Search results for: business intelligence capability

Authors: Hussain Abdullah Al-Salamin, Elias Ogutu Azariah Tembe

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Supply chain (SC) is an operational research (OR) approach and technique which acts as catalyst within central nervous system of business today. Without SC, any type of business is at doldrums, hence entropy. SC is the lifeblood of business today because it is the pivotal hub which provides imperative competitive advantage. The paper present a conceptual framework dubbed as Homomorphic Conceptual Framework for Effective Supply Chain Strategy (HCEFSC).The term homomorphic is derived from abstract algebraic mathematical term homomorphism (same shape) which also embeds the following mathematical application sets: monomorphism, isomorphism, automorphisms, and endomorphism. The HCFESC is intertwined and integrated with wide and broad sets of elements.

Keywords: homomorphism, isomorphism, monomorphisms, automorphisms, epimorphisms, endomorphism, supply chain, operational research (OR)

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Authors: Jiaqi Yan, Yani Shi

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The blockchain technology is regarded as the most promising technology that has the potential to trigger a technological revolution. However, besides the bitcoin industry, we have not yet seen a large-scale application of blockchain in those domains that are supposed to be impacted, such as supply chain, financial network, and intelligent manufacturing. The reasons not only lie in the difficulties of blockchain implementation, but are also root in the challenges of blockchain-oriented information systems design. As the blockchain members are self-interest actors that belong to organizations with different existing information systems. As they expect different information inputs and outputs of the blockchain application, a common language protocol is needed to facilitate communications between blockchain members. Second, considering the decentralization of blockchain organization, there is not any central authority to organize and coordinate the business processes. Thus, the information systems built on blockchain should support more adaptive business process. This paper aims to address these difficulties by providing a modeling approach for blockchain-oriented information systems design. We will investigate the information structure of distributed-ledger data with conceptual modeling techniques and ontology theories, and build an effective ontology mapping method for the inter-organization information flow and blockchain information records. Further, we will study the distributed-ledger-ontology based business process modeling to support adaptive enterprise on blockchain.

Keywords: blockchain, ontology, information systems modeling, business process

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Authors: Stephen Grant Atkins

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Radical use of project-based learning (PBL) in a small New Zealand business school provides an opportunity to longitudinally examine its effects over a decade of pre-Covid data. Prior to this business school’s implementation of PBL, starting in 2012, the business pedagogy literature presented just one example of PBL replacing an entire core-set of courses. In that instance, a British business school merged four of its ‘degree Year 3’ accounting courses into one PBL semester. As radical as that would have seemed, to students aged 20-to-22, the PBL experiment conducted in a New Zealand business school was notably more extreme: 41 nationally-approved Learning Outcomes (L.O.s), these deriving from 8 separate core courses, were aggregated into one grand set of L.O.s, and then treated as a ‘full-year’/‘full-time’ single course. The 8 courses in question were all components of this business school’s compulsory ‘degree Year 1’ curriculum. Thus, the students involved were notably younger (…ages 17-to-19…), and no ‘part-time’ enrolments were allowed. Of interest are this PBL experiment’s effects on subsequent performance outcomes in ‘degree Years 2 & 3’ (….which continued to operate in their traditional ways). Of special interest is the quality of ‘group project’ outcomes. This is because traditionally, ‘degree Year 1’ course assessments are only minimally based on group work. This PBL experiment altered that practice radically, such that PBL ‘degree Year 1’ alumni entered their remaining two years of business coursework with far more ‘project group’ experience. Timeline-wise, thus of interest here, firstly, is ‘degree Year 2’ performance outcomes data from years 2010-2012 + 2016-2018, and likewise ‘degree Year 3’ data for years 2011-2013 + 2017-2019. Those years provide a pre-&-post comparative baseline for performance outcomes in students never exposed to this school’s radical PBL experiment. That baseline is then compared to PBL alumni outcomes (2013-2016….including’Student Evaluation of Course Quality’ outcomes…) to clarify ‘radical PBL’ effects.

Keywords: project-based learning, longitudinal mixed-methods, students criticism, effects-on-learning

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Authors: Selcuk Aslan, Dervis Karaboga, Celal Ozturk

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Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) algorithm is one of the most successful swarm intelligence based metaheuristics. It has been applied to a number of constrained or unconstrained numerical and combinatorial optimization problems. In this paper, we presented a parallelized version of ABC algorithm by adapting employed and onlooker bee phases to the Compute Unified Device Architecture (CUDA) platform which is a graphical processing unit (GPU) programming environment by NVIDIA. The execution speed and obtained results of the proposed approach and sequential version of ABC algorithm are compared on functions that are typically used as benchmarks for optimization algorithms. Tests on standard benchmark functions with different colony size and number of parameters showed that proposed parallelization approach for ABC algorithm decreases the execution time consumed by the employed and onlooker bee phases in total and achieved similar or better quality of the results compared to the standard sequential implementation of the ABC algorithm.

