bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Focal versus background goals in consumer financial decision-making
Authors: Aspara Jaakko , Chakravarti Amitav , Hoffmann Arvid O. I.
Published: July 2015

Purpose

– This study aims to examine the interplay between focal and background goals in consumer financial decision-making and identify conditions that lead individuals to trade-off financial returns for background goals.

Design/methodology/approach

– The current research reviews the relevant literature on consumer financial decision-making and goal systems theory to develop a set of hypotheses that is tested using three experiments.

Findings

– The experiments show that individuals who have been subtly primed with self-expressive background goals, or experienced progress toward the focal goal of financial returns, accept lower financial returns for the opportunity to invest in stocks that allow for increased self-expression. Further, while subtly primed background goals exert a non-normative influence on investment decisions, explicit cues about an investment’s background goal-instrumentality create a backlash effect, and decrease individuals’ willingness to trade-off financial returns.

Research limitations/implications

– Future research could confirm the robustness of the findings of the present research by using different priming tasks and alternative ways of making the background goal explicit to individuals.

Practical implications

– To achieve greater attraction among individual investors, it helps to frame a financial product or stock in communications materials in a way that sends subtle signals with which investors can identify. Such signals could include stressing the product/company’s home country (addressing individuals’ patriotism) or a particular product domain (addressing individual investors’ desire for interesting/exciting current/future products).

Originality/value

– While previous research suggests that investment choices may be influenced by self-expressive motivations, to date, it remains unclear whether and when individual investors are actually willing to trade-off the focal goal of maximizing financial returns for the opportunity to satisfy alternative background goals.
Improving pharmacy store performance: the merits of over-the-counter drugs
Authors: Wieringa Jaap Edo , Reber Katrin Christiane , Leeflang Peter
Published: July 2015

Purpose

– This study aims to increase understanding of the factors that affect retail pharmacy performance. This paper investigates how various product-, store-, customer- and competitor characteristics affect over-the-counter (OTC) drug sales and thus store performance.

Design/methodology/approach

– This paper specifies and estimates a hierarchical model comprising scanner-based information, as well as individual-level data from a customer survey.

Findings

– Results indicate that the drivers of retail pharmacy performance in OTC categories are different from those identified in traditional retailing research.

Originality/value

– This is the first study that determines which factors impact the sales of OTC drugs in pharmacies.
Unmanageable multiplicity: consumer transformation towards moral self coherence
Authors: Carrington Michal J , Neville Ben , Canniford Robin
Published: July 2015

Purpose

– This study aims to explore: consumer experiences of intense moral dilemma arising from identity multiplicity conflict, expressed in the marketplace, which demand stark moral choices and consumer response to intensely felt moral tension where their sense of coherent moral self is at stake.

Design/methodology/approach

– The authors gathered ethnographic data from amongst ethical consumers, and theorised the data through theory of life projects and life themes to explain how multiplicity can become an unmanageable problem in the midst of moral dilemma.

Findings

– The authors reveal that in contrast to notions of liberating or manageable multiplicity conflict, some consumers experience intense moral anxiety that is unmanageable. The authors find that this unmanageable moral tension can provoke consumers to transform self and consumption choices to construct a coherent moral self. The authors identify this transformation as the meta life project.

Research limitations/implications

– This work contributes to knowledge of multiplicity, consumer life themes and life projects, moral dilemma and ethical consumption by showing that some experiences of moral anxiety arising from multiplicity conflict are unmanageable, and these consumers seek moral self re-unification through the meta life project.

Practical implications

– This study provides practical guidance to companies, marketers, public organisations and activist groups seeking to understand and harness consumers’ moral codes to promote ethical consumption practices.

Originality/value

– The authors extend current theory of multiplicity into the moral domain to illustrate limitations of framing consumer experiences of multiplicity conflict as being either liberating or manageable when consumers’ sense of moral self is at stake. This article is of interest to academic, marketing practitioner and public policy audiences.
Idol attachment and human brand loyalty
Authors: Huang Yu-An , Lin Chad , Phau Ian
Published: July 2015

Purpose

– This paper aims to examine the importance and concept of idol attachment, model its antecedents and moderators and assess its influence on human brand loyalty.

Design/methodology/approach

– This paper includes two studies. In Study 1, survey questionnaires were distributed by mall intercept to quasi-random samples across Australia and Taiwan for completion and return. The return yielded 1,135 and 736 usable questionnaires, respectively, from which the data were analysed using LISREL structural equation modelling software. In Study 2, an experiment was used to examine whether idol attractiveness is likely to positively moderate the relationship between vanity traits and attachment.

