Search results for: Chinese family business
1287 Varieties of Capitalism and Small Business CSR: A Comparative Overview
Authors: S. Looser, W. Wehrmeyer
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Given the limited research on Small and Mediumsized Enterprises’ (SMEs) contribution to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and even scarcer research on Swiss SMEs, this paper helps to fill these gaps by enabling the identification of supranational SME parameters. Thus, the paper investigates the current state of SME practices in Switzerland and across 15 other countries. Combining the degree to which SMEs demonstrate an explicit (or business case) approach or see CSR as an implicit moral activity with the assessment of their attributes for “variety of capitalism” defines the framework of this comparative analysis. To outline Swiss small business CSR patterns in particular, 40 SME owner-managers were interviewed. A secondary data analysis of studies from different countries laid groundwork for this comparative overview of small business CSR. The paper identifies Swiss small business CSR as driven by norms, values, and by the aspiration to contribute to society, thus, as an implicit part of the day-to-day business. Similar to most Central European, Mediterranean, Nordic, and Asian countries, explicit CSR is still very rare in Swiss SMEs. Astonishingly, also British and American SMEs follow this pattern in spite of their strong and distinctly liberal market economies. Though other findings show that nationality matters this research concludes that SME culture and an informal CSR agenda are strongly formative and superseding even forces of market economies, nationally cultural patterns, and language. Hence, classifications of countries by their market system, as found in the comparative capitalism literature, do not match the CSR practices in SMEs as they do not mirror the peculiarities of their business. This raises questions on the universality and generalisability of unmediated, explicit management concepts, especially in the context of small firms.
Keywords: CSR, comparative study, cultures of capitalism, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 22631286 Faculty Stress at Higher Education: A Study on the Business Schools of Pakistan
Authors: Aqsa Akbar, Waheed Akhter
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Job stress is one of the most important concepts for the today-s corporate as well as institutional world. The current study is conducted to identify the causes of faculty stress at Higher Education in Pakistan. For the purpose, Public & Private Business Schools of Punjab is selected as representative of Pakistan. A sample of 300 faculty members (214 males, 86 females) responded to the survey. Regression analysis shows that the Workload, Student Related issues and Role Conflicts are the major sources contributing significantly towards producing stress. The study also revealed that Private sector faculty members experienced more stress as compared to faculty in Public sector Business Schools. Moreover, females, younger ages, lower designation & low qualification faculty members experience more stress as compared to males, older ages, higher designation and high qualification. The study yield many significant results for the policy makers of Business Institutions.Keywords: Faculty Stress, Higher Education, Stress Coping Strategies, Work Load
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 27291285 The Use of TV and the Internet in the Social Context
Authors: Khulood Miliany
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This study examines the media habits of young people in Saudi Arabia, in particular their use of the Internet and television in the domestic sphere, and how use of the Internet impacts upon other activities. In order to address the research questions, focus group interviews were conducted with Saudi university students. The study found that television has become a central part of social life within the household where television represents a main source for family time, particularly in Ramadan while the Internet is a solitary activity where it is used in more private spaces. Furthermore, Saudi females were also more likely to have their Internet access monitored and circumscribed by family members, with parents controlling the location and the amount of time spent using the Internet.
Keywords: Domestication of Technology. Internet, Social context, Television, Young people.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 22271284 Technology, Organizational and Environmental Determinants of Business Intelligence Systems Adoption in Croatian SME: A Case Study of Medium-Sized Enterprise
Authors: Ana-Marija Stjepić, Luka Sušac, Dalia Suša Vugec
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In the last few years, examples from scientific literature and business practices show that the adoption of technological innovations increases enterprises' performance. Recently, when it comes to the field of information technology innovation, business intelligence systems (BISs) have drawn a significant amount of attention of the scientific circles. BISs can be understood as a form of technological innovation which can bring certain benefits to the organizations that are adopting it. Therefore, the aim of this paper is twofold: (1) to define determinants of successful BISs adoption in small and medium enterprises and thus contribute to this neglected research area and (2) to present the current state of BISs adoption in small and medium-sized companies. In order to do so, determinants are defined and classified into three dimensions, according to the Technology – Organization – Environment (TOE) theoretical framework that describes the impact of each dimension on technological innovations adoption. Moreover, paper brings a case study presenting the adoption of BISs in practice within an organization from tertiary (service) industry sector. Based on the results of the study, guidelines for more efficient, faster and easier BISs adoption are presented.
