Verónica Cabezas, Sebastián Pereira, Catalina Figueroa and Camila Straub
The purpose of this study is to describe the perceptions of participants regarding a blended learning training course in Chile (and its e-learning adaptation due to the COVID-19…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to describe the perceptions of participants regarding a blended learning training course in Chile (and its e-learning adaptation due to the COVID-19 pandemic) for mentor teachers (MTs). The MT learns theoretical elements of mentoring and in parallel accompanies a newly qualified teacher while receiving support from an online tutor. Opinions are presented from MTs and accompanied teachers (ATs) about the contribution, format and methodology of the course.
Design/methodology/approach
A program evaluation with mixed methodology was used. Online questionnaires were sent to MTs and ATs at the end of the course. Returned questionnaires totaled 98 MTs and 20 ATs for the blended learning version and 75 MTs and 54 ATs for the e-learning format. In addition, 11 post-course interviews were conducted in three schools with MTs, ATs and their school leaders.
Findings
The course contributed to the development of mentoring skills. Participants highlighted the importance of the face-to-face component of both versions. The theoretical–practical methodology used was positively evaluated. Support and feedback provided to MTs by the online tutor was important for developing skills.
Research limitations/implications
Results are part of a case (n = 247), so general statements cannot be made about the population.
Practical implications
While this program evaluation focuses on a specific context, the results can contribute to the design of effective MT online training courses in other contexts and countries, given the limited body of research on this type of experience.
Originality/value
The course provided is described in detail, which may be useful when designing similar mentor education courses in other contexts.
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Nicolás Salvador Beltramino, Domingo García-Perez-de-Lema and Luis Enrique Valdez-Juárez
The objective of this study is to analyze the influence of the structural capital of SMEs in the capacity of innovation and organizational performance, in the context of an…
Abstract
Purpose
The objective of this study is to analyze the influence of the structural capital of SMEs in the capacity of innovation and organizational performance, in the context of an emerging country.
Design/methodology/approach
The sample consisted of 259 industrial SMEs from the province of Córdoba Argentina. The data was analyzed by Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS–SEM).
Findings
The study provided evidence that acquisition of information and knowledge management, organizational culture and structure, systems and processes have positive and significant effects on the innovation capacity of SMEs. Only the communication and cohesion component did not show positive and significant results on it. It also showed a positive and significant relationship between the capacity for innovation in processes and performance, contributing to the scarce empirical literature in the context of SMEs.
Research limitations/implications
The research exposes some limitations that uncover a path for the development of future lines of research. In the first place, the work focuses on the use of a single source of information, the consultation at the managerial level of the company, without considering other representative variables to measure the capacity for innovation. Second, the study covered only companies in the industrial sector and country. Future studies should focus on other sectors and countries.
Practical implications
The results of the study can have important practical implications for the owners and managers of SMEs. The results offer a vision of the dimensions of structural capital that most influence the innovative capacity of the organization. This is especially useful given that in the context of Argentina there is a low level of knowledge and structural capital is key to being more competitive. The managers of SMEs can thus increase the innovative potential of the company and favor the acquisition of information and knowledge and improve its processes and systems to contribute to the development of innovation capabilities to make SMEs more competitive.
Social implications
The results obtained can be useful for those responsible for making public policy decisions, since in the knowledge of the economy to maintain a developed state and nation, it is necessary to include as one of the main issues on the national agenda the improvement of intellectual capital of its people to promote the competitiveness of companies.
Originality/value
The research contributes to the development of intellectual capital literature focused on the generation of innovation and performance in the perspective of SMEs in emerging countries.
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Taro Aso, Toshiyuki Amagasa and Hiroyuki Kitagawa
The purpose of this paper is to propose a scheme that allows users to interactively explore relations between entities in knowledge bases (KBs). KBs store a wide range of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to propose a scheme that allows users to interactively explore relations between entities in knowledge bases (KBs). KBs store a wide range of knowledge about real-world entities in a structured form as (subject, predicate, object). Although it is possible to query entities and relations among entities by specifying appropriate query expressions of SPARQL or keyword queries, the structure and the vocabulary are complicated, and it is hard for non-expert users to get the desired information. For this reason, many researchers have proposed faceted search interfaces for KBs. Nevertheless, existing ones are designed for finding entities and are insufficient for finding relations.
Design/methodology/approach
To this problem, the authors propose a novel “relation facet” to find relations between entities. To generate it, they applied clustering on predicates for grouping those predicates that are connected to common objects. Having generated clusters of predicates, the authors generated a facet according to the result. Specifically, they proposed to use a couple of clustering algorithms, namely, agglomerative hierarchical clustering (AHC) and CANDECOMP/PARAFAC (CP) tensor decomposition which is one of the tensor decomposition methods.
Findings
The authors experimentally show test the performance of clustering methods and found that AHC performs better than tensor decomposition. Besides, the authors conducted a user study and show that their proposed scheme performs better than existing ones in the task of searching relations.
Originality/value
The authors propose a relation-oriented faceted search method for KBs that allows users to explore relations between entities. As far as the authors know, this is the first method to focus on the exploration of relations between entities.
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This paper aims to examine the influence of firm characteristics on harmonisation of companies listed on the Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia Stock Exchanges.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the influence of firm characteristics on harmonisation of companies listed on the Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia Stock Exchanges.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses a checklist based mainly on the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS).
Findings
The findings of the study are 6that the level of compliance with IFRS was higher in 2010 than in 2005. Multiple regression analysis indicates that the level of compliance with IFRS increases with company size, institutional ownership, industry and language of disclosure.
Research limitations/implications
The findings of this study suggest that both institutional- and firm-level forces influence the harmonisation process.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the literature on accounting harmonisation in the context of North Africa.
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Yaokuang Li, Junjuan Du and Weizhong Fu
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the factors influencing quick cash by crowd in agri-food crowdfunding campaigns; this paper utilizes prospect theory to analyze the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the factors influencing quick cash by crowd in agri-food crowdfunding campaigns; this paper utilizes prospect theory to analyze the value and weighting functions of the crowd's cash.
Design/methodology/approach
Using samples of crowdfunding campaigns launched in the Zhongchou (www.Zhongchou.cn) platform's agriculture and food category, this paper employs a multivariate linear regression model to investigate factors that motivate the crowd to make quick investment decisions.
Findings
The results demonstrate that lowering the investment threshold, improving publicity, and increasing the benefits of a campaign can increase the decision weight assigned to a campaign, thereby motivating the crowd to make quick investment decisions. Improving the product's reputation, enhancing campaign promotion, and diversifying the reward scheme can increase the crowd's expected value of the campaign – another motivation for a quicker cash decision.
Practical implications
This paper can help initiators, platforms and regulators better fulfil their roles in promoting the rapid, healthy development of crowdfunding in the agri-food industry, especially in the context of the Chinese launch of significant initiatives to develop crowdfunding aimed at rural e-commerce and poverty alleviation.
Originality/value
This paper extends the behavioral finance concept of prospect theory to agri-food crowdfunding campaigns and investigates factors that motivate the crowd to make quick investment decisions. Additionally, this paper demonstrates that the backers of crowdfunding are not perfectly rational and can be motivated to invest by increasing mean decision weight and expected value of a campaign.