bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Theory wrapped in context: bridges between academic and industrial worlds
Authors: Halls Jonathan 
Published: January 2007

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to review two key academic‐commercial partnerships that BBC Training & Development has with two major universities. The learners are undergraduate students seeking training and ultimately a career in broadcasting. The review seeks to examine from the author's perspective the relative strengths each party brings to the partnership and to show how the learner benefits by bringing these together.Design/methodology/approachThe article represents a viewpoint from the author's perspective as a broadcaster and educator. He analyses the relationship, asks what a university should bring to the partnership and draws on interviews with key people involved in the partnership.FindingsPartnerships between the academic and commercial/industrial worlds do bring value to their clients in that they immerse students in the intensive reality of what they are learning, while giving them a context within which to understand theory and thereby develop a critical mindset.Originality/valueThis paper argues that such a partnership will enrich a learner's experience and produce a professional who is both practically grounded and intellectually critical.
E‐learner experiences: learning from the pioneers
Authors: Ettinger Andrew , Holton Viki , Blass Eddie 
Published: January 2007

PurposeTo share the experiences of e‐learning pioneers with regard to the cultural change necessary for e‐learning to be successfully adopted in an organisation.Design/methodology/approachBased on 29 research case studies.FindingsA cultural change needs to take place in organisations for e‐learners to engage in the process. Blending e‐learning with other forms of learning can be a useful introduction to the discipline, but enthusiasm soon wears off. Common resistances to the concept are explored including lack of time and the loneliness of e‐learning, and how the “any where, any time” element of the provision can be as much of a hindrance as of a help.Practical implicationsSuggestions given for ways of overcoming the difficulties encountered by the case study organisations.Originality/valueReflections of early adopters of e‐learning highlights areas of success and difficulty to help other organisations to avoid the same pitfalls.
Harnessing the power of paradigms
Authors: Eales‐White Rupert 
Published: January 2007

PurposeThe purpose of the paper is to demonstrate to the reader that those organisations, which develop a complete explicit organisational paradigm and the strategy to implement it, will guarantee themselves a competitive edge in both short and long‐term profitability.Design/methodology/approachThe paper defines a paradigm and provides an example of a “prevailing paradigm” or “recipe of success”. It provides the reader with understanding of cognitive thinking styles – adaptive and innovative. The paper considers the adaptive and innovate change management paradigms, the advantages and disadvantages, and suggests an effective explicit change management paradigm. It looks at the importance of culture, why culture change initiatives fail and suggests an effective explicit culture paradigmThe paper sets out a process that will enable any organisation to harness the power of paradigms and hence deliver a competitive edge in profitability.FindingsIf an organisation ensures that its core decision makers collectively develop explicit paradigms in all key business areas, it achieves strategic focus and increases its profitability at a faster rate than its competitors.Originality/valueDevelops an understanding of the nature and power of paradigms and how to harness that power to achieve a competitive edge in profitability.
Accelerate your learning
Authors: Chambers Phil 
Published: January 2007

PurposeTo introduce the framework of accelerated learning and some of the pioneers who have helped to shape it. It also aims to give the reader tips on improving the speed and effectiveness of their learning.Design/methodology/approachA description of the MESSAGE model and review of research behind it. Practical approach to applying accelerated learning in personal learning and training situations.FindingsInsight into the multiple facets of a very wide subject area.Practical implicationsImprovement of learning effectiveness or at least curiosity to find out more.Originality/valueAn overview of accelerated learning. Useful for anyone studying or developing training.
Critical factors in executive coaching – the coaching relationship
Authors: Bluckert Peter 
Published: January 2007

PurposeThe paper aims to examine the coaching relationship as a critical success factor in executive coaching. It also aims to set out the characteristics of a successful coaching relationship and how to establish it.Design/methodology/approachThe basic proposition of this article is set out in the introduction – that the coaching relationship is not just a critical success factor, but arguably the critical success factor in successful coaching outcomes. From there, the characteristics of a successful coaching relationship are explored. The link is made to client‐centred counselling and to the influence of “Rogerian” thinking. Key characteristics of the coaching relationship such as rapport, trust, support and challenge are critically examined. Finally, the implications for coach training are set out.FindingsThe arguments presented here point to a need to shift the emphasis of coach training more strongly towards the coaching relationship.Originality/valueA great deal of current literature about executive coaching is focused on models and techniques: this article challenges that approach and reminds the reader of the importance of the coaching relationship as a critical success factor in executive coaching.
Norwich Union: why merely “good” customer service was no longer good enough, and what we did about it
Authors: Willmott John 
Published: January 2007