Keywords: Adoption, business intelligence, business intelligence systems, case study, TOE framework.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 9331283 Small Businesses' Decision to have a Website Saudi Arabia Case Study
Authors: M. Al-hawari, H. AL–Yamani, B. Izwawa
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Recognizing the increasing importance of using the Internet to conduct business, this paper looks at some related matters associated with small businesses making a decision of whether or not to have a Website and go online. Small businesses in Saudi Arabia struggle to have this decision. For organizations, to fully go online, conduct business and provide online information services, they need to connect their database to the Web. Some issues related to doing that might be beyond the capabilities of most small businesses in Saudi Arabia, such as Website management, technical issues and security concerns. Here we focus on a small business firm in Saudi Arabia (Case Study), discussing the issues related to going online decision and the firm's options of what to do and how to do it. The paper suggested some valuable solutions of connecting databases to the Web. It also discusses some of the important issues related to online information services and e-commerce, mainly Web hosting options and security issues.Keywords: E-Commerce, Saudi Arabia, Small business, Webdatabase connection, Web hosting, World Wide Web (Web).
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 19681282 Kaolin for Production of Souvenirs
Authors: Ruedee Niyomrath
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Ranong province has the best kaolin, and it is the most useful of all the clay types used in ceramic making. Until recently, there has been only one community business making ceramics in Ranong province. And this business could not build the mix of body and glaze from their raw material without assistance. Considering these problems, this research is aimed to test the composition of ceramic body and glaze which suit. Kaolin from Ranong is the raw material which these search focuses on. All other raw materials use in the investigation will come from southern Thailand, kaolin and limestone from Ranong province, ball clay from Surat Thani province, white sand from Songkhla province, and feldspar from Nakhon Si Thammarat province. Results can be used to develop the efficiency of industrial production which in return will enhance the business process.Keywords: Ceramic body and glaze, Ceramic material, Ceramic production from kaolin, Ceramic souvenirs.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 18541281 An Introduction to the Concept of University – Community Business Continuity Management for Disaster Resilient City
Authors: Siyanee Hirunsalee, Paola Rizziand Hidehiko Kanegae
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The fundamental objective of the university is to genuinely provide a higher education to mankind and society. Higher education institutions earn billions of dollars in research funds, granted by national government or related institutions, which literally came from taxpayers. Everyday universities consume those grants; in return, provide society with a human resource and research developments. However, not all taxpayers have their major concerns on those researches, other than that they are more curiously to see the project being build tangibly and evidently to certify what they pay for. This paper introduces the concept of University – Community Business Continuity Management for Disaster – Resilient City, which modified the concept of Business Continuity Management (BCM) toward university community to create advancing collaboration leading to the disaster – resilient community and city. This paper focuses on describing in details the backgrounds and principles of the concept and discussing the advantages and limitations of the concept.Keywords: Business Continuity Management, Disaster ResilientCity, Disaster Management, University – Community Collaboration.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 17591280 “The Social Destination“: How Social Media Influences the Organisational Structure and Leadership of DMOs
Authors: Mihaela Jucan, Cornel Jucan, Ilie Rotariu
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The paper deals with the most important changes that have occurred in business because of social media and its impact on organisations and leadership in recent years. It seeks to synthesize existing research, theories and concepts, in order to understand "social destinations", and to provide a bridge from past research to future success. Becoming a "social destination" is a strategic and tactical leadership and management issue and the paper will present the importance of destination leadership in choosing the way towards a social destination and some organisational models. It also presents some social media tools that can be used in transforming a destination into a social one. Adapting organisations to the twentyfirst century means adopting social media as a way of life and a way of business.
