Robert E. Spekman and Patrick J. Sweeney
The purpose of this paper is to present a comprehensive overview of radio frequency identification (RFID) technology. The goal is to provide insights regarding the implementation…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present a comprehensive overview of radio frequency identification (RFID) technology. The goal is to provide insights regarding the implementation and use of RFID by focusing on its advantages and its problems.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper discusses, what RFID is, how its parts fit; what role management plays in its implementation, and where the pitfalls are.
Findings
RFID is discussed as the latest technology to help manage the logistics and inventory problems faced by all companies. Not only has RFID been shown to provide benefits for the firm in its internal operations; its greatest contribution lies in its ability to improve information and materials flows throughout the entire supply chain. With RFID technology visibility in materials flow (from raw material to finished goods) among all supply chain members is improved and the accuracy of the information shared is greatly enhanced. Equally important is the role played by RFID in the development of more collaborative relations among supply chain members.
Practical implications
For practicing managers the paper offers suggestions for improving the probability of a successful RFID implementation. The paper discusses implications ranging from dealing with the physics of the aligning the equipment, to validity and reliability testing, to integrating a complete RFID system inside the firm, to developing the requisite metrics, mindset, and managerial systems to link all members of the supply chain.
Originality/value
The paper combines practice and theory to demonstrate the potential benefits of RFID and provides insight into how to manage the problems that plague the rapid adoption of this new technology.
Details
Keywords
Candice R. Hollenbeck and Vanessa M. Patrick
The health industry is rapidly adopting digital services and face-to-face offerings are being replaced by e-services. One example is peer-to-peer survivor networks for cancer…
Abstract
Purpose
The health industry is rapidly adopting digital services and face-to-face offerings are being replaced by e-services. One example is peer-to-peer survivor networks for cancer patients. This study investigates the virtual exchanges in survivor networks and whether these exchanges are valued for economic, symbolic, or expressive worth. The research seeks to address whether the alleviation of loneliness is possible.
Methodology/approach
The qualitative work in this study utilizes netnographic explorations and in-depth interviews with cancer survivors, average age 62, to investigate the social exchange continuum in peer-to-peer online patient survivor networks.
Findings
This study shows that technological innovations can aid survivorship when the exchanges are meaningful. Meaningful interactions within gift systems are valued for expressive worth and are established upon the notion of selfless gifts where the giver expects nothing in return. For networks to operate via expressiveness, informants must be open and vulnerable to others. Findings show that biographical narratives are useful tools for creating an expressive environment and givers become more giving after engaging in selfless acts. The intangibility and immaterial nature of virtual gifts creates a collective identity and fosters an aggregate extended self.
Social implications
Implications emphasize the need among survivors of trauma to connect with others. Digital technologies allow connections on a global scale, so survivors can find others with similar needs. Peer-to-peer networks provide a way for survivors to meet, interact with, and extend their aggregate selves through other survivors, while experiencing a transcendent sense that they are part of something bigger than self alone.
Details
Keywords
Robert F. Bruner and Chad Rynbrandt
In July 2000, two founders of this new web-hosting company are contemplating raising $5 million to $15 million in a second-round financing from venture capitalists. The task for…
Abstract
In July 2000, two founders of this new web-hosting company are contemplating raising $5 million to $15 million in a second-round financing from venture capitalists. The task for the student is to forecast the firm's cash receipts and disbursements in an effort to determine the firm's “burn rate” (i.e., the rate of cash consumption and how long the financing will sustain the firm). The new economy setting of this case permits the instructor to extend well-known financial skills and concepts to an industry that attracts high student interest.
