bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
KM in a fast‐growing global IT company: a case study
Authors: Laesvirta Olli , Ribière Vincent M. 
Published: June 2008

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to present the business problems found in a fast growing European network security software company, define knowledge management (KM) initiatives that were implemented to solve these business problems and outline the necessary factors that made the implementation of these initiatives successful. The main driver behind implementing KM was to improve the various aspects of customer service.Design/methodology/approachCase study conducted over a period of three years by one of the management personnels.FindingsThe paper finds that when a company has a well‐defined KM strategy aligned with its business strategy, when it takes into consideration the three pillars of KM (people, technology and processes), when it not only focuses on a codification approach but also on socialization approaches and when leadership is present to support, motivate and involve people, a KM initiative can be easily implemented and can generate significant benefits.Practical implicationsThis case study could be used as an example on how a fast‐growing company implemented a set of simple KM initiatives to support their core business processes, mainly associated with customer service, and obtained significants benefits out of it.Originality/valueDemonstrates theory in action/practice.
Singapore credit cardholders: ownership, usage patterns, and perceptions
Authors: Gan Lydia L. , Maysami Ramin C. , Chye Koh Hian 
Published: June 2008

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to analyze Singapore's diverse cardholders in search of variations among demographic groups, credit card profiles, and their perceptions with regard to credit card ownership and use. It then aims to discuss possible reasons governing Singaporeans' credit card ownership and use.Design/methodology/approachA survey was conducted, decision trees were then constructed using Chi‐square automatic interaction detection algorithm (CHAID) and SPSS software AnswerTree to examine the association between the number of credit cards (target variable) and the demographic characteristics, perceptions and other credit card‐related variables.FindingsThe number of credit cards was found to be significantly influenced by income and gender as well as perceptions that include “credit card leads to overspending”, “savings as payment source”, “unreasonable interest rates”, “credit card as status symbol”. The number of credit cards was also affected by credit card‐related variables such as missing payments sometimes, frequency of use, entertainment expenditures, and petrol purchase.Practical implicationsThis research provides an in‐depth understanding of Singaporean multiple cardholders, thus it is useful in designing marketing strategies for card‐issuers as well as anti‐debt strategies for policy‐makers in Singapore.Originality/valueDespite the importance of consumer credit, virtually no literature or research exists on the ownership and use of credit cards in Singapore, so this paper intends to close this gap. Further, by combining the demographics, cardholders' profiles and usage patterns with the respondents' perceptions concerning credit card ownership and use, our study offers a richer analysis to explain consumer behavior than previous literatures.
When something goes wrong and no one is around: non‐internet self‐service technology failure and recovery
Authors: Forbes Lukas P. 
Published: June 2008

PurposeThis paper aims to focus on non‐internet‐based self‐service technologies through the presentation of failure and recovery strategies employed by service firms using self‐service forms of interaction.Design/methodology/approachThe paper employs the critical incident technique using 508 customer responses to present nine failures and nine recovery strategies used by self‐service technology firms. It presents data on post‐recovery satisfaction levels and propensity to switch behavior. The paper also compares findings in the non‐internet self‐service technology context to findings from e‐tail and bricks and mortar settings.FindingsFindings indicate that: non‐internet self‐service technology customers experience different types of service failure relative to traditional retail and e‐tail settings; non‐internet self‐service technology firms employ a different series of recovery strategies relative to traditional retail and e‐tail settings; and post‐recovery switching by customers can be high even with satisfying experiences.Originality/valueThis paper strengthens the existing failure and recovery literature by presenting data on the largest growing sector of the service industry, self‐service technologies, and the largest sector within self‐service technologies (non‐internet purchases). These findings will have value to traditional firms looking to expand to their channels in addition to firms currently experiencing customer dissatisfaction.
Tipping and its alternatives: business considerations and directions for research
Authors: Lynn Michael , Withiam Glenn 
Published: June 2008

