bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Co-operation – the missing value of business education
Authors: E. Witte Anne 
Published: April 2014

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that co-operation is a vital behavioral skill that should be developed in educational systems, particularly business and management programs, because it is an intangible factor that boosts productive output.Design/methodology/approach– The paper explains why co-operation is an important intangible factor for organizations and the larger economy. It recommends the development of educational designs to remediate the pedagogical lack of focus on the cooperative disposition.Findings– Co-operation is contingent on trust – an indispensable factor to engage in distant relations, accept rule of law across nations, and confer in intermediaries the authority to arbitrate unresolved differences between organizations. In other words, without co-operation, people within organizations commit themselves to parochial concerns, inhibiting efforts to combine resources toward a collective goal. The lack of a cooperative attitude is not destiny – it can be forged through careful educational designs and organizational strategy.Research limitations/implications– There is little empirical data available to measure co-operation in a diverse environment and co-operation is an intangible concept that is difficult to pin to specific organizational habits. The concepts developed here based on broad social science data would do will to be tested in an empirical framework at the micro level.Practical implications– Low co-operation arises in an environment which does not foster trust. Management might inadvertently reward low organizational capacity by not evaluating co-operation and monitoring narcissism. Recruiters need to adapt recruitment strategies that pinpoint individuals capable of managing the specific co-operation needs of situational organizations, especially in diverse situations. A successful managerial education program will target training that optimizes thoughtful and sustainable co-operation.Social implications– Co-operation is a factor of sustainability for development but also for the modern organization. It is both a moral and methodological disposition that fosters collective action positively, while inhibiting in-group interests.Originality/value– Formal management training to instill a thoughtful sense of co-operation would complement the current emphasis on teamwork and leadership. Without the moral and methodological goal of being co-operative for the greater good, organizations waste human resources and fail to reap benefits from collective productions.
Beyond a single organization: challenges and opportunities in doing field level ethnography
Authors: B. Zilber Tammar 
Published: April 2014

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to offer a road map for carrying out field-level ethnography, focussing on the inter-organizational space collectively constructed and shared by communities of organizations.Design/methodology/approach– The argument is developed through a critical and integrated review of relevant literature.Findings– Field-level ethnographic work requires researchers to define the field they are exploring, locate their specific research site within it, capture the field through ethnographic practices that take into account the unique characteristics of this local field as a social phenomenon, and deploy various conceptualizations of inter-organizational spheres in order to enrich their analysis and interpretations.Practical implications– This paper offers practical insights for practitioners of field-level ethnography.Originality/value– As organizations are open-systems that reside and take part in much broader, inter-organizational spaces, the author makes a case for going beyond the more common practice of carrying out ethnographic field work in a single organization, to doing field-level ethnography. The paper discusses various theorizations of the inter-organizational sphere, suggest how to carry field-level ethnography in practice, and note its peculiar challenges.
Researching spatial practices through Commentated Walks: “on the move” and “walking with”
Authors: Raulet-Croset Nathalie , Borzeix Anni 
Published: April 2014

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to explore how the combination of a qualitative shadowing method called “Commentated Walk” and an ethnographic approach, can be used to analyze the spatial dimension of practices, when space is considered as a co-construction and as an active dimension of individual and collective practices.

Design/methodology/approach
– The approach is ethnographic and the empirical field work concerns the coordination in ephemeral organizations intended to manage emergent phenomena: the social “problems” often named “urban incivilities,” which occur in public and semi-public spaces in some suburban areas in France and are recurrent.

Findings
– In these organizations, space appears to be part of individual and collective practices, and a key resource for coordination. Shared “spaces of action” between inhabitants and local institutions contribute to coordination. As a method of data collection, Commentated Walks offer relevant insight into how actors “deal with space” in their day-to-day life or their professional practices. Walking with while talking with – the method's principals – make it possible to capture the materiality of problematic spaces as well as the feelings that the space inspires.

Research limitations/implications
– The use of this method is still exploratory. In further research, it would be interesting to consider such Commentated Walks in other organizational contexts, in order to explore different ways of “dealing with” space and different types of spatial competencies that people develop in using space as a resource.

