bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Assessment of social sustainability in construction projects using social network analysis
Authors: Almahmoud Essam , Doloi Hemanta Kumar 
Published: February 2015

Purpose– This paper aims to propose a framework that puts the stakeholders at the forefront of achieving sustainability in the social context. This research, thus, argues that the social sustainability outcomes in construction are best achieved by taking into account the satisfactions of the stakeholders.Design/methodology/approach– Based on sustainability and equity theories, a dynamic assessment model has been developed to evaluate the contributions of projects in a social context. Multiple stakeholders and their differing interests associated with the construction projects have been integrated using social network analysis. The mapping of the relationships between the project stakeholders, with respect to their relative stakes and seven social core functions, have been integrated in the assessment model.Findings– The findings of this research suggest that the degree of satisfying the needs of diverse stakeholders is highly significant in achieving social sustainability performance of projects. Using a case study from Saudi Arabia, the applicability and significance of the assessment model has been demonstrated. The application of the model provides the opportunity to identify any problems and to enhance the overall performance of projects in the social context.Research limitations/implications– The functionality and efficacy of the model need to be further tested outside the Saudi Arabian region.Originality/value– The research is original in the sense that for the first time, a novel approach has been developed, putting the stakeholders at the forefront of achieving sustainability outcomes in construction projects.
The forecast of cultivate land quantity based on Grey-Markov model
Authors: Huan Hongyan , Tan Qing-mei 
Published: February 2015

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to employ the Grey-Markov Chain Model for the scale prediction of cultivated land and took an empirical research with the case of Jiangsu province.

Design/methodology/approach
– Along with China’s industrialization and urbanization accelerated, a large number of cultivated land converse into construction land. The change of utilization of cultivated land concerns national food security and sustainable development of economy and society. Due to the fact that the different investigation methods of arable land usually cause a uncertain. The Grey-Markov model combines the Grey GM(1,1) and Markov chain, with two advantages of dealing with poor information and long-term and volatile series. A numeric example of scale prediction of cultivated land in Jiangsu province is also computed in the third part of the paper.

Findings
– The results show that the Grey-Markov Chain Model has a higher prediction accuracy compared with GM (1,1), which is a reliable guarantee for the change of cultivated land resources.

Practical implications
– The forecast of cultivated land can provide useful information for the general land use planning.

Originality/value
– The paper confirmed the feasibility of the Grey-Markov model in scale prediction of cultivated land.
Appraisement and benchmarking of supply chain performance extent
Authors: Sahu Santosh Kumar , Datta Saurav , Mahapatra Siba Sankar 
Published: February 2015

Purpose
– Supply chain performance (SCP) extent can be attributed as a function of multiple criteria/attributes. Most of the criterions/attributes being intangible in nature; SCP appraisement relies on the subjective judgment of the decision makers. Moreover, quantitative appraisement of SCP appears to be very difficult due to involvement of ill-defined (vague) performance measures as well as metrics. The purpose of this paper is to develop an efficient decision support system (DSS) to facilitate SCP appraisement, benchmarking and related decision making.

Design/methodology/approach
– This study explores the concept of fuzzy logic in order to tackle incomplete and inconsistent subjective judgment of the decision makers’ whilst evaluating supply chain’s overall performance. Grey relational analysis has been adopted in the later stage to derive appropriate ranking of alternative companies/enterprises (in the same industry) in view of ongoing SCP extent.

Findings
– In this work, a performance appraisement index system has been postulated to gather evaluation information (weights and ratings) in relation to SCP measures and metrics. Combining the concepts of fuzzy set theory, entropy, ideal and grey relation analysis, a fuzzy grey relation method for SCP benchmarking problem has been presented. First, triangular fuzzy numbers and linguistic evaluation information characterized by triangular fuzzy numbers have been used to evaluate the importance weights of all criteria and the superiority of all alternatives vs various criteria above the alternative level. Then, the concept of entropy has been utilized to solve the adjusted integration weight of all objective criteria above the alternative level. Moreover, using the concept of the grey ration grades, various alternatives have been ranked accordingly.

Originality/value
– Finally, an empirical example of selecting most appropriate company has been used to demonstrate the ease of applicability of the aforesaid approach. The study results showed that this method appears to be an effective means for tackling multi-criteria decision-making problems in uncertain environments. Empirical data have been analysed and results obtained thereof, have been reported to exhibit application potential of the said fuzzy grey relation based DSS in appropriate situation.
Detecting communities in social networks by local affinity propagation with grey relational analysis
Authors: Guo Kun , Zhang Qishan 
Published: February 2015

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to discover social communities from the social networks by propagating affinity messages among members in a localized way. The affinity between any two members is computed by grey relational analysis method.

