bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Environmental turbulence, absorptive capacity and external knowledge search among Chinese SMEs
Authors: Guo Bin , Wang Yueqi 
Published: October 2014

Purpose– This paper tests which theoretical perspective(s) can better explain firms’ external knowledge search behavior. Information processing and resource-based view theories propose a positive relationship between environmental turbulence and knowledge search breadth, whereas transaction cost economics and managerial attention theoretical perspectives posit that knowledge search breadth will be negatively influenced by environmental turbulence. In the context of Chinese small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), this study examines the direct effect of environmental turbulence and the interactive effect of environmental turbulence and absorptive capacity (ACAP) on external knowledge search breadth.Design/methodology/approach– This study adopted firm-level data collected via questionnaires from SMEs within the manufacturing sector in China. The partial least squares method was used to explore the determinants of the external knowledge search breadth of Chinese SMEs.Findings– The results reveal that external search breadth tends to increase with an increase in a firm’s perceived environmental turbulence. In addition, the interaction between ACAP and environmental turbulence will be negatively related to external knowledge search breadth. The empirical evidence indicates information processing and resource-based view theories are more powerful in explaining the external knowledge search behavior of Chinese SMEs.Originality/value– Unlike most of the innovation search literature, which have focused on the effect on performance of external search, this study focuses on the antecedents of firms’ innovation search behavior. The study contributes to the understanding of the relationship between environmental turbulence and knowledge search breadth as well as the understanding of the influence of ACAP on external knowledge search in the context of SMEs from emerging economies.
The Millionaires Club: poised for growth in the United Arab Emirates
Authors: Jham Vimi 
Published: October 2014

Subject area
The case seeks an intensive reading, research and a stimulating in-class discussion on implementing marketing strategy mixed with creating experience in the service industry creating a Pull branding. The case is also open to other angles as per the other intents and context of the course and course instructor. Some of the course angles are as follows: sales promotion, customer relationship management (CRM), channel sales, international marketing and branding.

Study level/applicability
The case is suited to many courses including online formats and executive training workshops. It is good for discussion with service industry. Some of the target groups are listed below: MBA Course, core course of strategic management, specialisation courses in service marketing, CRM and sales promotion, executive training workshops on strategy formulations, faculty development workshops on teaching pedagogy through cases and internal marketing and capstone courses.

Case overview
Millionaires Holidays & Resorts Ltd. (MHRL) is a part of the Leisure and Hospitality sector of the Millionaires Group and brings to the industry values such as Reliability, Trust and Customer Satisfaction. Millionaires Club is a part of the Hospitality sector of the Millionaires Group. Taking advantage of the high income earned by Indians in the UAE, Millionaires Club has taken initiatives of expansion in the UAE market. The case talks about how Millionaires Club has become a Pull brand by providing unmatched family holiday experience in India where members feel proud to be part of special community. The case takes us through different marketing strategies being adopted by the organisation to ensure a successful foothold in the UAE market.

Expected learning outcomes
Understanding the process of service marketing, understanding how brands are built over time, analyzing deeply and energetically the United Arab Emirates holiday industry, analyzing the importance of customer satisfaction and CRM,, analyzing the importance of corporate social responsibility, understanding the importance of experiential marketing and developing futuristic ideas and thinking to change the way to see the use of marketing strategy in organisations.

Supplementary materials
Teaching Notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.
Efficient lighting: reactivating the market through consumer stimulus
Authors: Reyes-Mercado Pável , Rajagopal Dr 
Published: October 2014

Subject area
Marketing.

Study level/applicability
This case is oriented to undergraduate (BA) students taking courses in marketing strategy, branding, new product development and market research.

Case overview
This case deals with the events surrounding branding and positioning of a compact fluorescent lamp (CFL) by a multinational company settled in Mexico. After working in a private–public partnership (PPP) that deployed millions of CFLs in the Mexican market, the company is now striving to understand customer repurchase behaviour. The company executives are struggling with product, technology, and distribution issues. Their primary task is to develop an appealing marketing strategy and a tactical plan in the context of reduced budget and sceptic customers.

