to construct a model that applies to three different activities: harbor management, stevedoring and warehousing operations. We will further divide each activity into two process types, production processes and services processes. We will also adopt a Delphi survey approach and use the Analytic Network Process (ANP) to identify these processes’influence dependence and their degree of importance for the MNDEA model setting. An empirical application demonstrates the performance of Taiwanese container ports by using MNDEA with window analysis techniques via the directional distance functionThe results demonstrate that the application is effective in indicating and/or suggesting resource-adjustments, while considering which undesirable output levels and shared inputs were involved. The results also present directions for possible improvements in workplace efficiency.
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Adam Fletcher, Natasha Fitzgerald-Yau, Meg Wiggins, Russell M. Viner and Chris Bonell
The purpose of this paper is to explore the process of involving students and staff on school action groups, and staff and student experiences of reviewing local data and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the process of involving students and staff on school action groups, and staff and student experiences of reviewing local data and initiating school-level changes, to address bullying and other aggression.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors draw on qualitative, process data collected at four purposively sampled pilot intervention schools in England via semi-structured interviews with school managers, action group members and facilitators (n=33), focus groups with students (n=16) and staff (n=4), and observations.
Findings
School staff used multiple methods to recruit a diverse range of students onto school action groups. Locally tailored data reports were an important catalyst for action groups to identify priorities and plan whole school change – both through the process of “validation” (whereby existing concerns were confirmed) and “discovery” (whereby new problems were identified). An unexpected benefit of providing schools with these data was that it triggered analyses of other data sources, including routine monitoring data. External facilitators were important in promoting student voice and ensuring the intervention retained integrity as a whole-school restorative approach.
Practical implications
It was feasible to involve young people using action groups, and there was evidence of school-level actions led by students, including in disadvantaged school contexts. Future Health Promoting Schools interventions could incorporate this approach to support locally appropriate, school-level change.
Originality/value
The micro-level processes that were observed, whereby action groups interrogated feedback reports and collected additional data, suggest the responsiveness of such youth-involvement interventions to local needs. Contrary to many public health interventions, implementation appeared to be facilitated rather than hindered by features of the secondary-school “market” whereby parents have some choice between schools.
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Giselle Cappellesso, Cristiano Moreira Raimundo and Karim Marini Thomé
This study aims to measure the intensity of innovation in the Brazilian food sector and compares it to other manufacturing sectors in the country.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to measure the intensity of innovation in the Brazilian food sector and compares it to other manufacturing sectors in the country.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors used economic and financial data provided by the annual survey of industry [Pesquisa Industrial Anual (PIAs), in Portuguese] and other supporting data provided by the survey of innovation [Pesquisa de Inovação (PINTEC), in Portuguese] and the classification of technology intensity (TI) proposed by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. The authors subsequently applied the Malmquist index in addition to the data envelopment analysis to measure innovation.
Findings
The results reveal that the Brazilian food sector is classified as a sector with low TI and investment in research and development (R&D), which represents one of the lowest rates when compared to other sectors. Thus, the Brazilian food sector is far from achieving its full potential. Nevertheless, the authors noticed that the sugar refinery industry showed an evolution in its technology frontier and presented a frequency of innovation similar to the average of high-tech industries.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the debate on innovation in the food sector, emphasizing the need to accomplish higher investments in R&D to increase the productivity of the sector.
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Increasing demand on rail transport speeds up the introduction of new technical systems to optimize the rail traffic and increase competitiveness. Remote control of trains is seen…
Abstract
Purpose
Increasing demand on rail transport speeds up the introduction of new technical systems to optimize the rail traffic and increase competitiveness. Remote control of trains is seen as a potential layer of resilience in railway operations. It allows for operating and controlling automated trains and communicating and coordinating with other stakeholders of the railway system. This paper aims to present the first results of a multi-phased simulator study on the development and optimization of remote train driving concepts from the operators’ point of view.
Design/methodology/approach
The presented concept was developed by benchmarking good practices. Two phases of iterative user tests were conducted to evaluate the user experience and preferences of the developed human-machine-interface concept. Basic training requirements were identified and evaluated.
Findings
Results indicate positive feedback on the overall system as a fallback solution. HMI elicited positive emotions regarding pleasure and dominance, but low arousal levels. Train drivers had more conservative views on the system compared to signalers and students. The training activities achieved increased awareness and understanding of the system for future operators. Inclusion of potential users in the development of future systems has the potential to improve user acceptance. The iterative user experiments were useful in obtaining some of the needs and preferences of different user groups.
Originality/value
Multi-phase user tests were conducted to identify and to evaluate the requirements and preferences of remote operators using a simplified HMI. Training analysis provides important aspects to consider for the training of future users.