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to outline the business issues surrounding tipping and its alternatives, to summarize what is known about those issues, and to identify questions in need of further research.Design/methodology/approachObjectives are achieved via conceptual analysis and review of relevant literature.FindingsThe paper finds that voluntary tipping, service charges, and service‐inclusive pricing offer different sets of costs and benefits, so that no one policy is always the best. The principal benefits to service firms of voluntary tipping are that it lowers nominal prices, increases profits through price discrimination, motivates up‐selling and service, attracts talented workers, and lowers FICA tax payments. However, tipping also motivates discrimination in service delivery, gives servers surplus income that could go the firms' bottom line, increases the risk of income tax audits, and opens firms up to adverse impact lawsuits.Practical implicationsNo one tipping policy is always the best. Service industry executives and managers should carefully weigh each of eight different issues (outlined together for the first time here) to identify the best tipping policy for their circumstances.Originality/valueTipping has received little attention in service marketing. Furthermore, there is no good, published source of guidance to help service industry executives and managers make decisions about tipping policies. This paper addresses these voids by providing and discussing a comprehensive list of the pros and cons of tipping and its alternatives from a business perspective.
On professional accounting body complaints procedures
Authors: O'Dwyer Brendan , Canning Mary 
Published: June 2008

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the operation of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland's (ICAI) complaint process from the complainant's perspective. The findings are interpreted drawing on key elements of Parker's private interest model of professional accounting ethics, particularly the private interest roles of professional authority and professional insulation.Design/methodology/approachThe primary evidence used is drawn from numerous sources. These include: extensive “private” documentation comprising original correspondence between the complainant in the case examined (or his advisors) and various representatives of the ICAI spanning a five‐year period; detailed supporting documentation included with this correspondence; Independent Experts' Reports on the complaints submitted; and in‐depth interviews with the complainant prior to, during, and post the examination of the documentary evidence.FindingsThe paper reveals how high levels of professional authority and professional insulation worked in tandem to prevent complaints entering the complaint process and deny the complainant reasons for decisions taken. It demonstrates how a key structural barrier in the complaint process, the screening role of the professional accounting body's secretary, created a complainant impression of a process concerned primarily with protecting members' interests. Subsequent to complaint process changes, an erosion of professional insulation is unveiled. However, this proves fleeting and, in response to persistent complainant challenges to heightened demonstrations of professional authority, the degree of professional insulation intensifies further.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper focuses on a specific case where the complainant was dissatisfied with the ICAI's procedures. It reveals the extent to which complainants using professional body complaints procedures may, often by virtue of the structures in place, feel that profession protection motives are overriding purported concerns for society protection.Originality/valueThe paper extends and advances the literature examining professional accounting body disciplinary and complaint procedures. Prior research investigating the operation of these procedures has neglected to examine complaint processes in depth to inform their evaluations, particularly from the perspective of potential users of these processes.
Towards a socially responsible management control system
Authors: Durden Chris 
Published: June 2008

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the measurement and monitoring of social responsibility within the management control system (MCS) of an organisation that subscribes to a stakeholder and social responsibility approach and to propose a framework that provides for the integration of the MCS with social accounting and social responsibility aspects.Design/methodology/approachThe paper is based on a case study of a small privately owned New Zealand manufacturing business that subscribes to social responsibility and stakeholder principles.FindingsOverall, the paper finds that the MCS of the case organisation did not measure or monitor social responsibility. Building on the case findings and the literature examined, a framework is proposed that provides for the integration of the MCS with social responsibility. A significant finding is that both formal measurement and informal control are key aspects in developing a MCS that incorporates social responsibility considerations.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings relate to a single manufacturing organisation based in New Zealand. Future research could examine different settings (i.e. country, organisation type, etc.) and investigate application of the proposed framework in relation to particular performance measures and controls that organisations may possibly adopt.Practical implicationsOrganisations following a stakeholder and social responsibility approach should also consider the design of their MCS.Originality/valueThis paper helps to fill a gap in the literature concerning knowledge about the design and operation of MCSs in relation to stakeholder and social responsibility issues. Few studies in this area have been based on a case study approach. The paper further contributes to the literature by proposing a framework that provides for the integration of the MCS with social responsibility aspects.
The roles, responsibilities and characteristics of audit committee in China
Authors: Jun Lin Z. , Xiao Jason Z. , Tang Qingliang 
Published: June 2008

