bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Business development success in SMEs: a case study approach
Authors: Forsman Helena 
Published: August 2008

PurposeThere are not many answers to the question of how the development projects launched to improve business performance in SMEs have succeeded. This study focuses on business development success in SMEs. The main objective is to structure and model the success dimensions that contribute to and can be used in evaluating the business development success in SMEs.Design/methodology/approachThe study utilises multiple case study methodology, following the replication approach. The empirical evidence is based on data from four SMEs that have implemented a business development project. Two of the projects were perceived as successful and the other two as unsuccessful.FindingsThis study builds a framework for a business development project success in a SME context. In the SME context the business development project success seems to be dependent on several interrelated dimensions. Success in one area leads to success in other areas, and so creates an upward success spiral. Failure in one area seems to lead to failure in other areas, too, thus creating a downward failure spiral.Practical implicationsThe results provide a basis for benchmarking one's business and evaluate how well one's own firm meets the success dimensions and its focus areas.Originality/valueThe framework for success dimensions has been developed providing a systematic way to analyse the business development project and its impact on the performing company. A setting for analysing the project success from different time perspectives in a SME context has been produced.
Underpricing of European property companies and the IPO cycle: a note
Authors: Freybote Theo , Rottke Nico , Schiereck Dirk 
Published: August 2008

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to provide evidence for the ongoing significant underpricing of European property IPOs.Design/methodology/approachThe paper provides recent evidence on underpricing for a comprehensive data set of 105 IPOs of European property companies. It starts with an overview of evidence and explanations for the underpricing of property IPOs and evidence for the cyclical nature of IPO activity. It then goes on to describe the methodology and data collection process. The results on initial returns are summarised.FindingsThe paper finds that the current IPO market for property shares has been shown to be hot according to common definitions. Additionally, it is safe to say that the hot property securities market has caused to some extent a hot IPO market with property indices averaging 10.69 per cent during the 100 days prior to the IPO compared to 4.65 per cent for the general equity market indices. However, the recovery in Western European property markets and lack of quality property stock in Eastern European countries has created a large financing need for property companies which can be met by going public. Thus, supply side aspects are more likely than market‐timing characteristics to be the major driver behind the current hot IPO market.Originality/valueThe paper provides evidence for an ongoing significant underpricing of European property IPOs and offers an explanation for why it is appropriate to classify the property stock market as a hot market.
UML for the conceptual web
Authors: Madalli Devika P. , Suman Aparajita 
Published: August 2008

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to propose the use of unified modelling language (UML) based ontologies to develop a faceted model to facilitate semantic browsing and searching in digital libraries.Design/methodology/approachThe approach is to understand the way information gets logically organised in the human mind in terms of mutually defined concepts. Ontologies will be used to model the semantic structure of individual information sources using the faceted classification schema of Dr S.R. Ranganathan, though with improvisation to accommodate new concepts relating to digital resources.FindingsUML can be the best option for knowledge representation if the target system is a digital library where the required type of reasoning about ontologies is more in terms of answering specific and specialised questions. Here, ontologies can be used to facilitate a distributed information retrieval system.Originality/valueThe proposed model will not only facilitate semantic searching using UML concept maps but will also enable domain experts, even those with little coding expertise, to build ontologies for their resources while submitting their documents to the digital library.
The pros and cons of computing the h‐index using Scopus
Authors: Jacsó Péter 
Published: August 2008

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to discuss the pros and cons of computing the h‐index using Scopus.Design/methodology/approachThe paper looks at the content features and the software capabilities of Scopus from the perspective of computing a reasonable h‐index for scholars.FindingsAlthough there are limitations in the content, and even in the mostly excellent, swift, powerful and innovative software of Scopus, it can produce a much more reliable and reproducible h‐index – at least for relatively junior researchers – than Google Scholar.Originality/valueThe paper adds insight into computing the h‐index using Scopus.
An assessment of air pollution impact for an Indian highway project
Authors: Basu Debolina , Srivastava R.K. , Vaishya R.C. 
Published: August 2008