Keywords: Business, destination, leadership, organization, social.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 41471279 Complex Flow Simulation Using a Partially Lagging One-Equation Turbulence Model
Authors: M. Elkhoury
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A recently developed one-equation turbulence model has been successfully applied to simulate turbulent flows with various complexities. The model, which is based on the transformation of the k-ε closure, is wall-distance free and equipped with lagging destruction/dissipation terms. Test cases included shockboundary- layer interaction flows over the NACA 0012 airfoil, an axisymmetric bump, and the ONERA M6 wing. The capability of the model to operate in a Scale Resolved Simulation (SRS) mode is demonstrated through the simulation of a massive flow separation over a circular cylinder at Re= 1.2 x106. An assessment of the results against available experiments Menter (k-ε)1Eq and the Spalart- Allmaras model that belongs to the single equation closure family is made.Keywords: Turbulence modeling, complex flow simulation, scale adaptive simulation, one-equation turbulence model.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 14691278 Approximation to the Hardy Operator on Topological Measure Spaces
Authors: Kairat T. Mynbaev, Elena N. Lomakina
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We consider a Hardy type operator generated by a family of open subsets of a Hausdorff topological space. The family is indexed with non-negative real numbers and is totally ordered. For this operator, we obtain two-sided bounds of its norm, a compactness criterion and bounds for its approximation numbers. Previously bounds for its approximation numbers have been established only in the one-dimensional case, while we do not impose any restrictions on the dimension of the Hausdorff space. The bounds for the norm and conditions for compactness have been found earlier but our approach is different in that we use domain partitions for all problems under consideration.
Keywords: Approximation numbers, boundedness and compactness, multidimensional Hardy operator, Hausdorff topological space.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1161277 Cluster Analysis of Retailers’ Benefits from Their Cooperation with Manufacturers: Business Models Perspective
Authors: M. K. Witek-Hajduk, T. M. Napiórkowski
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A number of studies discussed the topic of benefits of retailers-manufacturers cooperation and coopetition. However, there are only few publications focused on the benefits of cooperation and coopetition between retailers and their suppliers of durable consumer goods; especially in the context of business model of cooperating partners. This paper aims to provide a clustering approach to segment retailers selling consumer durables according to the benefits they obtain from their cooperation with key manufacturers and differentiate the said retailers’ in term of the business models of cooperating partners. For the purpose of the study, a survey (with a CATI method) collected data on 603 consumer durables retailers present on the Polish market. Retailers are clustered both, with hierarchical and non-hierarchical methods. Five distinctive groups of consumer durables’ retailers are (based on the studied benefits) identified using the two-stage clustering approach. The clusters are then characterized with a set of exogenous variables, key of which are business models employed by the retailer and its partnering key manufacturer. The paper finds that the a combination of a medium sized retailer classified as an Integrator with a chiefly domestic capital and a manufacturer categorized as a Market Player will yield the highest benefits. On the other side of the spectrum is medium sized Distributor retailer with solely domestic capital – in this case, the business model of the cooperating manufactrer appears to be irreleveant. This paper is the one of the first empirical study using cluster analysis on primary data that defines the types of cooperation between consumer durables’ retailers and manufacturers – their key suppliers. The analysis integrates a perspective of both retailers’ and manufacturers’ business models and matches them with individual and joint benefits.