Design/methodology/approach
– First, the responsibility messages and the availability messages are restricted to be broadcasted only among a node and its neighbours, i.e. the nodes that connected to it directly. In this way, both the time complexity and the space complexity can be reduced to be near linear to the network size. The near-linear time and space complexity is quite important for social network analysis because social networks are generally very large. Second, instead of the widely used Euclidean distance, the grey relational degree is adopted in the calculation of node similarity, because the latter is more suitable for the discovery of the hidden relations among the nodes. On the basis of the two improvements, a new social community detection algorithm is proposed. Finally, experiments are conducted to verify the performance of the new algorithm.

Findings
– The new algorithm is evaluated by the experiments on both the real-world and the artificial data sets. The experimental results prove the proposed algorithm to be quite effective and efficient at community discovery.

Practical implications
– The algorithm proposed in the paper can be applied to discover communities in many social networks. After the recognition of the social communities, the authors can send advertisements, spot valuable customers or locate criminals more precisely.

Originality/value
– The new algorithm revises the affinity propagation progress to be localized to improve both time and space complexity. Furthermore, the grey relational analysis is applied to solve the complex relations among members of the social networks.
An application of 5S concept to organize the workplace at a scientific instruments manufacturing company
Authors: Gupta Shaman , Jain Sanjiv Kumar 
Published: February 2015

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to use the 5S tool to assist a small-scale manufacturing organization to become more productive and more efficient.

Design/methodology/approach
– A simple approach has been adopted to create the teams for implementing 5S. Cause-and-effect diagram has been studied for shop floor analysis. Later, four data collection methods have been used to ensure right implementation of the 5S.

Findings
– In the frames of this case study, it has been analyzed that implementation of “5S” resulted in overall improvement of the organization. With the implementation of “5S”, major benefits in the form of tool searching time have been achieved. Tool searching time from shop floor has been reduced from 30 minutes to 5 minutes. “5S” audit has been conducted in the organization. “5S” audit score has been increased from 7 (Week 1) to 55 (Week 20).

Practical implications
– 5S is a powerful tool and can be implemented in various industries whether micro, small, medium or large. Implementation of 5S has large horizontal development and can be implemented in all the workstations of an organization.

Originality/value
– The publications and case study presented in this paper will be useful to researchers, professionals and others concerned with this subject to understand the significance of 5S.
Mentoring for women starting a PhD: a “free zone” into academic identity
Authors: Stroude Aurianne , Bellier-Teichmann Tanja , Cantero Odile , Dasoki Nora , Kaeser Laure , Ronca Miriam , Morin Diane 
Published: February 2015

Purpose
– Despite increasing numbers of women attaining higher levels in academic degrees, gender disparities remain in higher education and among university faculty. Authors have posited that this may stem from inadequate academic identity development of women at the doctoral level. While gender differences may be explained by multiple and variable factors, mentoring has been proposed as a viable means to promote academic identity development and address these gender gaps. A “StartingDoc program” was launched and supported by four universities in French-speaking Switzerland. The purpose of this paper is to report the experience of one of the six “many-to-one” mentoring groups involved in the StartingDoc program in 2012-2013.

Design/methodology/approach
– This study is based on the description of a group experience within a university-based mentoring scheme offered to women entering in their PhD program in French-speaking Switzerland. It is examined using a qualitative, narrative case study design.

Findings
– Themes from the narrative analysis included the four dimensions of the Clutterbuck model of mentoring (guiding, coaching, counselling, networking), as well as an additional five emerging themes: first expectations, process, sharing, building identity, and unmet expectations. The qualitative analyses suggest that mentoring can be an effective tool in supporting professional identity development among female doctoral students. However, further work is needed to elucidate the most effective strategies for developing and retaining women in academia.

