Palash Saha, Subrata Talapatra, H.M. Belal, Victoria Jackson, Amanda Mason and Olatunde Durowoju
This study aims to investigate the influence of the interrelationship between the deployment of Industry 4.0 (I4.0) technologies and the application of lean production (LP…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the influence of the interrelationship between the deployment of Industry 4.0 (I4.0) technologies and the application of lean production (LP) practices on the degree of organizational sustainability performance (SP) enhancement of the Bangladeshi ready-made garment (RMG) sector.
Design/methodology/approach
Previously, researchers have applied the resource-based view (RBV) or dynamic capability view (DCV) to describe the interaction of resources and capacities (technologies, management practices, SP) to analyze their effectiveness. However, in light of several contemporary academic discussions, this study contends that these organizational views are inappropriate for explicating SP. Hence, as the foundation of this study’s theoretical framework, the authors used the practice-based view (PBV), which is recommended as a useful window to evaluate the function of practices that are common and simple to emulate in execution. To test the theoretical framework and research hypothesis, this study used partial least square (PLS) analysis. For that, the authors carried out a systematic survey to collect data from 80 Bangladeshi RMG factories.
Findings
The results of this research imply that LP is a crucial factor in enhancing organizational SP. Moreover, the results also indicate that the adoption of I4.0 technologies along with LP can assist in delivering the lean objectives more efficiently and, therefore, the combined application of LP practices and I4.0 technologies play a significant role in enhancing organizational SP.
Originality/value
Though the present literature indicates the probable significant association between LP and SP or I4.0 technologies and SP, no study, with the best of the authors’ knowledge, has empirically examined the combined impacts of correlation between LP and I4.0 on SP. This is also a unique study to apply the PBV theory to explain the organizational SP through the combination of common resources and technologies.
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Allan Wigfield, Amanda Mason-Singh, Amy N. Ho and John T. Guthrie
We describe the development and various implementations of a reading comprehension instruction program called Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction (CORI). CORI was designed to…
Abstract
Purpose
We describe the development and various implementations of a reading comprehension instruction program called Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction (CORI). CORI was designed to enhance students’ reading motivation and reading comprehension, and has been implemented at both elementary and middle school, with a particular focus on science information text reading.
Design/methodology/approach
We overview Guthrie and Wigfield’s (2000) reading engagement model, which provides CORI’s theoretical framework. Then we present the major implementation of CORI at elementary school and middle school.
Findings
CORI teachers in elementary school focused on five teaching practices to foster motivation: (1) providing thematic content goals; (2) optimizing choice; (3) hands-on activities connected to reading; (4) providing interesting texts; and (5) fostering collaboration. Teachers also taught six reading strategies recommended by the National Reading Panel. Results of several studies showed that CORI students had higher reading motivation and better reading comprehension than students receiving only strategy instruction or traditional reading instruction. We next describe three implementations of CORI at middle school. The motivational instructional practices at this level included (1) thematic contact goals; (2) emphasizing the importance of reading; (3) showing how reading is relevant to student lives; (4) fostering collaboration; (5) optimizing choice; and (6) enabling success. Results of several studies again documented CORI’s success at boosting students’ motivation and comprehension.
Originality/value
The studies carried out show the success of CORI and the paper closes with suggestions about the next steps for the program.
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Kristen Howell Gregory and Amanda Kate Burbage
The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of critical friendship on a first- and last-year doctoral student’s novice and expert mindsets during role transitions…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of critical friendship on a first- and last-year doctoral student’s novice and expert mindsets during role transitions. Doctoral students are challenged to navigate role transitions during their academic programs. Experiences in research expectations, academy acculturation and work-life balance, may impact doctoral students’ novice-expert mindsets and contribute to the costly problem of attrition. Universities offer generic doctoral support, but few support sources address the long-term self-directed nature of self-study.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors participated in a collaborative self-study over a 30-month period. The authors collected 35 personal shared journal entries and 12 recorded and transcribed discussions. The authors conducted a constant comparative analysis of the data, and individually and collaboratively coded the data for initial and focused codes to construct themes.
Findings
The critical friendship provided a safe space to explore the doctoral experiences and novice-expert mindsets, which the authors were not fully able to do with programmatic support alone. The authors identified nine specific strategies that positively impacted the novice-expert mindsets during the following role transitions: professional to student, student to graduate and graduate to professional.
