bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
The progress of female police officers?
Authors: Dick Gavin , Metcalfe Beverley 
Published: February 2007

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to establish empirically whether there is any foundation in the premise that female officers' lesser tenure and/or lower levels of commitment than men explain their lack of career progress. Although the number of women in UK police forces has grown rapidly, it appears that they continue to be under‐represented in senior ranks.Design/methodology/approachUsing whole population surveys of two county police forces in the UK the paper compares the promotion of men and women police officers controlling for tenure. The paper then compares the organisational commitment of male and female officers and analyses whether female officers experience managerial and organisational influences that undermine their organisational commitment compared to men.FindingsThe findings refute some of the widespread beliefs about reasons for female officers' lack of progress in their policing careers since the analysis indicates that gender differences in length of tenure and organisational commitment can be discounted as possible explanations for lack of advancement in these two police forces. Overall, the results clearly show that female officers are just as committed as male officers and thus cannot be justified as a reason for lack of career progression.Research limitations/implicationsIt is accepted that survey methods such as ours do not capture the entirety of employee feelings and responses since they tend to homogenise male and female working experiences. However, survey methods do have the advantage that it is possible to generalise from the results and thus these two studies allow us to suggest that our findings can be viewed as providing insights to other UK police forces.Practical implicationsThe relatively low levels of organisational commitment found should be a cause for concern for senior managers in the Police. The key importance that management has in influencing organisational commitment has been shown by our findings and this indicates the importance of the current Police Leadership Development Board's agenda to improve workforce management skills to encourage transformational leadership styles.Originality/valueThe paper make an original contribution by refuting widely held assumptions about the reasons for under‐representation of female officers in senior ranks. It also contributes to the sparse literature that examines organisational commitment in the police and its antecedents.
Introducing quality assurance: an exercise in audacity
Authors: Vuori Hannu 
Published: February 2007

PurposeThe purpose of the paper is to examine commitment to quality assurance within health authorities.Design/methodology/approachThe paper discusses approaches to achieving the requisite changes, including what to change and how to increase readiness for change; motives for change, where to start and prerequisites for change.FindingsThe paper finds that health authorities have a tendency to look at quality assurance as a professional luxury which deals with the subtleties of care rather than with its essence and that a strategy for change is needed.Originality/valueThe paper provides useful information on the development of quality assurance in health care.
Of mergers and cultures: “What happened to shared values and joint assumptions?”
Authors: Riad Sally 
Published: February 2007

PurposeThis paper signals departure from a theoretical perspective on organizational culture in mergers and acquisitions based on a binary opposition between coherence and pluralism. The paper aims to outline another, dialogic perspective on cultural transformations in mergers and acquisitions, based on an assumption that individuals occupy temporary positions in dynamic dialogue, negotiating equally transitory, but temporarily cohesive allegiances.Design/methodology/approachThe dialogic perspective derives from a constructionist approach and involves ethnographic research methodology. It is developed to track the complex contests of interests in post‐merger pluralist cultures and to reconstruct their dynamics. While some events in the merger process contribute to cultural pluralism and contest of interest, others appear to render allegiance to cohesive cultural elements seductively appropriable.FindingsTwo situations are presented. The first poses a view of culture during mergers in which contest over meaning is central and whereby the representation of a cohesive organizational culture is appropriated for political purposes. The second situation illustrates cross‐cutting cultures in action, presenting the development of a “working culture” a notion based on flitting cross‐organizational allegiances in the interest of confronting a central team.Originality/valueThe paper contributes to critical work on organizational culture in merger integration. It points to the inseparability of binaries, the limits of cultural attribution and the tension instigated by the conflation of culture's “differences”. In closing, it points to a future direction with a relational emphasis to merger integration.
A history and review of the European Quality Award Model
Authors: Conti Tito A. 
Published: February 2007

