In light of the emphasis on “inclusion” in the sustainable development goals (SDGs), the notion of social inclusion encompasses the goal of granting opportunities for disabled…
Abstract
Purpose
In light of the emphasis on “inclusion” in the sustainable development goals (SDGs), the notion of social inclusion encompasses the goal of granting opportunities for disabled people, integrate them and make them participate in the new environment. Referring to the capability theory, the purpose of this study is to examine the role of information and communication technology (ICT) in the social inclusion of disabled young people in Lebanon.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper uses a qualitative approach based on a series of focused semi-structured interviews with 11 participants occupying key positions in aid associations for disabled people.
Findings
The findings suggest that smart technologies can enhance social inclusion through three key factors: the nature of impairment and other personal characteristics of disabled people, the resources available to them and the environmental aspects provided by government policies and society’s cultural practices. In the contemporary society characterized by an increasing role of ICTs, the findings of this research could contribute to lead the developing countries to a sustainable and inclusive world through social inclusion of their youth.
Research limitations/implications
This study has some limitations that should be mentioned. First, it was conducted only on a small sample size (with 11 interviewees). Further empirical research must be conducted on larger sample to build and elaborate on the findings. Second, the results are mainly based on the points of view of people working in aid associations for disabled people. In future research, semi-structured interviews can be carried out with the disabled people themselves or with members of their family to ask them about their personal experience with smart technologies and the impact of this on their social inclusion. It was also suggested that the future research should explore the challenges of inclusion for different categories of disabled people separately because they are not all facing the same issues and the same challenges. Furthermore, as this paper focuses on the role of smart technologies in the development of social inclusion of disabled people, future research could take place with other groups, for example, Palestinian and Syrian refugees, to identify whether these groups are experiencing similar challenges and barriers when trying to use smart technologies as a way to enhance their social inclusion.
Practical implications
Related to a larger and broader approach, social inclusion of disabled or marginalized people or refugees in developing countries could be a way to commit to a sustainable and inclusive world, in alignment with the eight goals of the Millennium Development Goals.
Originality/value
Related to a larger and broader approach, social inclusion of disabled or marginalized people or refugees in developing countries could be a way to commit to a sustainable and inclusive world, in alignment with the eight goals of the Millennium Development Goals.
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Dina Abdelzaher, Zahir Latheef and Amir Abdelzaher
The wave of revolutions referred to as the Arab Spring has significantly impacted organizations and contributed to market turbulence. Focusing on spiritual leadership and employee…
Abstract
Purpose
The wave of revolutions referred to as the Arab Spring has significantly impacted organizations and contributed to market turbulence. Focusing on spiritual leadership and employee religious values as key determinants of organizational survival in Muslim-majority markets, this paper aims to provide a conceptual framework that can offset consequences of turbulence by leveraging employees’ spiritual foundations to provide a sense of optimism and collective thinking that is vital in times of uncertainty.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper reviews the state of turbulence post the Arab Spring and its impact on organizations. It discusses the literature on uncertainty and spiritual leadership, and draws from Islamic human resource literature to identify specific religious values engrained in the local culture.
Findings
A multi-staged conceptual model is presented that draws from Islamic principles of Sabr (perseverance), Tawakkul (reliance on God), Ihsan (excelling in work), Reda (acceptance of outcomes) and Al-Amal Al-Jemae’e (teamwork). The multi-staged model can help firms react effectively to turbulence while building their connection to their employee base in Muslim-majority markets.
Originality/value
The paper also advances theoretical work on organizational responses to turbulence, focusing on markets that have received significantly less scholarly attention. Drawing from local spiritual values in a part of the world where religious teachings influence both social and economic aspects of life is an untapped opportunity. It highlights an innovative and important application of religious values in a post-conflict context, and explores a conceptual model that is embedded in the local context rather than borrowing from Western-based models.
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Subhadip Roy, Subhalaxmi Mohapatra and Dina Banerjee
This study aims to explore the process of women entrepreneurship in India from a social perspective using the concept of entrepreneurship as emancipation.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore the process of women entrepreneurship in India from a social perspective using the concept of entrepreneurship as emancipation.
