bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Business services and the knowledge economy in Malaysia
Authors: Jarman Jennifer , Singh Chopra Parminder 
Published: June 2008

PurposeThis paper aims to argue that the World Bank‐sanctioned strategy of investing in knowledge economy infrastructure will not make a developing country competitive in the highest value activities such as research, design and innovation.Design/methodology/approachThe paper examines Malaysia's efforts to increase its national income and change its position from a “middle‐income” country to one with a standard of living equivalent to a developed country by 2020. Specifically, it analyses Malaysia's strategy of constructing a multimedia super corridor, a multibillion‐dollar state‐led project to attract knowledge‐intensive operations to Malaysia.FindingsDespite the creation of a world‐class infrastructure, the Malaysian government has not been successful in realising its original aim of creating a cutting‐edge multimedia research and development hub. Instead a thriving business support services sector has developed. Therefore, it is by no means a guaranteed way to close the gap between rich and poor nations.Research limitations/implicationsOfficial data relating to the activities of firms not only are limited but also have been made problematic by changes in categorisation over the relevant years. Analysis that is more conclusive requires the publication of official data with greater detail about firm activities and a standardised reporting format over time.Originality/valueThis is one of the first academic studies discussing the rise of the business services industry in Malaysia and its relationship with the MSC infrastructure development project.
Modelling socioeconomic trajectories: an optimal matching approach
Authors: Stone Juliet , Netuveli Gopalakrishnan , Blane David 
Published: June 2008

PurposeThe aim of this paper is to describe the use of sequence analysis to model trajectories of life‐course economic activity status, within a broader research agenda aimed at improving understanding of the relationship between socioeconomic position and health.Design/methodology/approachThe analysis used data on 288 participants of the Boyd Orr Stratified Sub‐Sample, comprising a combination of prospective and retrospective information on economic activity status, as well as health in early old age. Economic activity was coded as a time‐based sequence of states for each participant based on six‐month periods throughout their lives. Economic activity was classified as: pre‐labour market; full‐time employment; part‐time employment; housewife; made redundant; stopped work due to illness; retired; other unemployed; or not applicable. Optimal matching analysis was carried out to produce a matrix of distances between each sequence, which was then used as the basis for cluster analysis.FindingsThe optimal matching analysis resulted in the classification of individuals into five economic activity status trajectories: full‐time workers (transitional exit), part‐time housewives, career breakers, full‐time workers (late entry, early exit), and full‐time housewives.Originality/valueThe paper presents the case for using sequence analysis as a methodological tool to facilitate a more interdisciplinary approach to the measurement of the life‐course socioeconomic position, in particular attempting to integrate the empirical emphasis of epidemiological research with the more theoretical contributions of sociology. This may in turn help generate a framework within which to examine the relationships between life‐course socioeconomic position and outcomes such as health in later life.
Impact of value chain activities on quality and innovation
Authors: Prajogo Daniel I. , McDermott Peggy , Goh Mark 
Published: June 2008

PurposeThis paper aims to explore the extent to which four elements of the value chain – marketing, research and development, procurement, and operations – are associated with product quality and product innovation.Design/methodology/approachA survey of 194 managers of Australian firms, and multivariate analysis using structural equation modeling was used to test the hypotheses.FindingsThe elements of the value chain differ in their association with product outcomes. Marketing and production are related to product quality, but surprisingly while research and development is related to product innovation, marketing is not. Procurement is related to both product quality and product innovation.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper shows that individual elements of the value chain are related to specific competitive strategies and how these elements are related to each other, suggesting the need to direct effort within the firm for better, targeted performance. The results are limited by the sample size and geography of the survey.Practical implicationsSpecific value chain functions tend to be associated with specific performance outcomes. This suggests that managers might gain by targeting specific elements of the value chain as their organizations strive for specific competitive goals.Originality/valueThis paper seeks to help managers and decision makers to assess the relationship between the different attributes of the value chain and product quality and innovation. It is often not feasible for managers to emphasize all the elements of the value chain simultaneously, and this paper provides an important step in looking at these individual linkages.
Interventions to stimulate group learning in organizations
Authors: Sessa Valerie I. , London Manuel 
Published: June 2008