PurposeThrough the analysis of a crucial period of the history of quality in Europe – the creation of the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) and the development of the European Quality Award – the author, who was a protagonist of the narrated events, aims to reveal some historical aspects that are generally ignored and that should explain some of the peculiarities of the award model. Taking stock of the present situation, some directions taken in the TQM/Excellence Model's development and use are questioned, and the author reasserts his views on the whole matter.Design/methodology/approachFor the historical part the author has based his research on public documents, EFQM Newsletters and internal documentation and personal correspondence with the protagonists of the events that are mentioned. The author will be glad to share with students who want to conduct research in this area his personal records. The following discussion is mostly based on the author's findings and experiences, compared with the most common practices.FindingsSince the purpose of the paper is to tell a story which the author was a protagonist of, to derive from it some lessons that are important for the future, the first part of the paper is dedicated to narrating those aspect of the European Quality Award Model's development that are crucial to understanding why such a model, initially developed following the Malcolm Baldrige Award scheme, suddenly changed dramatically. In this part the author relates some personal anecdotes to make the story more alive and complete. The second part of the paper presents the author's views on organisational improvement models and self‐assessment and explains why he believes that the present course should be changed, if the risk of negative impacts on quality development is to be avoided.Originality/valueThe paper tells a story of an out of the box approach that strongly affected the development of the European Quality Award Model, now the EFQM Excellence Model; and explains why, in the author's view, further innovation is needed in quality management, if we really want to pursue continuous organisational improvement.
Indian culture and the culture for TQM: a comparison
Authors: Ranjan Kumar Madhu , Sankaran Shankar 
Published: February 2007

PurposeThis paper seeks to argue against the conventional wisdom in the current TQM literature that hierarchy is not conducive for TQM. It aims to identify the cultural dynamics that can aid TQM implementation in a hierarchical country like India.Design/methodology/approachThe paper reflects on the existing literature on culture and TQM and develops a mechanism that explains why hierarchy hinders TQM implementation in Western culture and how it can support TQM implementation in Indian culture.FindingsIn a people oriented culture like those of Japan and India, nurturance is the juice that sustains hierarchy that finally morphs into collectivism. In these social systems, there need not be conflicting impact of hierarchy and collectivism on TQM implementation if the nurturance aspect of hierarchy is understood. Thus, in the Indian context, hierarchy, operationalised through the guru‐shishya (teacher‐student) relationship between the boss and the subordinate can develop a learning orientation among the organisational members and facilitate TQM implementation. Similarly, by superimposing the element of “equity” on the “personalised relationship” dimension of hierarchy, in a collectivistic society like India, it is possible to elevate the aspect of “personalised relationship” between superior and subordinate to the status of “individualised consideration” dimension of transformational leadership provided it is bestowed only upon the satisfactory completion of “task” by the subordinate.Practical implicationsThis paper shows how the cultural aspect of TQM implementation should be handled in a high power distance country like India.Originality/valueThe paper identifies the two Indian cultural aspects that can facilitate TQM implementation in India notwithstanding the hierarchical Indian values.
Intelligent evaluation of fabrics' extensibility from robotized tensile test
Authors: Koustoumpardis Panagiotis N. , Fourkiotis John S. , Aspragathos Nikos A. 
Published: February 2007

PurposeThe paper aims to propose an approach to intelligent evaluation of the tensile test. A robotized system is used that performs the fabrics tensile test and estimates the extensibility of the samples using a feed‐forward neural network while trying to imitate the human expert estimation.Design/methodology/approachThe specifications of the tensile test are derived by an extensive observation of the respective experts' estimation performance. The fabric sample size and the experimental conditions are specified. Linguistic values of the term “fabric extensibility” are extracted through a knowledge acquisition process. The tensile test is performed by a robot manipulator with a simple gripper and the experimental measurements (force, strain) are fed online into a neural network. The network is trained according to the extensibility estimations of the experts. The trained network is tested in estimating unknown fabric's extensibility.FindingsThe results demonstrate that the system is capable of estimating the extensibility of new fabrics.Originality/valueThis work can be integrated in the robotized sewing process with intelligent control where the fabric's extensibility in terms of linguistic values is necessary. The proposed system initiates a new approach, in which the fabric properties are expressed and used in a way that will facilitate the introduction of the artificial intelligence methods into the clothing industry.
Fit evaluation within the made‐to‐measure process
Authors: Chen Chin‐Man 
Published: February 2007