Keywords: Artificial Bee Colony algorithm, GPU computing, swarm intelligence, parallelization

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Authors: Miriam Borchardt, Agata M. Ritter, Macaliston G. da Silva, Mauricio N. de Carvalho, Giancarlo M. Pereira

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This paper aims to analyze the barriers faced by social enterprises and based on that to propose a social business model framework that helps them to leverage their businesses and the social value delivered. A business model for social enterprises should amplify the value perception including social value for the beneficiaries while generating enough profit to escalate the business. Most of the social value beneficiaries are people from the base of the economic pyramid (BOP) or the ones that have specific needs. Because of this, products and services should be affordable to consumers while solving social needs of the beneficiaries. Developing products and services with social value require tie relationship among the social enterprises and universities, public institutions, accelerators, and investors. Despite being focused on social value and contributing to the beneficiaries’ quality of life as well as contributing to the governments that cannot properly guarantee public services and infrastructure to the BOP, many barriers are faced by the social enterprises to escalate their businesses. This is a work in process and five micro- and small-sized social enterprises in Brazil have been studied: (i) one has developed a kit for cervical uterine cancer detection to allow the BOP women to collect their own material and deliver to a laboratory for U$1,00; (ii) other has developed special products without lactose and it is about 70% cheaper than the traditional brands in the market; (iii) the third has developed prosthesis and orthosis to surplus needs that health public system have not done efficiently; (iv) the fourth has produced and commercialized menstrual panties aiming to reduce the consumption of dischargeable ones while saving money to the consumers; (v) the fifth develops and commercializes clothes from fabric wastes in a partnership with BOP artisans. The preliminary results indicate that the main barriers are related to the public system to recognize these products as public money that could be saved if they bought products from these enterprises instead of the multinational pharmaceutical companies, to the traditional distribution system (e.g. pharmacies) that avoid these products because of the low or non-existing profit, to the difficulty buying raw material in small quantities, to leverage investment by the investors, to cultural barriers and taboos. Interesting strategies to reduce the costs have been observed: some enterprises have focused on simplifying products, others have invested in partnerships with local producers and have developed their machines focusing on process efficiency to leverage investment by the investors.

Keywords: base of the pyramid, business model, social business, social business model, social enterprises

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Authors: Alba Francesca Canta

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The present is one of those times when what normally seems to constitute a reason for living vanishes, particularly in times of crisis, during which certainties of all times crumble, and critical issues emerge, especially in already problematic areas such as the role of women and children. This paper aims to explore the issue of gender and highlight the importance of education for people’s development and well-being. The study is part of the broader framework of the capability approach, a multidimensional approach based on the need to consider a person’s wealth by virtue of their opportunity and freedom to live a ‘life of worth. The results of empirical research conducted in 2020 will be presented, the main objective of which was to measure, through qualitative (project techniques, focus groups, interviews with key informants) and quantitative (questionnaire) methods, the level of empowerment of women in two Italian territories and the consequent well-being of their children. By means of the relationship study, the present research results show that a higher level of women’s empowerment corresponds to a higher level of children’s well-being in a positive virtuous process. The opportunity structure and education are the main driving guide both to women’s empowerment and children’s well-being, emphasizing the importance of education to gender culture as a key factor for the development of the whole society. Among all the traumatic events that broke the harmony of the world and caused an abrupt turn in all areas of society, the crisis of democracy and education are some of the harshest. Nevertheless, education continues to be a fundamental pillar of Global Development Agendas, and above all, democratic education is the main factor in the development of a generative society, capable of forming people who know how to live in society. In this context, recovering democratic and inclusive education can be the key to a breakthrough. In the capability approach Sen, and other Scholars, point out education from two different perspectives: a. education as a fundamental right capable of influencing other real fields of people’s life (i.e., being educated to prevent illness, to vote, etc.) and b. spread communitarian education, tolerance, inclusive, democratic, and respectful, capable of forming human beings. This kind of educational system can directly lead to a general process of gender education that presupposes respect for essential principles: equality, uniqueness, and the participation of all in the processes of defining a democratic society. Many practices of women and children’s exclusions essentially derive from social factors (norms, values, quality of institutions, relations of power, educational and cultural practices) that can build strong barriers. Respect for these principles and education for gender culture could foster the renewal of society and the acquisition of fundamental skills for a generative and inclusive society, such as critical skills, cosmopolitan skills, and narrative imagination.