PurposeThe paper aims to demonstrate a geographic information system (GIS) based study on environmental impact assessment (EIA), due to air pollution, for a highway project.Design/methodology/approachAn approach has been designed to explore the scope for the combination of EIA and GIS in development for the proposed Allahabad Bypass Project. The air quality in the study area has been quantified in terms of the air pollution index (API). GIS has been exploited to obtain the spatial information for the prediction of air pollution impact at different suburban and rural areas adjacent to the stretch of bypass.FindingsThe study has enabled the researchers to understand the variation in air quality along the total stretch of the bypass keeping in view the “with” and “without” project scenarios. The results obtained from the study show considerable increase in air pollution levels from baseline to the projected period of 20 years, due to gradual increase in vehicular traffic along the highway.Originality/valueThe information presented in this paper serves as an example to quantify the negative impacts of countryside air quality associated with highway projects. The approach utilized the spatial evaluation of air pollution and helps to provide a critical insight to the problem, which is not apparent while carrying out such an exercise in the traditional manner.Practical implicationsHopefully, this study will encourage the highway planners in India to make a wider application of the technique for an indepth assessment of environmental impacts.
Economic instruments and the conservation of biodiversity
Authors: Ayoo Collins 
Published: August 2008

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to describe and examine the problem of biodiversity loss and to explain its underlying causes and the possibilities of using economic instruments to conserve it.Design/methodology/approachThe research in this paper was undertaken through a review of the literature and an analysis of data on the trends of various measures of biodiversity worldwide.FindingsThe loss of biodiversity is occurring worldwide at a rapid rate that has the potential to significantly undermine the prospects for sustainable development. Although the main proximate cause of biodiversity loss is land conversion, the fundamental causes are rooted in economic, institutional, and social factors and include market failures and the lack of property rights.Practical implicationsThis paper presents arguments in support of using economic instruments to conserve biodiversity and explains the conditions under which the use of these instruments is likely to be most successful.Originality/valueThis paper illuminates the economic, social and institutional factors that underlie the rapid loss of biodiversity and outlines some ways in which economic instruments can be used to stem the loss of biodiversity.
A remote sensing based monitoring system for discrimination between climate and human‐induced vegetation change in Central Asia
Authors: Propastin P.A. , Kappas M. , Muratova N.R. 
Published: August 2008

PurposeThis paper aims to demonstrate the importance of taking into account precipitation and the vegetation response to it when trying to analyse changes of vegetation cover in drylands with high inter‐annual rainfall variability.Design/methodology/approachLinear regression models were used to determine trends in NDVI and precipitation and their interrelations for each pixel. Trends in NDVI that were entirely supported by precipitation trends were considered to impose climate‐induced vegetation change. Trends in NDVI that were not explained by trends in precipitation were considered to mark human‐induced vegetation change. Modelling results were validated by test of statistical significance and by comparison with the data from higher resolution satellites and fieldtrips to key test sites.FindingsMore than 26 percent of all vegetated area in Central Asia experienced significant changes during 1981‐2000. Rainfall has been proved to enforce most of these changes (21 percent of the entire vegetated area). The trends in vegetation activity driven by anthropogenic factor are much scarcer and occupy about 5.75 percent of the studied area.Practical implicationsPlanners, decision makers and other interest groups can use the findings of the study for assessment and monitoring land performance/land degradation over dry regions.Originality/valueThe study demonstrates the importance of taking into account precipitation and the vegetation response to it when trying to analyse changes of vegetation cover in drylands with high inter‐annual rainfall variability.
Assessing informal waste recycling in Kanpur City, India
Authors: Zia H. , Devadas V. , Shukla S. 
Published: August 2008

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to outline the socio‐economic and environmental implications of the informal sector engaged in waste recycling in the city of Kanpur, with special emphasis on the lives of lowest group of people, i.e. waste‐pickers, and to discuss various possible scenarios to integrate them with the formal sector.Design/methodology/approachThe study involved field survey of secondary material markets, followed by the administration of questionnaires to 40 respondents belonging to various segments of the informal sector. The questionnaires were designed to elicit information on the socio‐economic characteristics of the respondents. The study was conducted in 2004.FindingsThe study has attempted to delve into the socio‐economic conditions of the waste and dump‐pickers, the lowest segment of the informal recycling sector. The study of the status of existing alliances of formal‐informal sector and the community shows that there is a lot of scope for improvement in the management of solid waste and the condition of the informal waste‐recycling sector. Stronger alliances have the potential to improve the services as well as the socio‐economic condition of the informal waste‐recycling sector.Research limitations/implicationsA very small sample size was selected for this study in the absence of any prior database pertaining to the size, socio‐economic conditions of the informal waste‐recycling sector.Originality/valueThe paper attempts to understand the important role played by the informal sector engaged in waste recycling. This work is original, as no such analysis has been carried out in the study area. This study could be further extended.
ISO 14001 and sustainability at universities: a Mexican case study
Authors: Taddei‐Bringas Jorge L. , Esquer‐Peralta Javier , Platt‐Carrillo Alberto 
Published: August 2008