Originality/value
– This paper proposes an original combination of methodological approaches which allows us to grasp the formation of spatial practices.
The “Green Mile”: crystallization ethnography in an emotive context
Authors: C. Tallberg Linda , J. Jordan Peter , Boyle Maree 
Published: April 2014

Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to discuss emotions within a highly emotive organizational setting through the use of crystallization. The authors contend that the expression of a researcher's positionality as a presence within their research is crucial in contexts where conventional research approaches are unable to capture the depth of the phenomenon under study. The paper argues that the presentation of research findings from highly emotional organizational context will benefit from a challenge to traditional ways of representing and communicating the researcher's experience. As an example of this, in this paper the authors examine the emotions involved in experiencing animal euthanasia in a work context.Design/methodology/approach– The paper draws ethnographic methods of fieldwork in an Australian animal shelter. The paper uses autoethnography and interview data.Findings– Euthanasia is one of the most tolling experiences for animal shelter workers. This paper reveals that through a creative representation this experience may come induce understanding of the emotive context. Furthermore, the employees adapt one or more story-lines to deal with the conflict of euthanasia.Originality/value– The strength of this paper is that it uses a novel approach to present findings in the form of crystallization. It also furthers insight on how organizational members explain their involvement in emotive work-tasks.
Inhibition of acid corrosion of mild steel by aqueous nettle extracts
Authors: Zaabar Aida , Aitout Razika , Makhloufi Laid , Belhamel Kamel , Saidani Boualem 
Published: April 2014

Purpose
– The aim of this research was to investigate the use of aqueous extracts of nettle plant (NE) as a green corrosion inhibitor of mild steel in hydrochloric acid solution.

Design/methodology/approach
– The inhibition efficiency was investigated by weight loss measurements, potentiodynamic polarizations, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, SEM observations and EDX analysis.

Findings
– The inhibition efficiency increased with an increase in concentration of NE up to a critical concentration of 1.5×10−3 g · cm−3 where the highest inhibition efficiency of 97 percent was obtained. The adsorption of the inhibitor was spontaneous (reflected by the negative value of ΔGads0), supported the mechanism of physical adsorption and obeyed to the Langmuir adsorption isotherm. The inhibition action of the extracts was independent on the storage time; it could be conserved without any specific conditions of time and temperature.

Research limitations/implications
– The anticorrosion effect can be better understood when the active compound in the extracts is identified and what is the inhibition efficiency of one component in the presence of another in the mixture (synergetic or antagonist effects).

Practical implications
– Nettle is a healthy plant, without particular toxicity that can find possible applications as environmentally friendly inhibitor of mild steel used as materials in food industry.

Originality/value
– Aqueous nettle extracts were studied for the first time as corrosion inhibitor and its anticorrosion effect was proven by standard methods.
A cross-cultural study of purchase intention of sponsored products based on American and Korean spectators of the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa
Authors: K. Byon Kevin , Lee Soonhwan , A. Baker Thomas 
Published: April 2014

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is: to explain the relative influence of attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control on purchase intention of the 2010 FIFA World Cup sponsored products; and to compare the purchase intention of American and Korean spectators toward sponsoring products of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. The structural equation modeling (SEM) revealed that subjective norm and perceived behavioral control were predictors of purchase intention. Further, multiple group analysis revealed that the path coefficient between subjective norm and purchase intention for the two groups was significantly different.

Design/methodology/approach
– A self-administered questionnaire was developed to measure the four constructs of the theory of planned behavior (TBP) as well as demographic information. Upon completion of the psychometric properties test of the TPB, a SEM was conducted to examine the proposed hypotheses. The same fit indices as with the measurement model were adopted to evaluate the model fit. Finally, a multi-group analysis was conducted to examine if the proposed relationships are different based on nationality (American vs Korean samples). A comparison of χ2 value between unconstrained and constrained models was employed to assess whether the two groups are statistically different.

Findings
– SEM revealed that subjective norm and perceived behavioral control were predictors of purchase intention. In this study, a multi-group analysis was conducted to examine if the proposed relationships in our model are different based on nationality. As a result, we found that two groups (i.e. American vs Korean) exhibited notable differences in subjective norms in determining purchase intentions of the 2010 FIFA World Cup sponsored products.

Originality/value
– Sponsors for mega sporting events, like the FIFA World Cup, must develop global marketing plans that appeal to worldwide audiences. Sport marketers, therefore, need cross-cultural marketing analysis on equivalence and bias so that they better understand how spectators from different cultures behave after consuming the same event. Thus, application of the TPB in cross-cultural studies aimed at understanding consumer intention after spectating the FIFA World Cup would provide marketers with valuable information for the formation of global marketing strategies.
Home advantage, rivalry, and referee bias in representative rugby
Authors: S. Areni Charles 
Published: April 2014

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to examine whether home advantage (HA), wherein a team is more likely to win, and by a larger margin, when they are playing at home vs away, exists in representative rugby competitions involving teams comprised of “all-star” players from several clubs. It also assesses whether referees are biased in favour of the home team, and whether this is the cause of HA.