Design/methodology/approach
An interpretive approach is applied to address the study objectives, and based on an inductive method, the non-economic antecedents that led women to start entrepreneurship ventures are explored using 33 in-depth interviews. The study explores beyond the motivations and investigates the social process through which a women entrepreneur passes through after taking the decision to start a business venture.
Findings
Major findings indicate entrepreneurship as a change process where changes in both the entrepreneur and her social surroundings are observed with time. More detailed analysis reveal opposing (the entrepreneur) social forces in the initiation phase but more supportive social set up in the later phases of the entrepreneurship. The results support the process of entrepreneurship as emancipation (with stages such as seeking autonomy, authoring and declaring).
Research limitations/implications
The present study supports the concept of entrepreneurship as an emancipation process, and how it unfolds as a gendered process in a society where women (in general) are still not treated as equals.
Practical implications
The study has practical implications for entrepreneurs and their stakeholder networks.
Social implications
The findings have novel social implications on how a broader social structure has an influence on the entrepreneurship journey of a woman.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to explore the phenomenon of entrepreneurship as an emancipation for women entrepreneurs of elite families in a developing nation who have started their business from non-economic needs.
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Allard C.R. van Riel, Janjaap Semeijn, Dina Ribbink and Yvette Bomert‐Peters
In retail settings, customer satisfaction is generally associated with a global evaluation of the store, i.e. the store image. Waiting for service is not part of the store image…
Abstract
Purpose
In retail settings, customer satisfaction is generally associated with a global evaluation of the store, i.e. the store image. Waiting for service is not part of the store image dimensions, but it does play an increasingly important role in the retail experience where waits are often inevitable. The present study seeeks to investigate how waiting for service at the checkout counter influences overall satisfaction, along with the store image.
Design/methodology/approach
The study combines services marketing and waiting literature. Data were collected in various supermarkets in The Netherlands. A partial least squares regression technique is used to analyze the data.
Findings
The paper demonstrates an important and complementary role of the behavioural construct “negative response to the wait” in explaining overall customer satisfaction in a retail environment. The effect of customers' negative emotional response to the wait on satisfaction is partially mediated by store image, and explained variance in the dependent variable increases by 24 percent when the effect of the wait at the checkout is included.
Research limitations/implications
Measuring customer satisfaction without taking into account the effects of various waits during the retail experience will produce incomplete results.
Practical implications
Moreover, a range of controllable factors influences the customer's wait. Intelligently managing these factors can mitigate negative effects on customer satisfaction, or even increase the overall evaluation of the service. Specific recommendations for service managers and a research agenda are provided.
Originality/value
The study combines service marketing and waiting literature to address the issue of waiting in line and tests the theory with real‐world data from a field study.
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Tala Abuhussein and Sima Magatef
This research considers the role of social media platforms and their impact on individuals' eudaimonic well-being, and aims to help develop a social marketing programme in the…
Abstract
Purpose
This research considers the role of social media platforms and their impact on individuals' eudaimonic well-being, and aims to help develop a social marketing programme in the future that would enable students in Jordanian universities to flourish, by focussing on their social media drivers and overcoming their challenges in an attempt to improve their psychological well-being (PWB).
Design/methodology/approach
The authors used qualitative research examining lived experiences and behaviours around social media use. The authors conducted 39 semi-structured interviews with students at various universities across Jordan, alongside an online survey with open-ended questions, which were based on six PWB dimensions: environmental mastery, personal growth, purpose in life, self-acceptance, autonomy and positive relationships with others.
Findings
Social media use and advertising were found to positively impact students' self-acceptance and relationships with others but to negatively impact their autonomy. They were found to have different impacts on students' sense of purpose in life and personal growth, depending on the content shared on their platforms.
