Garry John Stevens, Tobias Bienz, Nidhi Wali, Jenna Condie and Spyros Schismenos
Following the rapid shift to online learning due to COVID-19, this paper aims to compare the relative efficacy of face-to-face and online university teaching methods.
Abstract
Purpose
Following the rapid shift to online learning due to COVID-19, this paper aims to compare the relative efficacy of face-to-face and online university teaching methods.
Design/methodology/approach
A scoping review was conducted to examine the learning outcomes within and between online and face-to-face (F2F) university teaching programmes.
Findings
Although previous research has supported a “no significant difference” position, the review of 91 comparative studies during 2000–2020 identified 37 (41%) which found online teaching was associated with better learning outcomes, 17 (18%) which favoured F2F and 37 (41%) reporting no significant difference. Purpose-developed online content which supports “student-led” enquiry and cognitive challenge were cited as factors supporting better learning outcomes.
Research limitations/implications
This study adopts a pre-defined methodology in reviewing literature which ensures rigour in identifying relevant studies. The large sample of studies (n = 91) supported the comparison of discrete learning modes although high variability in key concepts and outcome variables made it difficult to directly compare some studies. A lack of methodological rigour was observed in some studies.
Originality/value
As a result of COVID-19, online university teaching has become the “new normal” but also re-focussed questions regarding its efficacy. The weight of evidence from this review is that online learning is at least as effective and often better than, F2F modalities in supporting learning outcomes, albeit these differences are often modest. The findings raise questions about the presumed benefits of F2F learning and complicate the case for a return to physical classrooms during the pandemic and beyond.
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Connor Shane Smith, Alanna Julius, Christian Arbeeny and John Davenport Stevens
Radio frequency (RF) technology relies on the electromagnetic properties of the materials used, which includes their complex permittivities and loss tangents. To measure these…
Abstract
Purpose
Radio frequency (RF) technology relies on the electromagnetic properties of the materials used, which includes their complex permittivities and loss tangents. To measure these properties, techniques for material characterization such as the transmission/reflection method are used in conjunction with conversion techniques to calculate these values from scattering parameters. Unfortunately, these techniques rely on relatively expensive rectangular waveguide adaptors and components, especially if testing over large frequency ranges. This paper aims to overcome this challenge by developing a more affordable test equipment solution based on additively manufactured waveguide sections.
Design/methodology/approach
To evaluate the effectiveness of using additively manufactured waveguides to perform electromagnetic characterization with the transmission/reflection method, samples of PLA Tough with varying infill percentages and samples made from several Formlabs photopolymer resins are fabricated and analyzed.
Findings
Results show that the method yielded permittivity and loss tangent values for the measured materials that generally agree with those found in the literature, supporting its credibility.
Originality/value
The accessibility of this measurement technique will ideally allow for more electromagnetic material characterization to occur and expand the possible use of additive manufacturing in future RF designs. This work also provides characterization of several Formlabs photopolymer resins, which have not been widely analyzed in the current literature.
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Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP) represents a new approach to understanding the process of human communication. Developed by Richard Bandler and John Grinder in the early 1970s…
Abstract
Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP) represents a new approach to understanding the process of human communication. Developed by Richard Bandler and John Grinder in the early 1970s, it is derived from linguistics, psychology, neurophysiology, kinetics, and cybernetics. NLP is designed to help its users—whether they are therapists, salespersons, or teachers—more quickly gain rapport with their subjects.
Bryan C. McCannon and John Stevens
The purpose of this paper is to identify whether personality traits can help explain the outcomes that arise in bargaining outcomes.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to identify whether personality traits can help explain the outcomes that arise in bargaining outcomes.
Design/methodology/approach
Experiments with subjects playing the alternating-offers bargaining game are considered. Both full information and asymmetric information treatments are considered. Subjects also complete standardized Myers-Briggs Type Indicator assessments.
Findings
Personality type measurements are shown to help explain the opening offers, rejections, and resulting wealth in the negotiations. It is shown that interactions between the personality dimensions are important and that the interaction between personality and information play a key role in bargaining outcomes.
Research limitations/implications
The research utilizes laboratory experiments to generate data. This expands our understanding of individual-level behavior, but suffers from the limitation of not replicating realistic bargaining situations.
Practical implications
The work should serve as a guide to organizations to identify traits of effective negotiators.
Social implications
Bargaining is a central economic activity. Being able to identify the root of differences in outcomes from negotiations should be able to inform institutional design issues.
Originality/value
Little work has been done connecting the rich literature in social psychology and management on personality to economic outcomes. The research on bargaining neglects to incorporate individual-level traits into the process. This research begins to bridge this gap and informs both bargaining theory as well as emphasizes on the importance of personality in application.