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the perceptions of the roles, responsibilities and basic characteristics of audit committees (ACs) in the current business environment in China, from the perspectives of investors/creditors, independent directors (AC members), company officers and auditors.Design/methodology/approachThe study is conducted through a questionnaire survey of the four groups of stakeholders with two forms of survey instruments being distributed to randomly selected survey subjects. The data collected from the returned questionnaires are analyzed at both the aggregate and sub‐sample levels.FindingsThe study finds that various groups of stakeholders have generally accepted the ceremonial roles and responsibilities of ACs in terms of lifting the image of good corporate governance, enhancing communication between board of directors (BoD) and auditors, and mediating conflict between management and auditors. However, the more concrete AC oversight roles and responsibilities for improving internal control, rules compliance, sound corporate financial reporting and auditing processes have not been fully recognized at present, particularly by company management and independent directors. In addition, the study reveals that actual AC operations in practice are ineffective even though a large portion of Chinese listed companies have set up ACs.Originality/valueThe paper should assist readers to understand the recent development of corporate governance and stock market reforms in China and generate some policy implications that can be applied to other countries as well, emerging economies in particular.
Old professors never die
Authors: Parker Lee 
Published: June 2008

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to consider the career changing roles of university professors.Design/methodology/approachPoetic exposition.FindingsObserves the common trend of research and teaching professors to become elevated to university management positions, thereby abandoning their teaching and research roles.Research limitations/implicationsImplies the loss of scholarly potential and productivity to managerialism in the university sector and calls for the recovery of a cadre of professorial researchers.Originality/valueCritiques the increasingly administrative role of senior university academics in the world of increasingly corporatised universities.
Service logic revisited: who creates value? And who co‐creates?
Authors: Grönroos Christian 
Published: June 2008

PurposeIn the discussion on service‐dominant logic and its consequences for value creation and marketing the inner meaning of the value‐in‐use notion and the nature of service marketing have not been considered thoroughly. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the meaning of a service logic as a logic for consumption and provision, respectively, and explore the consequences for value creation and marketing.Design/methodology/approachBeing a research‐based paper, the topic is approached by theoretical analysis and conceptual development.FindingsDiscussing the differences between value‐in‐exchange and value‐in‐use, the paper concludes that value‐in‐exchange in essence concerns resources used as a value foundation which are aimed at facilitating customers' fulfilment of value‐in‐use. When accepting value‐in‐use as a foundational value creation concept customers are the value creators. Adopting a service logic makes it possible for firms to get involved with their customers' value‐generating processes, and the market offering is expanded to including firm‐customer interactions. In this way, the supplier can become a co‐creator of value with its customers. Drawing on the analysis, ten concluding service logic propositions are put forward.Research limitations/implicationsThe analysis provides a foundation for further development of a service logic for customers and suppliers, respectively, (“service logic” is preferred over the normally used “service‐dominant logic”) as well for further analysis of the marketing consequences of adopting such a business and marketing logic.Practical implicationsMarketing practitioners will find new ways of understanding customers' value creation and of developing marketing strategies with an aim to engage suppliers with their customers' consumption processes in order to enhance customer satisfaction.Originality/valueFor a scholarly audience, the paper provides a more truly service‐centric understanding of value creation and of its marketing consequences. For a practitioner audience, it offers service‐based means of further developing marketing practices.
Customer centricity: reality or a wild goose chase?
Authors: Gummesson Evert 
Published: June 2008

PurposeWith Sweden and Europe and the present and the future as vantage points, the purpose of this paper is to challenge the viability of customer centricity (or customer orientation) and its axiom, the marketing concept, as the basis for marketing and profitability.Design/methodology/approachThe paper is part of a project in Sweden to stimulate a dialogue on the importance and role of marketing. As such the paper draws on the author's experience as professor, practicing marketer, consumer and citizen and expresses a personal and unorthodox synthesis of ongoing developments in marketing.FindingsAlthough customer orientation has been on the agenda for at least half a century it is not whole‐heartedly implemented. The reason may be that it is unrealistic as a general guideline for marketing. First, a single stakeholder can only in special instances be treated as the nucleus of marketing and business; a tradeoff between several stakeholders – “balanced centricity” – stands out as more realistic. Second, the gullibility of human nature and the customer's limited knowledge and time open up for the deployment of diverse tricks in marketing practice. The current evolution of marketing theory and the advent of better methodology to handle complexity could be a step forward once the marketing discipline embraces it fully. Gaps between what marketing textbooks prescribe and the real world confronting marketers need to be narrowed.Practical implicationsJust focusing on the customer and customer satisfaction is not possible in practice; businesses have to balance the interests of many stakeholders, thus balanced centricity.Originality/valueCustomer centricity is hardly ever challenged in the research literature and textbooks and its strategic value is often not understood and accepted in practice.
The Business Genome Project and the advancement of business practice
Authors: Wilkinson Ian F. , Crossfield Roy 
Published: June 2008