Keywords: capability approach, children’s well-being, education, women’s empowerment

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Authors: Günther Schuh, Christina König, Toni Drescher

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One of the key factors for the competitiveness and market success of technology-driven companies is the timely provision of information about emerging technologies, changes in existing technologies, as well as relevant related changes in the market's structures and participants. Therefore, many companies conduct technology intelligence (TI) activities to ensure an early identification of appropriate technologies and other (weak) signals. One base activity of TI is technology monitoring, which is defined as the systematic tracking of developments within a specified topic of interest as well as related trends over a long period of time. Due to the very large number of dynamically changing parameters within the technological and the market environment of a company as well as their possible interdependencies, it is necessary to focus technology monitoring on specific indicators or other criteria, which are able to point out technological developments and market changes. In addition to the execution of a literature review on existing approaches, which mainly propose patent-based indicators, it is examined in this paper whether indicator systems from other branches such as risk management or economic research could be transferred to technology monitoring in order to enable an efficient and focused technology monitoring for companies.

Keywords: technology forecasting, technology indicator, technology intelligence, technology management, technology monitoring

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Authors: Prakash Singh

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Employees who are satisfied at their place of work rate their leaders’ intrapersonal competencies as being high. They also believe that a leader’s intrapersonal competencies influence their sense of job satisfaction. Employees who indicate that they are unhappy at their place of work rate their leaders’ intrapersonal competencies as being low. They also believe that a leader’s intrapersonal intelligence influence their feeling of job satisfaction. The leader’s appropriate intrapersonal competencies are crucial to the creation of a motivated and satisfied employee team. In this study, the quantitative research method was used to determine the employees’ perceptions of their leaders’ intrapersonal competencies and their influence on their job satisfaction; the six competencies being self-awareness, self-confidence, self-expression, self-control, adaptability, and optimism. All the competencies of leaders identified in this quantitative study can therefore be described as intervening variables that influence an employee’s sense of job satisfaction. The number of responses that indicate that each of the intrapersonal competencies of a leader that will have an influence on an employee’s sense of job satisfaction, ranges from 93% (a leader’s sense of self-awareness) to 99% (a leader’s ability to be adaptable). As the responses are significantly similar, it can be stated that the respondents indicate that all the intrapersonal competencies of a leader can influence an employee’s sense of job satisfaction. The findings of this study strongly suggest that in order to be satisfied at work, employees prefer to be led by leaders who are confident in their leadership roles; who send out clear, unambiguous messages; who maintain self-control; who are adaptable and flexible;, who face the future with optimism and who support the establishment of a collegial working environment. Evidently, the findings corroborate the hypothesis that employees believe that the intrapersonal competencies of leaders have a positive influence on the employees’ sense of job satisfaction. This study’s findings, therefore, confirm that the key to the leaders’ self-knowledge is access to their own feelings and the ability to discriminate among them and draw upon them to guide behaviour in their organisations. This exploratory study makes a contribution to the emerging research being accomplished on leaders’ intrapersonal intelligence with more research still needing to be attempted to determine to what extent these competencies of leaders can reshape the organizational climate and culture.

Keywords: emotional intelligence, employees’ job satisfaction, leaders’ intrapersonal competencies, leaders’ self-knowledge

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Authors: Jaishree Ranganathan, Poonam Rajurkar, Angelina A. Tzacheva, Zbigniew W. Ras

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In today’s world, business often depends on the customer feedback and reviews. Sentiment analysis helps identify and extract information about the sentiment or emotion of the of the topic or document. Attribute selection is a challenging problem, especially with large datasets in actionable pattern mining algorithms. Action Rule Mining is one of the methods to discover actionable patterns from data. Action Rules are rules that help describe specific actions to be made in the form of conditions that help achieve the desired outcome. The rules help to change from any undesirable or negative state to a more desirable or positive state. In this paper, we present a Lexicon based weighted scheme approach to identify emotions from customer feedback data in the area of manufacturing business. Also, we use Rough sets and explore the attribute selection method for large scale datasets. Then we apply Actionable pattern mining to extract possible emotion change recommendations. This kind of recommendations help business analyst to improve their customer service which leads to customer satisfaction and increase sales revenue.

Keywords: actionable pattern discovery, attribute selection, business data, data mining, emotion

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Authors: S. Sudhakar, Geetha Manjunath, Siva Teja Kakileti, Himanshu Madhu

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Diagnosis of breast cancer at early stages has seen better clinical and survival outcomes. Survival rates in developing countries like India are very low due to accessibility and affordability issues of screening tests such as Mammography. In addition, Mammography is not much effective in younger women with dense breasts. This leaves a gap in current screening methods. Thermalytix is a new technique for detecting breast abnormality in a non-contact, non-invasive way. It is an AI-enabled computer-aided diagnosis solution that automates interpretation of high resolution thermal images and identifies potential malignant lesions. The solution is low cost, easy to use, portable and is effective in all age groups. This paper presents the results of a retrospective comparative analysis of Thermalytix over Mammography and Clinical Breast Examination for breast cancer screening. Thermalytix was found to have better sensitivity than both the tests, with good specificity as well. In addition, Thermalytix identified all malignant patients without palpable lumps.

