bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Development of an occupational embeddedness measure
Authors: Adams Gary A. , Webster Jennica R. , Buyarski Danelle M. 
Published: September 2010

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to develop a measure of occupational embeddedness.Design/methodology/approachThe construct of occupational embeddedness was defined in terms of the forces that bind people to their occupation. Then a four‐part study was conducted to develop a measure of it.FindingsIn Part 1, items were developed and judgmental evidence for their content validity was generated. In Part 2 the initial psychometric characteristics were examined. The results supported the internal consistency reliability and factor structure of the measure. In Part 3, Part 2 was replicated and showed that occupational embeddedness had a negative relationship to occupational withdrawal intentions. In Part 4 a confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to demonstrate that occupational embeddedness was distinguishable from occupational commitment. The paper also found that occupational embeddedness was correlated with occupational commitment but not social desirability. In addition, the paper found that it accounted for incremental variance in occupational withdrawal intentions beyond occupational commitment.Research limitations/implicationsLimitations include the fact that occupational withdrawal intentions rather than actual behaviors were measured. Overall, the results suggest that the new measure has sound psychometric qualities, and adequate discriminant, convergent and predictive validity. The paper concludes that use of the measure may contribute to the prediction/understanding of career withdrawal.Originality/valueA new measure of a construct that may be used to complement existing research and measures of work‐role attachment was developed.
Antecedents of older workers' motives for continuing to work
Authors: Templer Andrew , Armstrong‐Stassen Marjorie , Cattaneo Julian 
Published: September 2010

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to identify demographic and work‐related antecedents of the motives that influence the decision of older workers to remain in the workforce.Design/methodology/approachA cross‐sectional study was conducted with three groups of respondents aged 50‐70 years: those in their career job (n=395); those employed in a bridge job (n=195); and those who were self‐employed (n=174).FindingsIn general, the demographic variables (age, gender, marital status) predicted the financial motive for continuing to work whereas the work‐related variables (work centrality, career satisfaction, and perceived contribution/perceived reward of owning one's own business) predicted the work fulfillment and generativity motives. However, the pattern of relationships differed across the three groups of older workers.Research limitations/implicationsThe three groups could not be directly compared because of differences in some of the measures. Only one variable, work centrality, was a significant predictor across all three groups, suggesting that instead of seeking to identify universal antecedents, the focus of future research should be on identifying antecedents specific to different groups of older workers.Practical implicationsTo promote the retention of older workers, policies, practices and programs should be customized to the different needs of career, bridge and self‐employed individuals.Originality/valueLittle research exists on the antecedents of older workers' motives for continuing to work. Prior research has either not differentiated among older workers or focused solely on one specific group of older workers.
Managing knowledge for spacecraft operations at ESOC
Authors: Mugellesi Dow Roberta , Pallaschke Siegmar 
Published: September 2010

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to describe the current knowledge management activities at the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC), specifically in knowledge capture, sharing and preservation and focusing on the developed and adopted methods and on the results obtained related to the process of knowledge capture using video‐recording of experts.Design/methodology/approachThe knowledge management activities undertaken at ESOC during the past years have been organized into four phases: preliminary study and investigation on knowledge management systems including a review of already existing initiatives; a pilot project within the Flight Dynamics area (a key technical domain within ESOC taking care of the orbit and attitude aspects for the satellite operations) with respect to the questions of knowledge transfer and its barriers; the definition of the ESOC knowledge management system; and the introduction of knowledge capture procedures.FindingsThe inventory of the knowledge assets and the analysis of the knowledge coverage and criticality were essential to be able to identify the existing knowledge in specific areas and to perform a gap analysis. Through this analysis, it is now possible to identify those areas requiring improvement and to allow management to make reliable decisions for which areas the knowledge level should be increased.Research limitations/implicationsWith regard to the firm strategic behaviours, it seems particularly crucial to exploit all three dimensions of proximity, in order to guarantee openness and sustain innovativeness and competitiveness. Concerning policy implications, the local governments should address their actions to help and promote the openness of technology districts and the formation of technology clusters. With this aim, actions should be devoted also to sustain single local firms that are part of a technology cluster but not of a technology district. These, in fact, by increasing their competitive position, may generate positive externalities in the local area, fostering the diffusion and sharing of knowledge in the area and then, acting as knowledge gatekeepers for the whole area.Originality/valueThe paper describes the implementation strategy of the knowledge management within ESOC. Based on this practical experience, guidelines can be derived for the implementation of a more general knowledge management system in the aerospace industry.
Knowledge clusters and knowledge hubs: designing epistemic landscapes for development
Authors: Evers Hans‐Dieter , Gerke Solvay , Menkhoff Thomas 
Published: September 2010

