Search results

This research focuses on the reconstruction of the physical structure of Buinzahra before the 1962 earthquake, utilizing historical documents. For this purpose, the city of Buinzahra experienced an earthquake measuring 2.7 on the Richter scale, resulting in significant destruction and the loss of 12,000 lives.

Referencing various materials, such as ancient texts, existing documents, images and findings from field visits and oral history related to the city, provided us with invaluable insights, advancing our research significantly. In carrying out this research, the most crucial issue was how to pay attention to the historical architecture of re-creation and antique recognition of a settlement that has been destroyed by relying on historical documents?.

After obtaining answers to the research questions, the production of maps illustrating the layout of Buinzahra before the earthquake, including residential areas, gardens, aqueducts, passages and primary and secondary arteries, were produced. In addition, the architectural details and physical elements of the buildings and landscape were drawn based on historical documents.

The results obtained can help determine the boundaries of the city before the earthquake, its physical structure and architecture, and the context of the settlement before the disaster. This information is essential for conducting subsequent architectural research studies to recreate and reexamine historical collections.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the factors that affect TQM implementation in construction companies and it suggests solutions for TQM implementation in a difficult environment.

Studies were carried out at six large construction companies who ply their trade in Southern Africa and in-depth investigations were conducted to assess TQM implementation practices and associated TQM barriers. Interviews were conducted on directors and key personnel that play important roles in TQM implementation in their respective organisations. The empirical study also utilised a number of organisational documents which added rigour to the findings.

This study identified three core categories and ten main barriers affecting TQM implementation in Southern Africa construction companies. The core categories are motivation, infrastructure and penchants and tendencies while the factors are lack of quality support, poor TQM knowledge and TQM awareness, poor information sharing, temporary workers, overdependence on contract document, poor data collection measurement, undefined TQM roles and responsibilities, award to lowest bidder tendency, poor business environment and corruption.

The study was conducted based on companies plying their trade in Southern Africa and mostly around Malawi, Zambia and Mozambique. It does not study companies in Namibia, Zimbabwe, Angola, South Africa and Botswana.

TQM cannot be exported wholly from another region to a new setting without taking into consideration the local factors associated with that setting. For successful TQM implementation in construction in Southern Africa, characteristics of this region have to be known. This study illuminates a number of TQM implementation barriers associated with construction especially applied to this difficult environment. Application of this knowledge would enhance TQM and heighten competitive advantage initiatives. The proportions highlighted in this study therefore help build up the TQM implementation awareness.

At society level, the findings of this study indicate societal problems such as corruption and business environment which require wide level approaches to deal with these barriers. In addition, if TQM applied in road construction projects, the quality of the roads will be improved, this in turn will have direct impact on quality of life in the society, better roads means easier access to hospitals, schools and public places, better transport and movements of goods and services, etc. It can also save money for the country in long run and economic benefits to the society.

The factors identified in this study are based on current TQM implementation practices at established construction companies in Southern Africa. They provide a practical basis for guiding TQM in construction companies operating in difficult environments.

The purpose of this paper is to observe whether measurement of social capital is an effective tool or can be used as a standard tool for community‐based initiatives (CBI) evaluation. It also points at the significance of social capital in the health related grass root initiatives.

CBI is an integrated socio‐economic development approach implemented by the organized communities, supported by inter‐sectoral actions for improvement of quality of life and health of the people. Support by WHO's office of Eastern Mediterranean Region, Islamic Republic of Iran implement programmes like basic development needs, healthy cities, healthy villages and women in health and development, that are evaluated during 2005‐2006. Social capital, that includes the networking, sharing norms and cooperation amongst communities, is measured as one of the indicators during the evaluation, by surveying 240 households in three CBI and three control villages, using the World Bank's, Social Development Department's Social Capital Assessment Tool for data collection.

The evaluation results reveal that the social capital indicators like affiliation percentage; trust reciprocity; and collective action are better in CBI areas than their controls. CBI areas have a better access to public services, are more peaceful, people are more willing to help others and there is less segregation due to income and social status.

The evaluation findings support the use of social capital indicators for investigating the impact and affectivity of CBI for health and development, and underlines the need for their consideration during implementation processes and further investigation.

The process of knowledge creation is recognized as an essential process for organizational learning and innovation. Creating knowledge to solve the problems and complexities of today's world is like opening a black box. Hence, the higher education system and universities are exploring ways to overcome the complexities and cope with global changes. In this regard, interdisciplinary collaborations and activities are crucial in creating knowledge and innovation to counter these changes. This study aimed to know the experiences of Shiraz university interdisciplinary researchers in the field of humanities and also design and explain the conceptual model of knowledge creation in interdisciplinary research teams in the field of humanities.

