Andra Gumbus, Christopher C. York and Carolyn A. Shea
Judy was a high-performing professional manager who was with her company for 15 years and was a manager for six. She was a confident, positive, and happy person but recently lost…
Abstract
Judy was a high-performing professional manager who was with her company for 15 years and was a manager for six. She was a confident, positive, and happy person but recently lost her confidence in herself and her abilities. She dreaded going to work because she never knew what she would face from her boss, Dennis. Dennis was a brilliant man who was recently promoted to Senior V.P. He was condescending, and he humiliated people in public. Complaints to the CEO and a harassment claim produced no results. Dennis did the CEO's dirty work and served a role needed in a fast-paced and profit-driven corporate culture. Judy enrolled in an MBA program to build her resume and her self-confidence. She faced a critical juncture in her career. Should she quit, transfer, complain to HR, or confront Dennis?
In the DOS world, Windows 3.0 is an operating environment that utilizes a Graphical User Interface, or “GUI.” A GUI is an alternative to typing as a means of interacting with the…
Abstract
In the DOS world, Windows 3.0 is an operating environment that utilizes a Graphical User Interface, or “GUI.” A GUI is an alternative to typing as a means of interacting with the computer and its operating system that is intended to be superior, in some ways, to the operating system itself. It is not a replacement for the operating system (e.g., DOS 3.31 or DOS 5.0). The principal features and strengths of Windows 3.0 are examined, as is a suite of programs—Word for Windows, Excel for Windows, and PowerPoint for Windows—which are collectively packaged as Microsoft Office for Windows. While not “perfect,” there is a significant advantage to the uniformity of the Windows environment.
CorelDRAW, version 2.0, is, basically, a drawing program that includes sophisticated handling of a variety of fonts; it is much more powerful and flexible than the Paintbrush…
Abstract
CorelDRAW, version 2.0, is, basically, a drawing program that includes sophisticated handling of a variety of fonts; it is much more powerful and flexible than the Paintbrush drawing program that is bundled with Windows 3.0. It is, however, neither a wordprocessing program nor a desktop publishing program. Nevertheless one of the prime uses of CorelDRAW could be to prepare illustrations and creatively styled text to be incorporated into a document being prepared in a wordprocessor or desktop publishing system. The people who have designed and developed CorelDRAW have managed to produce a tool that is, on the one hand, complex, powerful, and infinitely capable of accommodating creative expression and, on the other hand, simple and straightforward in design, engineered to accommodate the human visual sense and manual dexterity, and provided with one of the best introductory packages available with a software program.
The Campus Infrastructure (CI) Department at the University of Calgary absorbed a 25 per cent reduction in its operating budget in 1995. As a result, it was forced to transform…
Abstract
The Campus Infrastructure (CI) Department at the University of Calgary absorbed a 25 per cent reduction in its operating budget in 1995. As a result, it was forced to transform its business processes in order to provide the required level of services to the campus. Through its strategic planning process, it has implemented new technologies that have enabled the Department to meet this challenge.
Details
Keywords
Liselotte Englund and Filip K. Arnberg
The media is an important part of disaster management, yet little is understood about their interplay with the disaster survivors. The purpose of this paper is to examine disaster…
Abstract
Purpose
The media is an important part of disaster management, yet little is understood about their interplay with the disaster survivors. The purpose of this paper is to examine disaster survivors’ long-term retrospective views of their experiences with journalists and the media coverage.
Design/methodology/approach
In total, 22 Swedish adult survivors (of 49 eligible) from a ferry disaster in the Baltic Sea, in which only 137 of the 989 people onboard survived, were interviewed after 15 years about their experiences of meeting journalists in the immediate aftermath and the media coverage in a long-term perspective. The transcribed interviews were analyzed using qualitative content analysis.
Findings
Survivors from the Estonia ferry disaster described a wide array of experiences from their contacts with the disaster journalists and being exposed in the media. From their experiences, four categories were extracted. The categories were common for both their media contacts and their media exposure: strain, support, rationality and evasion. The survivors’ experiences were both negative and positive.
Research limitations/implications
These accounts of disaster survivors’ experiences from an event 15 years ago provide an interesting comparison for future studies of contemporary disasters.
Originality/value
This study provides important perspectives on the role of disaster coverage in the media and documents how disaster survivors retrospect on the media as both a burden and a resource.