Details

Keywords
In this paper, I synthesize the prior psychology literature on ego depletion and apply this literature to an auditing setting. Ego depletion refers to a reduced desire or ability…
Abstract
In this paper, I synthesize the prior psychology literature on ego depletion and apply this literature to an auditing setting. Ego depletion refers to a reduced desire or ability to use self-control in task performance due to using self-control on prior tasks. I focus on the likely causes and consequences of depletion in an auditing setting, as well as means of mitigating depletion and recovering self-control resources. While ego depletion theory is prevalent in the psychology literature, little is known about whether or how ego depletion affects professionals on meaningful task performance. As a result, this synthesis is aimed at stimulating future ego depletion research in accounting, and specifically auditing, by surveying existing literature and applying this literature to an auditing setting. Further, I develop 13 questions for future research to investigate. My synthesis reveals that ego depletion likely has a pervasive effect in an auditing setting, and can hinder auditors’ judgment and decision-making (JDM) quality. Therefore, this synthesis helps to provide a greater understanding of the impact of auditing tasks on individuals, and refines both auditor JDM and ego depletion theories.
Details
Keywords
Caroline Bayart, Patrick Bonnel and Catherine Morency
Data fusion and the combination of multiple data sources have been part of travel survey processes for some time. In the current context, where technologies and information…
Abstract
Data fusion and the combination of multiple data sources have been part of travel survey processes for some time. In the current context, where technologies and information systems spread and become more and more diverse, the transportation community is getting more and more interested in the potential of data fusion processes to help gather more complete datasets and help give additional utility to available data sources. Research is looking for ways to enhance the available information by using both various data collection methods and data from various sources, surveys or observation systems. Survey response rates are decreasing over the world, and combining survey modes appears to be an interesting way to address this problem. Letting interviewees choose their survey mode allows increasing response rates, but survey mode could impact the data collected. This paper first discusses issues rising when combining survey modes within the same survey and presents a method to merge the data coming from different survey modes, in order to consolidate the database. Then, it defines and describes the data fusion process and discusses how it can be relevant for transportation analysis and modelling purposes. Benefiting from the availability of various datasets from the Greater Montréal Area and the Greater Lyon Area, some applications of data fusion are constructed and/or reproduced to illustrate and test some of the methods described in the literature.
Alexandra L. Ferrentino, Meghan L. Maliga, Richard A. Bernardi and Susan M. Bosco
This research provides accounting-ethics authors and administrators with a benchmark for accounting-ethics research. While Bernardi and Bean (2010) considered publications in…
Abstract
This research provides accounting-ethics authors and administrators with a benchmark for accounting-ethics research. While Bernardi and Bean (2010) considered publications in business-ethics and accounting’s top-40 journals this study considers research in eight accounting-ethics and public-interest journals, as well as, 34 business-ethics journals. We analyzed the contents of our 42 journals for the 25-year period between 1991 through 2015. This research documents the continued growth (Bernardi & Bean, 2007) of accounting-ethics research in both accounting-ethics and business-ethics journals. We provide data on the top-10 ethics authors in each doctoral year group, the top-50 ethics authors over the most recent 10, 20, and 25 years, and a distribution among ethics scholars for these periods. For the 25-year timeframe, our data indicate that only 665 (274) of the 5,125 accounting PhDs/DBAs (13.0% and 5.4% respectively) in Canada and the United States had authored or co-authored one (more than one) ethics article.
Details
Keywords
At the beginning of the 21st century, multiple and diverse social entities, including the public (consumers), private and nonprofit healthcare institutions, government (public…
Abstract
At the beginning of the 21st century, multiple and diverse social entities, including the public (consumers), private and nonprofit healthcare institutions, government (public health) and other industry sectors, began to recognize the limitations of the current fragmented healthcare system paradigm. Primary stakeholders, including employers, insurance companies, and healthcare professional organizations, also voiced dissatisfaction with unacceptable health outcomes and rising costs. Grand challenges and wicked problems threatened the viability of the health sector. American health systems responded with innovations and advances in healthcare delivery frameworks that encouraged shifts from intra- and inter-sector arrangements to multi-sector, lasting relationships that emphasized patient centrality along with long-term commitments to sustainability and accountability. This pathway, leading to a population health approach, also generated the need for transformative business models. The coproduction of health framework, with its emphasis on cross-sector alignments, nontraditional partner relationships, sustainable missions, and accountability capable of yielding return on investments, has emerged as a unique strategy for facing disruptive threats and challenges from nonhealth sector corporations. This chapter presents a coproduction of health framework, goals and criteria, examples of boundary spanning network alliance models, and operational (integrator, convener, aggregator) strategies. A comparison of important organizational science theories, including institutional theory, network/network analysis theory, and resource dependency theory, provides suggestions for future research directions necessary to validate the utility of the coproduction of health framework as a precursor for paradigm change.
