Azusa Kadomura, Akiyuki Sekiguchi and Takumi Kato
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a source of competitiveness that enhances a company’s reputation, promotes innovation and contributes to consumer purchasing behavior…
Abstract
Purpose
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a source of competitiveness that enhances a company’s reputation, promotes innovation and contributes to consumer purchasing behavior. Companies increase the number of women managers to strengthen CSR. However, the global average share of women managers is 28.2%, and in Japan, it remains low at 12.9%. One reason this situation has not improved is that existing research has focused on the effects and reasons for the share of female managers, and surprisingly, there is little knowledge about implementation. This study aims to fills that gap.
Design/methodology/approach
This study examines the research question, “Will adding a message from the CEO to a key performance indicator (KPI) that increases the share of female managers improve employee attitudes?” The authors conducted a randomized controlled trial in an online survey environment among 800 full-time employees of Panasonic Connect Co., Ltd. in Japan.
Findings
The result showed that simply presenting the KPI, “share of female managers,” was unlikely to impact employee attitudes positively. It was also desirable to convey the CEO’s message to customers.
Practical implications
Executives should adopt a corporate narrative strategy when communicating KPIs to their organizations. Adding the CEO’s words conveys the true meaning behind the numbers, elicits empathy and positively impacts employees’ attitudes.
Originality/value
To the best of authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to apply corporate narrative strategy findings to the effects of internal marketing on the share of female managers.
Details
Keywords
Takumi Kato, Katsuya Hayami, Ryosuke Ikeda and Masaki Koizumi
Among the nonfinancial rewards for employees are career development opportunities, for which an important measure is department transfers. This is because departments are unevenly…
Abstract
Purpose
Among the nonfinancial rewards for employees are career development opportunities, for which an important measure is department transfers. This is because departments are unevenly popular, and assigning everyone to their desired department is difficult. However, research on department transfers is limited to improving the efficiency of human resources utilization from a management perspective, with employee perspectives being lacking. This study aims to fill this gap in the literature.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors conducted a randomized controlled trial in an online survey environment with 2,000 full-time employees in Japan. Through the lens of self-determination theory, the authors hypothesized that employees seek department transfers based on performance rather than department transfers based on luck (lottery).
Findings
The results supported the hypothesis. For performance-based department transfers, an acceptance probability of 30% was found to be appropriate. Furthermore, mid-career, male, staff-level employees, those with experience of changing jobs and those who are more satisfied with their current job were more likely to seek this system.
Practical implications
Corporate managers should note that employees emphasize self-determination regarding their careers, dislike relying based on luck and seek department transfers relying on merit-based performance.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to determine the desirable system design for department transfers from the employee’s perspective and extend self-determination theory.
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Takumi Kato, Yuko Endo, Sayu Fujiwara, Yu Zhu, Takahiko Umeyama and Susumu Kamei
As a measure against plastic waste, Coca-Cola and Evian have begun introducing label-free plastic bottles. Food labels have long been recognized as an important marketing tool…
Abstract
Purpose
As a measure against plastic waste, Coca-Cola and Evian have begun introducing label-free plastic bottles. Food labels have long been recognized as an important marketing tool, but there is a lack of research on label-free products. To address this gap, this study examined the influence of label-free design on product attractiveness in the Japanese green tea market.
Design/methodology/approach
If existing products are used in an experiment, respondents would be subject to brand image bias. Hence, by mechanically combining the main design elements (cap shape, bottle style, decoration line, logo and label) with an orthogonal array, the conditions for bottles with and without labels are completely aligned. The authors conducted an online survey and applied the chi-square test to the attractiveness of 18 designs presented in random order.
Findings
Label-free designs were more attractive to consumers than labeled designs. The effect was higher among female, middle-aged and older adults; those with higher annual income and low-frequency purchasers.
Practical implications
Practitioners should adopt a label-free design that can satisfy both environmental considerations and customer value. It would be a formidable challenge to change the longstanding emphasis placed on label design, but this study demonstrates the value of doing so.
Originality/value
This is the first study in the package design literature on the advantages of label-free plastic bottles. The authors also applied an orthogonal array used for many years to optimize objective numerical values in marketing research.
