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Article
Publication date: 1 February 2011

Mark Bechtold

The purpose of this paper is to examine appreciative inquiry (AI) as an organizational development approach that aligns with Arab cultural factors to address the issue of employee

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine appreciative inquiry (AI) as an organizational development approach that aligns with Arab cultural factors to address the issue of employee morale in an Arab‐led organization.

Design/methodology/approach

A brief literature review establishes AI's foundational theories and links with Arab cultural factors. An overview of the AI 4D model is then followed by critiques of the AI approach. The paper presents an application of AI to address the issue of low employee morale in a large oil refinery.

Findings

A literature review of AI and Arab cultural factors and initial findings of an AI application in a Middle Eastern Arab‐led organization indicates an increase in employee satisfaction and initially confirms a complementary link of the AI approach to Arab cultural factors.

Research limitations/implications

Critiques of AI center on appropriateness, repression of negative images, and unexpressed resentment. Despite critiques, a lack of dialogic discourse, and support from scientific research for this relatively new approach, AI presents a promising alternative to traditional problem solving and its inherent, often negative effects.

Practical implications

The sharing of stories as part of the AI approach served to bond employees to each other and served to instill a shared sense of ownership for the past and future success of the organization. The use of AI builds on the cultural attributes of Arab culture including high collectivism, strong family and relationship orientation, high context and narrative communication, low risk tolerance, prevalence of positive intentions, and homogeneity of the Islamic society.

Originality/value

This paper provides insight and support for using AI as an organizational development approach that complements existing Arab cultural factors for practicality and benefit.

Details

Industrial and Commercial Training, vol. 43 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0019-7858

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Article
Publication date: 1 August 2004

Kirsti Kasila and Marita Poskiparta

At the moment, Finnish oral health care is undergoing many changes. Little attention has been paid to issues of organisational culture and communication in Finnish oral health…

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Abstract

At the moment, Finnish oral health care is undergoing many changes. Little attention has been paid to issues of organisational culture and communication in Finnish oral health care. Yet the question of culture is of primary importance for changes in an organisation and for planning and reconstructing the rational functioning of an organisation. The purpose of this paper is to examine Finnish public oral health care within a theoretical framework of organisational culture and to identify the various cultural traits that appear to characterise Finnish oral health care. Using a cultural point of view, we develop an orientation for understanding more profoundly and specifically the processes concerning the functioning and change of oral health care.

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International Journal of Health Care Quality Assurance, vol. 17 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0952-6862

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Article
Publication date: 23 August 2021

Jorgina Pereira, Vitor Braga, Aldina Correia and Aidin Salamzadeh

This study aims to distinguish businesses by their degree of complexity and to analyse the influence of complexity on the performance of firms during the coronavirus disease 2019…

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Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to distinguish businesses by their degree of complexity and to analyse the influence of complexity on the performance of firms during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.

Design/methodology/approach

Data were collected from 468 businesses, and various multivariate statistical techniques were used. Initially a factor analysis was conducted, organising variables into five factors. A discriminant analysis, performed with the five factors, allowed discriminating firms based on whether they internationalise or not. A linear regression was performed in order to estimate the contribution of each factor in the business performance.

Findings

The results suggest the existence of additional variables for measuring the complexity. From the factorial analysis it is possible to conclude that business complexity can be explained by size, indebtedness and profitability, internationalisation, number of employees, and age and leverage. Total assets, indebtedness and age are the variables that contribute the most to business performance. On the other hand, indebtedness, internationalisation, age and leverage are the independent variables that most contribute to explain business performance.

Originality/value

This paper presents advances in two ways. First, it proposes measures of complexity (highly debatable in the literature). It also proposes internationalisation as an explanation of complexity. Second, this paper sheds light on businesses decisions to grow, taking into account how complexity may affect performance.

