bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Public and communal spaces and their relation to the spatial dynamics of ethnic riots
Authors: Kutmanaliev Joldon 
Published: June 2015

Purpose– This paper is one of the first attempts to explain the local dynamics of the 2010 ethnic riots in Kyrgyzstan. No scholarly work has attempted to systematically analyze the 2010 ethnic violence and its local dynamics on the neighborhood scale. The purpose of this paper is to shed light on this gap by analyzing neighborhoods’ responses to the emerging violence in the city of Osh. In order to do this, the author compares two typical neighborhoods in Osh, one violent and the other non-violent, with different spatial structures and built environments that demonstrate/represent similar dynamics of riots in many other neighborhoods.Design/methodology/approach– The empirical findings of this paper are based on the ethnographic fieldwork the author carried out in 2010 and between 2012 and 2014. During nine months (in total) of the author’s ethnographic fieldwork, the author conducted around 60 semi-structured interviews in Osh city mainly with community leaders. In the author’s interview sampling, the author used two approaches: the snowball method and geographically/territorially representative sampling.Findings– The author argues that among other factors, a particular type of public space provides favorable conditions for riot occurrence or non-occurrence. For example, in Osh, such places as areas around the central bazaar and densely populated multi-story building complexes were especially riot-prone. By contrast, residential areas with individual-unit houses and low residential mobility represented communally private spaces with more easy riot-control. In addition, some residential areas implemented strategies such as physical self-isolation to avoid violence. By restricting freedom of movement and erecting improvised barricades, the residents of such neighborhoods created a temporally new space with its own rules and interethnic cooperation.Originality/value– This paper suggests new insights in the analysis of riots by connecting theoretical categories and concepts of space provided by scholars of contentious politics and applying them to the case of the 2010 ethnic riots in Osh city. By analyzing riot dynamics on the neighborhood scale, this research contributes to the understanding of the spatial dynamics of ethnic riots.
Marketization and the public-private divide
Authors: Rekhviashvili Lela 
Published: June 2015

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to critically examine the reasons behind a decade long contestations between the Georgian government and the petty traders over the access to the public space for commercial use.Design/methodology/approach– The paper relies on the repeated ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Tbilisi in 2012 and 2013. The ethnographic interviews with legally operating traders and illegal street vendors are supplemented by the in-depth interviews with the representatives of the city government and secondary literature on Georgia’s post-revolutionary transformation.Findings– Bridging the critical literature on the politics of the public space with Polanyi’s theory on commodification of fictitious commodities as a precondition of establishment of a market economy, the author argues that for the Georgian government control of the public space was necessary to pursue neoliberal marketisation policies. These policies required removal of the petty traders from public spaces because the state needed to restrict access to public space and limit its commercial usage to delineate public and private property and allow commodification of the urban land and property. As the commodification intensified and the rent prices started growing and fluctuating, the access to the public space became even more valuable for the petty traders. Therefore, the traders developed subversive tactics undermining the division between public and private space and property.Originality/value– The paper demonstrates the importance of enforcing the public-private divide in the process of establishing a market economy in transitional settings. Moreover, it illustrates little discussed social costs of establishing such a divide.
Davabirzhaot! Conflicting claims on public space in Tbilisi between transparency and opaqueness
Authors: Curro Costanza 
Published: June 2015

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to investigate the form of young male socialisation referred to as birzha, in its relation to public space in Georgia. Birzha defines a group of young men who meet regularly in urban open spaces in Tbilisi’s neighbourhoods. Partly considered as the initial step of a criminal career, belonging to birzha is a mark of identification with one’s local group. The contested nature of public space is illustrated by the conflicting relation between birzha’s bottom-up use of public space and top-down projects of urban renovation sought by Saakashvili’s government.

Design/methodology/approach
– Drawing upon literary and media sources, and analysing fieldwork data collected in 2008-2009 and 2014, this study explores how the announced (re)construction of public space under Saakashvili resulted in institutional interventions from above which curtailed public space’s accessibility.

Findings
– The present analysis points out contradictions in Saakashvili’s government’s political narrative on public space. In the institutional focus on a future of order, transparency, and democracy, birzha is an insistent reminder of an informal and corrupted past. Banned from futuristic projections of the public space, in the present birzha is annihilated by state repression, enforced in opaque zones out of public sight.