Keywords: Business model, cooperation, cluster analysis, retailer-manufacturer relationships.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 11201276 “Blood Family“ Activity With Respect To Comprehensive Guidance School Program
Authors: Ali Eryılmaz
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Children and adolescents developing in the worlds of today are facing a getting array of new and old challenges. School counselling is improving rapidly in contemporary education systems around the world. It can be said that counselling system in Turkey was newly borning. In this study, “Family of the Blood" activity is improved with respect to compherensive guidance school program. The sample included 22 adolescents who were high school students. The activity was carried out in 4 sessions, each of which lasted 45 minutes. In the first session, students- personal-social needs were determined. In the second session, in order to warm up, the students were asked three questions consisting of the constructional aspect. In the third session, the counselor and the teacher shared the results of students- responses obtained in the previous session. In the fourth session, the tables formed by students were presented in the classroom. In order to evaluate the activity, three questions were asked of the teacher and counselor. According to the results, the lesson aims of curriculum and counselling aims of curriculum were attained. In the light of literature, the results were discussed and some suggestions were made. It is taken into consideration that the activitiy was beneficial in many respects, similar studies should be carried out in the near future.
Keywords: Comprehensive guidance program, education, family
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 13431275 Modeling of Knowledge-Intensive Business Processes
Authors: Eckhard M. Ammann
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Knowledge development in companies relies on knowledge-intensive business processes, which are characterized by a high complexity in their execution, weak structuring, communication-oriented tasks and high decision autonomy, and often the need for creativity and innovation. A foundation of knowledge development is provided, which is based on a new conception of knowledge and knowledge dynamics. This conception consists of a three-dimensional model of knowledge with types, kinds and qualities. Built on this knowledge conception, knowledge dynamics is modeled with the help of general knowledge conversions between knowledge assets. Here knowledge dynamics is understood to cover all of acquisition, conversion, transfer, development and usage of knowledge. Through this conception we gain a sound basis for knowledge management and development in an enterprise. Especially the type dimension of knowledge, which categorizes it according to its internality and externality with respect to the human being, is crucial for enterprise knowledge management and development, because knowledge should be made available by converting it to more external types. Built on this conception, a modeling approach for knowledgeintensive business processes is introduced, be it human-driven,e-driven or task-driven processes. As an example for this approach, a model of the creative activity for the renewal planning of a product is given.Keywords: Conception of knowledge, knowledge dynamics, modeling notation, knowledge-intensive business processes.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 18331274 Prevalence of Headache among Adult Population in Urban Varanasi, India
Authors: Hari Shankar, Kshitij Raj, Priya Keshari, Pragya Singh
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Headache is one of the most ubiquitous and frequent neurological disorders interfering with everyday life in all countries. India appears to be no exception. Objectives are to assess the prevalence of headache among adult population in urban area of Varanasi and to find out factors influencing the occurrence of headache. A community based cross sectional study was conducted among adult population in urban area of Varanasi district, Uttar Pradesh, India. Total 151 eligible respondents were interviewed by simple random sampling technique. Proportion percentage and Chisquare test were applied for data analysis. Out of 151 respondents, majority (58.3%) were females. In this study, 92.8% respondents belonged to age group 18-60 years while 7.2% was either 60 year of age or above. The overall prevalence of headache was found to be 51.1%. Highest and lowest prevalence of headache was recorded in age groups 18-29 year & 40-49 year respectively. Headache was 62.1% in illiterate and was 40.0% among graduate & above. Unskilled workers had more headache 73.1% than other type of occupation. Headache was more prevalent among unemployed (35.9%) than employed (6.4%). Females had higher family history of headache (48.9%) as compared to males (41.3%). Study subjects having peaceful relation with family members, relatives and neighbors had more headache than those having no peaceful relation.Keywords: Family relationship, headache, neighbors, ration cards.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 16371273 Family-size Biogas Plant Using Manure and Urine Mixture at Ambient Temperature in Semi-arid Regions of Northwestern China
Authors: Wenguang Ding, Yang Wu, Xia Wang, Yayu Gao