Details

Journal of Entrepreneurship and Public Policy, vol. 10 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2045-2101

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Available. Content available
Book part
Publication date: 22 June 2021

John N. Moye

Free Access. Free Access

Abstract

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The Psychophysics of Learning
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80117-113-7

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Book part
Publication date: 12 June 2020

Payal Kumar and Pawan Budhwar

Research on mentorship has been dominated by the West and little is known about the cultural variations of the mentoring phenomenon in Asian countries. A richer understanding of…

Abstract

Research on mentorship has been dominated by the West and little is known about the cultural variations of the mentoring phenomenon in Asian countries. A richer understanding of the cultural context that is more attuned to mentoring experience in Asia can help to improve workplace experience, in general, for those working in and for those who intend to work in the region. This chapter captures the important theoretical lenses in the mentoring literature, and also provides a clear demarcation between negative mentoring and dysfunctional mentoring. This is followed by contextualizing mentoring as per four of Hofstede's six cultural dimensions by dwelling on mentoring experience in countries such as China, India, Pakistan, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. It is hoped that this chapter will pave the way for further research, which may be a precursor for theory development.

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Article
Publication date: 3 July 2009

Padma S. Vankar, Rakhi Shanker and Samudrika Wijayapala

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the efficiency of dyeing on cotton wool and silk fabrics with natural dye obtained from kitchen waste of dry skin extract of Allium cepa.

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the efficiency of dyeing on cotton wool and silk fabrics with natural dye obtained from kitchen waste of dry skin extract of Allium cepa.

Design/methodology/approach

The dry skin of onion produces natural dye which has been used for dyeing textiles. In the present study, innovative dyeing with onion has been shown to give good dyeing results. Pretreatment with 2 per cent metal mordant and using 5 per cent of plant extract (owf) was found to be optimum and showed very good fastness properties for cotton, wool and silk dyed fabrics. For effective natural dyeing with dry skin extract of Allium cepa, conventional method of dyeing was carried out using metal mordants. The purpose of using this source was with an idea to produce value addition dyed product from kitchen waste as the dye has very good potential of uptake, adherence to the fabric and has good wash and light fastnesses. Results show very attractive hue colours.

Findings

The preference of using easily and cheaply available material for dyeing by conventional dyeing lowers the cost of natural dyeing and enhances resource productivity and as a result, reduces waste. This makes onion scale one of the easily available materials for natural dyeing industry.

Research limitations/implications

Although metal mordanting with copper sulphate and potassium dichromate are not ecofriendly but we have used only 2 per cent of these metal salts to prepare different shades with dry scales of Allium cepa extract.

Practical implications

The method developed for natural dyeing of cotton, silk and wool fabrics using skin extract of allium in conjunction with metal mordanting has shown very deep coloration. The stepwise dyeing of cotton fabric with metal mordant by the natural dye Allium cepa showed that the stepwise dyeing process gave very good result. The dye uptake in case of stepwise dyeing was from 65‐68 per cent in the case of cotton, 70‐74 per cent in silk and 78‐82 per cent in wool with different mordants.

Originality/value

The method developed for natural dyeing of cotton, silk and wool fabrics using skin extract of allium in conjunction with metal mordanting has shown marked improvement in terms of dye adherence and fastness properties and can thus be recommended for industrial application.

Details

Pigment & Resin Technology, vol. 38 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0369-9420

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Book part
Publication date: 24 November 2015

Michael A. Crumpton

The purpose of this chapter is to highlight the importance of including emotional intelligence training with programs related to providing mentorship to others. Formal mentoring…

Abstract

The purpose of this chapter is to highlight the importance of including emotional intelligence training with programs related to providing mentorship to others. Formal mentoring programs, established with specific goals and objectives, need foundation work for context in order to be successful. This chapter pulls from professional literature, important basic components of both emotional intelligence skills and attributes for successful mentoring. By demonstrating the relationship between emotional intelligence and mentors who are successful, future programs and activities within the workplace regarding formal mentorship structures can be influenced positively. There is a relationship between having good emotional intelligence skills by people who mentor and being successful within the mentoring relationship. Mentors who are more self-aware of their own emotions are more likely to manage a mentoring relationship more positively and with better outcomes. Library and information science professionals are undergoing tremendous change within the professional environment, the establishment of mentoring networks can greatly influence professional turnover. The opinions and concepts presented from professional literature has been used and adapted by the author in various workshops and presentations. It is this practitioner’s opinion that any formal mentoring program should start with providing a foundation of emotional intelligence skills for the mentors.