In this qualitative research, grounded theory was implemented based on Strauss and Corbin's systematic approach. The sampling method was purposeful, and the participants included sixteen faculty members of shiraz university who had at least one experience of performing an interdisciplinary activity in one of the humanities fields. The first participant was selected as a pilot, and the rest were selected by snowball sampling. Semi-structured interviews were also used to collect data and continued until theoretical saturation was attained. After collecting the available information and interviewing the people, the data were organized and analyzed in three stages, open coding, axial coding, and selective coding, using the proposed framework of Strauss and Corbin. Finally, the researcher reached a final and meaningful categorization.

In this research, the results were presented as a paradigm model of knowledge creation in the interdisciplinary research teams in the field of humanities. The paradigm model of the study consists of causal factors (internal and external factors), main categories (specialized competencies, scientific discourse, understanding of knowledge domains), strategies (structuring and synchronizing), context (individual and organizational), interfering factors (leadership, industry, and society), and consequences (individual and group achievement).

The present study aimed to explore the experiences of researchers in the interdisciplinary humanities research teams on knowledge creation in qualitative research. The study used Strauss and Corbin's systematic approach to recognize the causal factors of knowledge creation and the contexts. Discovering the main category of knowledge creation in interdisciplinary research teams, the authors analyze the strategies and consequences of knowledge creation.

This study aims to evaluate the selected children’s websites in terms of information visualization features based on the criteria existing in the related literature and expert scrutiny.

A mixed-methods (qualitative-quantitative) study was conducted with a descriptive-comparative approach. A set of 80 English websites, as well as 24 quality Persian websites, were selected constituting a sample size of 104 websites. A conceptual model was developed from an extensive literature review on information visualization in children’s websites. In the quantitative part, a checklist derived from the conceptual model and based on the heuristic evaluation method was distributed among 20 related experts, the data of which were then analysed through Partial Least Squares using SmartPLS 3.0.

Confirmatory factor analysis showed high-reliability indicators and fit indices in measurement and structural models showing that the conceptual model had the necessary validities among the expert evaluators. Path coefficients showed that layout design and user interface design were the first and last priorities among the dimensions. It was also found that English websites were much more successful than Persian websites in supporting the features of information visualization.

The current study has implications for the effective use of standard features related to information visualization in children’s websites usable for designers, media specialists, parents, instructors and librarians, which would also make the children more engaged to better use, learn and interact with the websites.

By combining structural contingency theory and socio-emotional wealth (SEW) theory, this study aims to identify the organizational determinants of collective performance-related pay (PRP) adoption by examining the interplay between a firm's ownership characteristics (i.e. family or non-family ownership) and other organizational characteristics.

This study adopts a quantitative approach, conducting empirical analyses of a longitudinal dataset of 4,222 Italian companies in the manufacturing sector for 2009–2017. The probability of adopting collective PRP schemes is estimated using the average marginal effects of the probit and linear probability models (LPMs).

The results show that family firms are less likely to adopt collective PRP schemes than non-family firms. Moreover, ceteris paribus, firm characteristics such as size, age and past (firm and labor) productivity are important determinants of firms' adoption of collective incentive pay; however, the significance and magnitude of their effects vary depending on a firm's ownership structure.

This analysis has two major elements of novelty. First, it increases the knowledge of how organizational contingencies differ in family versus non-family contexts regarding pay decisions. Second, it brings new theoretical perspectives to the pay debate by combining structural contingency theory and SEW theory, thus developing new and fertile theoretical grounds for advancing our understanding of the pay determinants. To the best of authors' knowledge, this is one of the first (if any) studies to shed light on collective PRP in family and non-family firms.

Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has affected many different aspects of people’s lives around the world, including household food security. This study aims to investigate the food security status and its determinants, with emphasis on perceived social support among the Iranian population during the epidemic..

This cross-sectional study was conducted among 2,871 Iranian adults by social media in all provinces of the country. Demographic and socioeconomic information, household food security status and perceived social support status were assessed by the validated questionnaires. Data was analyzed by statistical package for the social sciences version 22.0, with one-way ANOVA, Chi-square and multinomial logistic regression tests.

