Malcolm Hewitt and Kate Phillips
Describes the Young Manager Programme, and the approach of aleading company, Safeway Stores plc, for using this to increase itseducation links. Addresses the need for…
Abstract
Describes the Young Manager Programme, and the approach of a leading company, Safeway Stores plc, for using this to increase its education links. Addresses the need for communication and partnership to make the programme succeed. Discusses the benefits and drawbacks of using this resource as part of a strategy for education links, along with the opportunities which it presents.
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Aidan J Connolly, Leona Shaojing Luo, Michael Woolsey, Mark Lyons and Kate Phillips-Connolly
– The purpose of this paper is to offer a blueprint, or outline considerations for the continuing evolution of the Chinese food safety system.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to offer a blueprint, or outline considerations for the continuing evolution of the Chinese food safety system.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper begins with the review of the current food safety system in China and the demonstration of the successes in national food safety programmes. It goes on to identify the specific problems through food sully China, and further to analyse the potential for implementing the key learnings from other national food safety programmes in the Chinese context.
Findings
The paper suggests a five-point Blueprint for food safety in China and other countries, allowing for the development of a robust food safety system, by combining the elements with best practice from system created by food safety practitioners internationally.
Research limitations/implications
It should be noted that even since the authors began developing this model China has already adopted a number of the recommendations covered by this Blueprint and is actively considering others.
Originality/value
This paper fulfills an identified information/resources need and offers a blueprint, or outline of considerations for the continuing evolution of the Chinese food safety system.
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VINE is produced at least four times a year with the object of providing up‐to‐date news of work being done in the automation of library housekeeping processes, principally in the…
Abstract
VINE is produced at least four times a year with the object of providing up‐to‐date news of work being done in the automation of library housekeeping processes, principally in the UK. It is edited and substantially written by Tony McSean, Information Officer for Library Automation based in Southampton University Library and supported by a grant from the British Library Research and Development Department. Copyright for VINE articles rests with the British Library Board, but opinions expressed in VINE do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the British Library. The subscription to VINE is £10 per year and the subscription period runs from January to December.
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My title is an allusion to that old country joke — If I were going there, I wouldn't start from here. Perhaps it should have been: How did I get here from there? Why should I have…
Abstract
My title is an allusion to that old country joke — If I were going there, I wouldn't start from here. Perhaps it should have been: How did I get here from there? Why should I have been given the honour, and the pleasure, of addressing this distinguished company? It is an honour because we are celebrating the coming‐of‐age of a major professional journal and that is a notable event. It is a pleasure, because this is a gathering of friends; some here will remember that twenty one years ago audiences were not always friendly. I spent many years as the Wild Man from Southampton who wanted everyone to go into automation and claimed that it worked. Suddenly about six years ago I was turned into an elder statesman, over the hill and past his best, but a good type to be sent abroad to try to save our colleagues in the Third World from the mistakes we made twenty years ago, or to address gatherings that are more social than, shall we say, technical. I need hardly add that I preferred my role as the Wild Man, or, as I would put it, a pioneer in the application of modern techniques to library management and information handling.
Chelsea Phillips, Gaby Odekerken-Schröder, Rebekah Russell-Bennett, Mark Steins, Dominik Mahr and Kate Letheren
Previous research has not considered the impact on human frontline employees (FLEs) of altered employee–customer relationships in the presence of a service robot (i.e. an…
Abstract
Purpose
Previous research has not considered the impact on human frontline employees (FLEs) of altered employee–customer relationships in the presence of a service robot (i.e. an intrusion challenge), nor how FLEs may respond. The purpose of this study is to explore the task allocation strategies by human frontline employees’ (FLE) work well-being responses within the intrusion challenge.
Design/methodology/approach
This study employs a mixed-method approach, whereby an in-depth qualitative study (Study 1, n = 15) is followed by a quantitative field study (Study 2, n = 81).
Findings
Results indicate that FLEs experience the intrusion challenge, impacting social, purpose, physical and community well-being. Study 1 reveals that while service robots trigger this challenge, FLEs use them for task allocation to maintain their initial work well-being state. Study 2 shows that using robots instead of colleagues positively affects FLE work well-being.
Practical implications
Service robots, as a task allocation strategy by FLEs, can be used to empower FLEs by assisting them to preserve their work well-being within the intrusion challenge.
Originality/value
This study is one of the first to involve FLEs from a live service robot site, where data is based on personal lived experiences rather than anticipated experiences. This is the first study to investigate how FLEs respond to the intrusion challenge.
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Gry Høngsmark Knudsen and Dannie Kjeldgaard
The purpose of this paper is to forward an extension of reception analysis as a way to incorporate and give insight to social media mediations and big data in a qualitative…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to forward an extension of reception analysis as a way to incorporate and give insight to social media mediations and big data in a qualitative marketing perspective. We propose a research method that focuses on discursive developments in consumer debates for example on YouTube – a large-scale open-access social media platform – as opposed to the closed and tightknit communities investigated by netnography.