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to evaluate fit of the basic garments made for Taiwanese female students with various figure characteristics. The basic garments are produced according to patterns derived from the PDS 2000 and APDS‐3D systems.Design/methodology/approachThis study recruited ten Taiwanese female subjects who represented various figure characteristics. After scanning each subject, the body measurements with additional functional ease were manually entered into the APDS‐3D system accompanied with the PDS 2000 system to generate the block patterns. These patterns were used to make basic garments worn on the subjects for fit evaluations. T‐test and one‐way ANOVA were employed to investigate if any statistically significant differences between figure characteristics of subjects exist.FindingsAfter statistical analysis, results showed that the percentage of tolerance allowed by the system in preventing incorrect measurements has to be revised and more measurements have to be included into the APDS‐3D system. Furthermore, female students who exhibit multiple figure variations complicate fitting problems. For example, sloped‐shoulder subjects with narrow shoulders and forward stance generate the problem of extra fabric gathering at the shoulder tips as well as looseness at the upper chest. Therefore, figure variations have to be analyzed in a future study.Research limitations/implicationsThe convenient sample with limited size does not allow generalization of figure variations associated with fit problems in all colleges or universities located in Taiwan.Originality/valueFew researchers have analyzed fit problems on garments made for females with figure variations, but none of them use 3D body scanners in combination with computer‐aided design systems to test fit on basic garments for females with various physical characteristics.
Fifty years of archives administration in Nigeria: lessons for the future
Authors: Abioye Abiola 
Published: February 2007

PurposeIn commemoration of the 50 years of archives administration in Nigeria, the purpose of this paper is to look at the establishment of the National Archives of Nigeria, its expansion and development over the years and its role in coordinating records management in Nigeria.Design/methodology/approachThe paper is based on published literature and documentary evidence from records.FindingsThe paper discusses the gains of the past, particularly the high hopes of the 1970s and the expansion and consolidation of the 1980s which rolled into the early 1990s. Notes the decadence of the 1990s and highlights the problems that bedevilled the institutions and archives and records management in the country among which are poor funding, lack of appreciation of the importance of archives, obsolete equipment and high staff turn over.Originality/valueThe paper identifies the challenges and sets the agenda for the future.
Consumer price knowledge in the market for apparel
Authors: Kenning Peter , Evanschitzky Heiner , Vogel Verena , Ahlert Dieter 
Published: February 2007

PurposeThe aim of this study is to analyze consumers' price knowledge in the market for apparels.Design/methodology/approachAfter reviewing earlier attempts at assessing the construct, the price estimation error “PEE” was used, a measure based on explicit price knowledge stored in long‐term memory, as a valid indicator of price knowledge.FindingsThe results, including data from about 1,527 consumers on 66 products from the German apparel market, indicate that price knowledge is relatively low.Originality/valueAlthough, in the literature, there are several studies on price knowledge in the food industry, little is known about price knowledge in other industry sectors. This is quite surprising since pricing strategy is a concept which is vitally important to all retailers. Therefore, this study is a first contribution to extending the concept of behavioral pricing to the apparel market.
Legislation and SME retailers – compliance costs and consequences
Authors: Schmidt Ruth Ä. , Bennison David , Bainbridge Stephen , Hallsworth Alan 
Published: February 2007

PurposeThe introduction, implementation and enforcement of new laws governing the conduct of business can result in substantial additional costs to retailers. Focusing on small to medium sized (SME) retailers in rural areas and market towns, the study reported here aims to provide an understanding of perceptions of potentially disproportionate implementation costs and the resulting consequences.Design/methodology/approachA three‐stage design was used. An exploratory focus group with representatives of the Rural Shop Alliance was followed by seven semi‐structured depth‐interviews with SME retail representatives. Thematic analysis of the qualitative findings formed the basis for a survey of SME retailers in five market towns.FindingsFindings show SME retailers' perceptions of the differential burden related to the impact of new legislation, with the key factors of direct cost, time costs and information costs. Consequently, business growth and the formalisation of staffing arrangements, in particular, can be obstructed. Generally, good relationships with Trading Standards and Environmental Health Officers are often driven by a need for reactive compliance rather than offering a proactive information and support mechanism.Practical implicationsFindings clarify the nature of the differential burden of legislation to retail SMEs. The need for an “outcomes‐for‐business” driven proactive stance by local delivery agencies is highlighted. Ongoing support visits, telephone help lines and leaflets and the press rather than the internet are identified as key information sources.Originality/valueBoth qualitative and quantitative evidence is brought together in the assessment of an area of concern to retail SMEs.
Securing the doors: bouncers and the British licensed trade
Authors: Pratten J.D. 
Published: February 2007

