Search results

The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to develop, test and validate a set of dimensions that can verify whether any specific online survey tool can be effectively developed and deployed; second, to provide a framework and working topology for web-based survey tool selection.

A panel comprised of five experts determined the validity of the proposed dimensions the authors compiled from extensive feature research of the top online survey software identified by Alexa and Datanyze, which allows for web survey data to be pulled in a customizable fashion over a selected period of time. The validated dimensions were then ranked via a paper survey (n = 98) in a controlled environment using a 9-point Likert scale.

There was no strong correlation between highest-ranked dimensions and the market share and use of a particular online survey tool. However, overall dimension ranking dominance did predict an online survey tool obtaining higher market implementation and use. In addition, the influence of business roles on dimension weights should be considered when selecting survey software. Finally, two additional dimensions not prevalent in existing research – data analysis and technical support – must be considered in survey tool selection.

Online survey tools are increasingly supplementing or replacing random telephone-based opinion and polling surveys for data collection on important social issues, political candidacies, etc. Representative samples yielding the most accurate results are more easily obtained via mixed-mode methods that incorporate online survey tools.

The paper's findings suggest which dimensions must be present for widespread acceptance and implementation of a successful web-based online survey tool. Organizations must be able to assess a particular survey tool's viability for their specific purposes. The dimensions presented here can be developed into an effective adoption heuristic to meet an organization's particular requirements. Findings suggest that when evaluating survey software, one must remain cognizant of the various business roles associated with survey software to better account for decision-maker tendencies. For example, managers place greater emphasis on overall cost whereas developers may value survey creation and integration features.

Through a survey of 200 employees working in five of the thirty establishments analysed in previous research about the microeconomic effects of reducing the working time (Cahier 25), the consequences on employees of such a reduction can be assessed; and relevant attitudes and aspirations better known.

The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of the religiosity of the chief executive officer (CEO) on Indonesian banks’ performance.

The research method used was a review of the annual reports of banking companies in Indonesia from 2015 to 2019 and a web-based search to determine the religiosity of the CEOs. This study comprised 88 banking companies in Indonesia that come under the supervision of the Financial Services Authority.

The results of this study show that banks led by religious CEOs had better financial performance, as measured by their ROA and ROE, than those led by not very spiritual CEOs. These results indicate the importance of religiosity in organizations, especially at the top management level, for achieving better bank performance.

This research results show that religiosity plays an essential role in the banking business sector. This research adds to the literature on CEOs’ characteristics based on their religiosity and the concomitant effect on banking performance.

This study shows how individual religious beliefs influence the corporate behavior of top management, particularly the CEOs, and why this is crucial for organizational decision-making. This study measures an individual's religiosity (i.e. a CEO) based on that individual's actions in their workplace environment.

The Bureau of Economics in the Federal Trade Commission has a three-part role in the Agency and the strength of its functions changed over time depending on the preferences and ideology of the FTC’s leaders, developments in the field of economics, and the tenor of the times. The over-riding current role is to provide well considered, unbiased economic advice regarding antitrust and consumer protection law enforcement cases to the legal staff and the Commission. The second role, which long ago was primary, is to provide reports on investigations of various industries to the public and public officials. This role was more recently called research or “policy R&D”. A third role is to advocate for competition and markets both domestically and internationally. As a practical matter, the provision of economic advice to the FTC and to the legal staff has required that the economists wear “two hats,” helping the legal staff investigate cases and provide evidence to support law enforcement cases while also providing advice to the legal bureaus and to the Commission on which cases to pursue (thus providing “a second set of eyes” to evaluate cases). There is sometimes a tension in those functions because building a case is not the same as evaluating a case. Economists and the Bureau of Economics have provided such services to the FTC for over 100 years proving that a sub-organization can survive while playing roles that sometimes conflict. Such a life is not, however, always easy or fun.

This chapter traces one student teacher's (Joan) experiences of learning to teach English as a second language in a cross-cultural context during a teaching practicum in Hong Kong. The school-based practicum is a core component of many initial teacher education programmes. During this induction period, usually an 8-week block, student teachers are placed in local schools to learn how to integrate theories into practice in real teaching situations. Specifically, I uncover how Joan grappled with the tensions and complexities of teaching young learners from a different cultural and linguistic background, in a small elementary school situated in the borderland between Hong Kong (an autonomous region of China) and Shenzhen (a province of Mainland China).

Critical incidents from Joan's practicum experiences were analysed to uncover how she dealt with the tensions and dilemmas in confronting difference and marginalising practices while learning to teach English as a second language (ESL) in the practicum school. Implications on how to develop initial teacher education programmes so that student teachers learning to teach across cultural contexts can be encouraged to explore, confront and ‘deal with the emotional terrain of understanding difference’ will be discussed (Boler & Zembylas, 2003, p. 123; Zembylas, 2010).

Rather than organize as traditional firms, many of today’s companies organize as platforms that sit at the nexus of multiple exchange and production relationships. This chapter considers a most basic question of organization in platform contexts: the choice of boundaries. Herein, I investigate how classical economic theories of firm boundaries apply to platform-based organization and empirically study how executives made boundary choices in response to changing market and technical challenges in the early mobile computing industry (the predecessor to today’s smartphones). Rather than a strict or unavoidable tradeoff between “openness-versus-control,” most successful platform owners chose their boundaries in a way to simultaneously open-up to outside developers while maintaining coordination across the entire system.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the service quality of full-service restaurants in Vietnam to explore possible factors that may impact customer perception, which subsequently influences customer satisfaction and behavioural intentions. Based on the DINESERV model and service clues, the possible dimensions to construct customer perception were realised, and four key dimensions were suggested.

Data were collected from four urban local full-service restaurants in Vietnam, and factor analysis and SEM-PLS were then performed to uncover the relationship between customer perception, satisfaction and behavioural intentions.

The results suggest that customer perception significantly influences customer satisfaction and behavioural intentions, and customer satisfaction itself is also found to have influence on behavioural intentions.

This is an original piece of work which contributes to the exploration of service quality in developing countries and to the incorporation of cleanliness into analyses of restaurant service quality in particular.

The purpose of this paper is to offer greater insight in the role of blogs in the creation of a more transparent news media system and a more democratic political reality.

Framing theory is employed as a conceptual tool to re‐interpret existing evidence of the performance of news blogs during situations of political conflict and war. A theoretical analysis is developed setting out the premises of the challenge that blogs can pose to the framing of conflict by mainstream media. The analysis incorporates empirical examples of reporting conflict and war in the blogosphere. Finally, with the aid of international relations theories, the role of blogs is evaluated in terms of the political transparency and accountability they could offer during conflict and war.

The analysis demonstrated that by promoting alternative and progressive voices, blogs have the capacity to shift the power over framing away from the usual sources in the news reporting of political conflict and turn the media system into a greater constraining factor for governments than even before.

The paper presents a novel approach to the interaction between blogs and mainstream media by combining theories from the disciplines of communications and international relations. The analysis generated a hypothesis that can be empirically assessed with the investigation of the framing output of influential news blogs and mainstream news media during political conflict and war.

A common justification for state term commodity contracts is that they are beneficial to taxpayers because of savings that result from the price concessions expected from volume purchasing. With the growing popularity of performance based budgeting in state legislatures, there is a clear need for performance measures to document these taxpayer benefits. Based on a survey of state purchasing offices and a review of the major purchasing associations and the academic literature, this paper develops guidelines and a set of performance measures for evaluating the financial benefits of state term commodity contracts.