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to briefly describe a model of group learning, examine variables that stimulate a group to learn and determine the group's readiness to learn, and provide suggested interventions to enhance group readiness to learn.Design/methodology/approachThis practical paper, based on a model of group learning and recent group, learning, and systems literature, examines what triggers groups to learn and what makes groups ready to learn, and then suggest interventions to enhance group readiness to learn. Learning requires that the group recognizes variables that trigger learning. These may be pressures or opportunities from outside the group or encouragement and direction from group members. In addition, the group needs to be ready to learn when the triggers occur. Readiness to learn is a function of the group's maturity, boundary permeability, and learning orientation.FindingsBased on a review of the literature and the model, the paper suggests ways to diagnose learning triggers and readiness and propose interventions to increase general readiness to learn as well as the group's readiness to learn as the group is forming, when the group makes progress, and as the group concludes its work. Finally, the paper presents a case to demonstrate learning triggers and the importance of readiness to learn.Originality/valueThis paper fulfills an identified need by managers in organizations regarding understanding group learning, what triggers it, and how to enhance group readiness to learn and offers practical help to stimulating a group's readiness to learn.
Managerial recruitment: the influence of personality and ideal candidate characteristics
Authors: Johnson Alonzo , Winter Paul A. , Reio Thomas G. , Thompson Henry L. , Petrosko Joseph M. 
Published: June 2008

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the vital issue of managerial recruitment for private industry. Personality and demographic variables and their interactions are to be examined to determine the extent they uniquely influence the attraction of business professionals to managerial jobs in simulated position advertisements.Design/methodology/approachThe study consisted of 330 experienced business professionals who role‐played as applicants for managerial positions by rating jobs described in simulated position advertisements.FindingsAfter statistically controlling for the demographic variables, the hierarchical regression analyses suggested that personality (inclusion, control, openness) as determined by the FIRO Element B explained statistically significant job rating variance in each of the three regression models. Thus, job applicant personality influenced the attraction of the participants to simulated managerial jobs.Originality/valueThese findings suggest the practical significance of human resource professionals producing recruitment media to attract managerial applicants with the appropriate personality to best assure a good person‐job fit. This notion is discussed as a possible lost cost method for managerial recruitment improvement and as a solid first step in developing a cadre of managers for organizations.
What is seen and unseen on the Gulf coast
Authors: Raskin Max , Kjar Scott A. , Rahm Robert 
Published: June 2008

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to analyze the rebuilding of the Gulf coast post‐Hurricane Katrina.Design/methodology/approachThe paper posits that though Frédéric Bastiat passed away in 1850, the beauty of his sound economic reasoning is that it does not change over time and that his essay, “That which is seen, and that which is not seen,” is especially insightful in analyzing the rebuilding of the Gulf coast. The paper first expounds his lesson and then applies it to the conflict between the private and public sectors in order to attack the fallacies of government spending and vindicate the free‐market approach to reconstruction.FindingsThe paper finds that the areas where the government has coercively arrogated to itself a monopoly – police and fire departments to protect lives and property, courts to punish rights violators, water and sewer systems to restore potable water to homes – are the areas where recovery lags the most. Since government has diverted its attention from these services where competition is not allowed, and has instead become involved in the provision of goods and services otherwise provided on the free market – houses, food, clothing – its efforts have not only not assisted the recovery, they have actually stood in its way.Originality/valueThe paper provides a valuable overview of lessons that can be learnt from the aftermath of the Katrina disaster.
Price gouging in the Katrina aftermath: free markets at work
Authors: Culpepper Dreda , Block Walter 
Published: June 2008

PurposeThe concept of “price gouging” during times of emergency, such as in the aftermath of Katrina, often evokes quite an emotional and reactive response from people who are outraged that stores and companies would increase their prices during a time of emergency. The problem is that people do not realize that, in times of emergency, the market price they knew before is no longer adequate. Government intervention is not the answer to this “problem.” The purpose of this paper is to explore basic concepts of economics, to glean a better perspective of the justification for raising prices during times of emergency, as well as what would happen if there were not laws preventing this very necessary practice.Design/methodology/approachThe paper addresses some “basic concepts” of economics and applies them to emergency situations, preeminently the dire plight of New Orleans and the Gulf coast after Katrina.FindingsThe paper finds that a government passes legislation preventing price gouging based on the implicit premise that it can allocate resources more efficiently than the market. By doing so, it alleges that it knows what the people want better than entrepreneurs who sink or swim based on their ability to anticipate matters of this sort. The paper voices the view that government regulation is nothing short of a disaster as far as satisfying customers is concerned.Originality/valueThe paper is of value in offering the forthright view that during times of disaster, prices must be allowed to adjust as a signal to producers and consumers alike. Consumers will utilize less of these goods, and producers will increase their output. As the supply adjusts following the price increase, goods and services will get to those who want them the most and are willing to pay for them. The paper posits the view that this will undoubtedly be a more effective way to distribute supplies to hurricane victims – price controls must be repealed, and the free market must be allowed to work via the beneficent invisible hand, not by the stultifying hands of the bureaucrats and politicians.
Meeting our future professionals
Authors: Greifeneder Elke 
Published: June 2008