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explain the strategy and tactics behind Norwich Union Insurance's decision to mount a major initiative to improve the quality of the customer service offered in its customer contact centres from merely “good” to “great”.Design/methodology/approachThe paper explains how the author spearheaded what was in many respects a concerted personal initiative to look at current thinking about how customer service in contact centres could be improved and chose a methodology for improving it by using the practical experience and theoretical input provided by a consultancy, Cape Consulting, which specialises in helping organisations achieve service excellence.FindingsAs the author explains, he investigated the writing and thinking of the American service guru Frederick Reichheld who has argued very successfully that there are no half‐measures in impressing customers; that you either impress them very well indeed or not at all, and that you should basically only need to ask one question to a customer: ‘Would you recommend this organisation to a friend?’ This is the decisive question.Practical implicationsThe beauty of this paper is that it describes a very practical and major initiative to put new thinking on customer service into practice at Norwich Union. The author reports that the impact of the research at a practical level at one contact centre in Scotland has been very considerable and has given Norwich Union much encouragement to broaden the implementation of the work throughout all its contact centres.Originality/valueThe paper is a pioneering study of work that, to the author's knowledge, has not previously been published, either because the work has not been done before or because the work has been done before but has been kept confidential. However, for practical purposes the work reported in the paper can be regarded as entirely original and so far certainly unique in the financial services sector, and probably unique in the UK business community generally.
Delivering the mail: General Physics (UK) Ltd
Authors: Newman Keith 
Published: January 2007

PurposeTo show how training can be delivered effectively in situations where the priorities are constantly changing in response to numerous constraints or developments.Design/methodology/approachGeneral Physics (GP) adopts a standard ISD methodology for all of our projects that allows a large degree of flexibility throughout the project lifecycle and enables us to react to client requirements quickly and efficiently.FindingsFlexibility has been a key issue in this project, where technical issues and client priorities often forced changes particularly in the early days. Because this training is mission critical to Royal Mail it has been imperative that GP can be reactive to customer demands and creative in terms of outputs. The mixture of on‐the‐job, classroom based training and coaching combined with regular competency assessment has enabled GP to make continuous improvements throughout the project and proven to be the most effective delivery for this client.Practical implicationsGP are becoming perceived as the training provider for bespoke materials handling equipment. Many equipment manufacturers would prefer to concentrate on their core business and therefore seek a quality training partner to support their client. This necessitates a good degree of trust and high level communication skills and ultimately leads to long term partnerships.Originality/valueThis project has been, and still is, a model example of GP's approach to training and performance improvement. Each project we undertake is designed, delivered and managed to meet the client's exact requirements; it is what we do best.
The candor imperative
Authors: Bolton James 
Published: January 2007

PurposeCandor has been hailed in the business press as a key to unlocking organizational performance, yet there has been little discussion of methods that can foster and sustain candor. The purpose of this article is to present a theoretical model for firstly, understanding the forces supporting and constraining organizational candor and secondly, promoting its practice.Design/methodology/approachThis paper builds upon existing research that explores the dynamics present in the relationship between the individual and the organization and applies it to the growing need of creating greater organizational candor.FindingsThe decision to disclose ideas and information is a personal choice, an extension of an individual's free will. Organizations that want to capitalize on this rich knowledge base need to cultivate openness within work groups and the larger culture.Practical implicationsThe methods presented here are intended to provide readers with options for nurturing candor in their own work and in the organizations in which they work.Originality/valueThe originality of this article is in bringing forward historical research from the applied behavioral sciences and using it to respond to a current organizational need. It will be of value to those who seek to practice and encourage greater candor, personally and organizationally.
Leadership storytelling
Authors: Harris Jack , Kim Barnes B. 
Published: January 2007

