“People are our most valuable asset” is a common expression used by most chief executives. Yet how much is really spent keeping track of this “most valuable asset”? What kind of…
Abstract
“People are our most valuable asset” is a common expression used by most chief executives. Yet how much is really spent keeping track of this “most valuable asset”? What kind of resources are allocated to determining the company's management needs, and to developing manpower plans that match the company's growth? What controls are in effect that will trigger action when there is a variance from the plan? To what extent should the board of directors be involved? Does the chief executive officer allocate as much time, effort, and resources to the company's human resources development as he or she does to sales, finance, or production?
James Munro, Fred Motson, Jim Turner, Lara A. Frumkin and Lee John Curley
Since the passage of the Double Jeopardy (Scotland) Act 2011, mirroring changes in other jurisdictions, a person who has been acquitted in Scotland can, under certain…
Abstract
Purpose
Since the passage of the Double Jeopardy (Scotland) Act 2011, mirroring changes in other jurisdictions, a person who has been acquitted in Scotland can, under certain circumstances, be retried for that offence. Jurors could have knowledge of the previous acquittal verdict (whether not guilty or not proven) through media sources, potentially biasing the new jury in their decision-making. The purpose of this study is to detemine the influence of knowing a trial is a retrial, on conviction rates.
Design/methodology/approach
The current study invited 253 participants to give a verdict to a mock murder trial after either receiving pretrial information about the original verdict or no information about the case being a retrial.
Findings
Significantly more acquittal verdicts were given when the participants were told that it was a retrial, compared to the control condition, irrespective of whether the prior verdict was not guilty or not proven.
Originality/value
Findings are discussed in light of jurors’ knowledge of legal concepts and acquittal verdicts and the increasing exposure of the general Scottish public to the not-proven verdict due to increased media coverage.
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Abigail Richard, Fred Ahrens and Benjamin George
This study aims to introduce a new prescriptive model to aid both managers and researchers in partner selection for innovation-orientated collaboration. This framework…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to introduce a new prescriptive model to aid both managers and researchers in partner selection for innovation-orientated collaboration. This framework demonstrates how prospective partner firms’ complementing bodies of knowledge and goal alignment interact to affect the success of a collaboration.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors use geometric modeling to represent the interrelationships among knowledge similarity/dissimilarity, goal congruence, knowledge complementarity (KC) and innovation in alliance formation. Using this model as a framework, the authors derive relationships among predictors of innovation success and determine how they affect the nature of partnerships under varying conditions of KC.
Findings
This research shows how innovation success is strongly determined by partner selection. Specifically, the authors examine the influence of KC and partner goals on three aspects of a potential research and development (R&D) alliance – the potential level of innovation outcome for the alliance, the boundaries of knowledge sharing and limitations arising from knowledge and goal incongruence and the nature of cooperation.
Originality/value
Although there is broad empirical support that innovation success is influenced by the similarity of R&D partners’ knowledge, further research is still needed to model the relationship more precisely between partner KC and goal alignment. The authors address this gap by developing a model that is both prescriptive and predictive of how innovation success can be achieved in the context of disparate but complementing knowledge and goal sets. The authors conclude with practical implications for practice and future research directions.
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Vaughan Reimers, Bryce Magnuson and Fred Chao
Academic research and consumer polls often report strong consumer support for environmentally responsible products (ERPs), and yet the proportion of sales they account for is…
Abstract
Purpose
Academic research and consumer polls often report strong consumer support for environmentally responsible products (ERPs), and yet the proportion of sales they account for is often comparatively small. The purpose of this paper is to address one of the purported reasons behind this “attitude-behaviour gap” by measuring the influence of six relatively untested factors on consumer attitudes towards environmentally responsible clothing (ERC).
Design/methodology/approach
This study employed a consumer household sample. It also used a quantitative survey approach to collect its data and structural equation modelling to analyse it.
Findings
Of the six factors, four were found to have a significant influence on consumer attitudes: altruism, status enhancement, perceived consumer effectiveness (PCE) and happiness.
Originality/value
Altruism, environmental concern, PCE and self-identity have consistently featured in other environmental contexts, but less so in the specific context of ERC. Happiness and status enhancement have yet to appear in any study relating to the purchase of ERPs.
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Weihong Ning, Ofir Turel and Fred D. Davis
In this current review, we aimed to understand technology addiction interventions and provide guidelines for IS scholars to use IT to prevent or attenuate technology addiction.
Abstract
Purpose
In this current review, we aimed to understand technology addiction interventions and provide guidelines for IS scholars to use IT to prevent or attenuate technology addiction.
Design/methodology/approach
We systematically reviewed articles associated with technology and substance addiction interventions. These articles included review articles, peer-reviewed articles, conference proceedings, and online articles.