Originality/value
The ethical debate surrounding social media amongst students indicates that such social marketing programmes might stimulate individuals' sense of control over their environment, encourage openness to new experiences, and give their lives a beneficial direction. The study makes recommendations for the creation of an evidence-based social marketing programme that is extrinsically focussed on increasing resilience, creating an audience persona and building awareness of PWB.
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Avi Kay and Moshe Sharabi
This article aims to provide an examination of the impact of Jewish religious tradition on attitudes toward life domains among Jewish Israeli women. This is the first study of…
Abstract
Purpose
This article aims to provide an examination of the impact of Jewish religious tradition on attitudes toward life domains among Jewish Israeli women. This is the first study of importance of life-domains among women in the ultra-Orthodox community: the fastest growing population in Israel. This population exhibits a unique occupational pattern in which women are the primary economic actors. As women are transitioning into more central occupational and economic players throughout the world, this research has both theoretical and practical implications.
Design/methodology/approach
In total, 567 employed Jewish Israeli women (309 secular, 138 traditional and 120 ultra-Orthodox) completed a survey about relative importance of life domains. Responses were analyzed via mean-comparison tests, ANOVA and regression analysis.
Findings
Surprisingly, religiosity was associated with higher lower work centrality. Work centrality was the highest among ultra-Orthodox women, and family centrality the lowest. Centrality of religion increased and centrality of leisure decreased with religiosity. No differences emerged regarding centrality of community.
Research limitations/implications
A limitation of this study is that attitudes toward life domains are based on one-time responses to one question. With that, the psychometric characteristics of the measure and its wide-spread use indicate its acceptability and applicability for the issue studied.
Practical implications
The data point to changes in the attitudes of ultra-Orthodox women toward life-domains. Those changes and the increased presence of these women at the workplace challenge both organizational and community leaders to reexamine how to best react to and benefit from the above.
Social implications
Ultra-orthodox society is a fundamentalist, enclave society that has, generally, been able to retain traditional internal social and familial patterns until now. However, increased exposure of community members – and particularly women – to a variety of organizations and individuals operating in them, may be contributing to changes in attitudes of those women regarding their traditional social and familial roles.
Originality/value
This study closes gaps in research examining the impact of religion and of gender on work attitudes. It does so among women in the fastest growing population of Israel, that exhibit a unique occupational pattern that can contribute to both theoreticians and policy planners regarding implications of the transition of women to more central economic roles.
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Maria Bourezg, Osama Khassawneh, Satwinder Singh, Tamara Mohammad, Muntaser J. Melhem and Tamer K. Darwish
This study aims to explore the factors that influence job satisfaction among women in Jordan and contribute to the growing interest in women’s workplace happiness in the context…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore the factors that influence job satisfaction among women in Jordan and contribute to the growing interest in women’s workplace happiness in the context of the Middle East.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors used an explanatory sequential mixed-method approach. During the first phase, 250 female respondents were surveyed from the private sector in Jordan. The authors analyzed the impact of various employment-related attributes and other variables, including educational level, position, work experience, daily work hours, income level, relationships with colleagues and supervisors and internal career opportunities on job satisfaction. During the second stage, the authors interviewed 23 supervisor female respondents and conducted a thematic analysis to explore in more depth the determinants of job satisfaction of females working in the private sector in Jordan.
Findings
The quantitative findings of this study indicate that job satisfaction is positively influenced by education level and income, while notably, it was negatively impacted by work experience and daily work hours. Relationships with colleagues and supervisors, as well as internal career opportunities, positively affect job satisfaction. The qualitative findings of the study indicate that positive corporate culture, developing subordinates, financial independence, self-worthiness, work-life balance, internal career opportunities and factors that spillover from the personal life domain contributed highly to job satisfaction.
Practical implications
The findings of this study can help employers in gaining a deeper understanding of the needs and behaviors of female workers in the Middle East, potentially resulting in decreased job turnover and heightened productivity.
Originality/value
This study offers valuable insights into the cultural dynamics at play and sheds light on the psychology of the Arab female workforce. Given the limited research on job satisfaction among women in the Middle East and the Arab world, this study holds significant importance for practitioners.