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Biogas, a clean renewable energy, is attracting a growing concern of researchers and professionals in many fields. Based on the natural and climatic conditions in semi-arid regions of northwestern China, the present study introduces a specifically-designed family-size biogas plant (with a digester of 10m3) with manure and urine of animals and humanity as raw materials. The biogas plant is applicable to areas with altitudes of more than 2000 meters in northwestern China. In addition to the installation cost, a little operational expenditure, structure, characteristics, benefits of this small-scale biogas plant, this article introduces a wide range of specific popularization methods such as training, financial support, guided tour to the biogas plant, community-based group study and delivery of operational manuals. The feasibility of the biogas plant is explored on the basis of the availability of the raw materials. Simple operations contained in the current work increase the possibility of the wide use of this small-scale biogas plant in similar regions of the world.Keywords: biogas, family-size biogas plant, northwestern China, popularization
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 27721272 Latent Semantic Inference for Agriculture FAQ Retrieval
Authors: Dawei Wang, Rujing Wang, Ying Li, Baozi Wei
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FAQ system can make user find answer to the problem that puzzles them. But now the research on Chinese FAQ system is still on the theoretical stage. This paper presents an approach to semantic inference for FAQ mining. To enhance the efficiency, a small pool of the candidate question-answering pairs retrieved from the system for the follow-up work according to the concept of the agriculture domain extracted from user input .Input queries or questions are converted into four parts, the question word segment (QWS), the verb segment (VS), the concept of agricultural areas segment (CS), the auxiliary segment (AS). A semantic matching method is presented to estimate the similarity between the semantic segments of the query and the questions in the pool of the candidate. A thesaurus constructed from the HowNet, a Chinese knowledge base, is adopted for word similarity measure in the matcher. The questions are classified into eleven intension categories using predefined question stemming keywords. For FAQ mining, given a query, the question part and answer part in an FAQ question-answer pair is matched with the input query, respectively. Finally, the probabilities estimated from these two parts are integrated and used to choose the most likely answer for the input query. These approaches are experimented on an agriculture FAQ system. Experimental results indicate that the proposed approach outperformed the FAQ-Finder system in agriculture FAQ retrieval.
Keywords: FAQ, Semantic Inference, Ontology.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 13781271 Causes and Implications of Obesity in Urban School Going Children
Authors: Mohammad Amjad, Muhammad Iqbal Zafar, Ashfaq Ahmed Maan, Muhammad Tayyab Kashif
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Obesity is an abnormal physical condition where an increased and undesirable fat accumulates in the human body. Obesity is an international phenomenon. In the present study, 12 schools were randomly selected from each district considering the areas i.e. Elite Private Schools in the private sector, Government schools in urban areas and Government schools in rural areas. Interviews were conducted with male students studying in grade 5 to grade 9 in each school. The sample size was 600 students; 300 from Faisalabad district and 300 from Rawalpindi district in Pakistan. A well-structured and pre-tested questionnaire was used for data collection. The calibrated scales were used to attain the heights and weights of the respondents. Obesity of school-going children depends on family types, family size, family history, junk food consumption, mother’s education, weekly time spent in walking, and sports facility at school levels. Academic performance, physical health and psychological health of school going children are affected with obesity. Concrete steps and policies could minimize the incidence of obesity in children in Pakistan.
Keywords: BMI, cardiovascular disease, fast food, morbidity and overweight.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 9271270 Partner Selection in International Strategic Alliances: The Case of the Information Industry
Authors: H. Nakamura
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This study analyzes international strategic alliances in the information industry. The purpose of this study is to clarify the strategic intention of an international alliance. Secondly, it investigates the influence of differences in the target markets of partner companies on alliances. Using an international strategy theory approach to analyze the global strategies of global companies, the study compares a database business and an electronic publishing business. In particular, these cases emphasized factors attributable to "people" and "learning", reliability and communication between organizations and the evolution of the IT infrastructure. The theory evolved in this study validates the effectiveness of these strategies.Keywords: Database business, electronic library, international strategic alliances, partner selection.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 11571269 Impact of Graduates’ Quality of Education and Research on ICT Adoption at Workplace
Authors: Mohammed A. Kafaji
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This paper aims to investigate the influence of quality of education and quality of research, provided by local educational institutions, on the adoption of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in managing business operations for companies in Saudi market. A model was developed and tested using data collected from 138 Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) of foreign companies in diverse business sectors. The data is analyzed and managed using multivariate approaches through standard statistical packages. The results showed that educational quality has little contribution to the ICT adoption while research quality seems to play a more prominent role. These results are analyzed in terms of business environment and market constraints and further extended to the perceived effectiveness of applied pedagogical approaches in schools and universities.