Findings

– The results suggest that achievement vanity, variety seeking and peer norms have a positive impact on the phenomenon of idol attachment, which in turn positively affects human brand loyalty. Contradicting previous studies, the physical appearance of vanity was not found to be associated with idol attachment. However, the results of the experiment show that idol attractiveness has a positive moderating effect on the relationship between vanity traits and human brand attachment.

Research limitations/implications

– The findings suggest that idol attachment is more complex than previously understood. The constructs chosen in this research represent an initial step but other variables such as liking, involvement, affective commitment and brand love are not taken into account. Future research models should therefore include such variables.

Practical implications

– The findings contain many practical lessons for planners of marketing strategy for the music industry in an international context.

Originality/value

– Two existing theories of psychology are integrated with the concept of idol attachment to explain human brand loyalty in an international context.
Origins of marketing thought in Britain
Authors: Jones Brian , Tadajewski Mark
Published: July 2015

Purpose

– The purpose of this paper is to document contributions to the early study and teaching of marketing at one of the first universities in Britain to do so and, in that way, to contribute to the literature about the history of marketing thought. Given that the first university business program in Britain was started in 1902, at about the same time as the earliest business programs in America, the more specific purpose of this paper was to explore whether or not the same influences were shared by pioneer marketing educators on both sides of the Atlantic.

Design/methodology/approach

– An historical method is used including a biographical approach. Primary source materials included unpublished correspondence (letterbooks), lecture notes, seminar minute-books, course syllabi and exams, minutes of senate and faculty meetings, university calendars and other unpublished documents in the William James Ashley Papers at the University of Birmingham.

Findings

– The contributions of William James Ashley and the Commerce Program at the University of Birmingham to the early twentieth-century study and teaching of marketing are documented. Drawing from influences similar to those on pioneer American marketing scholars, Ashley used an historical, inductive, descriptive approach to study and teach marketing as part of what he called “business economics”. Beginning in 1902, Ashley taught his students about a relatively wide range of marketing strategy decisions focusing mostly on channels of distribution and the functions performed by channel intermediaries. His teaching and the research of his students share much with the early twentieth-century commodity, institutional and functional approaches that dominated American marketing thought.

Research limitations/implications

– William James Ashley was only one scholar and the Commerce Program at the University of Birmingham was only one, although widely acknowledged as the first, of a few early twentieth-century British university programs in business. This justifies future research into the possible contributions to marketing knowledge made by other programs such as those at the University of Manchester (1903), University of Liverpool (1910) and University of London (1919).

Originality/value

– This paper adds an important chapter to the history of marketing thought which has been dominated by American pioneer scholars, courses, literature and ideas.
Buy four get 30% off: how consumers respond to missing a quantity discount
Authors: Huang Wen-Hsien , Yang Chun-Ming
Published: July 2015

Purpose

– This paper aims to examine how consumers evaluate and respond after failing to receive the promotional price for a quantity discount because the minimum purchase requirement (MinPR) is out of reach. Although quantity discounts are effective in terms of increasing sales volume, the outcome of using them is not always positive.

Design/methodology/approach

– Two 2 × 2 experiments are carried out to test the research hypotheses in the context of apparel shopping.

Findings

– The results of Experiment 1 demonstrate that offering quantity discounts with a high MinPR (e.g. “4 for 30 per cent off”) can result in greater willingness to buy (WTB) a single product at the full price than offering promotions with a low MinPR (e.g. “2 for 30 per cent off”) in the wake of a missed quantity discount. In other words, the purchase quantity has a positive effect on the consumers’ WTB even when they are not able to take advantage of the discount. However, this relationship weakens when the selection of discounted items is limited (i.e. the scope of the promotion is narrow). The results of Experiment 2 reveal that when the missed quantity discount is based on dollars rather than on the number of pieces (e.g. “Buy $100, get 30 per cent off” vs “Buy four pieces, get 30 per cent off”), the effect of purchase quantity on WTB is enhanced. Finally, perceived closeness of purchase outcome to the MinPR mediates the effect of purchase quantity on WTB.

Research limitations/implications

– To maximize internal validity, hypothetical scenarios were used as stimuli rather than an actual consumption experience, and the setting involved only a single product category (clothing). Future work including other types of merchandise and a more natural setting is needed to generalize our findings.

