Mateus Ferreira, Felipe Zambaldi and Diego de Sousa Guerra
Engagement is a construct that varies according to the subject, object and context; this has been used to justify the coexistence of a variety of construct definitions and scales…
Abstract
Purpose
Engagement is a construct that varies according to the subject, object and context; this has been used to justify the coexistence of a variety of construct definitions and scales. Instead of proposing a new scale, this paper aims to create a procedure for comparing scales and to use it to evaluate brand engagement measures in social media.
Design/methodology/approach
This study first defines a procedure for the selection, standardization and comparison of scales; this procedure considers both the classical test theory (CTT) and item response theory (IRT). The authors apply the procedure in a survey of 233 respondents to compare three scales for measuring consumer engagement with brands in social media.
Findings
The establishment of a procedure for scale comparison is useful in assisting researchers to choose specific measures. Results showed that the three scales have similar characteristics, but Vivek et al.’s (2014) scale is recommended when better discrimination between construct dimensions is required, Hollebeek et al.’s (2014) scale could be used as a one-dimensional scale and Dessart et al.’s (2016) reduced scale has better ability to capture information for the affective and cognitive dimensions. None of the scales were very efficient in discriminating weakly and strongly engaged individuals.
Originality/value
This study makes a substantive contribution by proposing a procedure for scale comparison that considers CTT and IRT and shows the advantages, limitations and recommendations for using three different scales of consumer engagement.
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Pedro Carvalho Burnier, Diego de Sousa Guerra and Eduardo Eugênio Spers
Information on scales for measuring dimensions related to consumer concerns over production processes is scarce in the literature. The purpose of this study was to develop a more…
Abstract
Purpose
Information on scales for measuring dimensions related to consumer concerns over production processes is scarce in the literature. The purpose of this study was to develop a more comprehensive scale for measuring concern over the production process (CPP).
Design/methodology/approach
The authors derive the concept based on the results of a bibliographic review, existing certification criteria, an interview with five experts and two consumer focus groups. The authors interviewed 725 frequent beef meat consumers to test the scale.
Findings
Statistical tests and purification yielded a final scale with 18 items and six latent variables: animal welfare, traceability, social responsibility, environmental responsibility, legality and sanitation in slaughterhouses. The authors confirmed the nomological validity of the instrument using product involvement as an antecedent construct and attitude related to sustainable consumption as a consequent of CPP.
Research limitations/implications
The research results may lack generalisability. New research avenues are suggested for testing the scale in other cultural contexts and with different groups of consumers and food types.
Practical implications
This study provides insights for cattle ranchers, the industry and the retail sector in formulating communication strategies and product/brand positioning in response to consumer concerns about the production process.
Originality/value
There is no study at present that fully addresses the use of a scale to measure dimensions of production processes. The creation of the CPP scale is a relevant academic contribution that aids in assessing the influence of the environmental dimension in conjunction with other essential constructs.
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Diego Aparecido Wolfshorndl, Mauro Vivaldini and João Batista de Camargo Junior
From the perspective of the supply chain risk management (SCRM), this paper addresses the effects of a hybrid production system (make-to-stock and make-to-order) in order to know…
Abstract
Purpose
From the perspective of the supply chain risk management (SCRM), this paper addresses the effects of a hybrid production system (make-to-stock and make-to-order) in order to know which risks can impact the production planning process at a large automaker in Brazil. Through the correlation of these themes, the purpose of this paper is to understand the relevant risks to the supply chain (SC).
Design/methodology/approach
Before the field research, a theoretical approach was made on two themes. After theoretical analysis of a case study on the automaker and data collection, the work used the Pearson’s product moment correlation (r) and χ2 and Kolmogorov–Smirnov tests to assess the risk factors raised by the interviewed professionals, thus characterizing a mixed methodological approach (i.e. qualitative and quantitative).
Findings
It was evidenced that many risks are the result of functional failures, such as input of incorrect information in the system, and many are inherent to managerial decisions when procedures and different paths of production are adopted. Additionally, it has been proven that the adoption of a hybrid production planning approach does not increase the risks to the SC and that the identified risks do not necessarily are included within the scope of SCRM.
Originality/value
This study is characterized by an approach which combines SCRM and hybrid production system.
