bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Enhancing the study of Lean transformation through organizational culture analysis
Authors: Snyder Kristen , Ingelsson Pernilla , Bäckström Ingela 
Published: September 2016

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to identify and synthesize approaches to studying Lean transformation to further develop a comprehensive approach that integrates organizational culture analysis and performance measurement systems from a systems perspective.

Design/methodology/approach
This paper is conceptual in nature and based on a review of the literature in the areas of measuring Lean transformation and studying organizational culture. Three questions guide this conceptual analysis: “What approaches have been used to examine Lean transformation in business and public sector organizations?”; “Is there evidence of a focus on organizational culture in the measurement practices in Lean transformation and, if so, how?”; and “What can we learn from organizational cultural theorists about developing a more comprehensive framework to study Lean transformation?”. The analysis was conducted in two phases: In Phase 1, a database search was conducted using the key words Lean transformation, studying Lean, studying Lean transformation, studying organizational culture in Lean and measuring Lean, from which eight papers were selected. In Phase 2, the authors reviewed two models for studying organizational culture.

Findings
Findings indicated that the dominant approach to study and measure Lean transformation is based on the performance measurement model. Based on this approach, there was little evidence of a focus on organizational culture, and few integrated the human dimensions with the tools and practices. The authors also found evidence of a greater awareness of the need to develop a balanced performance measurement system that reflects both the subjective soft measures and the objective hard measures. Among the approaches studied, two models did reflect integration between hard and soft measures: Dahlgaard et al.’s (2011) 4Ps and Najem et al. ’s (2012) assessment model for studying organizational culture in Lean. Both of these methods provide a strong framework from which to further enhance the study of Lean transformation by incorporating elements from Bantz’s (1993) organizational communication culture method and Martin’s (1992) Matrix concept.

Originality/value
This paper furthers the academic dialogue on measuring Lean transformation through its unique analysis of studying organizational culture.
ACODE Benchmarks for technology enhanced learning (TEL)
Authors: Sankey Michael , Padró Fernando F. 
Published: September 2016

Purpose
This paper aims to present findings from a benchmarking exercise by 24 higher education institutions (HEIs) about the use of the Australasian Council on Open, Distance and e-learning (ACODE) Benchmarks and its benchmarking process to provide data about technology-enhanced learning (TEL) environments.

Design/methodology/approach
Results of the first instalment of a major benchmarking activity of the robustness of the benchmarks and of the benchmarking process itself based on two surveys provided participants, one during the collaborative session between participants from the 24 HEIs and nine months later.

Findings
The most important conclusion was the interest and usefulness of the benchmarks for participating HEIs, especially the sharing of information between HEIs. Six recommendations from the data indicated the desire to formally endorse the benchmarks, facilitate a formal benchmarking activity every two years, postpone the merger of four benchmarks into two and create more online tools to share practice.

Research limitations/implications
Data were collected and analysed through non-validated surveys based on ACODE’s need-to-know to develop baselines specific to the usefulness of the benchmarks themselves, the benchmarking process itself and next steps.

Practical implications
This paper provides a comparative view of how 24 universities approach online education and their use of the ACODE Benchmarks and how they facilitate HEI regulatory compliance.

Social implications
ACODE Benchmarks are one of few institution-wide quality improvement tools or frameworks for TEL available for universities to use. The benchmarking exercise provides a process through which HEIs can learn from each other how to improve their approaches to e-learning activities to better serve student learning needs.

Originality/value
Reporting of how universities seen as leading practitioners in TEL pursue good/best practice, decision-making and reporting.
Defining and measuring student adjustment-seeking behavior
Authors: Geyer Paul D. 
Published: September 2016

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to describe and define the concept of student adjustment-seeking behavior, differentiating it from the related behaviors of compliance-seeking, and help-seeking.

Design/methodology/approach
Based on a survey of college students, documentation is provided as to the frequency of occurrence of student adjustment-seeking behavior. Also presented is empirical, albeit exploratory, evidence of a statistically significant correlation between self-reports of prior adjustment-seeking behavior, and adjustment-seeking likelihood.

Findings
In support of the study hypothesis, a moderately high, bivariate correlation was observed between adjustment-seeking likelihood and prior adjustment-seeking behavior.

Originality/value
Further attention to the topic and measurement of adjustment-seeking behavior would seem to be justified and continued efforts to validate the measure of adjustment-seeking likelihood may be fruitful in efforts to better understand adjustment-seeking behavior. Research recommendations, practical applications, and study limitations are discussed.
Public private partnership (PPP) facilities management for healthcare services in Malaysia
Authors: Hashim Hariati Abdullah , Sapri Maimunah , Low Sheau-Ting 
Published: September 2016

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the challenges associated with the delivery of facilities management (FM) under public–private partnership (PPP) for healthcare services in Malaysia.