Findings
We propose a roadmap for technology addiction intervention development and testing based on the review. Next, we summarize the similarities and differences between substance addiction and technology addiction in terms of antecedents, negative consequences, and neurobiological mechanisms. Based on this, two types of potential interventions for substance addiction were reviewed to explore how they can be used for technology addiction. To conclude, IT-mediated interventions were summarized, and promising avenues for future research were highlighted.
Originality/value
Technology addiction has a broad range of adverse impacts on mental health and well-being. With the knowledge and insight from this review, the Information Systems community can become part of the solution to technology addiction.
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Katerina Voutsina, Gaëtan Mourmant and Fred Niederman
This research expands the scope of the exploitation/exploration literature which has generally embraced a firm-level perspective by showing the theoretical and practical relevance…
Abstract
This research expands the scope of the exploitation/exploration literature which has generally embraced a firm-level perspective by showing the theoretical and practical relevance of this framework for the study of entrepreneurial behaviour from an individual-level perspective. The study exemplifies specific instances where explorative or exploitative aspects of behaviour are likely to be manifested as a response to specific types of shocks that precede and impact the decision to quit and start one’s own business. Different types of shocks or entrepreneurial events displace the individual from the inertia of existing behaviour and pave the way for the consideration of a new set of opportunities; a new set of opportunities where entrepreneurial initiatives are perceived to be both feasible and desirable (exploitation–exploitation). Drawing upon 80 semi-structured and longitudinal interviews with entrepreneurs who quitted their ‘salaried job’ in order to start their own business, the study: (a) provides an inventory of events/shocks found to precipitate the interviewees’ decision to quit, and (b) links the various types of shocks with the prospective explorative and/or exploitative entrepreneurial initiatives. In this respect, the dynamics that underlie the effects of shocks on entrepreneurial behaviour are illustrated, while blurriness and interrelatedness of exploitative and explorative aspects of entrepreneurial behaviour are exemplified. Such a detailed list of shocks may serve as reference tool for both prospective entrepreneurs who wish to make an entrepreneurial shift in their career, as well as managers who wish to be proactive in avoiding or encouraging entrepreneurial employee turnover.
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This paper aims to examine the entrepreneurial Fred Harvey Company's early public relations and publicity efforts to determine what they add to our knowledge of the development of…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the entrepreneurial Fred Harvey Company's early public relations and publicity efforts to determine what they add to our knowledge of the development of public relations in the USA.
Design/methodology/approach
This historical analysis uses mainly data gleaned from an in‐depth examination of the two archival sources available: the Fred Harvey Company photographs and papers at the Heard Museum in Phoenix, AZ (at about ten linear feet, the most complete collection of Harvey materials), and the Fred Harvey Collection at the University of Arizona (photographs, correspondence, and miscellaneous records).
Findings
Although the dominant historical perspective has labeled this era the “Seedbed Years” and characterized them as “a day of business arrogance toward employee and citizen alike”, this case suggests that other models of practice were in use that developed out of differing cultural milieux. To the dominant view of public relations developing in the USA as a result of business pressures, then, should be added the perspective of organizational culture and the role it played in the development and professionalism of the field.
Research limitations/implications
This one case study cannot be generalized to the whole field; however, the findings support those of a growing number of other scholars (Sullivan, Piasecki), suggesting that the dominant evolutionary paradigm of US public relations history artificially constricts our understanding of the field.
Practical implications
The insider's perspective gained through this study has implications for professionalism, integrated communications, and ethical practice.
Originality/value
This paper examines a previously unknown case in US public relations history and sheds light on early public relations and publicity methods that challenge the dominant paradigm in US scholarship. The notion of press agentry as the dominant practice is explored and challenged.
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We have observed in the reports of those engaged in the administration of the Acts several references to the practice of milking so that a portion of the milk is left in the udder…
Abstract
We have observed in the reports of those engaged in the administration of the Acts several references to the practice of milking so that a portion of the milk is left in the udder of the cow, this portion being removed subsequently and not included in the milk sent out to customers. The inspector for the southern division of the county of Northampton reports that on a sample of milk being found deficient in fat to the extent of 17 per cent., a further sample was taken at the time of milking when a milkman was found to be not properly “stripping” the cows. He was warned. The analyst for the county of Notts writes: “The first strippings obtained before the milk glands have been normally excited by the milking are very low in fat yet are “genuine” milk in the sense that nothing has been added to or taken from it. It is nonsense to talk of genuine milk in the sense that everything that comes from the udder of the cow is to be taken as genuine milk fit for sale.” In a case tried before the Recorder of Middlesbrough, one witness said that among some farmers it was a common practice not to “strip” cows until after the milk was sent away.