Originality/value
– Focusing on a largely overlooked phenomenon in social science research, the paper highlights the ways in which conflicting approaches to public space affect the relation between political institutions and citizens. Delving into ambivalent public/private divides in post-socialist societies, the study of Georgian birzha offers an original angle for investigating the contestation of urban public space in relation to political legitimacy and transparency.
Mediation and time-lag analyses of e-alignment and e-collaboration capabilities
Authors: Chi Maomao , Zhao Jing , George Joey F. 
Published: June 2015

Purpose
– Based on the literature of IT strategic alignment and e-collaboration, the purpose of this paper is to specify how e-business strategic alignment (e-alignment) influences e-collaboration capabilities and improves firm performance, and whether the time-lag effect existed in this relationship.

Design/methodology/approach
– The authors tested the research hypotheses using a field survey of 145 Chinese corporations. The research model was validated using SmartPLS 2.0 with both subjective and objective data collected from the survey and Oriana database.

Findings
– The results support the notion of a positive and significant link between e-alignment and e-collaboration capabilities and between e-collaboration capabilities and firm performance. The authors also show that the effect of e-alignment on performance is fully mediated by e-collaboration capabilities and that e-collaboration with suppliers has a one-year time-lag effect on firm performance.

Research limitations/implications
– This research extends and integrates the literature on IT strategic alignment and e-collaboration, and explains why and how e-alignment generates firm performance.

Practical implications
– This paper includes two implications for managers. First, when formulating e-business strategies, managers should focus on establishing e-collaboration capabilities with partners. Second, the downstream process is the direct sources of business value. Managers should take the establishment of e-selling process as a critical business strategy.

Originality/value
– By focussed on intermediate factors and time-lag effects, this study provides significant implications for IT strategic alignment and e-collaboration literature.
Integrating multi-criteria decision making and clustering for business customer segmentation
Authors: Güçdemir Hülya , Selim Hasan 
Published: June 2015

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to develop a systematic approach for business customer segmentation.

Design/methodology/approach
– This study proposes an approach for business customer segmentation that integrates clustering and multi-criteria decision making (MCDM). First, proper segmentation variables are identified and then customers are grouped by using hierarchical and partitional clustering algorithms. The approach extended the recency-frequency-monetary (RFM) model by proposing five novel segmentation variables for business markets. To confirm the viability of the proposed approach, a real-world application is presented. Three agglomerative hierarchical clustering algorithms namely “Ward’s method,” “single linkage” and “complete linkage,” and a partitional clustering algorithm, “k-means,” are used in segmentation. In the implementation, fuzzy analytic hierarchy process is employed to determine the importance of the segments.

Findings
– Business customers of an international original equipment manufacturer (OEM) are segmented in the application. In this regard, 317 business customers of the OEM are segmented as “best,” “valuable,” “average,” “potential valuable” and “potential invaluable” according to the cluster ranks obtained in this study. The results of the application reveal that the proposed approach can effectively be used in practice for business customer segmentation.

Research limitations/implications
– The success of the proposed approach relies on the availability and quality of customers’ data. Therefore, design of an extensive customer database management system is the foundation for any successful customer relationship management (CRM) solution offered by the proposed approach. Such a database management system may entail a noteworthy level of investment.

Practical implications
– The results of the application reveal that the proposed approach can effectively be used in practice for business customer segmentation. By making customer segmentation decisions, the proposed approach can provides firms a basis for the development of effective loyalty programs and design of customized strategies for their customers.

Social implications
– The proposed segmentation approach may contribute firms to gaining sustainable competitive advantage in the market by increasing the effectiveness of CRM strategies.

Originality/value
– This study proposes an integrated approach for business customer segmentation. The proposed approach differentiates itself from its counterparts by combining MCDM and clustering in business customer segmentation. In addition, it extends the traditional RFM model by including five novel segmentation variables for business markets.
Information systems outsourcing satisfaction: some explanatory factors
Authors: Gonzalez Reyes , Gasco Jose L. , Llopis Juan 
Published: June 2015

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to analyse Information Systems outsourcing success, measuring the latter according to the satisfaction level achieved by users and taking into account three success factors: the role played by the client firm’s top management; the relationships between client and provider; and the degree of outsourcing.Design/methodology/approach– A survey was carried out by means of a questionnaire answered by 398 large Spanish firms. Its results were examined using the partial least squares software and through the proposal of a structural equation model.Findings– The conclusions reveal that the perceived benefits play a mediating role in outsourcing satisfaction and also that these benefits can be grouped together into three categories: strategic; economic; and technological ones.Originality/value– The study identifies how some success factors will be more influent than others depending which type of benefits are ultimately sought with outsourcing.
Fiat-Chrysler deal: looking for a good returns from M & A
Authors: Bertoldi Bernardo , Giachino Chiara , Bernard Stefano , Prudenza Virginia 
Published: June 2015