Keywords: breast cancer screening, radiology, thermalytix, artificial intelligence, thermography

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Authors: Laura Brennan, Ram Balakumar

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ChatGPT has been developed by Open AI (Nov 2022) as a powerful artificial intelligence (AI) language model which has been designed to produce human-like text from user written prompts. To gain the most from the system, user written prompts must give context specific information. This article aims to give guidance on how to optimise the ChatGPT system in the context of education for otolaryngology. Otolaryngology is a specialist field which sees little time dedicated to providing education to both medical students and doctors. Additionally, otolaryngology trainees have seen a reduction in learning opportunities since the COVID-19 pandemic. In this article we look at these various barriers to medical education in Otolaryngology training and suggest ways that ChatGPT can overcome them and assist in simulation-based training. Examples provide how this can be achieved using the Authors’ experience to further highlight the practicalities. What this article has found is that while ChatGPT cannot replace traditional mentorship and practical surgical experience, it can serve as an invaluable supplementary resource to simulation based medical education in Otolaryngology.

Keywords: artificial intelligence, otolaryngology, surgical training, medical education

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Authors: M. Mohemmed Sha, T. Manesh, A. Ahmed Mohamed Mustaq

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In this corporate world, the technology of Web services has grown rapidly and its significance for the development of web based applications gradually rises over time. The success of Business to Business integration rely on finding novel partners and their services in a global business environment. But the selection of the most suitable Web service from the list of services with the identical functionality is more vital. The satisfaction level of the customer and the provider’s reputation of the Web service are primarily depending on the range it reaches the customer’s requirements. In most cases the customer of the Web service feels that he is spending for the service which is undelivered. This is because the customer always thinks that the real functionality of the web service is not reached. This will lead to change of the service frequently. In this paper, a framework is proposed to evaluate the Quality of Service (QoS) and its cost that makes the optimal correlation between each other. Also this research work proposes some management decision against the functional deviancy of the web service that are guaranteed at time of selection.

Keywords: web service, service level agreement, quality of a service, cost of a service, QoS, CoS, SOA, WSLA, WsRF

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Authors: Sepinoud Hamedi

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Over the past few decades, companies have appeared developing concerns in connection to the natural affect of their fabricating exercises. Green supply chain administration has been considered by the producers as a attainable choice to decrease the natural affect of operations whereas at the same time moving forward their operational execution. Contemporaneously the coming of digitalization and globalization within the supply chain space has driven to a developing acknowledgment of the importance of data preparing methodologies, such as enormous information analytics and fake insights innovations, in improving and optimizing supply chain execution. Also, supply chain collaboration in part intervenes the relationship between manufactured innovation and supply chain execution Ponders appear that the use of BDA-AI advances includes a significant impact on natural handle integration and green supply chain collaboration conjointly underlines that both natural handle integration and green supply chain collaboration have a critical affect on natural execution. Correspondingly savvy supply chain contributes to green execution through overseeing green connections and setting up green operations.

Keywords: green supply chain, artificial intelligence, manufacturers, technology, environmental

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Authors: Muneeb Ahmad, Ali Raza

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A computational method inspired by the immune system (IS) is presented, leveraging its shared characteristics of robustness, fault tolerance, scalability, and adaptability with swarm intelligence. This method aims to showcase flocking behaviors in a swarm of robots (SR). The innate part of the IS offers a variety of reactive and probabilistic cell functions alongside its self-regulation mechanism which have been translated to enable swarming behaviors. Although, the research is specially focused on flocking behaviors in a variety of simulated environments using e-puck robots in a physics-based simulator (CoppeliaSim); the artificial innate immune system (AIIS) can exhibit other swarm behaviors as well. The effectiveness of the immuno-inspired approach has been established with extensive experimentations, for scalability and adaptability, using standard swarm benchmarks as well as the immunological regulatory functions (i.e., Dendritic Cells’ Maturity and Inflammation). The AIIS-based approach has proved to be a scalable and adaptive solution for emulating the flocking behavior of SR.

Keywords: artificial innate immune system, flocking swarm, immune system, swarm intelligence

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Authors: Katherine Denise Queri

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Around the world, there are many corporations and other business organizations who promote the welfare of the society. They are found inside the communities where they naturally perform work. Their aim is to maximize their respective returns on investment while measuring the impact of their activities on the environment. The Senate in the Philippines formed a bill that seeks to foster sustainable economic and environment development and environment protection, among other things, by institutionalizing the corporate responsibility of corporations, whether domestic and foreign, partnership and other establishment performing business in the country. Under the Senate Bill 1239 or an act institutionalizing corporate social responsibility, providing incentives therefor, and for other purposes, all business organizations are mandated to consider the interest of society by taking responsibility for the impact of their activities on customers, employees, shareholders communities and environment. In return, businesses shall comply with the mandate of this proposed measure shall be entitled to full deductions of the expenses incurred in connection thereto.