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Race scholars often refer to the colonization of Indigenous peoples in the Americas and the enslavement of Africans as a founding moment in the making of today's racial…
Abstract
Race scholars often refer to the colonization of Indigenous peoples in the Americas and the enslavement of Africans as a founding moment in the making of today's racial hierarchies. Yet their narrative of this initial moment often mischaracterizes early European states, erases Indigenous and African states, and naturalizes racial group belonging. Such practices are counterproductive to the antiracist project. Following the lead of decolonial scholarship, much recent work by historians has sought to recover and reconstruct the institutions, social structures, and agency of African and Indigenous peoples, as well as revisit assumptions about European power, institutions, and agency in their historical encounters with their continental “others.” I highlight the potential of this approach for sociologists of “race” by narrating two significant historical events in the making of the modern Atlantic world: the conquest of Tenochtitlán, the capital of the Aztec empire, and the transatlantic enslavement of subjects of the kingdoms of Kongo and Ndongo (in today's Angola) in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. I analyze how particular European, Indigenous, and African actors made decisions in the context of their own and others' historically situated and dynamic political and social structures. I read these historical events through the lens of decolonial scholarship, and sociological literatures on group-making, state formation, and the emergence of capitalism, to make sense of the violent social process that led to the breakup of African, Indigenous, and European political and social structures and the making of colonial and racially hierarchical social structures in the Atlantic world.
Maria Dijkstra, Bianca Beersma and Jelle van Leeuwen
The current paper aims to argue that it is important for conflict management research to start focusing on leader–follower conflict as a “special case” of conflict because the…
Abstract
Purpose
The current paper aims to argue that it is important for conflict management research to start focusing on leader–follower conflict as a “special case” of conflict because the relationship between leaders and followers is, by definition, characterized by divergence of interest and, second, because it is asymmetric in terms of power and vulnerability. Moreover, it is argued that conflict management research should start to examine the various behaviors that people engage in as a response to conflict, in a broader sense, than has been done until now. Research on conflict management increasingly recognizes the significance of interpersonal relations in the workplace.
Design/methodology/approach
As a case in point, a survey study among 97 Dutch police officers is presented. Leaders’ conflict management behaviors as assessed by followers is measured. In addition, followers’ experienced interactional justice and the extent to which they indicated that they would engage in negative and/or positive gossip about their leader was measured.
Findings
Results demonstrate that more forcing and avoiding leader conflict management behavior was related to more negative and less positive gossip about leaders. Moreover, more problem-solving and yielding leader conflict management behavior was related to less negative and more positive gossip. All relationships between leader conflict management behavior and follower gossip were mediated by followers’ experienced interactional justice.
Originality/value
It is hoped that the findings put research on the broader implications of interactional justice in leader–follower interactions, and on gossip, on the research agenda of conflict researchers.
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Contemporary urban and regional planning practice and scholarship often fails to address the full implications of technological change (technology blindness), lacks a clear or…
Abstract
Purpose
Contemporary urban and regional planning practice and scholarship often fails to address the full implications of technological change (technology blindness), lacks a clear or consistent definition of the long term (temporal imprecision) and seldom uses formal foresight methodologies. Discussion in the literature of time horizons beyond 10 years is, therefore, based on profoundly unrealistic assumptions about the future. The paper aims to discuss why conventional reasoning about possible futures is problematic, how consideration of long-term timescales is informal and inconsistent and why accelerating technological change requires that planners rethink basic assumptions about the future from 2030s onward.
Design/methodology/approach
The author reviews 1,287 articles published between January 2010 and December 2014 in three emblematic urban and regional planning journals using directed content analysis of key phrases pertaining to long-term planning, futures studies and self-driving cars.
Findings
The author finds that there is no evidence of consistent usage of the phrase long term, that timeframes are defined in fewer than 10 per cent of articles and that self-driving cars and related phrases occur nowhere in the text, even though this technology is likely to radically transform urban transportation and form starting in the early 2020s. Despite its importance, discussion of disruptive technological change in the urban and regional planning literature is extremely limited.
Practical implications
To make more realistic projections of the future from the late 2020s onward, planning practitioners and scholars should: attend more closely to the academic and public technology discourses; specify explicit timeframes in any discussion or analysis of the future; and incorporate methods from futures studies such as foresight approaches into long-term planning.