Practical implications

– The purchase quantity or MinPR serves as a reference point that influences consumers’ purchase decisions, even those who do not buy enough to qualify for the price reduction. Our findings suggest that retailers should specify a relatively high MinPR for quantity discounts. In addition, proper selection of the promotional scope and discount base will significantly improve consumers’ behavioral reactions when they are not able to take advantage of a quantity discount.

Originality/value

– The primary contribution of this article to the marketing literature is that it provides empirical results that shed some light on the situational influences that missing a quantity discount has on the consumer’s WTB a single product at the regular price, and what the mechanisms for the purchase quantity effect might be.
Firm size, ownership, training duration and training evaluation practices
Authors: Asadullah Muhammad Ali , Peretti Jean Marie , Ghulam Ali Arain , Bourgain Marina
Published: July 2015

Purpose

– The purpose of this paper was to test the mediating role of training duration in relationship between firm characteristics and training evaluation practices. In this paper, the authors also investigated if this mediating effect differs with respect to the size of the firm.

Design/methodology/approach

– The authors collected data from 260 professionals of 90 call centers.

Findings

– The authors found that training duration mediates the relationship between firm size and training evaluation. The authors also found that indirect effect of firm size on training evaluation through training duration differs across different levels of firm size but not across different levels of ownership.

Research limitations/implications

– This is a cross-sectional study that emphasized on training evaluation practices only.

Practical implications

– The study has implication for both evaluation researchers and practitioners in terms of designing training evaluation policies and practices.

Originality/value

– This is the first study in its nature that explains the intervening role of training duration in relationship of firm characteristics and training evaluation practices.
Well-being and innovativeness: motivational trigger points for mutual enhancement
Authors: Honkaniemi Laura , Lehtonen Mikko H. , Hasu Mervi
Published: July 2015

Purpose

– This paper focuses on employees’ motivation to participate in innovation at the workplace. The best arguments to persuade employees to renew their work were searched. According to the expectancy theory (Vroom, 1964), a plausible link must be perceived for a motivational state to arise. The paper investigated the perceptions that employees, team-leaders and directors have about the relationships between innovativeness and well-being.

Design/methodology/approach

– The data consisted of thematic interviews with 14 persons from knowledge- and labour-intensive organisations in the public service sector. Data included material from directors, team-leaders and front-line workers. The theoretical model of Huhtala and Parzefall (2007) was applied to analyse perceptions about links between well-being and innovativeness.

Findings

– Results indicated that all eight possible links between well-being and innovativeness were perceived as plausible. The most common views were that high innovativeness connects to high well-being and vice versa. Additionally, low well-being was seen to decrease innovativeness. All organisational levels of knowledge- and labour-intensive organisations shared these views. More specifically, the interviewees shared the view that participating in innovation activities gives the employee opportunities to influence one’s work, which in turn leads to well-being. Another commonly shared perception was that if employees were encouraged and praised for their efforts, innovativeness would increase. These provide plausible arguments for leaders to persuade employees to participate.

Practical implications

– Practical advice about effective arguments for motivating employees is given: tell them that innovativeness is desired for, time and space is allocated for innovations, the amount of change will be managed, and the innovation activities present an opportunity to have voice.

Originality/value

– This paper shows potential motivational trigger points for enhancing the interaction between well-being and innovation.
Climate action plan adoptions in the US states
Authors: Yi Hongtao , Feiock Richard C
Published: July 2015

Purpose

– This paper aims to examine state adoption of climate action plans (CAPs) and investigates the factors driving the adoption of these climate policies in the states.

Design/methodology/approach

– The framework that is formulated to explain the state climate actions involves four dimensions: climate risks, climate politics, climate economic and climate policy diffusions. These hypotheses are tested with event history analysis on a panel data set on 48 US continental states from 1994 to 2008.

Findings

– This paper found empirical evidence to support climate politics, economics and policy diffusion explanations. It also found that climate risks are not taken into account in states’ climate actions. A comparison is conducted to compare the differences in state and local climate policymaking.

Originality/value

– The paper investigates the motivations of state governments in adopting CAPs, and makes comparisons with local climate strategies. It contributes to academic understanding of the multilevel governance of climate protection in the USA.
Towards higher maintenance effectiveness
Authors: Sinha Pritibhushan
Published: July 2015

Purpose

– The purpose of this paper is to propose a few steps to enhance maintenance effectiveness in practice.