PurposeBusiness innovation comes from combining, recombining and modifying existing ideas, knowledge and know‐how in new ways. The purpose of this paper is to describe an approach to accelerating the business innovation process by priming the combining and recombining process, called the Business Genome Project (BGP).Design/methodology/approachBusiness innovation and evolution is compared to cultural and biological evolution and the Human Genome Project (HGP) is used as a template for developing the business genome concept, which involves identifying and mapping the building blocks of extant businesses.FindingsThe paper describes a way of priming the innovation pump by aiding the identification and sharing of key business ideas, knowledge and know‐how across firms, organisations, industries, technologies and nations. Recent developments in internet‐based technologies, like Wikipedia and the Encyclopedia of Life, suggest the project is feasible.Practical implicationsThe BGP can provide a fundamental, new understanding of the commercial world: its businesses, their know‐how, their context and their cultures. It also provides a basis for on‐going collaboration, communication, research and development, amongst businesses (and their stakeholders), which would accelerate the innovation process.Originality/valueThe BGP is an original idea inspired by the HGP that promises to have a similar impact on business practice, policy and research.
Mesmerizing marketing: a compact cultural history
Authors: Brown Stephen 
Published: June 2008

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the widely‐held belief that marketing holds customers in thrall and persuades them to buy things they otherwise would not.Design/methodology/approachRather than adopt a scientific approach to the mesmeric marketing phenomenon, it embraces an artistic perspective, focusing on three crucial cultural “moments” in the emergence of the great manipulator mindset.FindingsWhereas innumerable scientific experiments show that subliminal advertising does not work, except in certain circumstances, the cultural approach demonstrates that subliminals are, in fact, enormously successful. Regardless of scientific evidence to the contrary, most consumers believe that subliminal advertising not only works but is an established marketing practice.Practical implicationsThe paper suggests that marketers should place less reliance on the scientific paradigm. Marketing science has its place – a very important place – but not everything can be captured in a simultaneous equation or linear regression model. Cultural components analysis is just as significant as principal components analysis.Originality/valueReceived wisdom concerning subliminal advertising is challenged and creatively reinterpreted from a supra‐science standpoint.
Floods in Jakarta: when the extreme reveals daily structural constraints and mismanagement
Authors: Texier Pauline 
Published: June 2008

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to analyze the root causes of disaster vulnerability in Jakarta, to highlight the strategies and implications of official policies, and to consider alternatives for vulnerability mitigation. The February 2007 floods which struck Jakarta emphasized the extreme vulnerability of informal poor communities and the inefficiency of the disaster management policy set up by the Indonesian government.Design/methodology/approachDetailed field investigations were undertaken before, during and after the February 2007 flood event in several informal districts of Jakarta to collect secondary data and conduct interviews with the population and some stakeholders of the disaster management scene.FindingsHuman factors are dominant in explaining the magnitude of the 2007 flooding episode. Urbanization is partially responsible for the extent of the flooding by waterproofing the soils. Yet floods do not strike the inhabitants of formal and informal settlements in the same way. People from the poor illegal areas are the most affected. Their behaviour and coping strategies during the crisis are not due to a low perception of risk, but rather to some daily and non‐hazard‐related constraints which are not taken into account by the government.Practical implicationsTo prevent increasing vulnerability among these communities, it is essential to refocus disaster management strategies on a daily pattern and to integrate them within a global development framework, to de‐marginalize them in terms of access to resources (public services, economic values), and to favoir empowerment.Originality/valueIt is imperative to focus on poverty reduction and to develop economic projects aimed at treating the causes of vulnerability.