Details
Keywords
Ilias O. Pappas, Patrick Mikalef, Michail N. Giannakos and Panos E. Kourouthanassis
In the complex ecosystem of mobile applications multiple factors have been used to explain users’ behavior, without though focusing on how different combinations of variables may…
Abstract
Purpose
In the complex ecosystem of mobile applications multiple factors have been used to explain users’ behavior, without though focusing on how different combinations of variables may affect user behavior. The purpose of this paper is to show how price value, game content quality, positive and negative emotions, gender and gameplay time interact with each other to predict high intention to download mobile games.
Design/methodology/approach
Building on complexity theory, the authors present a conceptual model followed by research propositions. The propositions are empirically validated through configurational analysis, employing fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) on 531 active users of mobile games.
Findings
Findings identify ten solutions that explain high intention to download mobile games. Alternative paths are identified depending on the gender and the time users spend playing mobiles games. The authors highlight the role of price value and game content quality, as well as that of positive emotions, which are always core factors when present.
Originality/value
To identify complex interactions among the variables of interest, fsQCA is employed, differentiating from traditional studies using variance-based methods, leading to multiple solutions explaining the same outcome. None of the variables explains the intention to download on its own, but only when they combine with each other. The authors extend existing knowledge on how price value, game content quality, emotions, gender and gameplay time combine to lead to high intention to download mobile games; and present a methodology for how to bridge complexity theory with fsQCA, improving our understanding of intention to adopt mobile applications.
Details
Keywords
Lianzhuang Qu and Patrick Y. K. Chau
Although considerable evidence shows that online product reviews (OPRs) can greatly affect consumers, how interface designs of OPR systems (i.e. websites where consumers read and…
Abstract
Purpose
Although considerable evidence shows that online product reviews (OPRs) can greatly affect consumers, how interface designs of OPR systems (i.e. websites where consumers read and write OPRs) impact online buying behavior has not yet been well investigated. Using research on confidence in judgment and the Stimulus-Organism-Response (SOR) framework, this study aims to develop a model of the effects of OPR system design on consumer purchase behavior.
Design/methodology/approach
A study using a two by two by two factorial experimental design was conducted. The structural model with AMOS 23 based on 319 useable data points was tested.
Findings
Findings are very interesting. First, designs that manipulate positions of reviews impact perceived value but surprisingly have no effects on confidence in judgment. Second, designs using default display order based on helpfulness votes rather than on recency of reviews increase confidence to a higher level. Third, although unstructured organization methods are used by many major OPR systems, they are inferior in enhancing consumers’ emotional reactions to structured ones.
Research limitations/implications
This paper highlights the need for more academic research on how interface designs of online product review systems impact purchase behavior. Additionally, this study emphasizes the need for examining how confidence in judgment is impacted in the online environment.
Practical implications
For practitioners, this research provides them with design implications on how to increase consumer purchase behavior.
Originality/value
This research enhances the understanding of the effects of OPR system interface design on purchase behavior. In addition, the current paper sheds light on how confidence in judgment, given its importance in reducing online consumer’s hesitance to buy, is impacted by various interface designs of OPR systems. Furthermore, this study applies the SOR framework to the context of OPR system designs.