Design/methodology/approach
A questionnaire survey has been administrated to PPP practitioners in Malaysia. The study has adopted reliability and descriptive method for analysis.

Findings
This research resulted in a series of 14 challenges that have to be faced in the implementation of PPP FM for healthcare services in Malaysia. Inadequate specific PPP risk management model is identified as the most significant challenge followed by the difficulty in reaching agreements and project complexity.

Originality/value
This study is considered the first study that identifies and assesses the challenges of PPP within the Malaysian context. The findings will provide a more informed basis for decision-making process, especially for the FM bidders.
How are we funding professional sports stadiums? An overview
Authors: Alakshendra Abhinav 
Published: September 2016

PurposeAmerican taxpayers heavily subsidize professional sports leagues and teams through direct and indirect public funding to build professional sports stadiums. Today, the proportion of public funding to build professional sports stadiums is greater than private contribution. In last 20 years, almost all of the 100 professional stadiums opened have received some form of direct or indirect financial assistance from local, state and federal government. The paper aims to discuss these issues.Design/methodology/approachThis paper investigates and documents most often used methods of stadium financing in recent years along with the historical shift from privately built stadiums to public funded stadiums in the span of 65 years. This paper also briefly reviews the literature evaluating the impacts of public spending for professional sports stadiums. The vast literature on the topic reveals that economists and city planners agree that public subsidy to build expensive professional sports stadiums cannot be justified on the grounds of perceived economic development.FindingsOver the years, funding mix to build professional sports facilities has changed dramatically. Local government has been coming up with various financing strategies involving new and old instruments.Originality/valueThe findings also suggest that share of local and state government has gone up in recent years compare to federal government share.
CSR, relationship quality, loyalty and psychological connection in sports
Authors: Nyadzayo Munyaradzi W. , Leckie Civilai , McDonald Heath 
Published: September 2016

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role played by corporate social responsibility (CSR) in building relationship quality (RQ) in the context of sports organisations. In turn, the link between RQ and customer loyalty is examined. Acknowledging that customers develop a psychological connection with the sports organisation over time, the study also examines whether the link between CSR and RQ is moderated by the psychological continuum model (PCM) stages (awareness, attraction, attachment and allegiance).

Design/methodology/approach
The survey data were drawn from almost 6,000 season ticket holders of a professional sports club. Structural equation modelling and the non-parametric bootstrapping regression technique were used to test the hypotheses.

Findings
The results support the direct impact of CSR activities on RQ. RQ, in turn, drives customer loyalty. Importantly, RQ is found to fully mediate the relationship between CSR and customer loyalty. However, as customers move through the psychological connection stages, the effect of CSR on customer loyalty via RQ tends to diminish.

Practical implications
This study provides evidence of a direct impact of CSR activities on RQ, and also attests the role of psychological connection in sports organisations.

Originality/value
The incorporation of a multidimensional RQ construct and the PCM stages allows a deeper understanding of how CSR might be employed to achieve organisational goals.
A sample survey analysis of the effectiveness of training and development initiatives in Bahrain’s financial sector on employability of Bahraini nationals in 2015
Authors: Ganguli Subhadra , Matar Reem Hameed 
Published: September 2016

Purpose
Bahrain has been the center for financial services industry in the Middle East since 1970s as a result of the national strategy of diversification of its economy from oil-based resources to financial services. Since then Bahrain has also become the center for training and development for the Bahraini nationals with the aim of recruiting Bahrainis as employees of choice by the sector. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the effect of training and development initiatives on the employability of Bahrainis in the financial services sector in 2015. To this end, pioneering initiatives were undertaken by the government in creating institutions for training and continuous education in Bahrain. The Economic Vision 2030 of Bahrain lays emphasis on a vibrant private sector with Bahrainis being the employees of choice.

Design/methodology/approach
The study is a mixed approach using quantitative and qualitative methods through the use of a survey questionnaire and secondary data to analyze the impact of training and development on the employability of Bahraini nationals in the financial sector as of 2015.

Findings
The findings show that training and development lead to career progression which impact employability rates of Bahrainis in the financial services sector for the selected sample of financial sector employees.

Research limitations/implications
The study is limited by only a cross-section of data collected via questionnaire and does not consider the historical development and analysis of employability rates in Bahrain over the years. The questionnaire has some limitations and there are expected possible biases in the responses.

