bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
An empirical investigation of strategic management accounting in hotels
Authors: Pavlatos Odysseas 
Published: July 2015

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between contextual factors, strategic management accounting (SMA) and historical performance in hotels.

Design/methodology/approach
– An empirical survey was conducted on a sample of 106 leading hotels in Greece.

Findings
– The analysis of the survey data indicates that seven contingent factors affect SMA usage in hotels: The seven factors are perceived environmental uncertainty, structure, quality of information system (IS) information, organizational life cycle stage, historical performance, strategy and size. The findings also indicate that lagging performance affects SMA and that this effect is moderated by the perceived environmental uncertainty.

Research limitations/implications
– Some of the limitations are inherent to the survey method used, such as the use of perceptual measures and the potential of common method bias. Data were collected from the Greek hospitality industry, and consequently, the results may be generalizable only to that population.

Practical implications
– The accounting professionals and hotel managers will also be benefited, as the study aims to identify the most relevant SMA tools adopted in the hotel industry, as well as the relationship between these tools and other external and organizational factors.

Originality/value
– This research adds to the current knowledge in management accounting system design in hotels. This paper increases the understanding as to why hotels are more likely to implement SMA. The results provide the first empirical evidence of the relation between SMA usage, organizational factors, external factors and historical performance in hotels.
Performance analysis and improvement of a typical telephone response system of VA hospitals
Authors: Shi Jing , Erdem Ergin , Peng Yidong , Woodbridge Peter , Masek Christopher 
Published: July 2015

Purpose
– Telephone response system is the frontline of hospital operations. The purpose of this paper is to analyze a representative telephone response system of Veterans Affairs (VA) hospitals, address the existing inefficiency issues such as long call waiting time, and improve system resilience to changes.

Design/methodology/approach
– Resource sharing schemes are proposed to improve the system performance in answering calls related to appointment booking and medication renewal. Discrete event simulation is adopted to model the current system and the resource sharing schemes.

Findings
– The resource sharing schemes dramatically improve system performance reflected by the decrease of call waiting time and queue, as well as the extreme high utilization of agents in a key unit. Compared with the less desired alternative of hiring additional employees to mitigate the performance issues, the resource sharing schemes perform at par or even better. Sharing more resource during the peak hours can further balance the agent workload.

Practical implications
– The resource sharing schemes could alleviate staffing shortage, long waiting time, and high-abandonment rate in the bottle-beck unit of the system, and lead to better utilization of scarce resources on the hospital floor. The concept reflects localized centralization efforts in traditionally highly decentralized telephone operations in hospital systems.

Originality/value
– This research provides a structured approach to analyze the operations of a VA telephone response system. The developed simulation model is validated, and this provides a valuable tool for management to analyze the complicated telephone operations of the telephone systems of other VA and non-VA hospitals. Resource sharing constitutes a cost-effective solution for improving system performance and resilience.
Leanness metric evaluation platform in fuzzy context
Authors: Matawale Chhabi Ram , Datta Saurav , Mahapatra Siba  Sankar 
Published: July 2015

Purpose
– The purpose of this study is to provide an efficient index system for evaluating leanness extent of the organizational supply chain. In today’s competitive global marketplace, the concept of lean manufacturing has gained vital consciousness to all manufacturing sectors, their supply chains and, hence, a logical measurement index system is indeed required in implementing leanness in practice. Such leanness estimation can help the enterprises to assess their existing leanness level and can compare different industries that are adapting this lean concept.

Design/methodology/approach
– The present work exhibits an efficient fuzzy-based leanness assessment system using trapezoidal fuzzy numbers set.

Findings
– The methodology described here has been found fruitful while applying for a particular industry, in India, as a case study. Apart from estimating overall lean performance metric, the model presented here can identify ill-performing areas toward lean achievement.

Originality/value
– The major contributions of this work have been summarized as follows: development and implementation of an efficient decision-making procedural hierarchy to support leanness extent evaluation; an overall lean performance index evaluation platform has been introduced; concept of generalized trapezoidal fuzzy numbers has been efficiently explored to facilitate this decision-making; and the appraisement index system has been extended with the capability to search ill-performing areas which require future progress.
Corporate Facebook and stakeholder engagement
Authors: Bonsón Ponte Enrique , Carvajal-Trujillo Elena , Escobar-Rodríguez Tomás 
Published: July 2015

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to provide an initial assessment of corporate Facebook use by Spanish hotel chains. Two aspects are considered: communication activity and stakeholder engagement through this social media platform.Design/methodology/approach– Based on a content analysis, data on 109 Spanish hotel chains are collected to describe current practices and identify significant relationships among different variables.Findings– The main findings include that their Facebook presence, audiences and levels of activity are positively related to hotel size, while stakeholder engagement is higher in small hotel chains and seems to be influenced by content and media types.Originality/value– This research contributes to previous research by providing an assessment of corporate Facebook in the hospitality industry (Spanish hotel chains). The paper considers two aspects: communication activity and stakeholder engagement through this social media platform.
Who negotiates a higher starting salary?
Authors: Xiu Lin , Kang Gerui (Grace) , Roline Alan C. 
Published: July 2015

Purpose
– The aim of this study is to examine how personality traits influence interviewees’ negotiation decisions as well as whether and to what extent such effects are moderated by one’s gender and risk attitudes.

