Heidi C. Gonzalez, E-Ling Hsiao, Dianne C. Dees, Sherri R. Noviello and Brian L. Gerber
The lack of critical thinking in new graduates has been a concern to the nursing profession. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of an innovative…
Abstract
Purpose
The lack of critical thinking in new graduates has been a concern to the nursing profession. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of an innovative, evidence-based skills fair intervention on nursing students' achievements and perceptions of critical thinking skills development.
Design/methodology/approach
The explanatory sequential mixed-methods design was employed for this study.
Findings
The findings indicated participants perceived the intervention as a strategy for developing critical thinking.
Originality/value
The study provides educators helpful information in planning their own teaching practice in educating students.
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Eduard Hartwich, Philipp Ollig, Gilbert Fridgen and Alexander Rieger
This paper aims to establish a fundamental and comprehensive understanding of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) by identifying and structuring common characteristics within a taxonomy…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to establish a fundamental and comprehensive understanding of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) by identifying and structuring common characteristics within a taxonomy. NFTs are hyped and increasingly marketed as essential building blocks of the Metaverse. However, the dynamic evolution of the NFT space has posed challenges for those seeking to develop a deep and comprehensive understanding of NFTs, their features and their capabilities.
Design/methodology/approach
Utilizing common guidelines for the creation of taxonomies, the authors developed (over 3 iterations), a multi-layer taxonomy based on workshops and interviews with 11 academic and 15 industry experts. Through an evaluation of 25 NFTs, the authors demonstrate the usefulness of the taxonomy.
Findings
The taxonomy has 4 layers, 14 dimensions and 42 characteristics, which describe NFTs in terms of reference object, token properties, token distribution and realizable value.
Originality/value
The authors' framework is the first to systematically cover the emerging NFT phenomenon. This framework is concise yet extendible and presents many avenues for future research in a plethora of disciplines. The characteristics identified in the authors' taxonomy are useful for NFT- and Metaverse-related research in finance, marketing, law and information systems. Additionally, the taxonomy can serve as an information source for policymakers as they consider NFT regulation.
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Monique Rieger Rodrigues and Søren Munch Lindhard
The traditional construction delivery method is challenged by low trust and collaboration issues, resulting in increased project costs. The integrated project delivery (IPD…
Abstract
Purpose
The traditional construction delivery method is challenged by low trust and collaboration issues, resulting in increased project costs. The integrated project delivery (IPD) method is developed, through a contractual agreement, to overcome these challenges by creating a common set of terms, expectations and project goals.
Design/methodology/approach
A singular construction case was followed during a four-month period. Data collection consisted of contract documents and a series of semi-structured interviews with representatives from the owner, design-group and contractors.
Findings
The IPD contract was found to have a number of positive effects; it improved project behavior (e.g. trust, collaboration and communication), increased ownership among project participants and improved buildability of the design, leading to fewer surprises and interruptions in the construction phase. The study also revealed a number of challenges including contractual and legal challenges and involving too many participants in the early phases. Moreover, co-location was identified as a particular important supporting element, to build relations and improve collaboration.
Originality/value
This research identified lessons learned from the application, as well as initial barriers and persistent barriers for implementing IPD. To improve IPD application the top three lessons were as follows: 1) the contractual documents should be adapted and signed at an early stage as this increases financial transparency, 2) cost estimates should be carried as an iterative process and project main concept be freezed at an early stage to increase understanding and minimize risks, 3) only the most important project developers should be involved in the early phases, to avoid going into detailed design issues before the main concept is completed.
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Eva Goldgruber, Susanne Sackl-Sharif, Julian Ausserhofer and Robert Gutounig
Using and understanding social media in the context of networked publics enhances crisis communication. This chapter describes models and ideas for integrating social media into…
Abstract
Using and understanding social media in the context of networked publics enhances crisis communication. This chapter describes models and ideas for integrating social media into the communication strategies of rescue organisations. The authors develop their recommendations for the use of social media by these organisations from both a summary and comparison of communication processes during the 2013 Central European floods in Austria, and from the perspective of an organisation actively using social media in the chosen model region of Alkoven. The chapter presents basic recommendations, recommendations inspired by content strategy and recommendations based on web and social media literacy in order to support the further development of crisis communication in the digital age.