PurposeWith globalization and knowledge‐based production, firms may cooperate on a global scale, outsource parts of their administrative or productive units and negate location altogether. The extremely low transaction costs of data, information and knowledge seem to invalidate the theory of agglomeration and the spatial clustering of firms, going back to the classical work by Alfred Weber and Alfred Marshall, who emphasized the microeconomic benefits of industrial collocation. This paper aims to argue against this view and show why the growth of knowledge societies will rather increase than decrease the relevance of location by creating knowledge clusters and knowledge hubs, due to sharing of tacit knowledge and research and development outputs. Designing epistemic landscapes of knowledge clusters and hubs is, therefore, proposed as a viable development policy.Design/methodology/approachSecondary data from cluster research as well as the authors' own survey data, mainly on Vietnam, Malaysia and Singapore, are used to show and measure clustering of knowledge‐producing organizations.FindingsThe paper shows that sharing of tacit knowledge is a crucial variable to explain why clustering of knowledge‐intensive industries takes place despite the development of information technology. The importance of knowledge management for development is highlighted.Practical implicationsDesigning epistemic landscapes of knowledge clusters and hubs is, therefore, proposed as a viable development policy.Originality/valueThe paper argues against the mainstream of industrial clustering theory and proposes a KM‐based research strategy. The discussion of the difference between knowledge clusters and knowledge hubs enables the use of a new and consistent evaluation of a K4D (knowledge for development) strategy.
Inter‐country trade dependence and inflation transmission mechanisms
Authors: Tovar Jalles João 
Published: September 2010

PurposeAccording to the Central Bank of Cape Verde, price stability is an important aspect when conducting its monetary policy. Given the fixed exchange rate regime towards the Portuguese Escudo/Euro and the high degree of trade inter‐dependence, this paper aims to analyse the “inflation import” phenomenon from Portugal to Cape Verde's economy from 1992 to 2008.Design/methodology/approachThe paper takes a VECM and Granger causality approach.FindingsThe paper finds evidence in favour of the existence of a propagation mechanism, i.e., inflation transmission from Portugal to Cape Verde. The reverse conclusion is not true though. Another interesting implication from the policy‐making perspective is that Cape Verde's CPI is affected by non‐expected shocks in the short run and it takes, on average, 12 months for an adjustment towards a higher level to take place.Practical implicationsSo, Portuguese inflation is an important variable to take into account when doing inflation forecasting exercises to Cape Verde's economy as well as when thinking about setting/defining exchange rate regimes. In this context, diversifying trading partners in Cape Verde is highly recommended as a way to reduce and dilute the Portuguese influence (as well as the role of external shocks) in the overall economy and price levels in Cape Verde.Originality/valueThe paper applies a well‐known economic phenomenon to the relationship between Portugal and one of its former colonies – Cape Verde. The analysis is of use to policy practioneers and to the country's Central Bank.
Developments in the efficiency of the Thailand banking sector: a DEA approach
Authors: Sufian Fadzlan , Shah Habibullah Muzafar 
Published: September 2010

PurposeThe purpose of the present paper is to empirically analyze the efficiency of the Thailand banking sector during the period of 1999‐2008.Design/methodology/approachThe efficiency estimates of individual banks are evaluated by using the data envelopment analysis approach. The central tendency and parametric method based on the Tobit regression is employed to investigate the Thailand banking sector's production efficiency while controlling for the potential effects of internal (bank‐specific characteristics) and external (macroeconomic and industry specific) contextual variables. As a robustness check, following Banker and Natarajan among others, the second‐stage regression is also estimated by using the ordinary least square regression method, while the standard errors are calculated by using White's specification to adjust for cross‐section heteroskedasticity.FindingsDuring the period under study, the empirical findings indicate that scale inefficiency outweighs pure technical inefficiency in determining the Thailand banking sector's technical efficiency. The results from the multivariate regression analysis suggest that banks with higher loans intensity and better capitalized tend to exhibit higher efficiency levels. On the other hand, credit risk is negatively related to bank efficiency. The empirical findings suggest that the recent global financial crisis exerts negative impact on the efficiency of Thailand banks. The results indicate that the domestic banks have exhibited higher TE compared to their foreign bank counterparts.Research limitations/implicationsOwing to its limitations, the paper could be extended in a variety of ways. First, the scope of this study could be further extended to investigate changes in cost, allocative, and technical efficiencies over time. Second, future research into the efficiency of the Thailand banking sector efficiency could also consider the production function along with the intermediation function. Finally, investigation of changes in productivity over time as a result of technical change or technological progress or regress by employing the Malmquist total factor productivity index could yet be another extension to the paper.Originality/valueAlthough the literature examining the efficiency of financial institutions with parametric and/or non‐parametric frontier techniques has expanded rapidly in recent times, these studies have been confined to the US banking sector or the banking sectors in the Western and developed countries. However, empirical evidences on the developing countries banking sectors in general and of the ASEAN countries in particular are relatively sparse. The present paper attempted to fill a demanding gap in that case by providing new empirical evidence on the sources and determinants of the Thailand banking sector's efficiency.
A heuristic method for detecting problems in business process models
Authors: Gruhn Volker , Laue Ralf 
Published: September 2010