Details

Library Staffing for the Future
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78560-499-7

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Book part
Publication date: 5 May 2023

Thomas F. Bechtold

This chapter is situated as a study of rural central New York, among a post-Vietnam generation, and under the force of land grabs following the United States farm crisis of the…

Abstract

This chapter is situated as a study of rural central New York, among a post-Vietnam generation, and under the force of land grabs following the United States farm crisis of the 1970s–1980s “consolidation” of farmlands into Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs). This study unfolds these surroundings of this particular rural society and environment through critical theory and socioanalysis focused on a mute narrative of reified (thingified) species and beings. From a student of sociology this chapter is a response to the conditions of academic character formation and how a particular local milieu constituted the affinities for investigating society with the environment of nonhumans as political.

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Article
Publication date: 3 September 2019

Tobias Frank, Steffen Wieting, Mark Wielitzka, Steffen Bosselmann and Tobias Ortmaier

A mathematical description of temperature-dependent boundary conditions is crucial in manifold model-based control or prototyping applications, where accurate thermal simulation…

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Abstract

Purpose

A mathematical description of temperature-dependent boundary conditions is crucial in manifold model-based control or prototyping applications, where accurate thermal simulation results are required. Estimation of boundary condition coefficients for complex geometries in complicated or unknown environments is a challenging task and often does not fulfill given accuracy limits without multiple manual adaptions and experiments. This paper aims to describe an efficient method to identify thermal boundary conditions from measurement data using model order reduction.

Design/methodology/approach

An optimization problem is formulated to minimize temperature deviation over time between simulation data and available temperature sensors. Convection and radiation effects are expressed as a combined heat flux per surface, resulting in multiple temperature-dependent film coefficient functions. These functions are approximated by a polynomial function or splines, to generate identifiable parameters. A formulated reduced order system description preserves these parameters to perform an identification. Experiments are conducted with a test-bench to verify identification results with radiation, natural and forced convection.

Findings

The generated model can approximate a nonlinear transient finite element analysis (FEA) simulation with a maximum deviation of 0.3 K. For the simulation of a 500 min cyclic cooling and heating process, FEA takes a computation time of up to 13 h whereas the reduced model takes only 7-11 s, using time steps of 2 s. These low computation times allow for an identification, which is verified with an error below 3 K. When film coefficient estimation from literature is difficult due to complex geometries or turbulent air flows, identification is a promising approach to still achieve accurate results.

Originality/value

A well parametrized model can be further used for model-based control approaches or in observer structures. To the knowledge of the authors, no other methodology enables model-based identification of thermal parameters by physically preserving them through model order reduction and therefore derive it from a FEA description. This method can be applied to much more complex geometries and has been used in an industrial environment to increase product quality, due to accurate monitoring of cooling processes.

Details

International Journal of Numerical Methods for Heat & Fluid Flow, vol. 30 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0961-5539

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Article
Publication date: 1 March 1994

Rachid Zeffane and Geoffrey Mayo

In recent years, organisations around the world have been seriously affected by a range of economic, political and social upheavals that have gathered momentum in most parts of…

184

Abstract

In recent years, organisations around the world have been seriously affected by a range of economic, political and social upheavals that have gathered momentum in most parts of the globe. The viability of the conventional (pyramidal) organisational structures is being challenged in conjunction with major shifts in the roles of mid and top managers. In many countries, the pace of the above socio‐economic events and uncertainties is happening at an unprecedented pace. Some markets are showing signs of potential gigantic expansions while others (historically prosperous) are on the verge of complete collapse (Dent, 1991). In responding to the socio‐economic challenges of the nineties, organisations (across the board) have resorted to dismantling the conventional pyramidal structure and adopting so‐called “leaner” structures (see Zeffane, 1992). The most common struggle has been to maintain market share in an economic environment increasingly characterised by excess labour supply (Bamber, 1990; Green & Macdonald, 1991). As organisations shifted their strategies from “mass production” to “post‐fordism” (see, for example Kern and Schumann, 1987), there has been a significant tendency to emphasise flexibility of both capital and labour in order to cater for the niche markets which are claimed to be rapidly emerging, world‐wide. This has resulted in massive organisational restructuring world‐wide.

Details

International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, vol. 14 no. 3/4/5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-333X

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