Design/methodology/approach
– A complete consensus of matches from the State of Origin Rugby League and Tri Nations Rugby Union competitions were analysed via hierarchical regression models estimating parameters for favourite/underdog status of teams, general home/away status, team-specific home/away status, and rivalry-specific home/away status.

Findings
– Significant HA exists in both competitions, and within Tri Nations, the size of the effect varies by team and specific opponent (i.e. rivalry effects). Although there is evidence of referee bias in favour of the home team, the penalty differential between the home and away teams does not mediate HA.

Originality/value
– This is the first study examining HA in representative rugby league, and shows a statistically significant effect. Further, the results reported here refute an earlier investigation of the Tri Nations competition, which found little or no evidence of HA. By including a complete census of all matches rather than a small sample, this research finds a statistically significant HA effect, which varies by team and by specific rivalry.
Revisiting food‐based models of territoriality in solitary predators
Authors: López‐Bao José V. , Rodríguez Alejandro , Delibes Miguel , Fedriani José M. , Calzada Javier , Ferreras Pablo , Palomares Francisco 
Published: April 2014

Summary

Food availability is considered a major factor determining spacing behaviour in territorial species, especially for females. Theoretically, spatial overlap (considered the opposite of territoriality) and food availability are related in a nonlinear manner (hypothesized inverted‐U function), with high overlap levels at the extremes of a food availability gradient and low overlap at intermediate levels of this gradient. Similar patterns are expected for encounter frequencies owing to its expected correlation with spatial overlap. However, these predictions have rarely been tested in highly structured social systems on a broad gradient of food availability, which implicitly requires experimental manipulation.

We test these predictions in a solitary, territorial and trophic specialist, the Iberian lynx Lynx pardinus, taking advantage of a three‐decade data set of spatial behaviour in different scenarios of food availability (i.e. rabbit density).

In contrast with expectations, home range overlap among resident females was low (median overlap index = 0·08, range 0–0·57) and core area overlap was nearly nil (median overlap index = 0, range 0–0·22) throughout the entire gradient of prey availability. Furthermore, spatial associations between pairs of females were negligible regardless marked variation in prey availability. Therefore, we did not find support for a model of flexible lynx territoriality driven by food availability.

Our results suggest that the exclusive use of space in the Iberian lynx was not related to food. Lack of influence of prey availability on lynx territoriality may be adaptive to cope with the consequences of frequent drought‐induced periods of prey scarcity or other disturbance typically affecting wild rabbit populations in Mediterranean environments. Thus, lynx would adopt an obstinate strategy of territoriality that consists in defending exclusive areas across a broad range of resource availability ensuring an exclusive access to the minimum amount of prey necessary for survival and eventually reproduction even during periods of prey scarcity. However, we found signs that territoriality was influenced by lynx density in a nonlinear fashion. Our results suggest the occurrence of population regulation through territoriality in this species.
Ant functional responses along environmental gradients
Authors: Arnan Xavier , Cerdá Xim , Retana Javier 
Published: April 2014

Summary

Understanding species distributions and diversity gradients is a central challenge in ecology and requires prior knowledge of the functional traits mediating species’ survival under particular environmental conditions. While the functional ecology of plants has been reasonably well explored, much less is known about that of animals. Ants are among the most diverse, abundant and ecologically significant organisms on earth, and they perform a great variety of ecological functions.

In this study, we analyse how the functional species traits present in ant communities vary along broad gradients in climate, productivity and vegetation type in the south‐western Mediterranean.

To this end, we compiled one of the largest animal databases to date: it contains information on 211 local ant communities (including eight climate variables, productivity, and vegetation type) and 124 ant species, for which 10 functional traits are described. We used traits that characterize different dimensions of the ant functional niche with respect to morphology, life history and behaviour at both individual and colony level. We calculated two complementary functional trait community indices (‘trait average’ and ‘trait dissimilarity’) for each trait, and we analysed how they varied along the three different gradients using generalized least squares models that accounted for spatial autocorrelation.

Our results show that productivity, vegetation type and, to a lesser extent, each climate variable per se might play an important role in shaping the occurrence of functional species traits in ant communities. Among the climate variables, temperature and precipitation seasonality had a much higher influence on functional responses than their mean values, whose effects were almost lacking.