Purpose– The aim of this paper is to investigate the cross-border acquisition’s process through the Fiat-Chrysler case. Many automotive companies have considered cross-border mergers and acquisition (M & A) as a necessary step to face increasing competition and globalization, but only few of them were successful. In particular, some best practices in terms of lessons-learned are highlighted.Design/methodology/approach– The paper is based on the analysis of a cross-border acquisition: the qualitative approach allows authors to better understand all the dynamics, complexities and problems that characterize companies facing this process (Yin, 1984). Authors used public information, Internet sources and Fiat’s documents to gather all the necessary information.Findings– In a cross-border acquisition, compatibility and complementarity of products and markets are fundamentals, whereas unmanaged cultural differences, as well as misunderstanding of the real motivations, are a slow but deadly poison: integration and a clear common focus on the final target are key factor for success.Research limitations/implications– The investigation is limited to the strategy used by Fiat-Chrysler. If the authors’ suggestions can be confirmed or improved by using other case studies, guidelines could be very useful to companies dealing with M & A.Practical implications– The paper offers recommendations on how big companies can manage a cross-border acquisition, illustrates the key steps to be successful and tries to define the necessary elements for a successful M & A.Originality/value– The paper shows how two real multinational companies operating in the automotive sector have decided to become one entity; moreover, it highlights the fundamental steps of the process, giving to the management a good example of what must happen in reality.
Community marketing: serving the base of the economic pyramid sustainably
Authors: Thakur Rakhi 
Published: June 2015

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to acknowledge the importance of community networks in distribution of services and to present a conceptual framework outlining the antecedents and consequences of community marketing. Developing countries represent large untapped markets at the bottom of economic pyramid which is not serviced by conventional products using traditional marketing channels. Organisations are increasing looking at involving local community and broad range of partners called “Community Marketing” in this paper as a viable channel to expand their market by reaching out to this segment.

Design/methodology/approach
– The methodology for this paper involves in-depth study of the relevant literature on role of community networks and highlighting the noteworthy findings of other researchers. Although role of community networks has been widely studied in consumer goods, little has been researched on services. The study draws from cases of mobile financial services in India to develop a framework.

Findings
– The findings include the conceptual framework and the pre-requisites for adoption of community marketing for achieving business sustainability.

Originality/value
– This paper presents the framework and the steps pertaining to community marketing that can be adopted by organisations to reach out to a large under-served market at the base of economic pyramid. This paper synthesises extant knowledge on the subject and provides a foundation for future research by building a discussion on construct’s domain and developing research propositions.
Applying an expectancy-value model to study motivators for work-task based information seeking
Authors: Sigaard Karen Tølbøl , Skov Mette 
Published: June 2015

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to operationalise and verify a cognitive motivation model that has been adapted to information seeking. The original model was presented within the field of psychology.Design/methodology/approach– An operationalisation of the model is presented based on the theory of expectancy-value and on the operationalisation used when the model was first developed. Data for the analysis were collected from a sample of seven informants working as consultants in Danish municipalities. Each participant filled out a questionnaire, kept a log book for a week and participated in a subsequent interview to elicit data regarding their information source behaviour and task motivation.Findings– Motivation affected source use when the informants search for information as part of their professional life. This meant that the number of sources used and the preference for interpersonal and internal sources increased when the task had high-value motivation or low-expectancy motivation or both.Research limitations/implications– The study is based on a relatively small sample and considers only one motivation theory. This should be addressed in future research along with a broadening of the studied group to involve other professions than municipality consultants.Originality/value– Motivational theories from the field of psychology have been used sparsely in studies of information seeking. This study operationalises and verifies such a theory based on a theoretical adaptation of this model made by Savolainen (2012c).
The Informational World City London
Authors: Murugadas Duwaraka , Vieten Stefanie , Nikolic Janina , Mainka Agnes 
Published: June 2015