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to present a new heuristic approach for finding errors and possible improvements in business process models.Design/methodology/approachFirst, the paper translates the information that is included in a model into a set of Prolog facts. It then searches for patterns which are related to a violation of the soundness property or bad modeling style or otherwise gives rise to the assumption that the model should be improved. To validate this approach, the paper analyzes a repository of almost 1,000 business process models. For this purpose, three different model‐checkers that explore the state space of all possible executions of a model are used. The result of these tools are compared with the results given by this heuristic approach.FindingsThe paper finds that the heuristic approach identifies violations of the soundness property almost as accurate as model‐checkers. However, other than these tools, the approach never ran into state space explosion problems. Furthermore, this heuristic approach can also detect patterns for bad modeling style which can help to improve the quality of models.Practical implicationsHeuristic checks can run in the background while the modeler works on the model. In this way, feedback about possible modeling errors can be provided instantly. This feedback can be used to correct possible problems immediately.Originality/valueCurrent Prolog‐based validation tools check mainly for syntactical correctness and consistency requirements. This approach adds one more perspective by also detecting control‐flow errors (like deadlocks) and even pragmatic issues.
Social navigation in web lectures: a study of virtPresenter
Authors: Mertens Robert , Ketterl Markus , Brusilovsky Peter 
Published: September 2010

PurposeSocial navigation is an emerging trend for navigation in hypermedia. With social navigation, users can be guided through large volumes of learning content by cues which integrate the browsing history of past users. Earlier papers have shown that social navigation is suitable for navigation not only in classic hypermedia but also in time‐based learning media like web lectures by presenting prototype implementations. The purpose of this paper is to report on user experiences with social navigation for web lectures in the classroom.Design/methodology/approachThis paper presents results obtained from a two‐term classroom study with a social navigation interface for web lectures. The study comprises both log file analysis and student questionnaires. The interface used in the study implements a footprint‐based social navigation approach for time‐based continuous media such as web lectures.FindingsThe results of the user study show that social navigation cues significantly affect user lecture navigation, causing users to pay more attention to the material previously explored by other users. The users' subjective feedback on the usefulness of the social navigation cues and related navigation components was significantly positive.Originality/valueSocial navigation has primarily been implemented and researched in traditional text‐ and picture‐based hypermedia. This paper presents an actual user study of footprint‐based social navigation for web lectures. The results of this study are relevant to both practitioners who want to use social navigation in web lectures and researchers who want to improve and research navigation approaches for time‐based media.
Energy‐efficient virtual grid aided routing for MANETs
Authors: Wang Zhijun , Li Hezeng , Zhang Jingyuan 
Published: September 2010

PurposeIn a mobilead hocnetwork (MANET), design of energy‐efficient routing schemes is essential for prolonging the network lifetime. The purpose of this paper is to show that one way to achieve energy efficiency in routing is to utilize location information, which becomes practical due to the recent increasing availability of low‐cost and reliable positioning devices.Design/methodology/approachThis paper proposes an eight‐direction forwarding virtual grid aided (VGA) routing scheme that uses location information to save energy. As a grid‐based scheme, VGA divides the whole network area into virtual grids.FindingsBy using eight‐direction forwarding, the proposed VGA scheme outperforms the previous four‐direction forwarding geographical adaptive fidelity (GAF) protocol. The proposed VGA scheme is motivated by the fact that, in the GAF protocol, forwarding to the four diagonal neighboring grids cannot be done in one single hop, although most nodes in these grids can hear the signal.Originality/valueTheoretical analysis shows the eight‐direction forwarding protocol performs better than the four‐direction one unless the forwarding direction has an angle of less than 15○with the horizontal or vertical grid axis. Simulation supports the fact that the eight‐direction forwarding VGA scheme has better energy performance than the four‐direction forwarding GAF scheme without sacrificing any routing performance.
Toward an agent‐based pluggable infrastructure for context‐awareness
Authors: Li Jun , Chen Shaxun , Tao Xianping , Lu Jian 
Published: September 2010