Our results suggest that strong relationships might exist between the abiotic environment and the distribution of functional traits among south‐western Mediterranean ant communities. This finding indicates that functional traits may modulate the responses of ant species to the environment. Since these traits act as the link between species distributions and the environment, they could potentially be used to predict community changes under future global change scenarios.
Experimentally decoupling reproductive investment from energy storage to test the functional basis of a life‐history trade‐off
Authors: Cox Robert M. , Lovern Matthew B. , Calsbeek Ryan 
Published: April 2014

SummaryThe ubiquitous life‐history trade‐off between reproduction and survival has long been hypothesized to reflect underlying energy‐allocation trade‐offs between reproductive investment and processes related to self‐maintenance. Although recent work has questioned whether energy‐allocation models provide sufficient explanations for the survival cost of reproduction, direct tests of this hypothesis are rare, especially in wild populations.This hypothesis was tested in a wild population of brown anole lizards (Anolis sagrei) using a two‐step experiment. First, stepwise variation in reproductive investment was created using unilateral and bilateral ovariectomy (OVX) along with intact (SHAM) control. Next, this manipulation was decoupled from its downstream effects on energy storage by surgically ablating the abdominal fat stores from half of the females in each reproductive treatment.As predicted, unilateralOVX(intermediate reproductive investment) induced levels of growth, body condition, fat storage and breeding‐season survival that were intermediate between the high levels of bilateralOVX(no reproductive investment) and the low levels ofSHAM(full reproductive investment).Ablation of abdominal fat bodies had a strong and persistent effect on energy stores, but it did not influence post‐breeding survival in any of the three reproductive treatments. This suggests that the energetic savings of reduced reproductive investment do not directly enhance post‐breeding survival, with the caveat that only one aspect of energy storage was manipulated andOVXitself had no overall effect on post‐breeding survival.This study supports the emerging view that simple energy‐allocation models may often be insufficient as explanations for the life‐history trade‐off between reproduction and survival.
Scale‐ and time‐dependent effects of fertilization, mowing and dominant removal on a grassland community during a 15‐year experiment
Authors: Lepš Jan 
Published: April 2014

Summary

Multiple land‐use change drivers affect, in most cases negatively, the biodiversity in species‐rich meadows. Empirical data that can help to disentangle the effects of individual drivers and quantify the time required for a biodiversity response are seldom available. Management decisions are often based on short‐term experiments or observational data.

A 15‐year field experiment, comprising a factorial combination of fertilization, mowing and removal of the dominant species Molinia caerulea, was established in an oligotrophic wet meadow in Czech Republic. Each of the eight factorial combinations was replicated three times. Percentage cover for all species was monitored annually in 1‐m2 plots and species' presence recorded in each cell of a continuous square grid of 25 cells (0·1 × 0·1 m each). These data enabled various scale‐dependent estimates of species richness.

The species composition of individual treatment combinations diverged over time, particularly at the start of the experiment, and by the latter stages resembled various typical grassland communities from the surrounding landscape. Fertilization had the most pronounced effect, leading to a sharp decrease in species richness, most rapidly at the smallest spatial scale. Mowing had on average a positive effect on species richness and led in most cases to spatially homogeneous species composition. The removal of Molinia had a positive effect on species richness, especially in unmown unfertilized plots.

The effects of each factor were dependent on the combination of the other two factors, and also on time, with some effects continuously increasing throughout and some diminishing by the end of the experiment. The process of competitive exclusion with fertilization and cessation of mowing was, in some treatment combinations, rather slow.

Synthesis and applications. Land‐use change drivers act in combination, and their effects on the structure of species‐rich wet meadows are dependent on both the temporal and spatial scales considered. Short‐term experiments might underestimate the response of vegetation and thus provide erroneous conservation recommendations. Mowing was only effective in preventing species richness decline caused by fertilization in the short term. The presence of a single dominant species can modify the effectiveness of conservation measures.
Land Tenure in the Changing Peri‐Urban Areas of Ethiopia: The Case of Bahir Dar City
Authors: Adam Achamyeleh Gashu 
Published: April 2014

AbstractEthiopia's urban expansion and development strategy has been based on the acquisition of land by government from adjacent peri‐urban areas. The land in the peri‐urban areas is predominantly agricultural in nature, and it has been held by local farmers or landholders. This article aims to examine the nature of urban expansion and development from the perspective of the land rights of the local peri‐urban landholders. To achieve this purpose, it has employed a case‐study approach. As urban territory extends into adjacent peri‐urban areas, the land rights of local landholders are expected to be automatically cancelled and transferred to people who can pay for a lease. This shows that very little attention is paid to the land rights of local landholders in peri‐urban areas in the process of urban expansion and development. Therefore, it is not difficult to imagine that local landholders in those areas have a prevailing sense of insecurity about their land.