Keywords: ateneo, corporate social responsibility (CSR), industrial relations, marketing, up

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Authors: Naor Cohen

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In recent years, business schools made teaching ethical leadership a higher priority. Greater attention to moral and ethical concepts and reasoning processes may prove beneficial to future business leaders. But with a shift in focus, there is a need for a shift in pedagogy. This paper explores an imaginative literature-based pedagogy in the teaching of ethical leadership. An imaginative literature-based pedagogy uses works of fiction to help students build moral analysis and moral judgment capabilities through a rigorous assessment of the moral soundness of actions, motivations, rationales, and consequences portrayed in works of fiction. Business students enrolled in 4 leadership senior-level courses were assigned the White Tiger: A Novel by Aravind Adiga as their main course reading. Students' engagement was measured as a three-factor construct exploring cognitive engagement, behavioural engagement and emotional engagement. In addition, students' final papers were analyzed using thematic content analysis. This paper will present the results of this analysis and argue that incorporating fiction into the leadership curriculum allows students to explore the dire consequences of avoiding countervailing interests, engaging in dishonesty and engaging in moral puffery-based leadership.

Keywords: ethical leadership, empathetic imagination, business education, pedagogy, fiction

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Authors: Robin Ratnasingham, Maher Elshakankiri

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This research report will look at how to make a smart washroom to increase public hygiene and cleanliness. The system would use IoT devices to pick up various activities in the washroom and notify the appropriate stakeholders or devices to regulate the condition of the washroom. As more people are required to physically go back to the office or school, ensuring a clean and sanitized washroom is even more important now than before. It would help prevent virus outbreaks and safeguard the organization from shutdowns or slowdowns in their business. A framework of the suggested smart washroom was introduced to help reduce the chances of a virus outbreak. Most organizations outsource renovation or implementation to an external party. Using the smart washroom framework, we looked at vendors that provide smart washroom solutions. There are IoT vendors that cannot match the framework, and there are vendors that can support the framework design. This segment is a niche market, and most of the devices are similar in their basic functions. However, all the vendors have unique characteristics to give them a competitive advantage over the rest of the IoT washroom companies. Ultimately, the organization would need to decide if they want to add IoT devices to enable smart capability or renovate the washroom to create a fluid IoT smart washroom design. The report would introduce an IoT smart washroom framework to help organizations design a cohesive preventive measure network for the daily maintenance routine. The framework is designed to help understand how to manage washroom cleanliness more efficiently and to provide guidance in achieving this goal. The leading result is eliminating potential viral outbreaks that could jeopardize the organization.

Keywords: IoT, smart washroom, public hygiene, cleanliness, virus outbreaks, safeguard

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Authors: Anette Hay, Zama Simamane

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Capacity-building and integration of practical activities is one of the key SDGs of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. This paper will focus on SDG# 17 – “the means of implementation” - and the role of systems thinking in practice (STiP) in supporting both competence and SDG implementation capability in teacher education curricula at North-West University, South Africa. The “Environmental Management for Sustainability” module (EDTM 312), which is compulsory for all students enrolled in the education program at North-West University, will be used as a case study. There is a need for higher education to implement and practically integrate SDG goals into their curricula, and one way to achieve this is through the development of competencies. Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) has the potential to offer approaches that can be useful in the development of capacity-building activities to foster sustainability. The methodological approach adopted is based on a participatory paradigm followed by two cycles and reflection. This paper focuses on systems thinking in practice demonstrating how students apply and reflect on competencies to situations and how praxis captures the actual experiences. The results of this research indicated how to re-orientate the EDTM 312 curriculum to include an environmental justice focus. This research shares practical knowledge of systems thinking as a sustainability competency.

Keywords: education for sustainable development, environmental justice competencies, sustainable development goals, systems thinking in practice

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Authors: Sungwon Jung

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The percentage of 20 years or older apartment houses in South Korea is approximately 20% (1.55 million houses), and the explosive increase of aged houses is expected around the first planned new towns. Accordingly, we should prepare for social issues such as difficulty of housing lease and degradation of housing performance. The improvement of performance of aged houses is essential for achieving the national energy and carbon reduction goals, and we should develop techniques to respond to the changing construction environment. Furthermore, we should develop a performance evaluation system that is appropriate for the demands of residents such as the improvement of remodeling floor plan by performance improvement in line with the residence type of the housing vulnerable groups such as low-income group and elderly people living alone. For this purpose, remodeling techniques and business models optimized for the target complexes must be spread through the development of various business models. In addition, it is necessary to improve the remodeling business by improving the laws and systems related to the improvement of the residential performance and to prepare techniques to respond to the increasing business demands. In other words, performance improvement and evaluation and knowledge systems need to be researched as new issues related to remodeling that has not been addressed in the existing research.

