bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
The moderating role of environmental dynamism between firm emotional capability and performance
Authors: Akgün Ali E. , Keskin Halit , Byrne John 
Published: April 2008

PurposeThis paper aims to examine the impact of a firm's emotional capability on its performance by considering the environmental dynamism, and to enhance the literature on organizational change and competencies.Design/methodology/approachThe study involves a questionnaire‐based survey of managers and employees from a variety of firms operating in Turkey. A total of 356 surveys from 112 firms were received and subjected to moderated multiple hierarchical regression analyses.FindingsThe results show that firm emotional capability, which involves the dynamics of encouragement, displaying freedom, playfulness, experiencing, reconciliation, and identification constructs, has a significant effect on the firm's financial performance and organizational effectiveness. Further, that the relationship between emotional capability and firm performance was influenced by the environmental dynamism including changes in industry, competition and consumer.Research limitations/implicationsThis study only scratched the surface in the important research area on emotional capability in organizational change management scholarship; hence this requires further empirical research.Practical implicationsThis study helps managers to understand the role an organization's skill plays in the management of its employees' emotions in order to increase the firm's performance in changing environments.Originality/valueThe paper explores the emotional perspective of organizational capabilities on a firm's financial performance and organizational effectiveness to increase one's comprehension of successful capabilities‐environment matching, and understanding of the capabilities of firms for continued and effective adaptation.
An investigation into the rheological properties of different lead‐free solder pastes for surface mount applications
Authors: Mallik S. , Ekere N.N. , Durairaj R. , Marks A.E. 
Published: April 2008

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the rheological behaviour of three different lead‐free solder pastes used for surface mount applications in the electronic industry.Design/methodology/approachThis study concerns the rheological measurements of solder paste samples and is made up of three parts. The first part deals with the measurement of rhelogical properties with three different measuring geometries, the second part looks into the effect of frequencies on oscillatory stress sweep measurements and the final part reports on the characterisation and comparison of three different types of Pb‐free solder pastes.FindingsAmong the three geometries, the serrated parallel plate was found effective in minimising the wall‐slip effect. From the oscillatory stress‐sweep data with different frequencies; it was observed that the linear visco‐elastic region is independent of frequency for all the solder paste samples. To understand the shear thinning behaviour of solder paste, the well known Cross and Carreau models were fitted to the viscosity data. Moreover, creep‐recovery and dynamic frequency‐sweep tests were also carried out without destroying the sample's structure and have yielded useful information on the pastes behaviour.Research limitations/implicationsMore extensive research is needed to fully characterise the wall‐slip behaviour during the rheological measurements of solder pastes.Practical implicationsThe rheological test results presented in this paper will be of important value for research and development, quality control and facilitation of the manufacturing of solder pastes and flux mediums.Originality/valueThis paper shows how wall‐slip effects can be effectively avoided during rheological measurements of solder pastes. The paper also outlines how different rheological test methods can be used to characterise solder paste behaviours.
Cost modeling in logistics using time‐driven ABC
Authors: Everaert Patricia , Bruggeman Werner , Sarens Gerrit , Anderson Steven R. , Levant Yves 
Published: April 2008

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to describe the experiences of a wholesaler with time‐driven activity‐based costing (TDABC). Three research questions are addressed: How are complex logistics operations modeled by TDABC? Does TDABC provide more accurate cost information than activity‐based costing (ABC)? How is TDABC cost information used?Design/methodology/approachCase study research was performed at a Belgian wholesaler. Interviews were conducted. The cost and activity database was analyzed.FindingsThis case study illustrates that there are logistics operations that cannot be modeled using a single cost driver, as is done with ABC. TDABC uses time equations to estimate the time spent on each activity. The results herein show how the time equations can capture the different complexities, by including different terms or interaction terms in the time equations. The database analysis clearly demonstrates that TDABC provided more accurate cost information than ABC at this case company. ABC oversimplified 64 percent of the activities, and misallocated 55 percent of all indirect costs.Research limitations/implicationsThis study is one of the first, investigating the experiences with TDABC. The results are derived from analyzing all activities, at a single case company.Practical implicationsThe study illustrates the technique of TDABC and provides a real company example of time equations in logistics. The users declared the TDABC model very useful for profitability reporting and profit management. The time drivers provided insight into the causes of excessive distribution and logistics costs.Originality/valueThis paper complements current discussion on cost drivers and subtasks and logistics costing.
Consumers' evaluations of co‐branded products: the licensing effect
Authors: Saqib Najam , Manchanda Rajesh V. 
Published: April 2008

