Tomasz J. Spyt, Pamela A.C. Watt, Maria C. Boehm and Paul R. Stafford
A survey of cardiac patients, their relatives and friends and local GPs was conducted to establish whether there is a need for an online patient support system. In November 2000…
Abstract
A survey of cardiac patients, their relatives and friends and local GPs was conducted to establish whether there is a need for an online patient support system. In November 2000, 859 patients, 360 relatives and 160 friends attending cardiac out‐patients completed a questionnaire, 159 GPs were contacted by postal survey. Participants were asked if they use e‐mail and the World Wide Web and if obtaining relevant health information via an online support system would be beneficial. Participants were also asked to select preferred subject options. The survey showed clear interest in the provision of a Web‐based support service for cardiac patients and a pilot would be pursued.
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Yoon G. Lee, Margaret A. Fitzgerald, Kenneth R. Bartkus and Myung-Soo Lee
With data from the 2003 and 2005 National Minority Business Owners Survey, we examined the extent to which minority business owners differ from nonminority business owners in…
Abstract
With data from the 2003 and 2005 National Minority Business Owners Survey, we examined the extent to which minority business owners differ from nonminority business owners in their reported use of adjustment strategies, and the relationship between the use of adjustment strategies and perceived business success. The sample consisted of 193 African American, 200 Mexican American, 200 Korean American, and 210 white business owners. Mexican American and Korean American business owners reported higher levels of adjustment strategy use than African American and white business owners. The ordinary least squares show that reallocating family resources to meet business needs and reallocating business resources to meet family needs were negatively associated with perceived business success, whereas hiring paid help was positively associated with perceived business success.
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Aarhus Kommunes Biblioteker (Teknisk Bibliotek), Ingerslevs Plads 7, Aarhus, Denmark. Representative: V. NEDERGAARD PEDERSEN (Librarian).
The concept and practice of e-services has become essential in business transactions. Yet there are still many organizations that have not developed e-services optimally. This is…
Abstract
The concept and practice of e-services has become essential in business transactions. Yet there are still many organizations that have not developed e-services optimally. This is especially relevant in the context of Indonesian Airline companies. Therefore, many airline customers in Indonesia are still in doubt about it, or even do not use it. To fill this gap, this study attempts to develop a model for e-services adoption and empirically examines the factors influencing the airlines customers in Indonesia in using e-services offered by the Indonesian airline companies. Taking six Indonesian airline companies as a case example, the study investigated the antecedents of e-services usage of Indonesian airlines. This study further examined the impacts of motivation on customers in using e-services in the Indonesian context. Another important aim of this study was to investigate how ages, experiences and geographical areas moderate effects of e-services usage.
The study adopts a positivist research paradigm with a two-phase sequential mixed method design involving qualitative and quantitative approaches. An initial research model was first developed based on an extensive literature review, by combining acceptance and use of information technology theories, expectancy theory and the inter-organizational system motivation models. A qualitative field study via semi-structured interviews was then conducted to explore the present state among 15 respondents. The results of the interviews were analysed using content analysis yielding the final model of e-services usage. Eighteen antecedent factors hypotheses and three moderating factors hypotheses and 52-item questionnaire were developed. A focus group discussion of five respondents and a pilot study of 59 respondents resulted in final version of the questionnaire.
In the second phase, the main survey was conducted nationally to collect the research data among Indonesian airline customers who had already used Indonesian airline e-services. A total of 819 valid questionnaires were obtained. The data was then analysed using a partial least square (PLS) based structural equation modelling (SEM) technique to produce the contributions of links in the e-services model (22% of all the variances in e-services usage, 37.8% in intention to use, 46.6% in motivation, 39.2% in outcome expectancy, and 37.7% in effort expectancy). Meanwhile, path coefficients and t-values demonstrated various different influences of antecedent factors towards e-services usage. Additionally, a multi-group analysis based on PLS is employed with mixed results. In the final findings, 14 hypotheses were supported and 7 hypotheses were not supported.