PurposeThe aim of this paper is to show some relevant issues about how the framework of the ISO 14001‐based EMS contributes to the transition of higher education institutes (HEIs) towards a sustainable university.Design/methodology/approachThe triangulation methodology is used to compare a literature review with the experiences in some universities that have worked with the ISO 14001 framework, and also with the obtained results from a case study in regards to the implementation of such a system in the University of Sonora.FindingsThe EMS structure has to be adapted to the academic structure; the substantive functions (teaching, research, and outreach) have to be considered; the intangibles (consciousness, involvement, student participation, among others) are very important; and the elaboration of a model proposal in order to make the proper adaptations from to the ISO 14001 scheme is suggested. As a result, the increment of its contribution in the way of the higher education institutions towards sustainability is expected.Originality/valueThe paper shows how the scheme, ISO 14001, can help to promote and raise awareness of the university community towards sustainability.
Defining e‐services using a co‐design platform
Authors: Sébastien Olivier , Conruyt Noël , Grosser David 
Published: August 2008

PurposeOne of the aims of expert knowledge management via information and communication technology is to improve the efficiency of knowledge transfer to non‐specialists, and to facilitate the implementation of service‐products that are adapted so as to be truly used. The aim of this paper is to describe an example in the domain of instrumental e‐learning.Design/methodology/approachDrawing on activity theory, this article describes a methodology that aims to guide the design process along the lines of the usage process.FindingsThe co‐design platform (CDP) allows the service designers and users to determine service‐product definitions together, to facilitate the emergence of their uses.Research limitations/implicationsSome of the experiments are still in progress as the development is iterative.Practical implicationsTo illustrate this method, the authors have designed and implemented an instrumental learning e‐service for guitar music (e‐guitare).Originality/valueThe CDP gives a greater understanding of the transformation of the tool (proposals) into an instrument (proven demand), which is essential to the process of supplying the demand.
Arabic supervised learning method using N‐gram
Authors: Sanan Majed , Rammal Mahmoud , Zreik Khaldoun 
Published: August 2008

PurposeRecently, classification of Arabic documents is a real problem for juridical centers. In this case, some of the Lebanese official journal documents are classified, and the center has to classify new documents based on these documents. This paper aims to study and explain the useful application of supervised learning method on Arabic texts using N‐gram as an indexing method (n  =  3).Design/methodology/approachThe Lebanese official journal documents are categorized into several classes. Supposing that we know the class(es) of some documents (called learning texts), this can help to determine the candidate words of each class by segmenting the documents.FindingsResults showed that N‐gram text classification using the cosine coefficient measure outperforms classification using Dice's measure and TF*ICF weight. Then it is the best between the three measures but it still insufficient. N‐gram method is good, but still insufficient for the classification of Arabic documents, and then it is necessary to look at the future of a new approach like distributional or symbolic approach in order to increase the effectiveness.Originality/valueThe results could be used to improve Arabic document classification (using software also). This work has evaluated a number of similarity measures for the classification of Arabic documents, using the Lebanese parliament documents and especially the Lebanese official journal documents Arabic corpus as the test bed.
A closer look at tracking human and computer interactions in web‐based communications
Authors: May Madeth , George Sébastien , Prévôt Patrick 
Published: August 2008

PurposeKeeping track of users' communication activities in web‐based environments has always been considered a complex task. It requires tracking systems that are capable of efficiently tracking users' activities and producing tracking data that can be useful to various users. The objectives of this paper are two‐fold: to present an approach for better observing the different levels of human and computer interactions (HCI) during a computer‐mediated communication (CMC) activity; and to present the technical aspects of a web‐based tracking system for communication tools such as discussion forums.Design/methodology/approachThe research applications are applied to educational settings. Three cases of experiments with result analysis will also be presented. The paper studied different CMC tools. With the participation of researchers from different disciplines, including HCI and e‐learning specialists, we adopted the 5W1H method (When, Where, Who, What, Why, and How) and a participative method to build the approach. The result of the experiments and users' feedback allowed us to evaluate the approach.FindingsAn approach for efficiently tracking users' communication activities on CMC tools, by looking very closely at the different levels of HCI is shown. This paper demonstrates how useful it is to have tracking data with finer granularity and to provide significant data indicators to the participants in the learning process.Practical implicationsThe data indicators shown in this paper are computed based on the real needs of the participants in the learning process. The proposed approach can be implemented with any conceptual and development languages.Originality/valueOne of the particularities of this research is the approach for efficiently tracking CMC activities on both client and server sides. The quality of the tracking data from the three experiments shows the effectiveness of the system. Another contribution of this paper is a discussion of the important key issues related to the tracking data in learning environments.
ActiveTutor: towards more adaptive features in an e‐learning framework
Authors: Fournier Jean‐Pierre , Sansonnet Jean‐Paul 
Published: August 2008