Design/methodology/approach
– An experiment was designed in which participants acted as interviewees and were asked to decide whether to initiate negotiations to potentially increase their salary and benefits. A logistic regression analysis and conditional process analysis were used to examine the effects of personality traits (agreeableness and extraversion) on the initiation of salary negotiation, as well as whether and to what extent such effects are moderated by one’s gender and risk attitudes.

Findings
– A significant direct influence of extraversion and risk attitude on a job applicant’s initiation of salary negotiations. It was also found that risk attitudes moderate the effect of personality traits (i.e. agreeableness and extraversion) on individuals’ negotiation decisions. This study thus indicates that the effects of personality traits on job applicants’ initiation of salary negotiations are contingent on their risk attitudes.

Originality/value
– To the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to investigate the direct as well as moderated effects of personality traits on interviewees’ negotiation behavior in job interviews. The findings of this study thus significantly contribute to the literature in this line of research. Human resource professionals, as well as job seekers, may also benefit from the findings and implications of this study.
A study on the political skill of Korean entrepreneurs contributing to social network guarantee
Authors: Zhan Xi , Kim Choon-kwang 
Published: July 2015

Purpose– This paper aims to set social network, which is recently drawing the most attention in the business administration field, as a major dependent variable of political skill. It is because social network plays a very important role in improving the productivity and performance of firms, and, in actuality, many researches have proved that social network greatly contributes to firm performance.Design/methodology/approach– Researches into social network have not yet established that “through what” or “how” social network can be formed and affected.Findings– In this study, the authors attempt to connect social network with political skill, which is a cause variable.Originality/value– This approach will give us a better understanding on the formation of social networks and its relationship with political skill, and so eventually, such negative recognition about the politics can be viewed from a different sight of angle.
Beneficiary feedback effects on alpine cushion benefactors become more negative with increasing cover of graminoids and in dry conditions
Authors: Michalet Richard , Schöb Christian , Xiao Sa , Zhao Liang , Chen Tuo , An Li‐zhe , Callaway Ragan M. 
Published: July 2015

Summary

In facilitative interactions, the beneficiary feedback effect (BFE) has been defined as the effect of beneficiary species (facilitated species) on their benefactor. BFEs have been shown to be dependent on environmental conditions and the composition of the beneficiary community. In alpine cushion systems, BFEs are more negative with more abundant, diverse and phylogenetically aggregated communities of beneficiary species.

We tested the hypothesis that the functional composition of the beneficiary communities correlates with the direction and strength of BFE received by alpine cushion benefactors and specifically that a more negative BFE would occur with increasing density of graminoids and a more positive BFE would occur with increasing density of forbs and legumes. Additionally, we predicted that the negative BFE of graminoids would increase with increasing summer aridity.

We used a data base of alpine cushion communities from 30 sites throughout the world to assess the overall relationship between the composition of beneficiary communities and the total flower density of cushion benefactors, and its variation with increasing drought. Additionally, in order to assess more precisely the role of the functional composition of the beneficiary communities on BFE in a very dry site with cushion benefactors exhibiting contrasting functional compositions of beneficiary communities, we also designed a field study in the Qilian Shan mountain range (China). At this site with a highly continental climate, we compared the number of flowers and fruits of different phenotypes of the alpine cushion species Thylacospermum caespitosum hosting numerous graminoids, numerous forbs or very few beneficiary species.

In the intercontinental study, we found a negative relationship between graminoids and cushion benefactor flower density but no effect of other functional groups. The negative BFE of graminoids increased with increasing summer drought. In the dry Qilian Shan range, we found both a negative effect of graminoids on total flower density and a positive effect of forbs on flower density and fruit set.

Our study indicates that the context dependence of BFE may be partially explained by the composition of beneficiary communities and in particular the negative effect of graminoids.
Experimental reduction of haematocrit affects reproductive performance in European starlings
Authors: Fronstin Raime B. , Christians Julian K. , Williams Tony D. 
Published: July 2015

Summary

Given the function of haemoglobin and observed increases in haematocrit during periods of increased energetic demands, haematocrit and haemoglobin are assumed to be related to aerobic capacity. Reductions in haematocrit and haemoglobin during reproduction are similar in magnitude to increases associated with aerobically demanding activities, and therefore, we sought to investigate whether these reductions in haematology have consequences for reproductive performance.