Originality/value
While researchers have identified strategies and models for doctoral student support targeting specific milestones, this study identified strategies to support doctoral students’ novice-expert mindsets during role transitions. These strategies may benefit other graduate students, as well as faculty and program directors, as they work to support student completion.
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This chapter considers the mobilities of families subject to child protection involvement at the threshold of the birth of a new baby. The author presents data arising from an…
Abstract
This chapter considers the mobilities of families subject to child protection involvement at the threshold of the birth of a new baby. The author presents data arising from an ethnographic study of child protection social work with unborn babies. This study aimed to draw near to social work practice within the Scottish context through mobile research methods and included non-participant observations of a range of child protection meetings with expectant families. Research interviews were sought with expectant mothers and fathers, social workers and the chair persons of Pre-birth Child Protection Case Conferences. Case conferences are formal administrative meetings designed to consider the risks to children, including unborn children. This chapter focusses on the experiences of expectant parents of navigating the child protection involvement with their as yet unborn infant. The strategies that parents adopted to steer a course through the multiple possibilities in relation to the future care of their infant are explored here. Three major strategies: resistance, defeatism and holding on are considered. These emerged as means by which expectant parents responded to social work involvement and which enabled their continued forwards motion towards an uncertain future.
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This study examines the test's predictive validity of English language performance and compares test constructs to identify the most effective predictors of English language…
Abstract
Purpose
This study examines the test's predictive validity of English language performance and compares test constructs to identify the most effective predictors of English language performance.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected and analysed from test scores of students enrolled in the foundation year (N = 84) and level 2 (N = 127) in the faculty of English at a Saudi university using correlation and regression tests.
Findings
The findings revealed that the General Aptitude Test (GAT) is effective in predicting English performance for students in level 2 and that the error detection task is the most effective predictor of performance in English reading.
Practical implications
The study provides support for the validity of the GAT as a university admission requirement for English language courses in the Arabic-speaking world.
Originality/value
This study examines the GAT's power using a fine-grained approach by deriving scores from its breakdown constructs to predict the performance of English skills at the university level.
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In the United States, welfare-to-work workers are under scrutiny from everyone and must defend the program if they want to defend themselves as good workers and good people. I…
Abstract
Purpose
In the United States, welfare-to-work workers are under scrutiny from everyone and must defend the program if they want to defend themselves as good workers and good people. I build on past research that has examined how workers manage their emotions to cope with dilemmas in their jobs in a number of settings including hospitals, nursing homes, restaurants, and airplanes.
Methodology
In this chapter, I draw on data from an in-depth case study of a rural North Carolina (USA) welfare office using data primarily from observations and interviews with 19 welfare-to-work workers.
Findings
Within this highly constrained and contradictory work environment, workers recreate and redefine themselves as good workers and good people while simultaneously punishing program participants. To achieve this difficult task, workers manage their emotions through two key strategies, using institutionalized rhetoric and tough love paternalism, to justify their actions toward participants.
Originality/value
I add to the existing literature by examining how welfare-to-work workers cope with the emotional and moral dilemmas of their jobs.
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Rachel Martin and Amanda Denston
In this chapter, we use intentional noticing to deconstruct and reconstruct assumptions within an exploratory case study that involved a university and a school in Aotearoa New…
Abstract
In this chapter, we use intentional noticing to deconstruct and reconstruct assumptions within an exploratory case study that involved a university and a school in Aotearoa New Zealand and how this contributes to global understandings around the influence of power on notions of Indigenous languages in schools. The current chapter originates from an exploratory case study that examined the efficacy of a phonological awareness and vocabulary program for children within their early years of schooling, aimed at developing emergent literacy skills in te reo Māori (the language of Indigenous Māori peoples in Aotearoa New Zealand). Reconstructing understandings was challenged by several factors, including assumptions around the content and implementation of the program and challenges that emerged from within the research team and that influenced the engagement of teachers and children within the program. We explore how teachers and children interrupted existing models of teaching and learning that have previously been used as a tool for assimilation, to foster the development of te reo Māori and emergent literacy skills. We conclude that it is crucial for researchers to be conscious of their assumptions within the research process to decolonize practices and to develop cultural understandings of ways of being. This means that relationships with Indigenous peoples is fundamental within cross-cultural research.