Keywords: remodelling, performance evaluation, web-based system, big data

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Authors: Waheed Oseni

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This article reviews emergent global trends in intellectual property protection and identifies patenting as a strategic initiative. Recent developments in software and method of doing business patenting are fast transforming the e‐business landscape. The article discusses the emergent global regulatory framework concerning intellectual property rights and the strategic value of patenting. Important features of a corporate patenting portfolio are described. Superficially, the e‐commerce landscape appears to be dominated by dotcom start-ups or the “dotcomization” of existing brick and mortar companies. But, in reality, at its very bedrock is intellectual property (IP). In this connection, the recent avalanche of patenting of software and method‐of‐doing‐business (MDB) in the USA is a very significant development with regard to rules governing IP rights and, therefore, e‐commerce. Together with the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) IP rules, there is an emerging global regulatory framework for IP rights, an understanding of which is necessary for designing effective e‐commerce strategies.

Keywords: intellectual property, patents, methods, computer software

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Authors: Noorlizawati Abd Rahim, Zainai Mohamed, Zaidatun Tasir, Astuty Amrin, Haliyana Khalid, Nina Diana Nawi

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Entrepreneurial leaders have been sought as in-demand talents to lead profit-driven organizations during turbulent and unprecedented times. However, research regarding the pertinence of their roles in the public sector has been limited. This paper examined the characteristics of the challenging experiences encountered by senior leaders in public universities that require them to embrace entrepreneurialism in their leadership. Through a focus group interview with five Malaysian university top senior leaders with experience being Vice-Chancellor, we explored and developed a framework of institutional adversity characteristics and exemplary entrepreneurial leadership competency in the face of adversity. Complexity of diverse stakeholders, multiplicity of academic disciplines, unfamiliarity to lead different and broader roles, leading new directions, and creating change in high velocity and uncertain environment are among the dimensions that characterise institutional adversities. Our findings revealed that learning agility, opportunity recognition capacity, and bridging capability are among the characteristics of entrepreneurial university leaders. The findings reinforced that the presence of specific attributes in institutional adversity and experiences in overcoming those challenges may contribute to the development of entrepreneurial leadership capabilities.

Keywords: bridging capability, entrepreneurial leadership, leadership development, learning agility, opportunity recognition, university leaders

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Authors: Manasi V. Shah

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Organizations, in the competitive era, are participating in the competency act. They have discerned that, strategically researched and defined competencies when put up on the shelf, can help in achieving business goals. The research focuses on critical elements of competency-based talent acquisition process from practical vantage, with significant experience in a variety of business settings. The research is exploratory and descriptive in nature. The research conduct and outcome is the hinge on with reference to Indian Industries. It elaborates about the concept, practice and a brief model that human resource practitioner can use for effective talent acquisition process, which in turn would be in alignment with business performance. The research helps to present a prudent understanding of recruiting and selecting apt human capital, that can fit in a given job role and has action oriented competency based assessment approach for measuring the probable success of a job incumbent in a given job role.

Keywords: competency based talent acquisition, competency model, talent acquisition concept, talent acquisition practice

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Authors: Dimitrios Dimitriou, Maria Sartzetaki

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In the early days of the of civil aviation, airports are totally state-owned companies under the control of national authorities or regional governmental bodies. From that time the picture has totally changed and airports privatisation and airport business commercialisation are key success factors to stimulate air transport demand, generate revenues and attract investors, linked to reliable and resilience of air transport system. Nowadays, airport's corporate strategy deals with policies and actions, affecting essential the business plans, the financial targets and the economic footprint in a regional economy they serving. Therefore, exploring airport corporate strategy is essential to support the decision in business planning, management efficiency, sustainable development and investment attractiveness on one hand; and define policies towards traffic development, revenues generation, capacity expansion, cost efficiency and corporate social responsibility. This paper explores key outputs in airport corporate strategy for different ownership schemes. The airport corporations are grouped in three major schemes: (a) Public, in which the public airport operator acts as part of the government administration or as a corporised public operator; (b) Mixed scheme, in which the majority of the shares and the corporate strategy is driven by the private or the public sector; and (c) Private, in which the airport strategy is driven by the key aspects of globalisation and liberalisation of the aviation sector. By a systemic approach, the key drivers in corporate strategy for modern airport business structures are defined. Key objectives are to define the key strategic opportunities and challenges and assess the corporate goals and risks towards sustainable business development for each scheme. The analysis based on an extensive cross-sectional dataset for a sample of busy European airports providing results on corporate strategy key priorities, risks and business models. The conventional wisdom is to highlight key messages to authorities, institutes and professionals on airport corporate strategy trends and directions.