Details
Keywords
The purpose of this paper is to extend understandings of the demand-side view of strategy and how organizations co-create value with stakeholders. Through an iterative process of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to extend understandings of the demand-side view of strategy and how organizations co-create value with stakeholders. Through an iterative process of theory development, data collection, data analysis and writing, the authors propose a value co-creation perspective that more fully takes into account stakeholder complexity.
Design/methodology/approach
The empirical data derives from a wider exploratory study on value creation and competitive advantage in Christian churches in Canada. Here the authors explore one case study from that wider study and analyze interviews with church members and leaders.
Findings
The authors discuss two mutually constitutive processes of value co-creation, building a culture of community and enacting relational and shared leadership.
Research limitations/implications
The authors propose a stakeholder-complex understanding of value creation where stakeholders can enact multiple roles, often simultaneously, in co-creation and where products/services are consumed for their symbolic, rather than material value. Further, co-creation may involve ongoing interactions and value creation can occur in non-monetary transactions.
Originality/value
The authors offer, through an empirical exploration of a religious organization, an illustrative account of how value co-creation might be tied to stakeholder complexity. This study stretches the boundaries of mainstream strategy research by challenging two fundamental assumptions: that stakeholder roles must be distinct and that “value” must be clearly defined and explicitly linked to exchange value.
Details
Keywords
Yimer Mohammed, Merrill Warkentin and Tibebe Beshah
This study aims to investigate how cultural factors – specifically power distance (PD) and uncertainty avoidance (UA) – affect employees’ use of neutralization techniques to…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate how cultural factors – specifically power distance (PD) and uncertainty avoidance (UA) – affect employees’ use of neutralization techniques to rationalize deviant information systems (IS) behaviors. The goal is to enhance strategies for managing insider threats and improving security policies.
Design/methodology/approach
A cross-sectional survey was used to examine how national culture affects neutralization strategies related to IS misuse. A scenario-based survey was used to gather data from 292 employees, stressing four top ranked IS deviant behaviors in Ethiopian organizations. Using SmartPLS 4.0 software, the study validates measurement and structural models using partial least squares structural equation modeling. It then uses bootstrapping procedures to assess hypotheses that predict the use of justifications in situations of IS misuse.
Findings
The research finds that all four neutralization techniques – appeal to higher loyalty, claim of normalcy, defense of necessity and denial of responsibility – significantly predicted employees’ IS deviant use intention behaviors. PD and UA cultures also significantly influence IS deviant use intention, with neutralization techniques mediating this relationship, validating the model’s predictive relevance.
Research limitations/implications
The reliance on self-reported data and a cross-sectional design may limit the accuracy and causal inference of the findings. Additionally, the focus on Ethiopian respondents may restrict generalizability, highlighting the need for research in diverse contexts. Future studies could explore longitudinal or experimental designs and examine neutralization techniques and knowledge management to understand IS security.
Originality/value
This study introduces a novel model illustrating how cultural values, such as PD and UA, influence employees’ use of neutralization techniques to justify deviant behavior in Ethiopian organizations. It emphasizes the mediating role of these techniques and the need for culturally tailored anti-neutralization strategies and effective security awareness programs.
Details
Keywords
The industrial realities of teaching are documented in history, sociology and policy research: studies of the school as workplace, the tools of teaching, processes within the…
Abstract
The industrial realities of teaching are documented in history, sociology and policy research: studies of the school as workplace, the tools of teaching, processes within the workplace, the changing composition of the teaching workforce, the gender politics of the occupation, teacher organisations, and change in teachers’ work and employment relations. Teaching as a form of work is difficult to pin down because it involves an unspecifiable object of labour, a limitless labour process, and is, in a sense, unteachable. Teaching is always transformative labour, bringing new social realities into existence; and is also fundamentally interactive, not individual. Teachers’ work is not social reproduction, but is creative and therefore a site of social struggle. This can be seen in education in colonial societies, and in the global transformation of the education of girls and women. Teachers are now caught up in the neoliberal agenda, often unwillingly ‐ but since neoliberalism transforms institutions in the public sector, unavoidably, and sometimes traumatically. In a long historical perspective, the modern teaching workforce is unique, and has the possibility of shaping the learning capacities of the whole society; this may now be uniquely important.
Details
Keywords
A. Parasuraman and P. Varadarajan
Numerous conceptual and empirical studies in the services marketing literature have focused on the unique characteristics of services and the resulting marketing problems…
Abstract
Numerous conceptual and empirical studies in the services marketing literature have focused on the unique characteristics of services and the resulting marketing problems. Building on these works, this article explores differences in the future strategic orientation of goods and service businesses in the context of various functional areas.