Methodology/approach
Online reception analysis
Findings
Using a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods, we find that big data can enrich online reception analyses by showing new aspects of weak tie online networks and consumers meaning making.
Research limitations/implications
The potential of online reception analysis is to encompass a discursive perspective on consumer interactions on large-scale open-access social media and to be able to analyze socialities that do not represent shared cultures but are more representative of transitory everyday interactions.
Originality/value of paper
Our method contributes to the current focus to define levels of analysis beyond research centered on individuals and individual interactions within groups to investigate other larger socialities. Further, our method also contributes by incorporating and investigating the mediatization of interaction that social media contributes with and therefore our methods actively work with the possibilities of social media. Hence, by extending the advances made by netnography into online spaces, online reception analysis can potentially inform the current status of big data research with a sociocultural methodological perspective.
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Da Yang, John Dumay and Dale Tweedie
This paper examines how accounting either contributes to or undermines worker resistance to unfair pay, thereby enhancing our current understanding of the emancipatory potential…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper examines how accounting either contributes to or undermines worker resistance to unfair pay, thereby enhancing our current understanding of the emancipatory potential of accounting.
Design/methodology/approach
We apply Jacques Rancière's concept of politics and build on recent calls to introduce Rancière's work to accounting by analysing a case based on workers in an Australian supermarket chain who challenged their employer Coles over wage underpayments.
Findings
We find that in this case, accounting is, in part, a means to politics and a part of the police in Rancière's sense. More specifically, accounting operated within the established order to constrain the workers, but also provided workers with a resource for their political acts that enabled change.
Originality/value
This empirical research adds to Li and McKernan (2016) and Brown and Tregidga (2017) conceptual work on Rancière. It also contributes more broadly to emancipatory accounting research by identifying radical possibilities for workers' accounting to bring about change.
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Chelsea Phillips, Rebekah Russell–Bennett, Gaby Odekerken-Schröder, Dominik Mahr and Kate Letheren
The human service triad (i.e. the relationship between the customer, frontline employee (FLE) and managerial employee) experiences a range of well-being challenges when faced with…
Abstract
Purpose
The human service triad (i.e. the relationship between the customer, frontline employee (FLE) and managerial employee) experiences a range of well-being challenges when faced with the introduction of service robots. Despite growth in service robot scholarship, understanding of the well-being challenges affecting the human service triad remains fragmented. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to synthesise the literature and offer a research agenda aligned with the proposed Robotic-Human Service Trilemma. By taking a job performance approach (which considers the actions, behaviours and outcomes linked to organisational goals), the Robotic-Human Service Trilemma conceptualises three well-being challenges (intrusion, sideline and interchange). These challenges are realised via the realistic capabilities and constraints of service robot implementation.
Design/methodology/approach
This research relies on a systematic review of all disciplines concerning service robots. In total, 82 articles were analysed using thematic coding and led to the development of the Robotic-Human Service Trilemma and research agenda.
Findings
The analyses reveal the Robotic-Human Service Trilemma consists of three challenges: intrusion, sideline and indifference. The findings demonstrate that FLEs are required to counterbalance the constraints of service robots, leading to an uneven well-being burden within the human service triad. This paper suggests a research agenda for investigation of the challenges that underpin the Robotic-Human Service Trilemma.
Originality/value
Through the conceptualisation of the Robotic-Human Service Trilemma, this study is the first to explore how states of well-being equilibrium exist within the human service triad and how these states are challenged by service robots. The authors present a balanced centricity perspective to well-being that contrasts previous trade-off approaches and that enhances the body of service robot literature with a well-being lens.
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David G. Hendry, Jill Palzkill Woelfer and Thuy Duong
Addressing the question, how might socio-technical systems help homeless young people to succeed broadly in employment, the purpose of this paper is to present a future vision…
Abstract
Purpose
Addressing the question, how might socio-technical systems help homeless young people to succeed broadly in employment, the purpose of this paper is to present a future vision, the U-District Job Co-op, where youth take on “mini-jobs” offered by neighborhood stakeholders.
Design/methodology/approach
Drawing on value sensitive design, design-based, and qualitative research methods, the Job Co-op is explicated by reporting on three linked studies.
Findings
First, based on empirical research with varied neighborhood stakeholders, barriers and possible solutions to employment for homeless young people are presented. Second, three design insights for shaping a solution space of socio-technical systems for job search are presented and used analytically to examine six existing systems. Third, findings from a co-design study in which homeless young people expressed their understandings for web-based job services explicate the vision of the Job Co-op.
Social implications
This study offers a socio-technical approach, grounded in the neighborhood context, for supporting homeless young people in job search and related activities.
Originality/value
The studies reported in this paper demonstrate how methods for information system design can be used to generate and clarify opportunities for human benefit and for the development of socio-technical systems that account for human values.