Keywords: airport corporate strategy, airport ownership, airports business models, corporate risks

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Authors: Prapin Nuchpiam

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Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have become a global agenda for all. The role of the business sector is significant in promoting sustainable development, particularly to prevent, address, and remedy human rights abuses committed in business operations. Modern slavery is one of the complex issues of human rights. The paper aims to study the UK Modern Slavery Act (MSA) 2015, whose main purpose is to tackle modern slavery in all its forms: human trafficking, slavery, forced labor, and domestic servitude. The Act has a great significance in its approach to involving businesses in combating modern slavery without imposing stricter regulations on them. In doing so, Section 54 of the MSA requires commercial organizations to disclose a statement confirming the transparency in their corporate supply chains. Even though the statement is required by law, in practice, it is rather similar to the ‘comply or explain’ scheme. In other words, compliance is mainly enforced due to fear of reputational risk, rather than of lawbreaking. Thailand has been reported a number of modern slavery cases, particularly in the production stage of supply chains. With desperate attempts to solve modern slavery, the Thai government tends to seek stricter regulation and stronger punishment as the main approach. The paper will analyze the effective implementation of section 54and conclude whether and to what extent the MSA can be applied to the case of Thailand.

Keywords: human rights, responsible business, SDGs, the UK modern slavery act 2015

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Authors: Indre Brazauskaite, Vilte Auruskeviciene

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Significance of the study is outlined through current strategic management challenges faced by SMEs. First, innovation is recognized as competitive advantage in the market, having ever changing market conditions. It is of constant interest from both practitioners and academics to capture and capitalize on business opportunities or mitigate the foreseen risks. Secondly, it is recognized that integrated system is needed for proper implementation of innovation process, especially during the period of business incubation, associated with relatively high risks of new product failure. Finally, ability to successful commercialize innovations leads to tangible business results that allow to grow organizations further. This is particularly relevant to SMEs due to limited structures, resources, or capabilities. Cooperation between scientific and business institutions could be a tool of mutual interest to observe, address, and further develop innovations during the incubation period, which is the most demanding and challenging during the innovation process. Material aims to address the following problematics: i) indicate the major barriers and challenges in innovation process that SMEs are facing, ii) outline the possibilities for these barriers and challenges to be addressed by cooperation between scientific and business institutions. Basis for this research is stage-by-stage integrated innovation management process which presents existing challenges and needed aid in operational decision making. The stage-by-stage innovation management process exploration highlights relevant research opportunities that have high practical relevance in the field. It is expected to reveal the possibility for business incubation programs that could combine interest from both – practices and academia. Methodology. Scientific meta-analysis of to-date scientific literature that explores innovation process. Research model is built on the combination of stage-gate model and lean six sigma approach. It outlines the following steps: i) pre-incubation (discovery and screening), ii) incubation (scoping, planning, development, and testing), and iii) post-incubation (launch and commercialization) periods. Empirical quantitative research is conducted to address barriers and challenges related to innovation process among SMEs that limits innovations from successful launch and commercialization and allows to identify potential areas for cooperation between scientific and business institutions. Research sample, high level decision makers representing trading SMEs, are approached with structured survey based on the research model to investigate the challenges associated with each of the innovation management step. Expected findings. First, the current business challenges in the innovation process are revealed. It will outline strengths and weaknesses of innovation management practices and systems across SMEs. Secondly, it will present material for relevant business case investigation for scholars to serve as future research directions. It will contribute to a better understanding of quality innovation management systems. Third, it will contribute to the understanding the need for business incubation systems for mutual contribution from practices and academia. It can increase relevance and adaptation of business research.

Keywords: cooperation between scientific and business institutions, innovation barriers and challenges, innovation measure, innovation process, SMEs

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Authors: Natarajan Vijayarangan, Viswanath Kumar Ganesan, G. Kumudhavalli

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This abstract figures out an uncertainty problem pertaining to evaluating business proposals or concept notes in an organisation. Let us consider business proposal evaluation process (BPEP) for execution of corporate research cum business projects in the organisation. Assume that two concept notes X and Y of BPEP are approved: one of them is a full-fledged type (100% financial approval given by the organisation) - X and other one is a conditional type (a partial financial approval given by the organisation) - Y. Then a penalty criteria has been introduced during the process. At the end of annual appraisal, if both of them complete as per the goals and objectives committed or figured out at the time of concept note submission, then both will get an incentive of $N from the organisation. If one of them doesn't fulfill the goals and objectives at the year-end appraisal, then d% reduction or cut will be levied on the project budget for the next year. If X fulfills the goals and objectives and Y doesn't , then X gets a gain of d% on Y's previous year budget and Y gets a loss of d% from the previous year budget for the next year. And vice-versa. Further, an incentive of $N will be given to those who gains. This process is a part of Necktie paradox and inherits an uncertainty principle on X or Y getting more than $N even if X or Y performs well.Solving the above problem and generalizing on finitely many concept notes will be a challenging task.