PurposeThis paper seeks to establish the importance of studying the effects of licensing brand alliances from a customer's standpoint, to investigate the effectiveness of licensing as a strategy by comparing it with a brand extension of a well‐known parent brand, and to provide a theoretical explanation for the licensing effects.Design/methodology/approachIn Study 1, subjects' attitudes were measured towards a lesser known brand with and without licensing by Sony, and Sony alone in a three‐factor (licensing, no licensing, and Sony) between‐subjects design. Study 2 compared a licensed brand with a brand extension of a well‐known brand using the Chow test.FindingsA brand “licensed by Sony” was evaluated higher than without licensing. Moreover, no difference was found between evaluation of a brand licensed by Sony and Sony alone. Study 2 revealed no significant difference between the data collected from a licensed brand and a well‐known brand extension, suggesting that being a licensed brand in some cases may be as effective as being an extension of a well‐known brand.Research limitations/implicationsThe research examined the effects of strong brand names (e.g. Sony). It would be interesting to extend the findings by examining the brand names that are perhaps less strong (e.g. Samsung) to test the generalizability of the research.Practical implicationsFor lesser‐known brands, licensing could be a viable strategy to increase their brand evaluation.Originality/valueFor new brands, this paper provides evidence that licensing is a viable strategy, and also provides a theoretical explanation for the licensing effects.
Brand building in software SMEs: an empirical study
Authors: Ojasalo Jukka , Nätti Satu , Olkkonen Rami 
Published: April 2008

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to increase the knowledge of brand building in software SMEs.Design/methodology/approachThe empirical method used is a multi‐case study. Data were collected from 20 companies in the software industry through in‐depth interviews. The data were analyzed using systematic coding and categorization of qualitative evidence.FindingsThe study identified five special characteristics of brand building in software SMEs, relating to goals and perceived benefits of brand building; resources in brand building; external and internal cooperation in brand building; means and communication in brand building; and the process of product brand building and its connection to software product development.Research limitations/implicationsThe scientific contribution of this empirical study relates to two aspects of brand management: branding in software business and branding in SMEs. A vast amount of literature exists on “brands”, “software business” and “SMEs”, but there is very little on “branding in software business” or “branding in SMEs”. Unarguably, there are two significant knowledge gaps in the literature, and they relate to branding in software and SME industries. Both theoretical and managerial knowledge is needed. This study corresponds to this need by increasing the knowledge of brand building in software SMEs with an empirical study. The present study is characterized by the general limitations of a case study. The results lack statistical reliability, they apply primarily in the case companies examined, and no direct generalizations should be made without further quantitative study.Practical implicationsDirectors of SMEs often think that branding is just for big companies, but small companies with limited resources can brand their products and services as well. However, the means of branding are often different. The present study encourages SMEs to systematically think of the potential advantages of branding for their business, and develop creative, targeted, and affordable approaches for brand building.Originality/valueThe present empirical study makes an original contribution to the literature by increasing the knowledge of branding in the context of both SMEs and software business.
Management of information‐credibility risk in an ICT society
Authors: Hirose Yayoi , Sonehara Noboru 
Published: April 2008

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to propose a new direction for managing information‐credibility risk in the current information and communications technology (ICT) era, where ICT has had both positive and negative effects on contemporary society.Design/methodology/approachThe paper takes a practical and inductive approach to study the Kyoto avian influenza panic and countermeasures taken in 2004.FindingsThe paper identifies factors which led to enormous damage through harmful rumors and proposes new perspectives for devising countermeasures, such as increasing consumer confidence in an agency as a source of information and effective management of knowledge transfer from experts to non‐experts.Practical implicationsThe study gains a better understanding of both technological and social factors that enable or detract from effective nationwide management of information‐credibility risk. Many related ICT projects have been based on either human resource systems or advanced technology. It considers the integration of both factors from three perspectives.Originality/valueThis is a new perspective for examining the transfer of knowledge from experts to consumers in terms of practical solutions, in contrast to the many existing knowledge‐related articles that have mainly focused on knowledge management among experts.
Classifying information sender of web documents
Authors: Kato Yoshikiyo , Kurohashi Sadao , Inui Kentaro 
Published: April 2008