The major findings of this study have confirmed that motivation has the strongest contribution in e-services usage. In addition, motivation affects e-services usage both directly and indirectly through intention-to-use. This study provides contributions to the existing knowledge of e-services models, and practical applications of IT usage. Most importantly, an understanding of antecedents of e-services adoption will provide guidelines for stakeholders in developing better e-services and strategies in order to promote and encourage more customers to use e-services. Finally, the accomplishment of this study can be expanded through possible adaptations in other industries and other geographical contexts.
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Anna Tsaroucha, Paul Kingston, Tony Stewart, Ian Walton and Nadia Corp
This paper aims to present the findings of research commissioned by a Primary Care Trust in the UK to assess the implementation of a new pilot Human Givens mental health service…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to present the findings of research commissioned by a Primary Care Trust in the UK to assess the implementation of a new pilot Human Givens mental health service (HGS) within primary care.
Design/methodology/approach
Participating General Practitioners practices were designated as either “Human givens” or “Control” practices. The study focused on service users with mild to moderate depressed mood measured using HADS. The well-being of these participants was examined at the point of referral, and after four, eight and 12 months using three well-being questionnaires.
Findings
The results revealed that emotional well-being significantly improved during the first four months following referral for both groups and this improvement was maintained up to and including one year post referral. Compared to the Control group Human givens therapy was found to be of shorter duration, lasting one or two sessions compared to standard treatment which lasted on average four sessions.
Originality/value
Apart from the psychological insight and emotional support, it is suggested that Human givens therapy might help the client to better function in society and maintain a sense of social integration. This has benefits to other providers of social care.
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The purpose of this paper is to explain how the system science and cybernetics in Stafford Beer's viable system model (VSM) will help management structure and manage their company…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explain how the system science and cybernetics in Stafford Beer's viable system model (VSM) will help management structure and manage their company to achieve on‐going success in a fast‐changing world.
Design/methodology/approach
The author worked with Stafford Beer in the 1970s, applying his VSM in the corporation he then worked for and has used the VSM ideas in work with companies in 16 countries, always with success. The VSM instructs in how to structure and how to manage. For what to manage the author used Peter Drucker's key performance areas, and has more than 50 years of experience working in these areas.
Findings
The author has found, during his long career in industry and in consulting, that the VSM is the best available guide for structuring and managing a business enterprise for success in turbulent times.
Practical implications
In the 1950s, Ralph Cordiner “decentralized” General Electric into 120 businesses, pioneering a new, better way to structure and manage a corporation. After 50 years, we have the next revolutionary advance in management, the system science and cybernetics in Stafford's VSM. The VSM includes information and environments in structure, enabling companies to change as appropriate for achieving on‐going success in a world of huge and fast‐growing variety.
Originality/value
The paper shows how a simple form of the VSM includes all the system science company management needs to structure and manage their company for enduring success in fast‐changing times.
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The experimental parliamentary subsidy on knights' fees and freehold incomes from lands and rents of 1431 was the only English direct lay tax of the Middle Ages which broke down…
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The experimental parliamentary subsidy on knights' fees and freehold incomes from lands and rents of 1431 was the only English direct lay tax of the Middle Ages which broke down. As such, this subsidy has a clear historiographical significance, yet previous scholars have tended to overlook it on the grounds that parliament's annulment act of 1432 mandated the destruction of all fiscal administrative evidence. Many county assessments from 1431–1432 do, however, survive and are examined for the first time in this article as part of a detailed assessment of the fiscal and administrative context of the knights' fees and incomes tax. This impost constituted a royal response to excess expenditures associated with Henry VI's “Coronation Expedition” of 1429–1431, the scale of which marked a decisive break from the fiscal-military strategy of the 1420s. Widespread confusion regarding whether taxpayers ought to pay the feudal or the non-feudal component of the 1431 subsidy characterized its botched administration. Industrial scale under-assessment, moreover, emerged as a serious problem. Officials' attempts to provide a measure of fiscal compensation by unlawfully double-assessing many taxpayers served to increase administrative confusion and resulted in parliament's annulment act of 1432. This had serious consequences for the crown's finances, since the regime was saddled with budgetary and debt problems which would ultimately undermine the solvency of the Lancastrian state.