Design/methodology/approach

– The author reviews the strengths and limitations of different approaches to maintenance management (MM). Some relevant practical observations of reliability engineering are discussed. Based on these, and drawing on the research on MM in relevant literature, the author suggests a few steps, suitable for implementation, for effective MM.

Findings

– Review of available approaches to MM and some factors of reliability engineering points to some ways to improve maintenance effectiveness in the practical sense.

Practical implications

– Implementation of the steps, as suggested in the paper, should enhance the effectiveness of MM leading to higher machine uptimes with less of maintenance costs. In such steps, the ease of implementation in practical situations has been given due importance.

Originality/value

– In the steps, called as an “Actionable Program for Maintenance,” that the author suggests, he has highlighted some issues, and has made some suggestions, which are new.
A methodology for modeling and monitoring of centrifugal casting process
Authors: Das Anupam , Mondal S. C. , Thakkar J. J. , Maiti J.
Published: July 2015

Purpose

– The purpose of this paper is to build a monitoring scheme in order to detect and subsequently eliminate abnormal behavior of the concerned casting process so as to produce worm wheels with good quality characteristics.

Design/methodology/approach

– In this a study, a process monitoring strategy has been devised for a centrifugal casting process using data-based multivariate statistical technique, namely, partial least squares regression (PLSR).

Findings

– Based on a case study, the PLSR model constructed for this study seems to mimic the actual process quite well which is evident from the various performance criteria (predicted and analysis of variance results).

Practical implications

– The practical implication of the study involves development of a software application with a back-end database which would be interfaced with a computer program based on PLSR algorithm for estimation of model parameters and the control limit for the monitoring chart. It would help in easy and real-time detection of faults.

Originality/value

– This study concerns the application of a PLSR-based monitoring strategy to a centrifugal casting process engaged in the production of worm wheel.
Relational bonding strategies in the franchise industry: the moderating role of duration of the relationship
Authors: Lee Yong-ki , Kim Sally , Kim Min-Seong , Lee Jae-Han , Lim Ki-Taek
Published: July 2015

Purpose

– This paper aims to examine the effect of different relational bonding strategies on franchisees’ perceptions of benefits. The duration of the relationship is framed as a moderator between three types of relational bonds and the perceived benefits.

Design/methodology/approach

– The data are collected via a survey from foodservice franchisees in South Korea. To test the study’s hypotheses, the research model was estimated with two-stage least squares.

Findings

– The result shows that social and structural bonds have a significant impact on franchisees’ perceptions of benefits. There are some significant interactions between different types of relational bonds and the duration of the relationship. Perceptions of benefits are found to influence satisfaction, intentions to recommend, intentions to renew the contract and long-term orientation.

Practical implications

– The study suggests that franchisors may want to focus on developing and strengthening social bonds, and also customize their relational approaches based on the duration of the relationship with the franchisees.

Originality/value

– This research illustrates the impact of three types of relational bonding strategies on franchisees’ perceptions of the benefits and also examines the significant moderating role of the duration of the relationship.
The illusion of transparency: the geography of mortgage lending in Great Britain
Authors: Rae Alasdair
Published: July 2015

Purpose

– The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive overview of the geography of mortgage lending in Great Britain. It uses a new mortgage dataset as a way to shed light on the spatial distribution of mortgage finance and to highlight the different lending patterns of seven major UK banks. It also examines the relationship between the distribution of mortgage finance and socio-economic status at the local level.

Design/methodology/approach

– The methodology is based on simple quantitative techniques, including spatial analysis, location quotient analysis and socio-economic classification. Lending data for Great Britain’s 10,000 postcode sectors are the basis for analysis here.

Findings

– The results suggest that some banks lend significantly less than others in poorer areas, but, owing to a lack of data, it is not possible to say why. It is possible to identify banks that appear to change their lending patterns in areas with different socio-economic characteristics. The paper concludes by reflecting on key messages and by making a small number of recommendations to improve transparency in the sector.

Research limitations/implications

– In the absence of demand-side metrics, it is not possible to determine which banks lend disproportionately high or low amounts in poorer areas.

Practical implications

– This paper has implications in relation to increasing financial transparency in the residential mortgage sector. The most important implication would be to highlight the fact that this new data – whilst a welcome development – is a long way from providing proper transparency in the mortgage lending sector.

Originality/value

– This paper fills a gap in the international literature in relation to our understanding of the geography of mortgage lending in a major world economy. It also highlights important differential lending patterns in relation to socio-economic status at the sub-national level.
Do bank regulation and supervision matter?
Authors: Lee Kangbok , Lu Wenling
Published: July 2015

Purpose

– The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of bank regulation and supervision on bank development, efficiency and fragility over the period of 1999-2011.