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Roberto De Luca, Antonino Ferraro, Antonio Galli, Mosè Gallo, Vincenzo Moscato and Giancarlo Sperlì
The recent innovations of Industry 4.0 have made it possible to easily collect data related to a production environment. In this context, information about industrial equipment �…
Abstract
Purpose
The recent innovations of Industry 4.0 have made it possible to easily collect data related to a production environment. In this context, information about industrial equipment – gathered by proper sensors – can be profitably used for supporting predictive maintenance (PdM) through the application of data-driven analytics based on artificial intelligence (AI) techniques. Although deep learning (DL) approaches have proven to be a quite effective solutions to the problem, one of the open research challenges remains – the design of PdM methods that are computationally efficient, and most importantly, applicable in real-world internet of things (IoT) scenarios, where they are required to be executable directly on the limited devices’ hardware.
Design/methodology/approach
In this paper, the authors propose a DL approach for PdM task, which is based on a particular and very efficient architecture. The major novelty behind the proposed framework is to leverage a multi-head attention (MHA) mechanism to obtain both high results in terms of remaining useful life (RUL) estimation and low memory model storage requirements, providing the basis for a possible implementation directly on the equipment hardware.
Findings
The achieved experimental results on the NASA dataset show how the authors’ approach outperforms in terms of effectiveness and efficiency the majority of the most diffused state-of-the-art techniques.
Research limitations/implications
A comparison of the spatial and temporal complexity with a typical long-short term memory (LSTM) model and the state-of-the-art approaches was also done on the NASA dataset. Despite the authors’ approach achieving similar effectiveness results with respect to other approaches, it has a significantly smaller number of parameters, a smaller storage volume and lower training time.
Practical implications
The proposed approach aims to find a compromise between effectiveness and efficiency, which is crucial in the industrial domain in which it is important to maximize the link between performance attained and resources allocated. The overall accuracy performances are also on par with the finest methods described in the literature.
Originality/value
The proposed approach allows satisfying the requirements of modern embedded AI applications (reliability, low power consumption, etc.), finding a compromise between efficiency and effectiveness.
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Wolfgang Lattacher, Malgorzata Anna Wdowiak, Erich J. Schwarz and David B. Audretsch
The paper follows Jason Cope's (2011) vision of a holistic perspective on the failure-based learning process. By analyzing the research since Cope's first attempt, which is often…
Abstract
Purpose
The paper follows Jason Cope's (2011) vision of a holistic perspective on the failure-based learning process. By analyzing the research since Cope's first attempt, which is often fragmentary in nature, and providing novel empirical insights, the paper aims to draw a new comprehensive picture of all five phases of entrepreneurial learning and their interplay.
Design/methodology/approach
The study features an interpretative phenomenological analysis of in-depth interviews with 18 failed entrepreneurs. Findings are presented and discussed in line with experiential learning theory and Cope's conceptual framework of five interrelated learning timeframes spanning from the descent into failure until re-emergence.
Findings
The study reveals different patterns of how entrepreneurs experience failure, ranging from abrupt to gradual descent paths, different management and coping behaviors, and varying learning effects depending on the new professional setting (entrepreneurial vs non-entrepreneurial). Analyzing the entrepreneurs' experiences throughout the process shows different paths and connections between individual phases. Findings indicate that the learning timeframes may overlap, appear in different orders, loop, or (partly) stay absent, indicating that the individual learning process is even more dynamic and heterogeneous than hitherto known.
Originality/value
The paper contributes to the field of entrepreneurial learning from failure, advancing Cope's seminal work on the learning process and -contents by providing novel empirical insights and discussing them in the light of recent scientific findings. Since entrepreneurial learning from failure is a complex and dynamic process, using a holistic lens in the analysis contributes to a better understanding of this phenomenon as an integrated whole.
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Magdalena Niewczas-Dobrowolska
Food safety is an important characteristic of food, because it influences health. Perception of food hazards is a complex issue. Consumers have different perceptions regarding the…
Abstract
Purpose
Food safety is an important characteristic of food, because it influences health. Perception of food hazards is a complex issue. Consumers have different perceptions regarding the probability of a hazard occurring in different food groups. If a hazard appears in the food, it has severe consequences. This is not only because of the negative impact on health and life but also because of the entire economy and image of producers.