We analysed associations between natural variation in haematology in free‐living European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) and reproductive performance. To test whether transient reductions in haematology during different stages of reproduction (egg production and late incubation/early chick rearing) affected measures of reproductive performance, we also manipulated haematology using phenylhydrazine (PHZ), which lyses red blood cells.

To investigate effects of reductions of haematology during egg‐laying, we treated females with PHZ or saline (control) upon completion of their unmanipulated first clutch and removed eggs to induce the production and rearing of a replacement clutch. To investigate effects of reductions of haematology during chick rearing, we treated females during incubation of the unmanipulated first clutch and then monitored the subsequent hatching and rearing of the clutch.

Individuals with higher haematocrit and haemoglobin initiated nesting earlier. Furthermore, higher haemoglobin levels during incubation were associated with a greater number of chicks fledged.

PHZ treatment prior to egg production resulted in a significant delay in the laying of replacement clutches, but had no effect on provisioning rate or the size or number of chicks fledged. PHZ treatment during incubation and early chick rearing resulted in decreased hatchling mass in all years and a decrease in the size and number of fledglings in one of 2 years. The year that the effect of PHZ was observed appeared to be a particularly difficult year, as hatchling mass, brood size at hatching and at fledging were low among control females compared to other years.

Our results suggest that a reduction in haematology during reproduction can be functionally significant, but that these costs are context‐dependent.
Statewide Hospital Discharge Data: Collection, Use, Limitations, and Improvements
Authors: Andrews Roxanne M. 
Published: July 2015

ObjectivesTo provide an overview of statewide hospital discharge databases (HDD), including their uses in health services research and limitations, and to describe Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) Enhanced State Data grants to address clinical and race–ethnicity data limitations.Principal FindingsAlmost all states have statewide HDD collected by public or private data organizations. Statewide HDD, based on the hospital claim with state variations, contain useful core variables and require minimal collection burden. AHRQ's Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project builds uniform state and national research files using statewide HDD. States, hospitals, and researchers use statewide HDD for many purposes. Illustrating researchers' use, during 2012–2014, HSR published 26 HDD‐based articles on health policy, access, quality, clinical aspects of care, race–ethnicity and insurance impacts, economics, financing, and research methods. HDD have limitations affecting their use. Five AHRQ grants focused on enhancing clinical data and three grants aimed at improving race–ethnicity data.ConclusionICD‐10 implementation will significantly affect the HDD. The AHRQ grants, information technology advances, payment policy changes, and the need for outpatient information may stimulate other statewide HDD changes. To remain a mainstay of health services research, statewide HDD need to keep pace with changing user needs while minimizing collection burdens.
Efficacy of Neutral pH Electrolyzed Water in Reducing Escherichia coli O157:H7 and Salmonella Typhimurium DT 104 on Fresh Produce Items using an Automated Washer at Simulated Food Service Conditions
Authors: Afari George K. , Hung Yen‐Con , King Christopher H. 
Published: July 2015

AbstractThe objective of this study was to determine the efficacy of neutral pH electrolyzed (NEO) water (155 mg/L free chlorine, pH 7.5) in reducing Escherichia coli O157:H7 and Salmonella Typhimurium DT 104 on romaine lettuce, iceberg lettuce, and tomatoes washed in an automated produce washer for different times and washing speeds. Tomatoes and lettuce leaves were spot inoculated with 100 μL of a 5 strain cocktail mixture of either pathogen and washed with 10 or 8 L of NEO water, respectively. Washing lettuce for 30 min at 65 rpm led to the greatest reductions, with 4.2 and 5.9 log CFU/g reductions achieved for E. coli O157:H7 and S. Typhimurium respectively on romaine, whereas iceberg lettuce reductions were 3.2 and 4.6 log CFU/g for E. coli O157:H7 and S. Typhimurium respectively. Washing tomatoes for 10 min at 65 rpm achieved reductions greater than 8 and 6 log CFU/tomato on S. Typhimurium and E. coli O157:H7 respectively. All pathogens were completely inactivated in NEO water wash solutions. No detrimental effects on the visual quality of the produce studied were observed under all treatment conditions. Results show the adoption of this washing procedure in food service operations could be useful in ensuring produce safety.
The Effect of Information on Uncertainty and the Cost of Capital
Authors: Johnstone David 
Published: July 2015

AbstractIt is widely held that better financial reporting makes investors more confident in their predictions of future cash flows and reduces their required risk premia. The logic is that more information leads necessarily to more certainty, and hence lower subjective estimates of firm “beta” or covariance with other firms. This is misleading on both counts. Bayesian logic shows that the best available information can often leave decision makers less certain about future events. And for those cases where information indeed brings great certainty, conventional mean‐variance asset‐pricing models imply that more certain estimates of future cash payoffs can sometimes bring a higher cost of capital. This occurs when new or better information leads to sufficiently reduced expected firm payoffs. To properly understand the effect of signal quality on the cost of capital, it is essential to think of what that information says, rather than considering merely its “precision,” or how strongly it says what it says.
Outside Blockholders' Monitoring of Management and Debt Financing: An Alternative Perspective
Authors: Nikolaev Valeri V. 
Published: July 2015