PurposeThe purpose of this viewpoint piece is to focus on sharing a set of best practices with senior and emerging leaders.Design/methodology/approachThe paper demonstrates the relevance of the skills of storytelling to the practice of leadership and provides a set of suggestions and recommendations for effective use of stories, based on the authors' personal experience and observations.FindingsLeaders who tell stories compellingly communicate important messages in a memorable way, offer a pathway to leadership for others, develop more effective relationships with those they lead, and can create an inspirational culture in their organizations.Practical implicationsLeaders can search their own history and experience for important lessons learned that can be communicated in the form of a narrative and learn to tell them with grace, humor, and/or incisiveness at appropriate times in the life of their organization or key people.Originality/valueThose who are leaders or who work to develop leaders can benefit from this alternative approach to leadership communication.
Team working: part 2 – how are teams chosen and developed?
Authors: McGreevy Malcolm 
Published: January 2007

PurposeThis is the second of two articles on teamwork which aim to deals with the selection and formation of teams, team leadership, team roles and team development.Design/methodology/approachThe paper builds on the first article which covered such issues as the reasons for moving to team working for improving performance, improving quality and encouraging innovation, promoting and exploiting technological advances and as a means of improving motivation. The article also looks at how teams are chosen and developed. Best practice as outlined by the UK Advisory, conciliation and arbitration service (ACAS) is used together with the personal experience of the author.FindingsThe first thing to recognize is that organizations will be at different points in their evolution in team working terms. Teams that need to work within and across an organization such as sales, marketing, purchasing, personnel and finance find that team working fosters a collaborative rather than a competitive or adversarial approach. It is vital that teams must be capable of doing the job for which they have been selected and this clearly implies that the membership should include people able to contribute towards the completion of task.Originality/valueIt is important that management, trade unions and employees ensure they know how team working will contribute to their business strategy and that it is likely to involve a long‐term transformation.
Copyright theft
Authors: Doherty Will 
Published: January 2007

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to help educate and advise the learning and development (L&D) or training community about the common and statute laws they must follow when selling, storing and publishing and delivering their training material.Design/methodology/approachThe paper has been assembled by desk top research reviewing current statute legislation and Regulations that are enforceable within the UK. In addition key authors of popular HR models have been contacted for their views and opinions as to how they want to retain and protect their intellectual property rights. In addition legal experts who specialize in the litigation of cases involving copyright theft, intellectual property storage and the “passing of material”.FindingsThe findings conclude L&D Training Managers do not fully understand their liability and responsibility for complying with Copyright Legislation. Blatant “passing off” plagiarised training material as their own is commonplace. Course hand books sold commerically that include reproduced models without the original author's permission, no bibliography or list of references appear to be quite commonplace. In addition these training companies believe they can electronically store these models on their intranet and then call it their own intellectual property.Originality/valueThis paper has brought several key authors together to review the problem and to take more assertive action. It has helped HR directors and chief executives realize that their training departments could be exposing their share holders to undesirable litigation. For commercial training companies it has raised the fact that ignorance of copyright law is no defense and it is only a matter of time before these transgressors are caught and prosecuted.
Comparison and evaluation of the user interfaces of e‐journals
Authors: Vilar Polona , Žumer Maja 
Published: January 2007

PurposeAims to present a comparison and evaluation of four user interfaces of web‐based e‐journals (Science Direct, ProQuest Direct, EBSCO Host and Emerald).Design/methodology/approachThe systems were assessed in an expert study according to accepted guidelines regarding user friendliness and functionality. User friendliness features studied were: language(s) and type(s) of interface; navigation options; personalization; and screen features. Functions inspected were: database selection; query formulation and reformulation; results manipulation; and help.FindingsMany similarities were found, but some differences among the systems were also discovered and analysed in detail. The greatest differences were found in the area of query formulation, and between the interface languages and types.Research limitations/implicationsThe user interfaces of four full‐text IR systems offering e‐journals which are accessible at the University of Ljubljana are surveyed.Practical implicationsThe interfaces are surveyed and assessed in order to discover their characteristics, advantages, and potential downsides and/or mistakes which may hinder use by an average user.Originality/valueThe study serves as a basis for a subsequent user study of the information behaviour of the users of these systems.
A substantive theory of classification for information retrieval
Authors: Hjørland Birger , Nissen Pedersen Karsten 
Published: January 2007