Originality/value
– While a many-to-one mentoring group has been theorized and is recognized as an effective means of supporting doctoral experience, its implementation in French-speaking Switzerland is in its infancy. This study provides insights into the value of such a mentoring scheme dedicated to women at the very beginning of their doctoral studies. Most notably it created opportunities for mentees to: discover aspects of academic life; break isolation; and develop some of the soft skills required to facilitate their doctoral journey.
Dialectical tensions experienced by diversified mentoring dyads
Authors: Meyer Marcy 
Published: February 2015

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to examine diversified mentoring relationships (DMRs) at a mid-sized Midwestern state university (MMSU) in the USA.Design/methodology/approach– The author conducted semi-structured interviews with 14 MMSU faculty members and professional personnel who comprised seven diversified mentoring dyads. The mentees were primarily members of underrepresented minority (URMs) groups, whereas the majority of mentors were members of the dominant culture.Findings– A thematic analysis of the data, grounded in the literature on developmental relationships and relational dialectics theory (RDT), reveals tensions that diversified mentoring dyads experienced, as well as communication strategies that dyad members used to manage these tensions.Research limitations/implications– Although this research is limited by its small sample size and unique geographic location, the findings offer in-depth insight and practical implications for URM faculty members in predominantly white institutions around the globe.Practical implications– The findings of this study have important implications for training supervisors, mentors, and senior colleagues of URM faculty members.Originality/value– This study is unique in that it examines DMRs from a dyadic communication perspective; moreover, it applies RDT to DMRs in organizations.
Building a sustainable structure to support the Adaptive Mentorship model in teacher education
Authors: Salm Twyla , Mulholland Val 
Published: February 2015

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to develop a deeper understanding of how to implement a professional development training strategy for the Adaptive Mentorship (AM) model (Ralph and Walker, 2010a) and explore how cooperating teachers used the model, not only to assist pre-service teachers in their development, but also to reflect on their role as a mentor.Design/methodology/approach– This research design uses a collective case study approach. The researchers are positioned in the study as active agents, not only in the traditional way as administrating a questionnaire but as participant leaders. The questionnaire was designed to collect data on the frequency of use and effectiveness of the AM model. It was sent to cooperating teachers, for two years from two different cohorts (n=141,n=123).Findings– By the end of the second year 84 percent of the cooperating teachers said they “did or mostly did” understand the AM model after the seminar. Less than half of the cooperating teachers (42 percent) recommended that the AM model should be used at seminar. Of the rest, while 21 percent were not in favor of the AM model being used, 37 percent would consider using it at seminar. The findings in this study suggest that for many cooperating teachers the notion of reciprocal development had not yet permeated their consciousness.Originality/value– This study will guide future cooperating teacher professional development sessions to support cooperating teachers as they make the paradigmatic shift from supervisor to mentor. To the knowledge it is the only study that explores the professional development training necessary for implementing the AM model with an entire cohort of interns.
Equality of mentoring and coaching opportunity: making both available to pre-service teachers
Authors: Salter Tina 
Published: February 2015

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to explore why mentoring is preferred over coaching when supporting pre-service teachers, compared with other stages in a teacher’s career where coaching is more readily available.

Design/methodology/approach
– The paper first draws upon pre-existing literature which addresses the ways in which mentoring is used for pre-service teachers; followed by a discussion of the place and use of coaching within education. It then focuses on data generated from interviews with senior teachers responsible for the induction of pre-service teachers within three UK-based secondary schools and compares this to findings about mentor and coach approaches used in other sectors or contexts.

Findings
– Findings point towards an imbalance in the use of mentoring and coaching within education, with a particular underuse of coaching for pre-service teachers. Some mentoring (and indeed coaching) interventions are founded on a deficit model; therefore mentors of pre-service teachers could be helped and supported to make greater use of a mentor-coach integrated asset-based approach, which encourages the use of reflection and self-directed learning.

Practical implications
– Schools using internal mentors for pre-service teachers, or internal coaches for post-qualified teachers, could benefit from understanding what a mentor-coach integrated approach might look like, founded on an asset-based model.

Originality/value
– The literature is limited with regards to the use of coaching for pre-service teachers. This paper examines the use of mentoring and coaching within schools in a more balanced way; questioning the underlying beliefs about the purpose of mentoring and coaching and whether or not these are based on deficit or asset-based models.
Integrating environmental management into supply chains
Authors: Wong Chee Yew , Wong Christina WY , Boon-itt Sakun 
Published: February 2015