PurposeThis paper aims to sketch the emerging notion of auto‐adaptive software when applied to e‐learning software.Design/methodology/approachThe study and the implementation of the auto‐adaptive architecture are based on the operational framework “ActiveTutor” that is used for teaching the topic of computer science programming in first‐grade university courses.FindingsThe paper describes an adaptive heuristic dedicated to the display of knowledge entities which is based on the dynamic balancing of four behavioral criteria for the low‐level agents (cooperation, pedagogy, audacity, and sensibility).Practical implicationsThe heuristic may be used in all multi‐agent systems where load balancing problems appear and where an auto‐adaptive behavior is important.Originality/value–The paper presents an auto‐adaptive algorithm.
A toolkit for designing firm level strategic corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives
Authors: Sekhar Bhattacharyya Som , Sahay Arunditya , Pratap Arora Ashok , Chaturvedi Abha 
Published: August 2008

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to attempt to develop a framework that will help managers to design firm level corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives which can be of strategic interest for an organisation.Design/methodology/approachThe paper reviews concepts from the domains of strategic management and CSR literature. The concepts are deliberated and analyzed to build up a strategic corporate social responsibility (CSR) framework. The article starts by identifying the salient stakeholders of a firm, based on the three stakeholder attributes of power, legitimacy, and urgency. The framework then talks about the identification of a firm's interest in CSR, on the basis of firm value chain, context of competitiveness and intention of creating new business opportunities. Finally, this literature talks about the expected benefits to be achieved by carrying out strategic CSR initiatives.FindingsIn a competitive atmosphere, it is important to utilize the firm resources in a proper manner and for a worthy cause. The undertaking of CSR initiatives calls for the sacrifice of firm resources. Resources are scarce and valuable. Managers can design CSR initiatives in a number of ways. But the real challenge for managers is to design firm CSR strategy in such a manner that it helps address a social issue and also provides the organization with some business benefits.Originality/valueThough managers are aware of the need and benefits of undertaking strategic CSR, a comprehensive theoretical framework which can guide CSR managers to design and implement CSR activities for strategic gains is not present. This study provides for such an integrated framework from the stage of identification of stakeholders, to the design of CSR, to the nature of strategic gains to be incurred.
Bakhtin's theory of speech as human agency
Authors: Mraović Branka 
Published: August 2008

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the contribution by the Russian social philosopher and cultural theoretician M.M. Bakhtin to the development of social sciences and, particularly, the author's relevance for the issue of agency.Design/methodology/approachThe article provides some details about Bakhtin and discusses his theories and their influence.FindingsAgency is always directed towards the other axiological position, in which the Self‐Other relationship is always a cross‐over or a transgredient relation. The active role of the Other in the act of communication is the very reason why “the utterance of the Other” is not only the topic of speech but also why it enters speech and its syntactic construct as a particular constructive element.Practical implicationsIn this way, Bakhtin's philosophy of language can find an equally constructive use in the interdisciplinary theoretical discourse within the context of the development of post‐Cartesian human sciences as well as in the new practical determination of human agency in an era of globality.Originality/valueBakhtin's theory of speech as human agency provides a tool for constructing new mental models, the realization of which relies on the assumption of the organizing culture.
E‐learning: the latest spectrum in open and distance learning
Authors: Guha A.S. , Maji Subhashish 
Published: August 2008

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is an attempt to validate the universal impact of e‐learning as distance education methodology and community learning.Design/methodology/approachThe paper examines an ontological framework for e‐learning within theoretical referential points, its reach and its systemic and disciplinary approaches. The paper explores the ramifications of e‐learning.FindingsE‐learning offers distance learning through the internet, giving students an interactive educational experience and the opportunity to study through accredited learning providers. Through e‐learning, companies can deliver distance training to their staff, or gain additional revenue through re‐selling of training programmes. Using e‐learning, colleges of distance education can deliver distance learning to students, or offer other educational establishments the opportunity to use their courses.Originality/valueThe paper concludes that e‐learning makes a definitive impact on the young and old alike, creative writers and the community as a whole. E‐learning groups and communities such as the telecentre movement reach towards sustainability and socio‐educational development.