Expected learning outcomes
This study's task is to enhance student's ability to perform functional marketing analysis; to frame issues according to a given business model to solve the problems that organizations face in developing innovative products; and to propose alternate courses of action and formulate competitive marketing strategies.

Supplementary materials
Teaching Notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.
Designing Woodleigh School: educator and architects in context
Authors: Goad Philip 
Published: October 2014

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to examine the professional context of the educator and architects who designed and conceived Woodleigh School in Baxter, Victoria, Australia (1974-1979) and to identify common design threads in a series of schools designed by Daryl Jackson and Evan Walker in the 1970s.

Design/methodology/approach
– The research was derived from academic and professional publications, film footage, interviews, archival searches and site visits. Standard analytical methods in architectural research are employed, including formal, planning and morphological analysis, to read building designs for meaning and intent. Books, people and buildings were examined to piece together the design “biography” of Woodleigh School, the identification of which forms the basis of the paper's argument.

Findings
– Themes of loose fit, indeterminate planning, coupled with concepts of classroom as house, and school as town, and engagement with a landscape environment are drawn together under principal Michael Norman's favoured phrase that adolescents might experience “a slice of life”, preparing them for broader engagement with a world and a community outside school. The themes reflect changing aspirations for teenage education in the 1970s, indicating a free and experimental approach to the design of the school environment.

Originality/value
– The paper considers, for the first time, the interconnected role of educator and architect as key protagonists in envisioning connections between space and pedagogy in the 1970s alternative school.
Site, school, community
Authors: Darian-Smith Kate , Henningham Nikki 
Published: October 2014

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to examine the development of vocational education for girls, focusing on how curriculum and pedagogy developed to accommodate changing expectations of the role of women in the workplace and the home in mid-twentieth century Australia. As well as describing how pedagogical changes were implemented through curriculum, it examines the way a modern approach to girls’ education was reflected in the built environment of the school site and through its interactions with its changing community.

Design/methodology/approach
– The paper takes a case study approach, focusing on the example of the J.H. Boyd Domestic College which functioned as a single-sex school for girls from 1932 until its closure in 1985. Oral history testimony, private archives, photographs and government school records provide the material from which an understanding of the school is reconstructed.

Findings
– This detailed examination of the history of J.H. Boyd Domestic College highlights the highly integrated nature of the school's environment with the surrounding community, which strengthened links between the girls and their community. It also demonstrates how important the school's buildings and facilities were to contemporary ideas about the teaching of girls in a vocational setting.

Originality/value
– This is the first history of J.H. Boyd Domestic College to examine the intersections of gendered, classed ideas about pedagogy with ideas about the appropriate built environment for the teaching of domestic science. The contextualized approach sheds new light on domestic science education in Victoria and the unusually high quality of the learning spaces available for girls’ education.
Exploring the impact of change: a case of female managers in transition
Authors: Maddox-Daines Kay 
Published: October 2014

Purpose
– This case study aims to explore the practice of female managers within a small higher education institution experiencing rapid growth and undertaking significant organisation change.

Design/methodology/approach
– This study takes an ethnographic approach to the exploration of professional identity constructions in management practice. Using an approach based on “grounded” principles rather than a pure grounded approach, it was possible to draw together key concepts arising from the data. Initial themes generated through thematic analysis were later penetrated with the use of a narrative approach which allowed for deeper insights to be captured through detailed participant stories.

Findings
– This case highlights how management practice is affected by ambiguity and uncertainty. Gendered practice and belonging highlights the impact of the “silent identity”. In particular this study emphasises the implications of incongruence between the self and the organisation as new “in groups” form as a result of perceived exclusion from the executive team.

Practical implications
– Paying attention to good practice in the management of change is essential to diminishing some of the tension that may present itself within evolving organizations. The investment of time on arrival as the new leader in an organisation will support the development of a cohesive management team and provide the basis for effective communication channels.