The prevalence of food security among the studied population was 55.2%. The results indicated that perceived social support plays a protective role on food security [odds ratio (OR) = 1.07, confidence interval (CI) = 1.06, 1.09, P-value < 0.001]. Reduced income during the epidemic [OR = 0.29, CI = 0.17, 0.47, P-value < 0.001] and presence of an old person (>65 years old) in the household [OR = 1.72, CI = 1.14, 2.60, P-value < 0.05], were significantly higher among moderate to severe food insecure group than food-secure group. More monthly income [OR = 0.28, CI = 0.13, 0.57, P-value < 0.001] and homeownership [OR = 1.83, CI = 1.22, 2.75, P-value < 0.05] were also predictors of food security status.

The development of supportive strategies which act immediately can protect vulnerable people against the consequences of the epidemic, including food insecurity. Long-term planning should also be considered to improve society’s resistance against such disasters.

Despite the increasing studies concerning external knowledge for innovative firms or for innovations, little research demonstrates as what are those capabilities that enable firms to explore and assess high-valuable knowledge. The aim of this study is to examine those capabilities that aid innovative firms to search and identify the potential knowledge for open innovation. This study is an empirical and theoretical examination of knowledge search and identification capabilities of the UK-based biotechnology firms. The literature has been drawn from the research streams into knowledge management, open innovation and dynamic capabilities.

Forty-five semi-structured interviews with senior-level innovation and R&D managers were completed, and thematic analysis using NVivo 12 was performed.

Evidence from 45 interviews with senior-level innovation and R&D managers in the UK-based biotechnology firms and thematic analysis was used to develop a process framework capturing the key capabilities. By identifying the role and contribution of each of the capabilities in knowledge identification in the practices of open innovation, this study contributes to open innovation and knowledge management literature.

Managerial implications suggest knowledge-oriented leads greatly influence the development of identification capabilities. Hence, firms with knowledge-oriented leads are better crafted approaches to achieve competitive advantages in the practices of open innovation.

This study offers a new theoretical perspective and empirical evidence to view knowledge identification capabilities as the dynamic capabilities. This study offers a process framework of identification capabilities.

The purpose of this paper is to discover the antecedents of intrapreneurship. Based on career construction theory and prior personality studies, this study examined the mediating effects of career adaptability on the relation between personality traits and intrapreneurship.

A cross-sectional survey was conducted using employees from four Korean companies. The hypothesized research model was tested with 473 data using structural equation modeling. The bootstrap procedure and the phantom model approach were also employed to thoroughly examine the indirect effects of personality traits on intrapreneurship via career adaptability.

The results demonstrated that career adaptability mediated the overall relation between personality traits and intrapreneurship. Career adaptability completely mediated the relation between intrapreneurship and both openness and conscientiousness from the Big Five personality dimensions. Regarding extraversion, the mediating effects of career adaptability were not supported by the results, but the direct effects were found to be significant.

These findings offer new insights into the intrapreneurial talents required of employees in organizations. The application of the identified direct or indirect impact of personality traits through career adaptability may help human resource managers to select and foster potential intrapreneurs and facilitate career coaches in understanding employees’ assets and obstacles in developing intrapreneurial competencies.

This is the first empirical study to explore the mechanism between personality traits and intrapreneurship by examining the mediating role of career adaptability in the workplace and thereby this study contributes to bridging the gap of different research domains between intrapreneurship and career adaptability.

This paper aims to provide a brief review of the work on startup survival and a conceptual framework of factors influencing a startup firm’s survival. In addition, it lists significant gaps and recommends avenues for future research.

This paper conducted a systematic literature review of peer-reviewed journal articles indexed in Scopus, Web of Science and EBSCO databases using Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines. A total of 140 articles published in 72 journals between 1993 and 2021 were considered for the review.

The comprehensive review revealed that most of the studies have applied a single theoretical lens and have taken place in advanced economies, with a narrow focus on emerging economies. Empirical research has prominently applied regression-based models to analyse the relationship between the antecedents and the outcomes. Internal resources such as human capital, financial capital and physical capital and non-financial performance measures such as survival, growth and employment are the studies’ prominently used antecedents and outcome variables. However, a limited number of studies have used mechanisms of mediation and moderation.

Despite the substantial scientific and practical discussion on startup survival, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, no comprehensive review has been undertaken to date, which provides a systematic and comprehensive compilation of the knowledge on the topic. This study aims to develop a unique landscape of scientific advancement by methodically reviewing, categorising and synthesising the current body of knowledge on the topic.