Jennifer Driscoll, Ann Lorek, Elise Kinnear and Aisha Hutchinson
Information sharing and joint working between agencies undertaking direct work with children have long been recognised as fundamental to robust and effective safeguarding and…
Abstract
Purpose
Information sharing and joint working between agencies undertaking direct work with children have long been recognised as fundamental to robust and effective safeguarding and child protection arrangements. The public health response to Covid-19 disrupted those arrangements abruptly. This study aims to identify some of the innovative practices that have been implemented and how responses might inform planning for multi-agency working in the future.
Design/methodology/approach
This study presents reflections on preliminary fieldwork from a study of how agencies in London are responding to the challenges for multi-agency safeguarding arrangements created by the Covid-19 measures. It draws on the experience of expert practitioners in the research team as well as interviews with 17 senior professionals from local authorities, safeguarding partnerships and health.
Findings
The study participants endorsed known concerns around increased risks to children and raised new concerns about particular groups of children that under normal circumstances would not have been at risk. They identified some unexpected benefits derived from new arrangements, especially in relation to engagement with remote working.
Originality/value
Early insights are offered into promising initiatives to preserve strong multi-agency arrangements in crises and strengthen the resilience of the child protection system.
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Yingjiao Xu and V. Ann Paulins
To study college students' attitudes toward and behavioral intention of shopping online for apparel products by using the theory of reasoned action.
Abstract
Purpose
To study college students' attitudes toward and behavioral intention of shopping online for apparel products by using the theory of reasoned action.
Design/methodology/approach
Focus group interviews and a literature review identified specific items of interest related to the desirability of shopping online for apparel products. A questionnaire was developed and distributed to two groups of respondents: college students who lived in rural and urban areas.
Findings
The students, in general, had positive attitudes toward shopping online for apparel products. ANOVA results showed that the students who intended to shop online for apparel products had more positive attitudes than those who did not have the intention. The GLM results showed that internet usage, employment status, and car access had significant influence on students' attitudes toward online shopping for apparel products.
Research limitations/implications
The samples for this study were randomly chosen from two universities in the United States. This limited sampling frame may affect the generalization of findings.
Practical implications
Both local retailers in rural college towns and online retailers can benefit from the findings of this study.
Originality/value
This research contributes to the literature by studying college students attitudes toward online shopping for apparel products.
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Sujie Peng, Fu Jia and Bob Doherty
The purpose of this paper is to systematically review the academic literature on non-governmental organizations’ (NGOs) role in sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) to…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to systematically review the academic literature on non-governmental organizations’ (NGOs) role in sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) to develop a conceptual framework.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper conducts a systematic literature review through an analysis of 47 papers identified from peer-reviewed academic journals published from 2002 to 2020.
Findings
Adopting social movement theory and based on thematic findings, this paper proposes four steps and six propositions in the process of NGOs fostering SSCM. These include relative deprivation, political opportunities, resource mobilization and collective action, based on which we developed a conceptual framework regarding the role of NGOs in improving sustainability in supply chains. The proposed conceptual model opens a new avenue of research in NGO literature and several directions for further research.
Originality/value
This study may be the first to provide a systematic review of NGOs’ role in improving sustainability in supply chains. Moreover, by borrowing the social movement theory from sociology, this paper able to propose a new conceptual framework with a research agenda so as to deepen the understanding of the phenomenon and provide directions for future research.
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Peter Kačmáry, Peter Bindzár, Jakub Kovalčík and Marek Ondov
The purpose of this paper is to apply and verify Fourier series analysis in combination with non-linear regression as a tool of forecasting and planning of inputs in the logistics…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to apply and verify Fourier series analysis in combination with non-linear regression as a tool of forecasting and planning of inputs in the logistics process of a retail chain store.
Design/methodology/approach
For many popular products, a significant effect of seasonality of sales is expected; therefore, the method of Fourier series was chosen as one of the main forecast calculation techniques. However, the use of this method directly for forecasting sales has a limitation in the form of a complete reconstruction of the shape of the curve from of the given monitored time. Thus, the forecast is based only on the significant harmonic components from the Fourier series analysis that will participate in forecast forming. In addition, to respect the trend of series, the results of Fourier series analysis are combined with the non-linear regression.
Findings
The results showed that the number of significant harmonic components from the Fourier series analysis is suitable to reflect the future behaviour of the sale in standard market conditions. Forecasting of the sale and accurate purchase planning of goods has a positive effect on reducing the waste of unsold products after their shelf and on increasing of a customer satisfaction.
Research limitations/implications
This study has an application in a certain period of time (relatively calm behaviour of the food market) and only for a certain region. Therefore, it is not possible to generalize these results as the behaviour of consumers, e.g. within the state. It will also be interesting to monitor and forecast sales of other food items.
Practical implications
This provides a practical and relatively simple tool for implementing or improving the process of forecasting seasonally dependent products in the food industry.
Originality/value
This study shows the possibility of forecast that is based on adding the significant harmonic components from the Fourier series analysis to form forecast with the non-linear regression.