Design/methodology/approach

– The authors’ approach is based on a multivariate difference-in-difference model which controls for potential endogeneity of the explanatory variables and unobservable country-specific effect. The paper investigates the changes of bank outcomes and a country’s regulation and supervisory practices, in terms of capital regulation, supervisory power, private monitoring, entry into banking requirements, overall restrictions on bank activities and government ownership of banks in a sample of 53 countries with a total of 482 observations.

Findings

– Empirical results indicate that greater capital regulatory requirements reduce bank fragility, as measured by lower levels of non-performing loans but reduce bank efficiency, as measured by higher levels of net interest margin; supervisory practices that strengthen private sector monitoring of banks improve bank development, as measured by bank private credit as a share of gross domestic product; lower levels of non-performing loans are associated with greater enter-into-banking requirements and less restrictiveness on bank activities; and greater government ownership of banks is associated with both higher levels of net interest margin and higher levels of non-performing loans. Overall, the findings support Basel II’s first and third pillars: capital requirements and private monitoring.

Originality/value

– This cross-country analysis provides evidence on which specific regulatory and supervisory practices work best in light of what was learned from the recent financial crisis.
Corporate governance and equity finance: an emerging economy perspective
Authors: Haque Faizul
Published: July 2015

Purpose

– This paper aims to investigate whether firm-level corporate governance has an influence on the equity financing patterns in an emerging economy such as Bangladesh.

Design/methodology/approach

– The regression framework uses a questionnaire survey-based corporate governance index (CGI) comprising five dimensions – ownership structures, shareholder rights, independence and responsibilities of the board and management, financial reporting and disclosures and responsibility towards stakeholders. In addition, a number of semi-structured interviews have been carried out with the relevant stakeholders.

Findings

– The results suggest a statistically significant positive relationship between CGI and equity capital and, thus, confirm the prediction of the agency theory.

Research limitations/implications

– This study does not address endogeneity and reverse causality issues with respect to the relationship between CGI and equity finance.

Practical implications

– Firms should improve their legal compliance and voluntary activism in corporate governance matters to ensure increased access to equity finance.

Originality/value

– This study is among the first to examine the relationship between overall corporate governance quality and equity finance of a firm from the perspective of a bank-based emerging economy.
Development of psychological capital in an academic-based leadership education program
Authors: Goertzen Brent J. , Whitaker Brett L.
Published: July 2015

Purpose

– The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of an academic-based, leadership education program on the development of psychological capital (PsyCap).

Design/methodology/approach

– Data were collected from students at the entry-point (Time 1), mid-point (Time 2) and end-point (Time 3) of the leadership program, across all modes of delivery. Statistical analysis was performed to determine changes in psychological capacity.

Findings

– Results indicated PsyCap capacities (self-efficacy, optimism, hope and resiliency) may be impacted through leadership training and that online delivery appeared to have the greatest impact on student PsyCap development.

Research limitations/implications

– The paper concludes with a discussion of limitations and future directions of research that are needed. Limitations include non-individual tracking, and a somewhat small sample size in one of the samples. Implications include further research into a potential response shift bias among participants, research regarding the impact of educational modality and student maturity and self-awareness.

Practical implications

– The paper describes implications for practitioners in higher education, as well as more broadly for educators who are attempting to develop positive psychological capacities in their students.

Originality/value

– This paper expands upon a developing field in positive organizational psychology by focussing on development within leadership education.
Metaphors for today’s leadership: VUCA world, millennial and “Cloud Leaders”
Authors: Rodriguez Alejandro , Rodriguez Yolanda
Published: July 2015

Purpose

– The purpose of this paper is to evidence the scenarios any leader is currently facing in front of three specific situations: a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world (VUCA); a generation that is changing the way to form relationships, work and knowledge transfer;and the possibility for a “Cloud Leadership” to overcome today’s reality of constant change, redirection, new frontiers and formatting.

Design/methodology/approach

– This paper seeks one theoretical entailment, so that the world today presented by Johansen (2012) from four perspectives needs to be considered from the perspective of leadership.

Findings

– The paper views leadership as “a Cloud.” It brings new insights to a social and organizational analysis of leaders today. The metaphorical language is creative in the formative accompaniment of the Millennials, it provides and clarifies the orientation in all areas where they interact.