Originality/value
Given the sensitivity of the topic of research, the analysis has policy implications for the labor market of Bahrain due to the Bahrain 2030 Vision of privatization and diversification and is the first study of its kind for the financial sector of Bahrain.
The price of looking sexy: visual ecology of a three‐level predator–prey system
Authors: Outomuro David , Söderquist Linus , Johansson Frank , Ödeen Anders , Nordström Karin 
Published: September 2016

Summary

Colour signals and colour vision play a pivotal role in intraspecific communication and predator–prey interactions. However, the costs of expressing conspicuous sexual signals at multiple trophic levels have been largely overlooked. Sexual signals can also experience character displacement in sympatric populations of closely related species, leading to potential changes in conspicuousness.

We here investigate a bird–damselfly–fruit fly predator–prey system, where two closely related damselfly species have conspicuous, sexually selected wing coloration. The damselflies can occur in sympatry and allopatry, and reproductive character displacement in the coloration size has been previously reported.

We quantify the damselfly wing reflectance from replicated sympatric and allopatric populations, and use receptor noise models to investigate the visual discriminability of the wing coloration for the bird, damselfly and fly vision systems, against natural backgrounds. We perform electroretinograms to study damselfly eye sensitivity. We also estimate damselfly predation risk in natural populations.

We find that the chromatic component of wing coloration makes males highly discriminable to the predator, but not to the prey. However, female wing coloration is predominantly cryptic for the predator and prey, and interestingly, also for male damselflies. A female being cryptic to conspecifics likely reduces male harassment. The estimates of predation risk partially support the discriminability results. We also show that there is no difference in colour vision sensitivity between the two damselfly species and sexes, and no difference in wing coloration or its discriminability between sympatric and allopatric populations.

Our results suggest that sexually selected traits can be antagonistically selected by predators and prey and that this antagonistic selection can be sex‐dependent: males are paying a large cost in terms of conspicuousness, while females remain mostly cryptic. Our study thus emphasizes the need for investigating visual communication at multitrophic levels since the degree of colour discriminability can differ between predators, prey and the focal species.

A lay summary is available for this article.
Micro X‐Ray computed tomography imaging and ultrasonic velocity measurements in tetrahydrofuran‐hydrate‐bearing sediments
Authors: Schindler Mandy , Batzle Michael L. , Prasad Manika 
Published: September 2016

ABSTRACTNaturally occurring gas hydrates contain significant amounts of natural gas that might be produced as an energy resource in the foreseeable future. Thus, it is necessary to understand the pore‐space characteristics of hydrate reservoirs, particularly the pore‐scale distribution of the hydrate and its interaction with the sediment. Four end‐member models for hydrate distribution in the pore space are pore filling, sediment‐frame component, envelope cementing, and contact cementing. The goal of this study is to compare the models with pore‐scale hydrate distributions obtained in laboratory‐formed hydrates. Our results verify hydrate pore‐scale distributions by direct, visual observations that were previously implied by indirect, elastic property measurements.Laboratory measurements were conducted using tetrahydrofuran as a guest molecule since tetrahydrofuran hydrate can be used as a proxy for naturally occurring hydrates. We performed micro X‐ray computed tomography to obtain information about the distribution of hydrate in the pore space of synthetic sediment (glass beads). We also made ultrasonic velocity measurements on the same samples. Micro X‐ray computed tomography images and ultrasonic velocity measurements both indicate that the tetrahydrofuran hydrate forms in the pore space with a part of the hydrate bridging the grains without touching the grain surfaces. These hydrate‐bearing sediments appear to follow a pore‐filling model with a portion of the hydrate becoming a load‐bearing part of the sediment frame.
Sensitivity of the farmland bird community to crop diversification in Sweden: does the CAP fit?
Authors: Josefsson Jonas , Berg Åke , Hiron Matthew , Pärt Tomas , Eggers Sönke 
Published: September 2016

Summary

Crop diversification has been introduced as an environmental strategy in the ‘Greening’ of the EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) for 2015–2020. The primary target of crop diversification is soil and ecosystem resilience, but claims for potential benefits for farmland biodiversity are also common. However, understanding of relationships between the number (compositional heterogeneity) and spatial arrangement (configurational heterogeneity) of crop fields and biodiversity is generally poor, making such claims relatively unfounded.

In this study, we monitored crop and farmland bird diversity on 178 farms across Sweden's main agricultural areas. From a pre‐implementation assessment, we show that >97% of the assessed farms would not be required to change their management under the CAP crop diversification measure (minimum of three crops for farms with 30+ ha), suggesting that this measure has generated little change on Swedish farms.

While accounting for non‐crop elements and farming system (conventional or organic), we show that crop structural diversity (i.e. the management and vegetation structure of crops) rather than crop diversity senso lato positively affected richness of non‐crop breeding bird species with stronger effects in arable, compared with forest‐dominated landscapes. No such effects were observed among field‐nesting farmland bird species.