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Since the first Volume of this Bibliography there has been an explosion of literature in all the main areas of business. The researcher and librarian have to be able to uncover…
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Since the first Volume of this Bibliography there has been an explosion of literature in all the main areas of business. The researcher and librarian have to be able to uncover specific articles devoted to certain topics. This Bibliography is designed to help. Volume III, in addition to the annotated list of articles as the two previous volumes, contains further features to help the reader. Each entry within has been indexed according to the Fifth Edition of the SCIMP/SCAMP Thesaurus and thus provides a full subject index to facilitate rapid information retrieval. Each article has its own unique number and this is used in both the subject and author index. The first Volume of the Bibliography covered seven journals published by MCB University Press. This Volume now indexes 25 journals, indicating the greater depth, coverage and expansion of the subject areas concerned.
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Smart card-based E-payment systems are receiving increasing attention as the number of implementations is witnessed on the rise globally. Understanding of user adoption behavior…
Abstract
Smart card-based E-payment systems are receiving increasing attention as the number of implementations is witnessed on the rise globally. Understanding of user adoption behavior of E-payment systems that employ smart card technology becomes a research area that is of particular value and interest to both IS researchers and professionals. However, research interest focuses mostly on why a smart card-based E-payment system results in a failure or how the system could have grown into a success. This signals the fact that researchers have not had much opportunity to critically review a smart card-based E-payment system that has gained wide support and overcome the hurdle of critical mass adoption. The Octopus in Hong Kong has provided a rare opportunity for investigating smart card-based E-payment system because of its unprecedented success. This research seeks to thoroughly analyze the Octopus from technology adoption behavior perspectives.
Cultural impacts on adoption behavior are one of the key areas that this research posits to investigate. Since the present research is conducted in Hong Kong where a majority of population is Chinese ethnicity and yet is westernized in a number of aspects, assuming that users in Hong Kong are characterized by eastern or western culture is less useful. Explicit cultural characteristics at individual level are tapped into here instead of applying generalization of cultural beliefs to users to more accurately reflect cultural bias. In this vein, the technology acceptance model (TAM) is adapted, extended, and tested for its applicability cross-culturally in Hong Kong on the Octopus. Four cultural dimensions developed by Hofstede are included in this study, namely uncertainty avoidance, masculinity, individualism, and Confucian Dynamism (long-term orientation), to explore their influence on usage behavior through the mediation of perceived usefulness.
TAM is also integrated with the innovation diffusion theory (IDT) to borrow two constructs in relation to innovative characteristics, namely relative advantage and compatibility, in order to enhance the explanatory power of the proposed research model. Besides, the normative accountability of the research model is strengthened by embracing two social influences, namely subjective norm and image. As the last antecedent to perceived usefulness, prior experience serves to bring in the time variation factor to allow level of prior experience to exert both direct and moderating effects on perceived usefulness.
The resulting research model is analyzed by partial least squares (PLS)-based Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) approach. The research findings reveal that all cultural dimensions demonstrate direct effect on perceived usefulness though the influence of uncertainty avoidance is found marginally significant. Other constructs on innovative characteristics and social influences are validated to be significant as hypothesized. Prior experience does indeed significantly moderate the two influences that perceived usefulness receives from relative advantage and compatibility, respectively. The research model has demonstrated convincing explanatory power and so may be employed for further studies in other contexts. In particular, cultural effects play a key role in contributing to the uniqueness of the model, enabling it to be an effective tool to help critically understand increasingly internationalized IS system development and implementation efforts. This research also suggests several practical implications in view of the findings that could better inform managerial decisions for designing, implementing, or promoting smart card-based E-payment system.
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Presents a formal profile and academic vita of the distinguished scientist and philosopher Stafford Beer. Details his work as an international consultant in the sciences of…
Abstract
Presents a formal profile and academic vita of the distinguished scientist and philosopher Stafford Beer. Details his work as an international consultant in the sciences of management (social and operational research) and effective organization (cybernetics). Outlines his early years, work in industry and Government and his activities in scientific and academic contexts. Includes details of some of his publications from 1959 and the titles of his more recent books.