Research limitations/implications

– Leaders leading Millennials face challenges with specific textures: convergence of traits, processes and outcomes with a leadership enriched by schools and theories immersed in a VUCA world where resiliency is a scarce commodity. Raising, building, taking advantage of the dynamism that each individual possesses, educating from the positive and toward the positive, is a benefit of a “Cloud Leader” in a VUCA world where Millennials have a strong presence.

Practical implications

– This paper offers a kind of vignette of leadership to illustrate the theories, skills, abilities and different approaches converging within leaders for these coming years: the immersion in a VUCA world, leading a workforce with more Millennial copartners present each day and the metaphors that can help us better understand them, and being a “Cloud Leader.”

Social implications

– Leadership is going to be a matter of discovering the positive energy in each person, to stimulate the best in every individual and develop the potential of everybody because this “energy” is a small assurance of the future. A leader who attempts to “bring out” the positive in each person, in every context in which he or she is immersed, a leader who seeks the best interventions possible according to his or her capabilities and resources, this is a leader we can call “a leader for the coming future: a Cloud Leader.”

Originality/value

– In this paper the author uses metaphors as an interesting method to say something with multimodal meanings under the “umbrella concepts” of Millennial generation, and leadership style. It is argued that scientific reasoning does not solely exist in the individual’s head, but emerges in conjunction with the expressed representations.
Legitimacy profiles of women directors on top French company boards
Authors: Singh Val , Point Sebastien , Moulin Yves , Davila Andrès
Published: July 2015

Purpose

– The purpose of this paper is to question the profiles of female directors on top French company boards. It explores the legitimacy attributes of current female directors to identify the profiles sought recently, as firms approach the need to make many new appointments to fulfill gender quotas for supervisory boards, given that the proportion of women on a corporate board must reach 40 percent by 2017, with an intermediate level of 20 percent by 2014.

Design/methodology/approach

– The authors gathered numerical and qualitative biographical data on all SBF 120 (French stock exchange index) firms’ female directors from annual reports and web sites over seven years (from 2003 to 2009). The authors constructed an SPSS database to categorize the individuals into various orders of legitimacy.

Findings

– Drawing on director bio-data, the authors extend previous work on four legitimacy assets (family ownership; academic excellence; strong ties to the State; and top career), by adding a fifth asset (representative director), and contribute a gender dimension to the literature on personal legitimacy. Owning-family ties and academic excellence are still particularly salient in explaining legitimacy of women directors. A new source of female directors since 2005 is the pool of foreign women, outside the eliteGrandes Ecolessystem.

Research limitations/implications

– The authors had data for directors of 115 companies out of the SBF 120 firms. The authors also lacked data for seven women out of 144 appointed during the period, despite efforts to track down data from public sources.

Practical implications

– These legitimacy profiles present different challenges for management development as those responsible for appointing several women to their boards in a short space of time will find out.

Social implications

– The authors highlight that with the diminishing role of family members on large corporate boards, more women directors need to be found, developed and mentored. If this approach is followed, new female directors with solid achievements can be appointed, without having their legitimacy as directors challenged by resistant males. Women will thus be able to take their legitimate place in French boardrooms and contribute their diverse experiences and knowledge.

Originality/value

– This paper questions the legitimacy assets of female directors, which can be clustered into three groups: combined elite education and top corporate career; owning-family membership; and representative directors. These legitimacy profiles present different challenges for management development as those responsible for appointing several women to their boards in a short space of time will find out.
Embracing leadership: a multi-faceted model of leader identity development
Authors: Zheng Wei , Muir Douglas
Published: July 2015

Purpose

– Leadership development has been replete with a skill-based focus. However, learning and development can be constrained by the deeper level, hidden self-knowledge that influences how people process information and construct meaning. The purpose of this paper is to answer the question of how people construct and develop their leader identity. The authors intend to shed light on the critical facets of identity changes that occur as individuals grapple with existing understanding of the self and of leadership, transform them, and absorb new personalized notions of leadership into their identity, resulting in a higher level of confidence acting in the leadership domain.

Design/methodology/approach

– The authors conducted a grounded theory study of participants and their mentors in a lay leadership development program in a Catholic diocese. The authors inductively drew a conceptual model describing how leader identity evolves.

Findings

– The findings suggested that leader identity development was not a uni-dimensional event. Rather, it was a multi-faceted process that encompassed three key facets of identity development: expanding boundaries, recognizing interdependences, and discerning purpose. Further, it is the co-evolvement of these three facets and people’s broadening understanding of leadership that led to a more salient leader identity.