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The purpose of this paper is to glean leadership lessons of megaproject managers through the life stories of four purposefully selected managers from two contemporary and two…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to glean leadership lessons of megaproject managers through the life stories of four purposefully selected managers from two contemporary and two landmark megaprojects.
Design/methodology/approach
A narrative inquiry approach applying thematic analysis is used to capture lessons learnt from these stories with a focus on leading megaprojects. Narrative analysis has been used in organization studies and this paper is an attempt to use it in project management research.
Findings
Common strategies used by all four megaproject managers to be successful include: selecting the right people and building their capability; building trust with stakeholders; dealing with institutional power and politics effectively; and having the courage to innovate. There were also some differences in the approaches used by these managers due the times in which these projects were implemented.
Research limitations/implications
The use of narrative inquiry is new to project management literature. As the life stories were not presented in the same way it was difficult to analyze them in the same manner, and further data had to be collected. This could have been avoided if it were feasible to collect narratives directly from the megaproject managers. This is being planned in future research emerging from this paper.
Practical implications
This study helps megaproject managers to exhibit leadership attributes that would be required to execute such large complex projects that have wide implications for the society, economy and the environment.
Social implications
Megaprojects are often considered major displacements that cause social and geophysical issues that affect the environment. Lessons learnt from these stories could be useful to avoid such issues. The stories analyzed showed the human side of the megaproject managers toward people related, health and societal issues.
Originality/value
Narrative inquiry is new to project management literature. In the past, project management literature has focused on extracting lessons learnt from historical and classical projects, but lessons from life stories of project managers have not been used for the same purpose.
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Sir John Stevens, chairman of Morgan Grenfell, talks about the future prospects for merchant banking. One of the immediate worries, he says, is the possibility of a Government…
Abstract
Sir John Stevens, chairman of Morgan Grenfell, talks about the future prospects for merchant banking. One of the immediate worries, he says, is the possibility of a Government move to channel more institutional funds into the gilt‐edged market—thereby reducing the private sector flow.
Abstract
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Historians have long understood that transforming people into property was the defining characteristic of Atlantic World slavery. This chapter examines litigation in British…
Abstract
Historians have long understood that transforming people into property was the defining characteristic of Atlantic World slavery. This chapter examines litigation in British colonial Vice Admiralty Courts in order to show how English legal categories and procedures facilitated this process of dehumanization. In colonies where people were classified as chattel property, litigants transformed local Vice Admiralty Courts into slave courts by analogizing human beings to ships and cargo. Doing so made sound economic sense from their perspective; it gave colonists instant access to an early modern English legal system that was centered on procedures and categories. But for people of African descent, it had decidedly negative consequences. Indeed, when colonists treated slaves as property, they helped to create a world in which Africans were not just like things, they were things. Through the very act of categorization, they rendered factual what had been a mere supposition: that Africans were less than human.
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The purpose of this paper is to inform an international audience of the difficulties prosecutors in the USA have encountered in light of a decision of the US Supreme Court…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to inform an international audience of the difficulties prosecutors in the USA have encountered in light of a decision of the US Supreme Court limiting the application of the federal anti‐money laundering statute to cases where a criminal enterprise generated profits.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper summarizes the law in the USA regarding money laundering prosecutions before the decision in the United States v. Santos, outlines the decision of the Supreme Court, and organizes the post‐Santos case law into categories setting forth the divergent views of what the decision means and how it is to be applied.
Findings
The case law in the USA regarding money laundering prosecutions is now quite unsettled. Courts have taken different views as to whether the government must now prove that the funds being laundered by or on behalf of a criminal represent the profits of the criminal enterprise as opposed to its gross receipts.
Research limitations/implications
The case law on this issue continues to develop at a rapid pace. It is necessary to cut off the research on this issue to complete the paper, but the reader should be aware that new cases are being issued in rapid order.
Practical implications
Prosecutors in the USA now face several obstacles in bringing money launderers to justice. Decisions in closed cases may be reopened as defendants argue that their convictions are obtained under an incorrect view of the law. Going forward, prosecutors are uncertain whether the government must prove that a criminal enterprise is profitable before they can obtain a conviction for money laundering.
Originality/value
Prior to Santos, it is assumed that it is an offense to launder the gross receipts of a crime or criminal scheme. Santos cases grave doubt on that assumption, holding that in at least some cases, the laundering offense will apply only where the financial transaction involves the net profits of an offense. This is an object lesson in the confusion that can result from inartful legislative drafting. It also provides a guide to the current state of the law and suggests how prosecutors in the USA are dealing with the problem pending any legislative correction.