Keywords: concept notes, necktie paradox, annual appraisal, project budget and gain or loss

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Authors: Mehmood Faisal

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In this globalization era, the supply chain management has acquired strategic importance in diverse business environments. In the current highly competitive business environment, the success of any business considerably depends on the efficiency of the supply chain. The importance of petroleum industry cannot be avoided in the global market; however, supply chain management in the petroleum industry is facing various challenges, particularly in the logistics area. These logistical challenges have a main influence on the cost of crude oil; therefore, the opportunities to save cost in logistics still do exist. The large oil producing companies are undertaking future contracts through 'swaps or options' practice that saves their millions of dollars. The objective of this paper is to throw light on the supply chain challenges and opportunities in the oil industry and on swap practices which are widely employed by large oil producing companies around the world, such as Chevron Corporation, Saudi Arabian Oil Company, BP and Exxon Mobil.

Keywords: logistics, oil industry, swap practice, supply chain management

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Authors: Jacinta Ifeoma Obidile

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The study sought to ascertain from the opinions of the business educators, effective strategies for funding public tertiary institutions in Anambra State Nigeria, for effective functioning and delivery. Funding of tertiary institutions has become so important following the dilapidated state of most of the public tertiary institutions in Nigeria. Tertiary institutions are known for the production of competitive and competent workforce in the nation. Considering the state of public tertiary institutions currently, one wonders if their objectives are achieved. Many scholars have identified funding as one of the major barriers to effective functioning of tertiary institutions. Although federal and state governments have been supporting the tertiary institutions, but their support seems not to be adequate. This study therefore ascertained from the perspective of business educators, other strategies for funding public tertiary institutions in Anambra State Nigeria, for effective functioning and delivery. Survey research design was adopted for the study. A total of 104 business educators from the public tertiary institutions in the State constituted the population. There was no sampling, hence the whole population was used. Structured questionnaire validated by three experts with a reliability coefficient of 0.82 was the instrument for data collection. Data collected were analyzed using mean and standard deviation. Findings from the study revealed that public-private partnership and external aids were among the strategies considered effective for funding public tertiary institutions. It was therefore recommended among others that associations like alumni should be strongly instituted in each of the public tertiary institutions so as to assist in the funding of tertiary institutions for effective functioning and delivery.

Keywords: strategies, funding, tertiary institutions, business educators

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Authors: Nazia Jabeen, Denis Hyams-Ssekasi

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The study focuses on the determinants of food waste management (FWM) in one of the urban areas of Pakistan. One hundred and two households from the urban areas of Pakistan took part in the study via self-completed questionnaires, and data were analyzed. The research findings indicate that food waste management is a recurring issue, and households must do more to minimize or create business opportunities. Most households agree that food waste has significant implications for the community if not utilized and managed correctly. The value creation deriving from this zero-value resource provides a platform where householders see the benefit of food waste management. Based on the findings, this study acknowledges that food waste has significant economic and social impacts on the community. It concludes that minimization and optimum utilization of food waste create a pathway to business opportunities in urban areas.

Keywords: economic, social, food waste management, business opportunities, value creation

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Authors: Rose Ogbechie, Nicholas Anakwue

Abstract:

In recent times, research has centered, in the area of Business Ethics, on the issue of human quality treatment (HQT), regarding the way people are dealt with, in organizations, taking into cognizance, respect for the dignity of the human person, as well as, the rights and responsibilities of the corporate individual. As such, the principle of respect is an essential ethical principle that should govern professional relationships in the workplace. There is a prevailing myth in the Nigerian business space, that to drive business success, business leadership must coerce and drive people, oftentimes, beyond comfort to meet work expectations. This has, most times, necessitated abuses and insults on subordinates in the workplace, and instituted a rigid hierarchy of management in business relationships. Nestlé Nigeria, one of the largest foods and beverage companies in Africa, provides a contrast to this myth in their success heuristic. Over the years in Nigeria, the company has registered significant successes in the Nigerian Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) Market, with stellar performances year-on-year, and a high-penetration rate of its products in the Nigerian consumer space. At the heart of the FMCG giant’s success and culture is the principle of respect—respect for stakeholders, respect for all peoples, respect for cultures, respect for the environment. Utilizing qualitative research methods, through interviews and focus group discussions with Nestlé’s stakeholders, this paper explores the ethical principle of respect, and how, through it, human quality treatment influences positively organizational growth.

Keywords: human quality treatment, respect, Nestlé Nigeria, FMCG, organizational growth

Procedia PDF Downloads 99