Search results

The relevance of institution leaders’ personal qualities for providing quality education is widely recognized. The purpose of this paper is to explore vocational education and training (VET) institution leaders’ character features. The research question was twofold: What are the features of the character of the pedagogical leaders of three Latvian VET institutions according to students, teachers and institution board members? What are the differences between respondents’ groups regarding their perceptions of leaders’ virtues?

Six members of the institution board, five teachers and six students participated in structured qualitative interviews collected in 2013 in three high-quality VET institutions from different fields (tourism, sports and maritime education). Secondary analysis of latent content was used to explore respondents’ perceptions of leaders’ virtues, using software AQUAD 7 for qualitative data analysis.

The results revealed significant differences between students’ and staff (teachers’ and institution board members’) perceptions: the staff members appreciated particularly leaders’ performance virtues (“teamwork orientation”) and intellectual virtues (“critical thinking”), whereas, for students, heads’ moral virtues were more relevant, especially “magnanimity”. Respondents also showed concern about VET institution leaders’ civic virtues (“neighborliness,” “community awareness,” and “communicability”).

The results suggest that different perspectives, and in particular students’ voices, should be integrated in VET leaders’ assessment process and that their continuing professional development should also address their intellectual, moral and civic virtues.

This study represents an innovative methodological trial for investigating educational institution heads’ leadership from the lens of virtue ethics.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the relationships between Web 2.0 adoption, innovation, organizational learning and organizational performance in the hotel industry.

A sample of four and five-star hotels provides the data. The fieldwork took place between February and June 2013. The questionnaire was sent to top managers of Chinese hospitality firms that provide their e-mail addresses on the main Chinese tourism web pages. The final sample comprises 278 hotels. This percentage of responses yields a sample error of 6.9 per cent for a 95 per cent confidence level. The authors followed a two-step approach for structural equation modelling, using EQS 5.7 software to conduct the tests.

Results suggest that competitive advantage in the hotel industry requires firm strategies focusing on Web 2.0, innovation capacity and organizational learning. This finding contributes to the strategic management field by offering an explanation of the differences in firm performance within a particular industry. Therefore, the findings mark an important contribution to the literature, introducing a new variable that mediates the relationship between Web 2.0 and firm performance.

The results hold that Web 2.0 adoption is crucial for enhancing innovativeness, which is a fundamental source of sustainable competitive advantage. In addition, organizational learning also has a positive effect on innovativeness. Innovation, which is the essence of competitive advantage, is a key concept for firms nowadays.

Honest people the world over have always fought corruption. ‘Everyone’, everywhere, complains about it. Now there is increasing awareness of the damage caused by corruption to the economy and to society, and a greater concern to act. This may be attributed, in part, to increasing levels of literacy and general education over the past generation, and to the increasing levels of information brought to most people in most countries over the past decade.

This paper reviews the origins of the Ethics Council of the Federation of Social Communication Media of Chile (1991-2019) and looks into the historical circumstances surrounding its creation, the concept of self-regulation as understood by its founders, and the criteria that initially ruled its operation.

A qualitative survey of nine contemporary witnesses and the confrontation with the scientific literature.

The results reveal a significant coincidence with the academic literature both in the description of the concept of self-regulation and in the origin of the ethics councils and of the system under which they operate. However, a series of nuances not usually considered in the concept of self-regulation are described.

This study will help assess the national and international possibilities of self-regulation and the significance of the Chilean ethics council.

The national immigrant rights campaign of 2006 stands as one of the largest mobilizations by people of color in US history, yet less scholarly attention has been given to systematically comparing these mobilizations at the local level. To develop an understanding of what led to sustained mobilization, a comparative case study analysis of seven cities in California's San Joaquin Valley is employed. The empirical evidence is based on interviews with key organizers and participants, newspaper documentation of protest events, census data, and other secondary sources. I find that the presence and size of policy threats explained the initial protest during the spring of 2006 in all localities, but cities with elaborate resource infrastructures (preexisting organizations, histories of community organizing, and coalitions) had more enduring levels of collective action.

Purpose: The first objective is to explore how narcotelenovelas and news can be compared in their representation of drug violence and figures. The second is to explore a method which identifies intertextual references in fiction by contrasting them with journalistic reports. Methodology/approach: Qualitative content analysis is of three narcotelenovelas: El Señor de los Cielos, El Chapo, and Narcos: México. After documenting clear historical references and figures, a search was made through news engines and portals to make a comparison of the fictional versus journalistic representation of such references. Findings: Many elements of narcotelenovelas such as events and public figures are highly comparable to those described in news. While producers openly warn that they changed facts for dramatic purposes, it’s possible to propose hypotheses in which audiences construct their historical memories based on fictional narratives. Research limitations: This chapter does not offer an exhaustive list of intertextual references from all three narcotelenovelas. Originality/value: This type of comparative analysis between fiction and journalism hasn’t been explored for the study of narcoculture media products. The author poses a hypothesis, in which fiction contributes significantly to collective memories and imaginaries, especially when it appeals to historical references audiences might identify.

Studies that examine users’ perceptions of museum’s website quality are scarce. The purpouse of this paper is to propose a multi-group comparison between two superstar museums to outline the variables that define website quality regarding museum websites towards achieving e-loyalty, trust and perceived control.

The sample comprised 305 valid online questionnaires, collected from a panel survey using a quota-sampling technique. The proposed model was tested using partial least squares analysis multi-group comparison between Prado and Thyssen-Bornemisza museum websites.

Website quality plays a determinant role in users’ behavioural outcomes. As evidenced in the results for the first time in a museum setting, website quality has the potential of influencing e-loyalty, trust and perceived control. Besides, trust has a positive influence on e-loyalty and perceived control, on trust. The multi-group comparison revealed no significant differences between the two museum superstars, which offer highly useful insights for the correct design of these websites.

This research addresses a multi-group comparison using partial least squares, a quite recent technique that advances knowledge regarding this method. It contributes to knowledge museum website management and online literature by means of proposing website quality as a dimension that includes content, ease of understanding, emotion, informational fit-to-task, promotion and visual appeal and by revealing significant effects of the relationships of the proposed model. Museum managers are provided with valuable inputs to design websites in an appropriate and suitable way for their users so they will be more willing to repeat their navigation experience.

This paper aims at a better understanding of contemporary women’s relationship paths and their reasoning behind them. Qualitative interviews with 48 rural and urban women from Western Mexico were conducted and analyzed using a thematic approach and data discussed from a feminist, gender approach and late modernity approach. Findings reveal civil and religious marriages were the paths two-third of women followed to start a family and that women living in permanent and alternating cohabitation did not seek to marry. Women held ambivalent views on marital life and poorer and less-educated women, particularly urban participants, had no choice but to marry. Findings on reasoning reveal a more complex and diverse reality than previous sociodemographic studies have portrayed, where pragmatism and social order were the main causes for marrying and cohabitation. Narratives show premarital sex and the symbolism of marriage and family are changing. A comparative approach between contexts of study, age groups, civil status, and social strata enriched and strengthened the discussion of the findings. The results were contrasted with existing Mexican literature from different fields. A larger qualitative study is needed to broaden the scope of the findings made by this study, whilst large-scale studies should consider either the use of mixed approaches or the inclusion of items that allow them to identify the elements of social and cultural change. The study could help to demystify women’s attitudes toward marriage, sex, and love; a field currently sprinkled with western romantic love values and gender-driven idealizations. This paper might be of interest for social demographers, anthropologists, sociologists, and historians conducting research on these themes from feminist and gender perspectives.