Design/methodology/approach
A survey using the Computer-Assisted Web Interviewing method was conducted in January 2020 in Poland with 2,000 respondents to collect information about consumers' perception of food safety and lack of food safety.
Findings
It was shown that this perception depends mainly on gender and the decisiveness on food purchase. The similarity of the country from which the hazard comes as well as the scientists' knowledge about the hazard influences hazard perception by consumers. If a hazard appears in food, it has serious consequences for consumers, food chain actors, public finance and so on. The occurrence of food hazards causes consumers to stop buying this food product.
Originality/value
This study provides interesting information about consumers' perception of the lack of food safety. These results can be used by food producers and food safety authorities. The results also provide input information for further research on the perception of food safety in various types of food products.
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Stefan Prigge and Katharina J. Mengers
This chapter presents the current research status of family constitutions from an economics perspective. It locates the family constitution as part of the family and business…
Abstract
This chapter presents the current research status of family constitutions from an economics perspective. It locates the family constitution as part of the family and business governance structure of a family firm and the owner family. The typical structure and content of a family constitution are introduced. The chapter focuses on the status of research about family constitutions and provides a structured map for future research. With regard to extant research, it must be stated that the stock of literature is small. The contributions to literature are categorized in surveys; conceptual contributions; survey data; small sample, qualitative, empirical studies; and big sample, quantitative, empirical studies. The latter group includes three studies with a separate family constitution variable. This small number symbolizes that the family constitution still is an under-researched area. Therefore, family constitution research is far away from being able to answer central questions of advice-seeking owner families like, for example, whether a family constitution affects family performance, firm performance, or both; or whether the development process of a family constitutions disposes of an effect on family or firm performance separately from the hypothesized effect of the family constitution document.
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Melanie Wiese and Liezl-Marié Van Der Westhuizen
This study aims to explore public coping strategies with government-imposed lockdown restrictions (i.e. forced compliance) due to a health crisis (i.e. COVID-19). This directly…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore public coping strategies with government-imposed lockdown restrictions (i.e. forced compliance) due to a health crisis (i.e. COVID-19). This directly impacts the public's power, as they may feel alienated from their environment and from others. Consequently, this study explores the relationships between the public's power, quality of life and crisis-coping strategies. This is important to help governments understand public discourse surrounding perceived government health crisis communication, which aids effective policy development.
Design/methodology/approach
An online questionnaire distributed via Qualtrics received 371 responses from the South African public and structural equation modelling was used to test the hypotheses.
Findings
The results indicate the public's experience of powerlessness and resulting information-sharing, negative word-of-mouth and support-seeking as crisis coping strategies in response to government-imposed lockdown restrictions.
Originality/value
The public's perspective on health crisis communication used in this study sheds light on adaptive and maladaptive coping strategies that the public employs due to the alienation they feel during a health crisis with government-forced compliance. The findings add to the sparse research on crisis communication from the public perspective in a developing country context and provide insights for governments in developing health crisis communication strategies. The results give insight into developing policies related to community engagement and citizen participation during a pandemic.
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The efficiency of each of an organization’s individual workers determines its effectiveness. The study aims to explore the relationship between human resource management (HRM…
Abstract
Purpose
The efficiency of each of an organization’s individual workers determines its effectiveness. The study aims to explore the relationship between human resource management (HRM) practices and organizational effectiveness with employee performance as a mediating variable.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected from 800 police officers in the Greater Accra and Tema regions. The data were supported by the hypothesized relationship. Construct reliability and validity was established through confirmatory factor analysis. The proposed model and hypotheses were evaluated using structural equation modeling.
Findings
The results show that career planning and employee performance were significantly related. Self-managed teams and employee performance were shown to be nonsignificantly related. Similarly, performance management and employee performance were shown to be nonsignificantly related. Employee performance significantly influenced organizational effectiveness. The results further indicate that employee performance mediates the relationship between HRM practices and organizational effectiveness.
Research limitations/implications
The generalizability of the findings will be constrained due to the research’s police service focus and cross-sectional data.
Practical implications
The study’s findings will serve as valuable pointers for the police administration in the adoption, design and implementation of well-articulated and proactive HRM practices to improve the abilities, skills, knowledge and motivation of officer’s to inordinately enhance the effectiveness of the service.
Originality/value
By evidencing empirically that employee performance mediates the relationship between HRM practice and organizational effectiveness, the study extends the literature.