Purpose– The Department of Information Science of the Heinrich-Heine-University in Düsseldorf is currently conducting a research project on Informational World Cities – the prototypical cities of the knowledge society, which have been growing in the twenty-first century. In total, 31 potential Informational World Cities were identified and a set of criteria was developed to evaluate the degree of informativeness of a city through coherent criteria. The purpose of this paper is to investigate London.Design/methodology/approach– The investigation was based on the Grounded Theory, ethnographic field research, interviews, bibliometrics, patentometrics, official statistics and the analysis of web content. During the stay in London, eight semi-standardised interviews according to SERVQUAL were conducted.Findings– The characteristics of an Informational World City are well-marked in most cases, especially London’s knowledge infrastructure. Furthermore London places value on smart innovations and tries to adapt public transport to the growing population. This includes, next to an enhancement of the train capacities, information and communication technology, since the digital infrastructure keeps gaining importance. The ethnic/cultural diversity as well as the international connectivity and the creative infrastructure are also distinguishing marks of London. Nevertheless, especially the digital and smart infrastructure require enhancement. London’s government is ambitioned, though, to make progress and pursues plans which are of benefit to the city’s informativeness.Social implications– This paper gives insight into the characteristics of the prototypical city of the upcoming knowledge society.Originality/value– This paper follows an interdisciplinary approach and combines information science, urban studies and sociology to analyse cities of the knowledge society. Furthermore it is the first time that London is considered an Informational World City in an empirical study.
Adoption of Basel norms: a review of empirical evidences
Authors: Kaur Mandeep , Kapoor Samriti 
Published: June 2015

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to examine diverse literature available worldwide on the Basel norms readiness and risk management by thoroughly analyzing the empirical studies of past 13 years, i.e. from 2001 to 2013.Design/methodology/approach– A qualitative approach has been used to analyze and compare the main findings as well as applicability of the research papers. Hence, by using an interpretive and critical approach through content analysis of the studies reviewed, the important measures, i.e. objectives, research methodology, sample size, respondents’ profile and significant findings, have been reported.Findings– The study attempted to understand the trend of various research aspects prevailing in the field of banking industry related to the implementation of Basel norms. The content analysis of the reviewed studies demonstrated varied level of preparedness of banks in different countries, at different periods with regard to Basel norms. However, over time, awareness and compliance with Basel norms have increased in almost every part of the world. These studies also highlighted the benefits of Basel norm compliance by banks, such as more proactive portfolio management, forward-looking risk management, improved operational efficiency and better risk appetite. Further, data acquisition, data reporting, lack of prerequisite human resources, training and education, scarce resources and disclosure requirements were reported to be major challenges by most of the studies.Originality/value– As there are relatively few studies providing a comprehensive review of literature in this area, this study builds up a strong conceptual framework for the researchers by examining the vast literature on Basel norms and risk management in banks.
Re-examination of the banking window dressing theory
Authors: Vasileiou Evangelos 
Published: June 2015

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to re-examine in detail the banking window dressing (WD) theory. Using data from the Greek banking industry during the euro period (2001-2013), the results suggest that there are signs of upward assets and deposits WD. Moreover, it tries to explain, using new-alternative approaches, the incentives for the WD and how the deposits WD occur.

Design/methodology/approach
– To examine why bank managers upwardly WD the deposits and which strategy increases the regular payments cost, the author uses a Granger causality procedure and confirms the theory that the aim of increased assets report causes the deposits WD. Moreover, using a GARCH(1,1) and a methodological approach that is usually used in calendar anomalies, but is more flexible than the one usually applied, enables us not only to confirm that there is a WD but also under which mechanisms it occurs.

Findings
– Bank managers prefer to pay increased regular payments due to the upward deposits WD to upwardly WD the bank assets, for the following reasons: they receive compensation depending on the assets’ volume, they gain prestige and most managers try to present increased bank assets and deposits to include them in the “too big to fail ” (TBTF) regime. The author also finds that managers increase the new offered bank premiums in the quarters’ end to attract more deposits, and in this way, the deposits WD occurs.

Research limitations/implications
– The findings of this study are limited to the Greek case, but the methodological approach may be applied to other cases to examine the WD theory and it could present a new-flexible way for WD research.

Practical implications
– Examining the institutional framework, the theoretical background and the results, the author may suggest that reforms, at least in the way that the regular payment to the Greek deposits insurer are paid, should be applied. In Greece, 80 per cent of the regular DIS payments are deposited in the same financial institution. This reduction of the ratio significantly increase the deposits WD cost.

Originality/value
– The contribution of this paper is to re-examine the WD theory and to suggest new and more flexible methodological approaches. Moreover, this is the first study that examines the WD for the Greek case.