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to reflect about future professionals, hybrid publications and conference blogging.Design/methodology/approachThis is an opinion piece, based on the participation during the BOBCATSSS conference.FindingsOur young professionals are aware that the library profession is at a crossroads and that it is up to them to find the best way to deal with current issues. The paper emphasizes that we need a combination of new ideas and work experience.Practical implicationsPractical implications are observations about conference blogging and the impact of hybrid publishing.Originality/valueThis paper identifies the potential we have within our future professionals.
Staffing the Commons: job analysis in the context of an Information Commons
Authors: Boyd Robert 
Published: June 2008

PurposeThe purpose of this research is to apply principles from the field of industrial and organizational psychology on organizational analysis and job analysis to better identify successful candidates for employment in an Information Commons.Design/methodology/approachReview of professional research, research from both library literature and industrial and organizational psychology, review of professional association surveys.FindingsLibrary administration must invest time to articulate mission, value, and goals for the Information Commons before undertaking the organizational analysis. From the organizational analysis will flow the job analysis, job descriptions and hiring protocols.Original/valueCore concepts of organizational analysis and job analysis from the field of industrial and organizational psychology are pertinent and useful to library leaders in planning, implementing and staffing new service models, such as Information Commons.
Exploring faculty experiences with e‐books: a focus group
Authors: Carlock Danielle M. , Maughan Perry Anali 
Published: June 2008

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to describe how, in the spring of 2007, Arizona State University Libraries held a focus group of selected faculty to discover their perceptions and use of electronic books (e‐books) in their research and teaching.Design/methodology/approachThe services of the Institute of Social Sciences Research were employed to recruit and moderate the focus group. Major themes explored were: use of e‐books as textbooks; use of e‐books for personal research; comparison between e‐books and print; disciplinary differences in perceptions of e‐books; and motivators for future use.FindingsOverall, the focus group revealed that faculty had generally unsatisfactory experiences in using e‐books in their research and teaching owing to the unreliability of access, lack of manipulability, and the steep learning curve of the various interfaces. However, most faculty agreed that e‐books would be a very viable and useful alternative if these issues were resolved.Research limitations/implicationsThe focus group consisted of only six faculty members and hence is not representative of faculty as a whole. A larger survey of a more diverse faculty population would greatly serve to clarify and expand upon the findings.Practical implicationsThe implications for academic libraries include providing better outreach and training to faculty about the e‐book platforms offered, provide better course support, and advocate to e‐book vendors to consider faculty's teaching and research needs in their product development.Originality/valueThis is believed to be the first published study of faculty opinions and use of e‐books utilizing focus group methodology and offers detailed information that would be useful for academic libraries and e‐book vendors for evidence‐based decisions.
Sensitivity analysis of mapping local image features into conceptual categories
Authors: Tsai Chih‐Fong , Yen David C. 
Published: June 2008

PurposeImage classification or more specifically, annotating images with keywords is one of the important steps during image database indexing. However, the problem with current research in terms of image retrieval is more concentrated on how conceptual categories can be well represented by extracted, low level features for an effective classification. Consequently, image features representation including segmentation and low‐level feature extraction schemes must be genuinely effective to facilitate the process of classification. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect on annotation effectiveness of using different (local) feature representation methods to map into conceptual categories.Design/methodology/approachThis paper compares tiling (five and nine tiles) and regioning (five and nine regions) segmentation schemes and the extraction of combinations of color, texture, and edge features in terms of the effectiveness of a particular benchmark, automatic image annotation set up. Differences between effectiveness on concrete or abstract conceptual categories or keywords are further investigated, and progress towards establishing a particular benchmark approach is also reported.FindingsIn the context of local feature representation, the paper concludes that the combined color and texture features are the best to use for the five tiling and regioning schemes, and this evidence would form a good benchmark for future studies. Another interesting finding (but perhaps not surprising) is that when the number of concrete and abstract keywords increases or it is large (e.g. 100), abstract keywords are more difficult to assign correctly than the concrete ones.Research limitations/implicationsFuture work could consider: conduct user‐centered evaluation instead of evaluation only by some chosen ground truth dataset, such as Corel, since this might impact effectiveness results; use of different numbers of categories for scalability analysis of image annotation as well as larger numbers of training and testing examples; use of Principle Component Analysis or Independent Component Analysis, or indeed machine learning techniques for low‐level feature selection; use of other segmentation schemes, especially more complex tiling schemes and other regioning schemes; use of different datasets, use of other low‐level features and/or combination of them; use of other machine learning techniques.Originality/valueThis paper is a good start for analyzing the mapping between some feature representation methods and various conceptual categories for future image annotation research.
Recovery of descriptive information in images from digital libraries by means of EXIF metadata
Authors: Lloret Romero Nuria , Gimenez Chornet Vicent V.G.C. , Serrano Cobos Jorge , Selles Carot Alicia A.S.C , Canet Centellas F. , Cabrera Mendez M. 
Published: June 2008