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Takumi Kato, Wakako Yoshimura, Yusuke Shinozaki, Katsuya Hayami, Ryosuke Ikeda and Masaki Koizumi
Despite growing knowledge about its benefits, the organic food market’s expansion has been limited. A problem with ethical consumption is the attitude–behavior gap. The simplest…
Abstract
Purpose
Despite growing knowledge about its benefits, the organic food market’s expansion has been limited. A problem with ethical consumption is the attitude–behavior gap. The simplest reason for this gap is that in survey settings, social desirability bias elicits positive attitudes; whereas in real settings, the ambiguity of direct benefits leads to negative behavior. By clinging to the excessive values of a beauty premium, consumers abandon essential health in favor of apparent health, increasing product prices and contributing to environmental degradation. Using organic food, this study aims to eliminate this gap in the consumption of organic foods.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses a randomized controlled trial – the gold standard for estimating the causal effects of treatments – with 1,500 individuals aged 20–70 years in Japan. The authors consider appealing aspects other than product characteristics, such as health and environmental considerations, and focus on the negative effects of beauty premiums.
Findings
The above marketing communication significantly increased purchase intention. This effect was more pronounced among younger people, men, those with higher incomes and those who cook less frequently as compared to their counterparts. Health and environmental considerations had no effect on purchase intentions.
Originality/value
This study incorporated consumer values regarding health and environmental benefits in new marketing communications to address the “beauty premium” and resolve the conventional attitude–behavior gap concerning organic foods.
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Takumi Yada, Eija Räikkönen, Kyoko Imai-Matsumura, Hiroshi Shimada, Rihei Koike and Aini-Kristiina Jäppinen
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the mediating role of prosociality, which is defined in terms of helping and benefitting others, between teacher collaboration and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the mediating role of prosociality, which is defined in terms of helping and benefitting others, between teacher collaboration and their turnover intentions. Prosociality was measured as prosocial impact and prosocial motivation.
Design/methodology/approach
This study was conducted through a cross-sectional survey of 260 elementary and junior high school teachers in Japan. A structural equational model was employed to examine the mediating roles of prosocial impact and prosocial motivation in the relationships between teacher collaboration and their turnover intention.
Findings
The results, first, supported the hypotheses: the high perception of teacher collaboration in school predicted high perceived prosocial impact; high perceived prosocial impact predicted high perceived prosocial motivation; and high perceived prosocial motivation predicted decreased turnover intention. Second, results supported partial mediating roles of prosocial impact and prosocial motivation between teacher collaboration and turnover intention.
Research limitations/implications
Limitations of this study include cross-sectional data that may limit the potential for causal inferences, and self-report data. Future studies should incorporate alternative designs.
Practical implications
Results indicate that teacher collaboration contributes to less teacher turnover intention via prosociality. Thus, to enhance teachers’ prosocial impact, more opportunities to realise their collaboration should be considered.
Originality/value
This is the first study to explore the relationships between teacher collaboration and turnover intention in educational organisations with prosociality, which resides as core goals and objectives of teachers.
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Fuminobu Ozaki and Takumi Umemura
In this study, engineering stress-strain relationships considering an effect of strain rate on steel materials at elevated temperatures were formulated and a simplified analytical…
Abstract
Purpose
In this study, engineering stress-strain relationships considering an effect of strain rate on steel materials at elevated temperatures were formulated and a simplified analytical model using a two-dimensional beam element to analytically examine the effect of strain rate on the load-bearing capacity and collapse temperature was proposed.
Design/methodology/approach
The stress-strain relationships taking into account temperature, strain, and strain rate were established based on the past coupon test results with strain rate as the test parameter. Furthermore, an elasto-plastic analysis using a two-dimensional beam element, which considered the effect on strain rate, was conducted for both transient- and steady-state conditions.
Findings
The analytical results agreed relatively well with the test results, which used small steel beam specimens with a rectangular cross-section under various heating rates (transient-state condition) and deformation rates (steady-state condition). It was found that the bending strength and collapse temperature obtained from the parametric analyses agreed relatively well with those evaluated using the effective strength obtained from the coupon tests with strain equal to 0.01 or 0.02 under the fast strain rates.
Originality/value
The effect of stress degradation, including the stress-strain relationships at elevated temperature, was mitigated by considering the effect of strain rate on the analytical model. This is an important point to consider when considering the effect of strain rate on steel structural analysis at elevated temperatures to maintain analytical stability unaccompanied by the stress degradation.