AbstractLiao () argues that the monitoring by large outside shareholders (blockholders) exacerbates the conflict between debt and equity and in turn affects the choice and structure of debt financing. The study contends that private debt is more immune to the increase in debt‐equity conflict. Consistent with this argument, companies with outside blockholders are inclined to issue private debt over public debt. Further, private debt exhibits less price protection but relies on more protective covenants than does public debt. The findings are interesting and intuitive. I evaluate the economic arguments in the paper and discuss some of the challenges that the study faces. My conclusion is that the interpretation of the results is more complex than the one the study presents. I offer a broader framework that can be used to shed light on why the governance structure combines equity blockholders and private debt issuance. I also discuss several questions to be addressed by future research.
Cross‐Country Evidence on the Importance of Auditor Choice to Corporate Debt Maturity
Authors: El Ghoul Sadok , Guedhami Omrane , Pittman Jeffrey A. , Rizeanu Sorin 
Published: July 2015

AbstractWe examine the importance of Big Four audits in reducing agency costs evident in corporate debt maturity worldwide. Analyzing a large sample of public firms from 42 countries reveals that the fraction of long‐term debt in firms' capital structures rises with the presence of a Big Four auditor, suggesting that higher‐quality audits substitute for short‐term debt for monitoring purposes. In additional analyses, we find that the role that auditor choice plays in debt maturity is concentrated in firms from countries with strong legal institutions governing property rights and creditor rights. Collectively, our research implies that Big Four audits matter to corporate debt maturity, although the impact is isolated in firms operating in countries with more protective legal regimes.
Association of TCF7L2 Polymorphism with Diabetic Nephropathy in the South Indian Population
Authors: Bodhini Dhanasekaran , Chidambaram Manickam , Liju Samuel , Prakash Visvanathan G. , Gayathri Vijay , Shanthirani Coimbatore S. , Ranjith Unnikrishnan , Anjana Ranjit M. , Mohan Viswanathan , Radha Venkatesan 
Published: July 2015

SummaryThe transcription factor 7‐like 2 (TCF7L2) gene plays a significant role in the development of type 2 diabetes and diabetic nephropathy. The aim of this study was to investigate the association of TCF7L2 rs12255372 (G/T)polymorphism with type 2 diabetic nephropathy in the South Indian population. A total of 2102 subjects, 927 normal glucose tolerant (NGT) subjects, 598 type 2 diabetic subjects without nephropathy (DM), and 577 type 2 diabetic subjects with nephropathy (DN) were genotyped by MassARRAY. As compared to the NGT group, the odds ratio (adjusted for age, sex, BMI, HbA1c, and systolic BP) computed for the GT/TT genotype taking the GG genotype as reference was found to be 2.02 (95% CI: 1.16‐3.51, p = 0.013) for DN and 1.94 (95% CI: 1.36‐2.78, p = 0.0002) for DM. The genotype frequency was not significantly different between the DM and DN groups. In conclusion, the rs12255372 polymorphism in the TCF7L2 gene is associated with type 2 diabetes and DN but its association with DN is mediated through diabetes.
Three suturing techniques for closing fusiform excisions. A randomised controlled study
Authors: Ling Nicholas , Martin Andrew 
Published: July 2015

AbstractBackground/ObjectivesAustralian doctors perform over one million skin excisions yearly. There are few randomised trials studying wound repair. The objective was to compare two suture techniques with controls for simple elliptical excisions in a prospective, randomised, single‐blinded study.MaterialsOne half of each wound was randomised to either one‐layer closure with percutaneous nylon or modified two‐layer closure where superficial closure was effected with adhesive tape. The control was the standard two‐layer closure. Primary outcome measure was wound width at 6 months, with cosmesis as the secondary outcome.ResultsA total of 161 participants with 214 excisions were recruited from general practice. There was no significant difference in the primary outcome of wound width at 6 months between the groups. One‐layer closure showed slight inferiority for cosmesis at 6 months versus the control. There was significant superiority for the modified two‐layer closure versus the control for cosmesis at 6 months, and early wound erythema. Multivariate regression models adjusted for suture technique showed that younger age, wound infection and truncal location were predictors of increased scar width. Older age, wound erythema, and male gender were predictors of poorer patient‐rated outcome.ConclusionOne‐layer closure is an acceptable choice for elliptical excision wound closure. Modified two‐layer closure may be preferable to standard two‐layer closure for elliptical wounds.