PurposeTo develop a method for classifying information sender of web documents, which constitutes an important part of information credibility analysis.Design/methodology/approachMachine learning approach was employed. About 2,000 human‐annotated web documents were prepared for training and evaluation. The classification model was based on support vector machine, and the features used for the classification included the title and URL of documents, as well as information of the top page.FindingsWith relatively small set of features, the proposed method achieved over 50 per cent accuracy.Research limitations/implicationsSome of the information sender categories were found to be more difficult to classify. This is due to the subjective nature of the categories, and further refinement of the categories is needed.Practical implicationsWhen combined with opinion/sentiment analysis techniques, information sender classification allows more profound analysis based on interactions between opinions and senders. Such analysis forms a basis of information credibility analysis.Originality/valueThis study formulated the problem of information sender classification. It proposed a method which achieves moderate performance. It also identified some of the issues related to information sender classification.
Beyond semiotics and hermeneutics
Authors: Sitz Lionel 
Published: April 2008

PurposeThis paper contends that the central question in understanding consumers' experiences is not what is said (lexical analysis) or why (ideological analysis), but how consumers relate these experiences. The purpose is to present a method called discourse analysis (DA) to examine consumers' narratives. This interdisciplinary perspective advantageously complements the lexical, content analytic or semiotic approaches traditionally used in marketing.Design/methodology/approachIn order to show the potential of DA as a method to analyze qualitative data, the paper reports on a research concerning consumers' shopping experiences. Data used stemmed from in‐depth interviews that are analyzed through a critical DA informed by discursive psychology and foucauldian approaches.FindingsDA allows marketers grasping the experiential value of shopping activities by depicting these experiences as ongoing constructions which meaning is constantly reinterpreted. DA also gives access to the various ways informants' manage their identity through narration. Hence, it challenges the simplistic dichotomy between consumers and producers and allows marketers to look at consumers as co‐producers of their lived experience. Given the scope of the study, the obtained results are situated and further researches should be conducted to critically analyze various types of discourses, produced by different actors. This paper shows the potential of DA in analyzing qualitative material. DA could be usefully employed to grasp the thoughts and feelings of the consumers. Rather than solely conducting lexical and/or semiotic analyses, marketers could use DA as a complementary investigation tool.Originality/valueThrough DA, this paper suggests new ways for seeking knowledge about the consumers and the market. To this end, it presents DA principles and shows that it is too often neglected by marketers trying to analyze consumers' narratives.
A semiotic analysis of nostalgia as a connection to the past
Authors: Kessous Aurélie , Roux Elyette 
Published: April 2008

PurposeBased on Greimas' contributions in 2002 and on qualitative research, this paper aims to focus on a semiotic analysis of the meaning of nostalgia related to products and brands.Design/methodology/approachThis paper involves a two‐stage interview process. Informants were interviewed first in T1 (July‐August 2005) about products and brands connected to nostalgic feelings. They were re‐interviewed a year after in T2 (June‐July 2006). Pictures of products and brands evoked in T1 were shown and informants where asked what came to mind when they where exposed to such material. Based on the transcription of the interviews, a three‐step content analysis was performed: a first reading of the corpus made it possible to identify the two dimensions of time that structure the informant's discourse: “continuity” and “discontinuity”. Then a lexical analysis of the vocabulary associated with nostalgic experience was computed. Finally, a semiotic analysis of the texts was performed.FindingsThe two opposing dimensions of a semiotic square, “continuity” versus “discontinuity” provide a structure for understanding the most important features of nostalgia: “long‐standing nostalgia” (continuity) and “first‐time nostalgia” (discontinuity). This provides a typology of four nostalgic moments: everyday past, uniqueness, tradition and transition which are linked to specific brands and objects.Research limitations/implicationsSince this typology is qualitative, it must be confirmed on a larger scale in order to be implemented by managers in the marketing decision‐making process.Originality/valueThese four distinct moments enable a researcher to propose a typology of brands, products or objects that when considered in association, can provide a better understanding of emotional attachment.
Ant colonies for structure optimisation in a failure prone series‐parallel production system
Authors: Nahas Nabil , Nourelfath Mustapha , Ait‐Kadi Daoud 
Published: April 2008

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to extend the optimal design problem of series manufacturing production lines to series‐parallel lines, where redundant machines and in‐process buffers are both included to achieve a greater production rate. The objective is to maximize production rate subject to a total cost constraint.Design/methodology/approachAn analytical method is proposed to evaluate the production rate, and an ant colony approach is developed to solve the problem. To estimate series‐parallel production line performance, each component (i.e. each set of parallel machines) of the original production line is approximated as a single unreliable machine. To determine the steady state behaviour of the resulting non‐homogeneous production line, it is first transformed into an approximately equivalent homogeneous line. Then, the well‐known Dallery‐David‐Xie algorithm (DDX) is used to solve the decomposition equations of the resulting (homogenous) line. The optimal design problem is formulated as a combinatorial optimisation one where the decision variables are buffers and types of machines, as well as the number of redundant machines. The effectiveness of the ant colony system approach is illustrated through numerical examples.FindingsSimulation results show that the analytical approximation used to estimate series‐parallel production lines is very accurate. It has been found also that ant colonies can be extended to deal with the series‐parallel extension to determine near‐optimal or optimal solutions in a reasonable amount of time.Practical implicationsThe model and the solution approach developed can be applied for optimal design of several industrial systems such as manufacturing lines and power production systems.Originality/valueThe paper presents an approach for the optimal design problem of series‐parallel manufacturing production lines.
Process capability indices dedicated to bivariate non normal distributions
Authors: Castagliola Philippe , Garcia Castellanos José‐Victor 
Published: April 2008