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to present a study case of the digitization of documents kept by the Reino de Valencia Archive and its description and recovery through EXIF metadata from the digital images obtained. The control of digital images, in terms of identification of their number and the batches they belong to, can be achieved by naming the digital file with digits that the user can identify.Design/methodology/approachThe paper's objective is to provide image descriptions far better than by naming the file. For that reason the paper analyses the tools and results obtained with each one of them.FindingsResults about using commercial software for metadata image description.Originality/valueThe paper describes a novel use of metadata for historical archives documents.
Toward a knowledge base for school climate in Cyprus's schools
Authors: Pashiardis Georgia 
Published: June 2008

PurposeThe main purpose of this study was to explore and analyze secondary school students' (8th grade) perceptions about school climate in three areas, namely: the physical environment of the school, the social environment and the learning environmentDesign/methodology/approachA questionnaire, which was designed and pilot‐tested around the three climate areas was utilized for gathering the data. The questionnaire included 53 statements related to school climate (physical, social, learning environment) and the participants were asked to respond to each statement using a Likert type scale 1 to 5 (1 means “not at all” and 5 “to a great extent”).FindingsThe main findings concerning the three areas of school climate indicate that students are (generally) moderately satisfied with their school's climate. Specifically, the lowest mean was given to the area of social environment (3,12) on a five‐point Likert type scale, the second highest (3,23) to the physical environment and the highest score (3,26) to the learning environment. Meanwhile, students in their answers indicated that they are not satisfied with specific items in the three areas of school climate which should be taken into account in future reform programs of Cyprus.Research limitations/implicationsThis study was limited in the fact that the methodology used was only quantitative and therefore, triangulation of results through other methodologies was not possible.Practical implicationsThe examination of different aspects of school climate could help educators in their efforts to assess the environment of their schools for the purpose of monitoring the development, the improvement and the maintenance of a healthy school climate for teachers and students.Originality/valueIt is the first time that a study in measuring the various aspects of school climate from the students' perspective has been done in Cyprus's centralised educational system. Therefore, these results provide an important source of information for educators and researchers who have the responsibility of creating educational policy and planning for the years to come for a better and a more modern educational system. The results could be used in a comparative format in order to compare school climate in other educational settings similar to the Cyprus one.
Elusive search for quality education
Authors: Odhiambo George 
Published: June 2008

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine issues of quality and quality assurance in Kenyan schools, identify reasons why Kenya government has difficulties in achieving its well documented search for quality education and to trace the process for ensuring the accountability of teachers in Kenya. This focus is done under conditions of significant changes in government policies and educational restructuring.Design/methodology/approachThe reflections are done through a review of variety of research and analytical sources.FindingsThe review shows that the government, whose approach has been ambivalent and paradoxical, has determined teacher accountability and that the underlying cause of poor quality education in Kenya's schools is not the performance of teachers per se but deeply rooted management practices and other government policies which will have to change if this dream is to be realized. The evaluation of teachers' work should not be separated from development since quality is dependent on professional development. There is no development without challenge and quality development depends on the participation of all persons involved in teaching and learning.Practical implicationsThe most obvious practical implication of this paper is that education in Kenya needs complete overhaul and not piecemeal reforms. Above all, there is need to invest regularly in the development of teachers, as teachers need access to continuous and effective updating and updating systems.Originality/valueThis paper provides an opportunity for reflection and builds a foundation on some of the key challenges that face education and teachers in Kenya. The paper suggests directions for leading Kenyan schools into a successful future.