Research limitations/implications

– The model addresses the gap in literature on how leader identity develops specifically. It enriches and expands existing knowledge on leader identity development by answering the question of what specific changes are entailed when an individual constructs his or her identity as a leader.

Practical implications

– The findings could be used to guide leadership development professionals to build targeted learning activities around key components of leader identity development, diagnose where people are in their leadership journey, set personalized goals with them, and provide pointed feedback to learners in the process of developing their leader identity.

Originality/value

– The authors provide an in-depth and integrative account of the contents and mechanisms involved in the construction of the leader identity. The authors zero in on the critical transformations entailed in the process to establish and develop a leader identity.
Towards a deeper understanding of strategic learning
Authors: Moon Hanna , Ruona Wendy
Published: July 2015

Purpose

– The understanding of strategic learning processes seems to be fragmented and tangled in many disciplines. To construct a meaningful understanding of strategic learning, various disciplines were reviewed and synthesized, and a strategic learning model was developed based on the analysis of previous models. The purpose of this paper is to provide a deeper understanding of underlying theories of strategic learning and its model.

Design/methodology/approach

– The theory of strategic learning is an evolving theory so that first, the literature that helps conceptualize the strategic learning, second, the founding pieces of the literature that composite the theory; and third, the most emerging literature in the strategy discipline are selected to explain the strategic learning model. Based on the thorough review of the literature, new conceptual model of strategic learning is introduced.

Findings

– In both strategy literature and organizational literature, the existing strategic learning models can be evaluated to fully capture the distinctive aspects of learning in strategy process. Various learning theories are encompassed to construct the model.

Research limitations/implications

– This extended strategic learning model requires empirical testing to identify dimensions of strategic learning.

Practical implications

– The extended strategic learning model will be useful to bring about strategic change, conversation, and behavior.

Originality/value

– This conceptual model integrates many theories and important concepts. The foundational theories identified in this study also open up new research ideas for scholars using both quantitative and qualitative approaches.
Leaders as emotional managers
Authors: Alvinius Aida , Elfgren Boström Malin , Larsson Gerry
Published: July 2015

Purpose

– The purpose of this paper is to develop a deeper understanding of how leaders manage their own and others’ emotions in professional crisis management organizations during severely demanding episodes. The empirical case is a hostage drama that occurred in a small Swedish town. Although staff at the local prison were situationally prepared and trained in incident exercises, two inmates with knives fled the prison after taking a warden hostage.

Design/methodology/approach

– A grounded theory approach was used. In all, 14 informants from four Swedish authorities were interviewed on the basis of their involvement in the hostage drama.

Findings

– According to the analysis, an emergency response leader’s emotion management is framed by an organizationally embedded emotional regime which is summed up in two core themes: focus on the task and do not let emotions interfere; and provide the task force with maximum physical and psychological security. The leader’s emotion management within this framework consists of two interdependent processes, one more organization oriented and one more individual oriented.

Research limitations/implications

– Small sample, lack of representativeness, and lack of illumination of possible gender-related aspects.

Practical implications

– The suggested model may be valuable in educational settings.

Originality/value

– A new integrative, theoretical process model of leadership and emotion management in complex, stressful operations.
Leadership skills as construed by nonprofit chief executives
Authors: Kearns Kevin P. , Livingston Jonathan , Scherer Shelley , McShane Lydia
Published: July 2015

Purpose

– The purpose of this paper is to explore how chief executives of 20 nonprofit organizations construe and prioritize the skills they use to perform typical leadership tasks.

Design/methodology/approach

– The in-depth interview protocol used in the study is based on the Repertory Grid Technique, which elicits assumptions, beliefs, and values of respondents without imposing the researchers’ implicit frame of reference.

Findings

– The interviews generated 285 skill constructs. Respondents in this study report that they utilize a mix of technical, interpersonal, and conceptual skills. Interpersonal skills, especially communication and trust building, appear to be particularly prevalent among the many skills used by executives to perform their leadership tasks.

Research limitations/implications

– Because this is an exploratory study, its findings cannot yet be generalized to other contexts. Therefore, the paper concludes with some propositions for further research.

Practical implications

– The study may have implications for the design of curricula to prepare people to assume leadership positions in nonprofit organizations.