PurposeTo suggest that a theory of classification for information retrieval (IR), asked for by Spärck Jones in a 1970 paper, presupposes a full implementation of a pragmatic understanding. Part of the Journal of Documentation celebration, “60 years of the best in information research”.Design/methodology/approachLiterature‐based conceptual analysis, taking Spärck Jones as its starting‐point. Analysis involves distinctions between “positivism” and “pragmatism” and “classical” versus Kuhnian understandings of concepts.FindingsClassification, both manual and automatic, for retrieval benefits from drawing upon a combination of qualitative and quantitative techniques, a consideration of theories of meaning, and the adding of top‐down approaches to IR in which divisions of labour, domains, traditions, genres, document architectures etc. are included as analytical elements and in which specific IR algorithms are based on the examination of specific literatures. Introduces an example illustrating the consequences of a full implementation of a pragmatist understanding when handling homonyms.Practical implicationsOutlines how to classify from a pragmatic‐philosophical point of view.Originality/valueProvides, emphasizing a pragmatic understanding, insights of importance to classification for retrieval, both manual and automatic.
Effects of foreign language and task scenario on relevance assessment
Authors: Hansen Preben , Karlgren Jussi 
Published: January 2007

PurposeThis paper aims to investigate how readers assess relevance of retrieved documents in a foreign language they know well compared with their native language, and whether work‐task scenario descriptions have effect on the assessment process.Design/methodology/approachQueries, test collections, and relevance assessments were used from the 2002 Interactive CLEF. Swedish first‐language speakers, fluent in English, were given simulated information‐seeking scenarios and presented with retrieval results in both languages. Twenty‐eight subjects in four groups were asked to rate the retrieved text documents by relevance. A two‐level work‐task scenario description framework was developed and applied to facilitate the study of context effects on the assessment process.FindingsRelevance assessment takes longer in a foreign language than in the user first language. The quality of assessments by comparison with pre‐assessed results is inferior to those made in the users' first language. Work‐task scenario descriptions had an effect on the assessment process, both by measured access time and by self‐report by subjects. However, effects on results by traditional relevance ranking were detectable. This may be an argument for extending the traditional IR experimental topical relevance measures to cater for context effects.Originality/valueAn extended two‐level work‐task scenario description framework was developed and applied. Contextual aspects had an effect on the relevance assessment process. English texts took longer to assess than Swedish and were assessed less well, especially for the most difficult queries. The IR research field needs to close this gap and to design information access systems with users' language competence in mind.
Reading behavior in the digital environment
Authors: Liu Ziming 
Published: January 2007

PurposeThis study attempts to investigate reading behavior in the digital environment by analyzing how people's reading behavior has changed over the past ten years.Design/methodology/approachSurvey and analysis methods are employed.FindingsWith an increasing amount of time spent reading electronic documents, a screen‐based reading behavior is emerging. The screen‐based reading behavior is characterized by more time spent on browsing and scanning, keyword spotting, one‐time reading, non‐linear reading, and reading more selectively, while less time is spent on in‐depth reading, and concentrated reading. Decreasing sustained attention is also noted. Annotating and highlighting while reading is a common activity in the printed environment. However, this “traditional” pattern has not yet migrated to the digital environment when people read electronic documents.Originality/valueImplications for the changes in reading behavior are discussed, and directions for future research are suggested.
Subject cataloging process of Slovenian and American catalogers
Authors: Šauperl Alenka 
Published: January 2007

PurposeAn empirical study has shown that the real process of subject cataloging does not correspond entirely to theoretical descriptions in textbooks and international standards. The purpose of this is paper is to address the issue of whether it be possible for catalogers who have not received formal training to perform subject cataloging in a different way to their trained colleagues.Design/methodology/approachA qualitative study was conducted in 2001 among five Slovenian public library catalogers. The resulting model is compared to previous findings.FindingsFirst, all catalogers attempted to determine what the book was about. While the American catalogers tried to understand the topic and the author's intent, the Slovenian catalogers appeared to focus on the topic only. Slovenian and American academic library catalogers did not demonstrate any anticipation of possible uses that users might have of the book, while this was important for American public library catalogers. All catalogers used existing records to build new ones and/or to search for subject headings. The verification of subject representation with the indexing language was the last step in the subject cataloging process of American catalogers, often skipped by Slovenian catalogers.Research limitations/implicationsThe small and convenient sample limits the findings.Practical implicationsComparison of subject cataloging processes of Slovenian and American catalogers, two different groups, is important because they both contribute to OCLC's WorldCat database. If the cataloging community is building a universal catalog and approaches to subject description are different, then the resulting subject representations might also be different.Originality/valueThis is one of the very few empirical studies of subject cataloging and indexing.