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the social and legal requirements of the job of bouncer in British alcohol retailing outlets and to consider the impact of the Security Industries Authority (SIA) requirements.Design/methodology/approachThere is little literature on the topic. Thus, the objectives have been achieved with reference to the limited material and by asking a selection of stakeholders.FindingsThe work uncovered the attempts to create a formal career structure within the job, and thus to make a potentially violent occupation more respectable. It would appear that those involved perceive little difference to have resulted.Research limitations/implicationsThe interviews involved only one small town. There may well be regional differences, and towns and cities may offer different findings.Practical implicationsFrom the limited work undertaken, it would appear that door staff themselves feel that the lack of a practical element within the qualification is a serious omission. Moreover, if the development of professional door staff is to succeed, the SIA needs to make its aims clear to the public at large.Originality/valueStudies of the licensed trade neglect the work of door staff. More research in this area could improve the service offered, and thus benefit all of those who frequent licensed premises.
Applying platform design to improve the integration of patient services across the continuum of care
Authors: Meyer Marc H. , Jekowsky Eliot , Crane Frederick G. 
Published: February 2007

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to provide the results of a case study that examined the application of platform design to improve the integration of patient care services across the continuum of care. This paper is designed to spark discussion and encourage further research in this area.Design/methodology/approachThe research in the paper involved a case study of a large health care provider in a major metropolitan area. The authors of this paper worked with directors of case management departments and other managerial personnel within the enterprise to study the case management interface services between different inpatient and outpatient facilities to examine existing processes, identify deficiencies, and to recommend improvements in case management.FindingsThe paper finds that the current case management system of the provider, as structured, was not fulfilling its potential for achieving medical quality, operational cost, or patient satisfaction. A number of areas where improvements could be made were identified, and an integrated case management approach based on modular platform design was recommended as a key approach to realize such improvements.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper shows that this study involves only one major provider and therefore the direct application of an integrated case management approach based on platform design to other providers would have to be further researched. However, the proposed integrated, cross‐continuum model of case management appears to be a novel way to both improve care and achieve financial cost efficiencies.Practical implicationsThe case study in this paper demonstrates how innovative thinking and the use of techniques typically associated with “Platform architectures” can have direct application in the health care sector.Originality/valueThe paper shows that as health care providers are continuously working to improve the quality of care within specific areas of clinical care, improvement in the interfaces between these specific areas may also improve the quality and cost of care. This case study applies modular services design to show how the planning and delivering patient services across the entire “Continuum of care”, which includes the transfer of patients, care coordination, and medical information management can achieve that desired result.
Classification of quality attributes
Authors: Witell Lars , Löfgren Martin 
Published: February 2007

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate whether the different approaches to the classification of quality attributes deliver consistent results.Design/methodology/approachThe investigation includes four approaches and enables comparisons to be made from a methodological perspective and from an output perspective. The different approaches are described, analyzed, and discussed in the context of an empirical study that investigates how 430 respondents perceive the performance of an e‐service. The theory of attractive quality rests on a solid theoretical foundation and a methodological approach to classify quality attributes. Recently, various authors have suggested alternative approaches to the traditional five‐level Kano questionnaire – including a three‐level Kano questionnaire, direct classification, and a dual‐importance grid.FindingsThe classification of quality attributes are found to be dependent on the approach that is utilized. The development of new ways to classify quality attributes should follow rigid procedures to provide reliable and consistent results.Originality/valueThis is the first attempt to compare alternative approaches to classify quality attributes. For managers, our results provide guidance on what approach to choose based on the strengths and weaknesses with the different approaches.
kεα: a three‐equation eddy‐viscosity model of turbulence
Authors: Ghirelli Federico 
Published: February 2007

PurposeTo provide an eddy‐viscosity turbulence model that accounts for the non‐equilibrium shape of the energy spectrum and for the effect of velocity correlation on turbulent viscosity.Design/methodology/approachThe turbulence model is built using the standard kε model as the starting point. It is suggested that the character of turbulence depends on the time elapsed since its generation. Therefore, a local variable named “age of turbulence” or α, is defined and its transport equation is derived. Two hypotheses are formulated. The first one is that the shape of the energy spectrum depends on α. The second one is that also the effect of velocity correlation on turbulent viscosity is a function of α, in analogy with the dispersion coefficient of a particle in a turbulent flow. Hence, expressions for the characteristic time scaleτT and the turbulent viscosity νT are proposed and they are integrated in the standard kε model, resulting in a three equation model named here kεα. The expressions of νT and τT reduce to those of the kε model in decaying turbulence, and deviate from them in recently produced turbulence. The empirical constants are calibrated and various benchmark experiments are simulated.FindingsA comparison between computed results and experimental data show that the kεα model is generally more accurate than the standard kε model.Originality/valueThe “age of turbulence” has not been used previously to characterise turbulence. The work is especially relevant for combustion/reacting applications, where the expression of the characteristic turbulence time scale is crucial for the estimation of the reactant mixing rates.