Purpose– The need to integrate environmental management into supply chains has been recognized recently. Yet, there is a lack of theoretical ground and conceptual framework guiding such efforts to leverage resources and capabilities across supply chain partners. Grounded on stakeholder and resource orchestration theories, the purpose of this paper is to map the emerging practices, develops a theoretical framework, and proposes future research for understanding an emerging best-practice called “green supply chain integration” (GSCI).Design/methodology/approach– A systematic literature review of 142 academic articles is conducted to ensure the process of framework development is auditable and repeatable. The article selection criteria are aligned with the review question ensuring that related theories and practices are identified and evaluated.Findings– The paper illustrates how stakeholder and resource orchestration theories can be used to explain an integrative approach of environmental management in supply chains. The paper identifies four GSCI practices – internal, supplier, customer, and stakeholder GSCI. A theoretical framework and proposition also provide for new directions of research.Research limitations/implications– The results of this paper are drawn from an extensive review of the existing literature and novel practices that have not been revealed and could have been missed. The emerging practices and theoretical framework can be used for further empirical investigation.Originality/value– This paper integrates theoretical concepts and empirical findings from the disparate literature and identifies four emerging practices of environmental management by developing a theoretical framework and proposition for future research.
Antecedents and dimensions of supply chain robustness: a systematic literature review
Authors: Durach Christian F. , Wieland Andreas , Machuca Jose A.D. 
Published: February 2015

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to provide groundwork for an emerging theory of supply chain robustness – which has been conceptualized as a dimension of supply chain resilience – through reviewing and synthesizing related yet disconnected studies. The paper develops a formal definition of supply chain robustness to build a framework that captures the dimensions, antecedents and moderators of the construct as discussed in the literature.

Design/methodology/approach
– The authors apply a systematic literature review approach. In order to reduce researcher bias, they involve a team of academics, librarians and managers.

Findings
– The paper first, provides a formal definition of supply chain robustness; second, builds a theoretical framework of supply chain robustness that augments both causal and descriptive knowledge; third,shows how findings in this review support practice; and fourth,reveals methodological insights on the use of journal rankings in reviews.

Research limitations/implications
– At this stage, managers may benefit from seeing these relationships as clues derived from the literature. The paper is fundamentally a call for researchers to conduct quantitative testing of such relationships to derive more reliable understanding and practical applications.

Practical implications
– Rather than presenting empirical findings, this paper reveals to managers that visibility, risk management orientation and reduced network complexity have been the main predictive antecedents of supply chain robustness (as discussed in the academic literature). This provides a potentially important signal as to where to invest resources.

Originality/value
– The study is the first to develop a formal definition of supply chain robustness and to establish a comprehensive theoretical framework for understanding the construct.
The new round of reform of state-owned enterprises
Authors: Yang Weidong 
Published: February 2015

Purpose
– This paper aims to review the state-owned enterprise (SOE) reform in China and analyzes the role of the Chinese Government in the progress of the SOE reform. It provides suggestions to better guide the direction of further reforms of the SOEs in China.

Design/methodology/approach
– This paper reviews the historical path of the SOE reform in China and analyzes the underline policy implication associated with the reform.

Findings
– The success of the function-oriented SOE reform depends on the transformation of governmental functions. Only with the linkage of governmental functions reform can we change the existing pattern of economic development, build a solid foundation for the socialist market economy and achieve the final triumph.

Originality/value
– This paper provides suggestions to better guide the direction of further reforms of the SOEs in China.
Enhancing dynamic capability: a case of Microlit
Authors: Joshi Manoj , Srivastava Apoorva 
Published: February 2015

Purpose– This study/paper aims to create an understanding on how a firm develops dynamic capabilities in new strategic dimensions. Innovation in organizations is not an exclusive domain of large firms. Family-owned and -managed firms have aggressively integrated innovation. Focussed orientation towards product innovation combined with innovative capability and high levels of owner-manager motivation has helped translate technology-based family businesses into highly profitable and competitive ventures. Microlit, is a liquid handling product manufacturer producing high-quality, high-tech, cost-effective, single and multichannel micropipettes. Founded in 1988, by brothers Ajay and Atul Jain, it is based in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India. The key contributor to the firm’s success has been its strong customer-oriented product designs. The challenge lies in development of dynamic capabilities to gain competence in new strategic dimensions? Would the firm be able to leverage its innovation drive?Design/methodology/approach– The case is based on primary and secondary testing of the case several times and filling the case gaps during the process. To authenticate information, multiple sources of information have been used.Findings– Dynamic capabilities are essential for a firm’s growth. The challenge is in continuously harnessing and managing it within a family business.Research limitations/implications– The findings are based on observations of one company and research carried through secondary sources, which may limit the theory creation.Practical implications– An enterprise largely competes on the basis of available talent, knowledge, competency and capability. Therefore, knowledge must be managed, and especially, from tacit to explicit.Originality/value– The case is original with the business family in its second generation striving to perform amidst professionalization and internationalization.