Originality/value

– This study uses a distinctive methodology to elicit from nonprofit leaders their assumptions and beliefs about the skills they use to perform leadership tasks. In this respect, the findings are grounded in the frames of reference of the subjects, not those of the researchers.
Barking up the wrong tree. On the fallacies of the transformational leadership theory
Authors: Andersen Jon Aarum
Published: July 2015

Purpose

– The purpose of this paper is to illustrate that the magnitude of interest in and of enthusiasm for transformational leadership is out of proportion with its weaknesses.

Findings

– The theory has some grave problems: there are conceptual limitations; managerial leadership is conflated with political leadership; the theory is presented as a universal as well as a contingency theory; the claim that transformational leaders are more effective is not empirically supported; and the use of the term “followers” rather than “subordinates” creates confusion in the study of formal organizations. Finally, and perhaps most fundamentally, does transformational leadership theory qualify as a managerial leadership theory?

Research limitations/implications

– Transformational leadership is a political leadership theory and thus less relevant for managerial leadership.

Originality/value

– This paper addresses the theoretical limitations of the transformational leadership theory as well as the lack of empirical support regarding the effectiveness of transformational leaders.
Application of Artificial Neural Network-Particle Swarm Optimization Algorithm for Prediction of Asphaltene Precipitation During Gas Injection Process and Comparison With Gaussian Process Algorithm
Authors: Manshad Abbas Khaksar , Rostami Habib , Rezaei Hojjat , Hosseini Seyed Moein
Published: July 2015

Asphaltene precipitation is a major problem in the oil production and transportation of oil. Changes in pressure, temperature, and composition of oil can lead to asphaltene precipitation. In the case of gas injection into oil reservoirs, the injected gas causes a change in oil composition and may lead to asphaltene precipitation. Accurate determination and prediction of the precipitated amount are vital, for this purpose there are several approaches such as experimental method, scaling equation, thermodynamics models, and neural network as the most recent ones. In this paper, we propose a new artificial neural network (ANN) optimized by particle swarm optimization (PSO) to predict the amount of asphaltene precipitation. This is conducted during the process of gas injection into oil reservoirs for enhanced oil recovery purposes. In the developed models, (1) oil composition, (2) temperature, (3) pressure, (4) oil specific gravity, (5) solvent mole percent, (6) solvent molecular weight, and (7) asphaltene content are considered as input parameters to the neural network. The weight of asphaltene and asphaltene content are considered as input parameters to the neural network and the weight of asphaltene precipitation as an output parameter. A comparison between the results of the proposed new model with Gaussian Process algorithm and previous research shows that the predictive model is more accurate.
Performance Modeling Comparison of a Solar Combisystem and Solar Water Heater
Authors: Sustar John L. , Burch Jay , Krarti Moncef
Published: July 2015

As homes move toward zero energy performance, some designers are drawn toward the solar combisystem due to its ability to increase the energy savings as compared to solar water heater (SWH) systems. However, it is not trivial as to the extent of incremental savings these systems will yield as compared to SWH systems, since the savings are highly dependent on system size and the domestic hot water (DHW) and space heating loads of the residential building. In this paper, the performance of a small combisystem and SWH, as a function of location, size, and load, is investigated using annual simulations. For benchmark thermal loads, the percent increased savings from a combisystem relative to a SWH can be as high as 8% for a 6 m2 system and 27% for a 9 m2 system in locations with a relatively high solar availability during the heating load season. These incremental savings increase significantly in scenarios with higher space heating loads and low DHW loads.
Competing Fracture of Thin-Chip Transferring From/Onto Prestrained Compliant Substrate
Authors: Liu Huimin , Liu Zunxu , Xu Zhoulong , Yin Zhouping , Huang YongAn , Chen Jiankui
Published: July 2015

The transferring of thin chip from donor to receptor plays a critical role in advanced electronic package, and the productivity is determined by the interfacial behavior between chip and substrate during chip transferring. The paper investigates analytical competing fracture model of chip–adhesive–substrate structure in thin-chip transferring (peeling-off and placing-on), to discover the critical process condition for distinguishing the interfacial delamination and chip crack. The structure is continuously subjected to ejecting needle, vacuum pick-up head, and wafer fixture, which leads to concentrated and distributed loads and dynamic boundary conditions. Additionally, two criterions based on competing fracture model are presented to determine the extreme chip dimension for peeling-off and the elimination of residual stress for placing-on. The theoretical results are validated by the finite-element simulation with virtual crack-closure technique (VCCT). This paper provides an insight for process optimization, to improve the success ratio and productivity of chip transferring.