Originality/value
– This study provides an empirical contribution to the study of women and professional identity within the workplace and the way in which this is conceived.
Purple squirrels
Authors: Dumeresque David 
Published: October 2014

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to discuss the salient issues relating to the employment of Purple Squirrels. As the business world begins to undergo rapid change, to remain competitive business leaders must hire and retain extraordinary people – those who are supreme innovators and who are able to conceptualize and deliver real and lasting change. We refer to these people as Purple Squirrels, very rare individuals who are extremely talented with a multifarious mix of core skills. They also have an “X” factor that allows them to look at things differently and see opportunities where others might not. To achieve this mission-critical objective, conventional recruitment methods need to change. Competency-based methods may work well for junior and middle management, but when searching for the ultimate game changer – the supreme innovator – these methods are inappropriate.

Design/methodology/approach
– Draws on the author’s research to provide an insight into the benefits of CRM.

Findings
– This paper discusses the salient issues relating to the employment of Purple Squirrels.

Originality/value
– It will benefit business leaders, hiring managers and human resources managers by improving their understanding of the changes in recruitment methods needed to attract and employ the people who are capable of driving meaningful and sustainable change.
Are you seeing the big picture in selecting your improvement projects?
Authors: Richard Horne J. 
Published: October 2014

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to propose the adaptation of Michael Porter's Value Chain as part of a total value and performance-based framework to help identify and prioritize process improvement projects.

Design/methodology/approach
– This paper developed a framework and then applied it by using a notional company's performance numbers.

Findings
– The proposed framework can be easily applied to a real-world business setting by using the methodology proposed. The author used basic Microsoft Excel skills to perform this work.

Practical implications
– This paper's’ strength is that it provides business managers and quality improvement practitioners a viable and straight forward method to identify and prioritize their improvement efforts.

Originality/value
– This paper is original in its concept. It takes and established framework and it applies it to a process improvement application.
Strategies for business excellence under an economic crisis
Authors: P. Afthonidis Evangelos , D. Tsiotras George 
Published: October 2014

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to reveal the appropriate course of actions of any executive toward attaining business excellence, under the limitations and particular conditions that arise in an economic crisis environment.Design/methodology/approach– This paper takes the approach of an extended literature review.Findings– Business excellence is an ideal path for any enterprise which seeks the attainment of a strong competitive advantage in times of economic crisis. This path, through the implementation of the principles of Total Quality Management, leads to a strategic plan that helps the enterprise not only to survive but also to strengthen its position while exploiting opportunities that arise during the recession. The basic elements of such a plan are the satisfaction of all customers and stakeholders, the quest for innovation and the implementation of an aggressive policy in marketing and investments. Toward this target, the most crucial elements are the involvement of the management and, second, the commitment and efforts of all human resources.Practical implications– The business community and specifically the higher management of any company could reformulate its strategic plan according to the findings of this survey, in order to gain a sustainable competitive advantage over competition.Originality/value– On the basis of extended literature review, there has been no research work to connect the strategic thinking of enterprises and their management with business excellence in times of economic crisis, which is attempted in this paper. The added value of attaining this goal during harsh times should be a beacon for the higher management in its quest for sustainable competitiveness.
Developing a model for process improvement using multiple regression technique
Authors: Sarkar Ashok , Ranjan Mukhopadhyay Arup , Kumar Ghosh Sadhan 
Published: October 2014

Purpose
– Practitioners often face challenges in model development when establishing a relationship between the input and output variables and their optimization and control. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate, with the help of a real life case example, the procedure for model development between a key process output variable, called the multi-stage flash evaporator efficiency, and the associated input process variables and their optimization using appropriate statistical and analytical techniques.

Design/methodology/approach
– This paper uses a case study approach showing how multiple regression methodology has been put into practice. The case study was executed in a leading Indian viscose fiber plant.

Findings
– The desired settings of the relevant process parameters for achieving improved efficiency have been established by appropriately using the tools and techniques from the Lean Six Sigma tool kit. The process efficiency, as measured by M3 of water evaporated per ton of steam, has improved from 3.28 to 3.48 resulting in satisfactory performance.