Organic farming had little influence on farmland birds with positive effects only in the most arable‐dominated landscapes and for field‐nesting species only. In forest‐dominated landscapes, organic farms even held lower field‐nester densities compared with conventional farms, possibly due to the dominance of grasslands on organic farms that in these landscapes support lower densities of field‐nesting species compared with cereals.

Policy implications. Our study illustrates the importance of a consideration of structural instead of species diversity of crops for biodiversity, in this case farmland birds. We also underline the absence of such a distinction in current EU Common Agricultural Policy Greening, while simultaneously setting levels on crop diversification too low resulting in little to no change in landscape‐scale crop diversity on Swedish farmland. We recommend that future efforts to manage farmland biodiversity should include ways of increasing the structural diversity of crops at the scale of farms and landscapes.
Effects of nitrogen deposition on reproduction in a masting tree: benefits of higher seed production are trumped by negative biotic interactions
Authors: Bogdziewicz Michał , Crone Elizabeth E. , Steele Michael A. , Zwolak Rafał 
Published: September 2016

Summary

Relatively little is known about the effects of anthropogenic environmental changes on reproductive ecology of trees. Yet, recruitment is a primary determinant of the long‐term dynamics of plant populations in changing environments.

We used the Long‐Term Ecological Research site at Harvard Forest to evaluate the effects of chronic (over 25 years) nitrogen fertilization on reproductive ecology of red oaks (Quercus rubra).

Oaks growing in fertilized plots produced 4–9 times more acorns than control trees. However, nitrogen deposition simultaneously affected oaks’ biotic interactions. It increased pre‐dispersal seed predation by insects (primarily weevils, Curculio spp.) on fertilized plots, most likely as the result of the disruption of predator satiation. In addition, infestation by weevils was more likely to result in embryo destruction in fertilized than in control acorns. Furthermore, the proportion of acorns dispersed and cached by rodents decreased on fertilized plots. Finally, germination of fertilized acorns was lower than control acorns, even after controlling for the effects of weevils and rodents.

Inclusion of the altered biotic interactions reversed the final picture of the effects of long‐term nitrogen fertilization on oak reproduction: the positive effects on acorn quantity were trumped by the nitrogen‐mediated changes in biotic interactions.

Synthesis. Our results stress the importance of considering indirect effects and consumer interactions when evaluating the effects of environmental change on plant population dynamics. Long‐term nitrogen fertilization has a strong potential to decrease the recruitment of masting trees. Given the ubiquitous increase in the anthropogenic nitrogen deposition, processes similar to those found in our system might operate in others, resulting in a widespread alteration in trees’ recruitment dynamics.
Upper limb motor training using a Saebo™ orthosis is feasible for increasing task‐specific practice in hospital after stroke
Authors: Lannin Natasha A. , Cusick Anne , Hills Caroline , Kinnear Bianca , Vogel Karin , Matthews Kate , Bowring Greg 
Published: September 2016

Background/aimAssistive technologies have the potential to increase the amount of movement practice provided during inpatient stroke rehabilitation. The primary aim of this study was to investigate the feasibility of using the Saebo‐Flex™ device in a subacute stroke setting to increase task‐specific practice for people with little or no active hand movement. The secondary aim was to collect preliminary data comparing hand/upper limb function between a control group that received usual rehabilitation and an intervention group that used, in addition, the Saebo‐Flex™ device.MethodsNine inpatients (mean three months (median six weeks) post‐stroke) participated in this feasibility study conducted in an Australian rehabilitation setting, using a randomised pre‐test and post‐test design with concealed allocation and blinded outcome assessment. In addition to usual rehabilitation, the intervention group received eight weeks of daily motor training using the Saebo‐Flex™ device. The control group received usual rehabilitation (task‐specific motor training) only. Participants were assessed at baseline (pre‐randomisation) and at the end of the eight‐week study period. Feasibility was assessed with respect to ease of recruitment, application of the device, compliance with the treatment programme and safety. Secondary outcome measures included the Motor Assessment Scale (upper limb items), Box and Block Test, grip strength and the Stroke Impact Scale.ResultsRecruitment to the study was very slow because of the low number of patients with little or no active hand movement. Otherwise, the study was feasible in terms of being able to apply the Saebo‐Flex™ device and compliance with the treatment programme. There were no adverse events, and a greater amount of upper limb rehabilitation was provided to the intervention group. While there were trends in favour of the intervention group, particularly for dexterity, no between‐group differences were seen for any of the secondary outcomes.ConclusionsThis pilot feasibility study showed that the use of assistive technology, specifically the Saebo‐Flex™ device, could be successfully used in a sample of stroke patients with little or no active hand movement. However, recruitment to the trial was very slow. The use of the Saebo‐FlexTM device had variable results on outcomes, with some positive trends seen in hand function, particularly dexterity.