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Swayam Sampurna Panigrahi, Bikram Bahinipati and Vipul Jain
The business enterprises are increasingly focusing on buying and supplying of products and services in a manner to reduce the adverse impacts on the environment, society, and…
Abstract
Purpose
The business enterprises are increasingly focusing on buying and supplying of products and services in a manner to reduce the adverse impacts on the environment, society, and economy. In view of the above, the concept of sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) has received attention of the industry and academia due to its importance on environmental, social and corporate responsibility through economic performance. The paper aims to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach
The structured literature review attempts to map the various theories in the SSCM literature from the perspectives of economic performance, environmental dimensions, and social values and ethics.
Findings
As supply management is vital for enhancing organizational competitiveness, the present work attempts to investigate the theoretical perspectives in SSCM to develop an understanding of the current research activities and future potentials.
Practical implications
This work aims to gain a number of valid insights for the practitioners and the researchers. It also focuses on the perspectives of governance mechanisms for successful implementation SSCM practices in the business enterprises.
Originality/value
As the theory building initiatives with implications on the conceptualization of SSCM is limited in literature, this work has also been able to identify the trends and relevant research gaps to define the potential areas for future research.
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Pervaiz Alam and Charles A. Brown
This paper seeks to investigate whether disaggregated bank earnings better predict next period earnings than contemporaneous aggregated earnings.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper seeks to investigate whether disaggregated bank earnings better predict next period earnings than contemporaneous aggregated earnings.
Design/methodology/approach
Fairfield et al.'s (1996) regression approach is used for predicting next period's return of equity (ROE) and stock prices using disaggregated earnings data.
Findings
The results show that the mean adjusted R‐square significantly increases with the progressive disaggregation of earnings. The results also demonstrate that disaggregated components are better able to predict next period earnings and stock prices than aggregated earnings.
Research limitations/implications
The findings support the US Financial Accounting Standard Board's contention that disaggregated information may be more useful than aggregated information for investment, credit, and financing decisions.
Practical implications
Investors and analysts should use disaggregated income statement information in predicting next period earnings and stock prices for the banking industry.
Originality/value
The main contribution of this paper is to demonstrate how fully disaggregated earnings explain ROE, stock prices, and analysts forecast error in the banking industry.
The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether earnings restatements have a larger effect on the earnings quality (proxied by persistence) of restating firms relative to…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether earnings restatements have a larger effect on the earnings quality (proxied by persistence) of restating firms relative to similar non‐restating firms and if restated earnings are more persistent than the originally reported earnings.
Design/methodology/approach
Cross‐sectional earnings persistence models are used to analyze how earnings persistence changes around restatements for both the originally reported earnings and the new restated earnings numbers. The study looks at restatements from 1997 through 2006.
Findings
The findings show that restating firms exhibit a larger increase in earnings persistence from the two‐year period before to the two‐year period after the restatements. Results also show that the restated portion of earnings is incrementally persistent relative to the originally reported earnings and the incremental persistence, although mitigated, is still significant after the passage of the Sarbanes‐Oxley Act. In addition, the evidence shows that core account restatements are associated with more persistent earnings relative to non‐core restatements in the two‐year period after the most recent restatement year.
Originality/value
The paper presents the first study to examine earnings restatements' impact on the future earnings persistence of restating firms in the context of the restated financial period as opposed to the restatement announcement period.
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Xiufeng Cheng, Ziming Zhang, Yue Yang and Zhonghua Yan
Social coding platforms (SCPs) have been adopted by scores of developers in building, testing and managing their codes collaboratively. Accordingly, this type of platform (site…
Abstract
Purpose
Social coding platforms (SCPs) have been adopted by scores of developers in building, testing and managing their codes collaboratively. Accordingly, this type of platform (site) enables collaboration between enterprises and universities (c-EU) at a lower cost in the form of online team-building projects (repositories). This paper investigates the open collaboration patterns between these two parties on GitHub by measuring their online behaviours. The purpose of this investigation is to identify the most attractive collaboration features that enterprises can offer to increase university students' participation intentions.
Design/methodology/approach
The research process is divided into four steps. First, the authors crawled for numerical data for each interactive repository feature created by employees of Alibaba on GitHub and identified the student accounts associated with these repositories. Second, a categorisation schema of feature classification was proposed on a behavioural basis. Third, the authors clustered the aforementioned repositories based on feature data and recognised four types of repositories (popular, formal, normal and obsolete) to represent four open collaboration patterns. The effects of the four repository types on university students' collaboration behaviour were measured using a multiple linear regression model. An ANOVA test was implemented to examine the robustness of research results. Finally, the authors proposed some practical suggestions to enhance collaboration between both sides of SCPs.
Findings
Several counterintuitive but reasonable findings were revealed, for example, those based on the “star” repository feature. The actual coding contribution of the repositories had a negative correlation with student attention. This result indicates that students were inclined to imitate rather than innovate.
Originality/value
This research explores the open collaboration patterns between enterprises and universities on GitHub and their impact on student coding behaviour. According to the research analysis, both parties benefit from open collaboration on SCPs, and the allocation or customisation of online repository features may affect students' participation in coding. This research brings a new perspective to the measurement of users' collaboration behaviour with output rates on SCPs.