PurposeProcess capability indices (PCI) are frequently used in order to measure the performance of production processes. In their 2005 article, Castagliola and Castellanos proposed a new approach for the estimation of bivariate PCIs in the case of a bivariate normal distribution and a rectangular tolerance region. This paper proposes extending Castagliola and Garcia‐Castellanos's paper to the estimation of bivariate PCIs in the case of non‐normal bivariate distributions.Design/methodology/approachThe proposed method is based on the use of Johnson's System of distributions/transformations in order to transform the bivariate non normal distribution into an approximate bivariate normal distribution. Numerical examples are presented and some criteria are given in order to choose the appropriate Johnson's distribution.Research limitations/implicationsThe proposed method is only dedicated to the case of two quality characteristics and a rectangular tolerance region (the most common case).FindingsThe proposed method allows the evaluation of bivariate capability indices irrespective of the distribution of the data and thus allows obtaining more reliable estimates for these values.Originality/valueThe main originality of the method presented in this paper is its ability to compute bivariate capability indices when the distribution of the data is not a bivariate normal distribution, i.e. the general case.
When a “worker” becomes an “older worker”
Authors: Desmette Donatienne , Gaillard Mathieu 
Published: April 2008

PurposeThe aim of this paper is to investigate the relationship between perceived social identity as an “older worker” and attitudes towards early retirement and commitment to work.Design/methodology/approachSurvey data were obtained from 352 workers aged 50‐59. Hierarchical regression analyses were performed to test the influence of social identity after controlling for demographics, organizational variables and work‐to‐family conflict.FindingsThe results show that self‐categorization as an “older worker” is related to negative attitudes towards work (stronger desire to retire early, stronger inclination towards intergenerational competition) while the perception that the organization does not use age as a criterion for distinguishing between workers supports positive attitudes towards work (e.g. higher value placed on work).Research limitations/implicationsThis study is cross‐sectional and does not allow conclusions about causality between intergroup processes and attitudes towards works. Future research should develop longitudinal designs to verify that social identity as an “older worker” does induce elders' attitudes at work.Originality/valueRetirement is usually considered as an individual and opportunistic decision. This research highlights its social dimensions and suggests that managers should pay attention to ageism at work and its potential effects not only on the withdrawal process but also on the quality of life in the workplace.
The transition process to post‐working life and its psychosocial outcomes
Authors: Crego Antonio , Alcover de la Hera Carlos , Martínez‐Íñigo David 
Published: April 2008

PurposeThis paper aims to carry out an in‐depth exploration of early retirement processes from a psychosocial perspective, identifying factors that play a relevant role in decisions for leaving work as well as variables involved in retirement adjustment and possible outcomes for retirees.Design/methodology/approachQualitative data from nine focus groups – made up of a total of 78 Spanish early retirees from different sectors of activity (industry, bank/financial services and telecommunications) – were codified and analyzed using the ATLAS.ti 5 program.FindingsThe study highlights the relevance of how organizational exit is carried out (voluntariness, perception of justice, etc.) in relation to the adjustment to retirement. The degree to which the labor market exit implies different types of rupture (psychological contract, identity, professional and personal objectives, way of life, etc.) conditions the adaptation to post‐working life. The importance of social support during the transition process from work to early retirement is pointed out.Research limitations/implicationsThe study is an initial exploratory approach to the early retirement experience in Spain. Although the sample is not representative, the use of qualitative methods allows for the identification of relevant variables to include in future research. Results should be complemented by means of triangulation method, involving contrast between qualitative and quantitative strategies.Practical implicationsOrganizational HRM policies should aim to promote a smoother early exit as well as guarantee “fair play” during the process. Concerning adjustment to early retirement, psychosocial programs aiming to improve coping strategies are needed.Originality/valueThe paper presents a systematic overview of early retirees' discourse, analyzing the role of different variables involved in the transition process from work to early retirement.