Originality/value
– This paper will be valuable to many practitioners of Six Sigma/Lean Six Sigma and researchers in terms of understanding the systematic application of quality and optimization tools in a real world situation.
Theory C: the near future of quality management
Authors: van Kemenade Everard 
Published: October 2014

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to develop an idea on the next step in quality management, based on the experiences of the last 100 years.

Design/methodology/approach
– A literature review has been undertaken on the history of quality management so far and on trends for the near future. Based on these findings a model has been designed to describe different elements of quality management. A focus is on the human aspects, like vision on the employee, roles of the quality manager and the skills required.

Findings
– After the control, continuous improvement and commitment paradigm the time has come for a new paradigm based on the importance of the context.

Originality/value
– The paper provides more insight into the near future of quality management in times of emergent change.
Quantifying the predictability of behaviour: statistical approaches for the study of between‐individual variation in the within‐individual variance
Authors: Cleasby Ian R. , Nakagawa Shinichi , Schielzeth Holger 
Published: October 2014

SummaryMany aspects of animal behaviour differ consistently between individuals, giving rise to the growing field of animal personality research. While between‐individual variation has long been of interest to biologists, the role of within‐individual variation has received less attention. Indeed, many models assume that the extent of within‐individual variation is the same across individuals despite the fact that individuals may often differ in their variability.Recently, the importance of within‐individual variability or predictability has been recognized within the field of animal behaviour. However, there is a lack of a consensus on how best to quantify it. This situation, in turn, has led to the development of a variety of different methods aimed at assessing how variable or predictable different individuals are.Here, we review the indices that have been proposed as proxies of individual predictability. We then introduce existing techniques called hierarchical generalized linear models (HGLMs) and double‐hierarchical generalized linear models (DHGLMs) as general tools for quantifying predictability. HGLMs and DHGLMs are extensions of random intercept mixed models that exploit the fact that variation in variances as well as variation in means can be modelled within a single overarching framework.Explicit modelling of the within‐individual residual variation by (D)HGLMs makes more efficient use of the data, performs better on unbalanced data sets and captures more of the uncertainty involved in modelling within‐individual variation than other proposed indices. In addition, (D)HGLMs yield an estimator of population‐wide variation in predictability, which can serve as a standardized effect size for comparisons across traits and studies. We call this estimator CVP, the coefficient of variation in predictability.The different methods described here and the standardized effect size CVPshould open new avenues for studying individuality in animal behaviour. Since sound understanding of individual variation is central to many studies in ecology and evolution, these methods have wide application both in the field of animal personality research and beyond.
Noradrenaline transmission reducing drugs may protect against a broad range of diseases.
Authors: Fitzgerald P. J. 
Published: October 2014

Summary1 A growing body of evidence suggests that the signalling molecule, noradrenaline (NA), plays a pathophysiological role in a broad range of psychiatric, neurological and peripheral disorders. Both preclinical and clinical data suggest that elevated NA signalling may be involved in the aetiology of major diseases such as depression, Alzheimer's disease and diabetes mellitus. 2 The molecular pathways by which NA may cause the manifestation of disease remain poorly understood, although they may include G protein‐coupled receptor modulation of the Ras/MAP kinase, Stat3 and PI3K pathways, among others. In both individual animals and humans, NA tone may be elevated largely due to genetics, but also because of the exposure to marked psychological stress or trauma, or other environmental factors. 3 As NA is involved in the ‘fight or flight’ response by the sympathetic nervous system, this transmitter may be elevated in a large number of organisms due to evolutionary selection of enhancing responses to immediate environmental dangers. Likewise, acetylcholine signalling by the parasympathetic (‘rest and digest’) nervous system may be relatively diminished. This putative autonomic imbalance may result in diminished engagement in homeostatic processes, resulting in the emergence and progression of a number of diseases throughout the body. 4 In this scenario, a large number of individuals may benefit from chronic use of pharmacological agents – such as clonidine, guanfacine, propranolol or prazosin – that diminish NA signalling throughout the body. If so, NA transmission lowering drugs may protect against a wide range of diseases.