PurposePervasive computing enhances the environment by embedding many computers that are gracefully integrated with human users. The purpose of this paper is to describe the creation of a smart context‐aware environment in which computation follows people and serves them everywhere. Building such smart environments is still difficult and complex due to lacking a uniform infrastructure that can adapt to diverse smart domains.Design/methodology/approachTo address this problem, the paper proposes an agent‐based pluggable infrastructure which integrates a mobile agent system named pvMogent, establishes an ontology‐based context model and introduces a workflow‐based application model with the open services gateway initiative (OSGi) framework. By plugging corresponding domain context in ontology model and different applications, the infrastructure can be customized to various domains.FindingsThrough the implementation of several context‐aware applications, it was found that the infrastructure can largely reduce the development complexity as well as keep the domain extensibility by plugging corresponding domain context in ontology model.Originality/valueIn this paper, a number of key techniques are explored which are suitable for building context‐awareness. The experiences and lessons learned from the system development could further facilitate and inspire the research in this direction.
ContextAlert: context‐aware alert mode for a mobile phone
Authors: Phithakkitnukoon Santi , Dantu Ram 
Published: September 2010

PurposeMobile computing research has been focused on developing technologies for handheld devices such as mobile phones, notebook computers, and mobile IP. Today, emphasis is increasing on context‐aware computing, which aims to build the intelligence into mobile devices to sense and respond to the user's context. The purpose of this paper is to present a context‐aware mobile computing model (ContextAlert) that senses the user's context and intelligently configures the mobile phone alert mode accordingly.Design/methodology/approachThe paper proposes a three‐step approach in designing the model based on the embedded sensor data (accelerometer, GPS antenna, and microphone) of a G1 Adriod phone. As adaptivity is essential for context‐aware computing, within this model a new learning mechanism is presented to maintain a constant adaptivity rate for new learning while keeping the catastrophic forgetting problem minimal.FindingsThe model has been evaluated in many aspects using data collected from human subjects. The experiment results show that the proposed model performs well and yields a promising result.Originality/valueThis paper is distinguished from other previous papers by: first, using multiple sensors embeded in the mobile phone, which is more realistic for detecting the user's context than having various sensors attached to different parts of user's body; second, by being a novel model that uses sensed contextual information to provide a service that better synchronizes the user's daily life with a context‐aware alert mode. With this service, the user can avoid the problems such as forgetting to switch to vibrate mode while in a meeting or a movie theater, and taking the risk of picking up a phone call while driving, and third, being an adaptive learning algorithm that maintains a constant adaptivity rate for new learning while keeping the catastrophic forgetting problem minimal.
Systems thinking as a platform for leadership performance in a complex world
Authors: Palaima Tomas , Skaržauskienė Aelita 
Published: September 2010

PurposeEffective decision making and learning in a world of growing dynamic complexity requires leaders to become systems thinkers – to develop tools to understand the structures of complex systems. The paper aims to clarify the relationship between systems thinking and leadership performance. The relevance of systems thinking as a competence was disclosed in the context of leadership in the complex world.Design/methodology/approachThe paper followed a quantitative research approach. First, exploratory factor analysis was employed to assess dimensionality of scales. Second, relationships between variables were explored using Spearman's correlation. Third, multiple linear regression was run to test the hypothesized model of relationships. The total sample of 201 consists of subsamples in two industries: retail trade (103 respondents) and manufacturing (98 respondents).FindingsBased on the analysis and synthesis of the scientific literature, a conceptual model of relationship between intelligence competencies (such as systems thinking) and leadership performance is developed. The theoretical model is supported by empirical evidence from the two industries perspectives: the paper compares the impact of systems thinking on leadership performance in manufacturing and retail trade enterprises. Correlational and regression analyses revealed that systems thinking was associated with higher leadership performance.Research limitations/implicationsBecause of the chosen research approach, the research results may lack generalizability. First, the model was tested empirically only in two industries: in retail trade and in manufacturing. Second, the sample of this research was limited only to national level, therefore there is no possibility to compare results across different countries. In order to generalize the research findings, further research should include more companies from different industries.Practical implicationsThe paper discloses the benefits of systems thinking in organization and includes implications for the development of systems thinking and other leadership competencies.Originality/valueThis paper establishes a link between systems thinking and leadership performance. Theoretical insights that systems thinking is most important dealing with conceptual strategic problems of an organization were confirmed empirically.