Originality/value
This paper identifies accelerating technological change as a major conceptual gap in the urban and regional planning literature and calls for practitioners and scholars to rethink their foundational assumptions about the long-term and possible, probable and preferable futures accordingly.
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Leander Luiz Klein, José Moyano-Fuentes, Kelmara Mendes Vieira and Diego Russowsky Marçal
The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the causal relationship between Lean practices and team performance. Specifically, the authors tried to demonstrate which practices act as…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the causal relationship between Lean practices and team performance. Specifically, the authors tried to demonstrate which practices act as enablers of continuous improvement and waste elimination and what is their impact on team performance.
Design/methodology/approach
A survey was carried out in a Higher Education Institution (HEI) in Southern Brazil. The authors obtained a sample of 785 respondents. The data analysis procedures involved confirmatory factor analysis and structural equations modeling.
Findings
The results of the research provided support for the positive influence of continuous improvement on waste elimination and of these two practices on team performance. In addition, empirical support was obtained for the effect of leadership support, employee involvement and internal process customers on continuous improvement.
Research limitations/implications
Data collection was carried out online, so we were not able to maintain full control of the research respondents. This research generates relevant insights for decision-makers in the HEI environment, especially concerning Lean practices and team performance. The effects analyzed are even more relevant given the pandemic context.
Practical implications
This study shows how some higher education Lean practices can positively affect continuous improvement and better team performance. The results raise important insights for decision-makers to offer better higher education public services, especially given the context and changes imposed by the pandemic situation.
Originality/value
This paper initiates the discussion about enablers of continuous improvement and waste elimination in HEI and demonstrates their impact on team performance.
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Rodrigo Vinicius Sartori, Dalcio Roberto dos Reis, Marcia Bronzeri and Adriana Queiroz Silva
This paper aims to describe how the technology forecast process occurs at a technology-based company named Daiken, a Brazilian electronics industry, located in the state of…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to describe how the technology forecast process occurs at a technology-based company named Daiken, a Brazilian electronics industry, located in the state of Parana. The study helps to clarify the context that tech-companies in Brazil face when trying to forecast new technologies.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper opted for a case study, in a qualitative and descriptive approach. Primary data were collected through a semi-structured interview and non-participant observation. Secondary data were generated through documentary research.
Findings
Outcomes indicate that, for the studied case, technology forecast practices are adopted in an informal and unsystematic way, best aligned to the nature of competitive intelligence.
Research limitations/implications
Because of the chosen research approach, the results may lack generalizability. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to test the propositions further.
Practical implications
The paper includes implications for the adjustment of technology forecast tools to the reality seen in emergent nations like Brazil.
Originality/value
This paper fulfills an identified need to study how to conduct the technology forecast processes in small and mid-tech-companies in Brazil.
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Syed Sardar Muhammad, Bidit Lal Dey, Sharifah Faridah Syed Alwi, Muhammad Mustafa Kamal and Yousra Asaad
Despite consumers' widespread use of social media platforms, there is scant research on the underlying factors that influence their willingness to share digital footprints on…
Abstract
Purpose
Despite consumers' widespread use of social media platforms, there is scant research on the underlying factors that influence their willingness to share digital footprints on social media. The purpose of this study is to address this research gap by examining consumers' cognitive and affective attitudes simultaneously.
Design/methodology/approach
This research used quantitative method by using online survey administered to a sample of 733 social media users.
Findings
The findings indicate both cognitive and affective attitudes jointly influence consumers' behavioural intentions with trust as a key construct mediating the relationship between attitudinal antecedents and consumers' willingness to share digital footprints on social media.
Research limitations/implications
This study contributes to the information systems (IS) literature by offering a comprehensive framework constituting the joint attitudinal components as antecedents to consumers' behavioural intention for sharing digital footprints while trust works as a mediator.
Practical implications
This paper has important managerial implications. It helps marketers and IS managers in profiling consumers, understanding consumption patterns, sharing of digital footprints, which are useful for effective market segmentation, product development and future design of social media platforms. It informs social media providers of the importance of not only focussing on functional aspects but also underscores the essence of paying attention to consumers' affect towards social media platforms, especially trust.
Originality/value
The paper presents an original framework that explains the influence of joint attitudinal components on behavioural intention, with trust as a mediator.