Keywords: Domestic Competition, Quality of Education, Quality of Research, ICT Adoption, Mediation.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 17711268 The Risk of In-work Poverty and Family Coping Strategies
Authors: A. Banovcinova, M. Zakova
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Labor market activity and paid employment should be a key factor in protecting individuals and families from falling into poverty and providing them with sufficient resources to meet the needs of their members. However, due to various processes in the labor market as well as the influence of individual factors and often insufficient social capital, there is a relatively large group of households that cannot eliminate paid employment and find themselves in a state of so-called working poverty. The aim of the research was to find out what strategies families use in managing poverty and meeting their needs and which of these strategies prevail in the Slovak population. A quantitative research strategy was chosen. The method of data collection was a structured interview focused on finding out the use of individual management strategies and also selected demographic indicators. The research sample consisted of members of families in which at least one member has a paid job. The condition for inclusion in the research was that the family's income did not exceed 60% of the national median equalized disposable income. The analysis of the results showed 5 basic areas to which management strategies are related - work, financial security, needs, social contacts and perception of the current situation. The prevailing strategies were strategies aimed at increasing and streamlining labor market activity and the planned and effective management of the family budget. Strategies that were rejected were mainly related to debt creation. The results make it possible to identify the preferred ways of managing poverty in individual areas of life, as well as the factors that influence this behavior. This information is important for working with families living in a state of working poverty and can help professionals develop positive ways of coping for families.
Keywords: Copying strategies, family, in-work poverty, quantitative research.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 6051267 Cognitive eTransformation Framework for Education Sector
Authors: A. Hol
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21st century brought waves of business and industry eTransformations. The impact of change is also being seen in education. To identify the extent of this, scenario analysis methodology was utilised with the aim to assess business transformations across industry sectors ranging from craftsmanship, medicine, finance and manufacture to innovations and adoptions of new technologies and business models. Firstly, scenarios were drafted based on the current eTransformation models and its dimensions. Following this, eTransformation framework was utilised with the aim to derive the key eTransformation parameters, the essential characteristics that have enabled eTransformations across the sectors. Following this, identified key parameters were mapped to the transforming domain-education. The mapping assisted in deriving a cognitive eTransformation framework for education sector. The framework highlights the importance of context and the notion that education today needs not only to deliver content to students but it also needs to be able to meet the dynamically changing demands of specific student and industry groups. Furthermore, it pinpoints that for such processes to be supported, specific technology is required, so that instant, on demand and periodic feedback as well as flexible, dynamically expanding study content can be sought and received via multiple education mediums.Keywords: Education sector, business transformation, eTransformation model, cognitive model, cognitive systems, eTransformation.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 6591266 Characteristics of Successful Sales Interaction in B2B Sales Meetings
Authors: A. Alamäki, T. Kaski
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The value co-creation has gained much attention in sales research, but less is known about how salespeople and customers interact in the authentic business to business (B2B) sales meetings. The study presented in this paper empirically contributes to existing research by presenting authentic B2B sales meetings that were video recorded and analyzed using observation and qualitative content analysis methods. This paper aims to study key elements of successful sales interactions between salespeople and customers/ buyers. This study points out that salespeople are selling value rather than the products or services themselves, which are only enablers in realizing business benefits. Therefore, our findings suggest that promoting and easing open discourse is an essential part of a successful sales encounter. A better understanding of how salespeople and customers successfully interact would help salespeople to develop their interpersonal sales skills.
Keywords: Personal selling, Relationship, Sales Management, Value Co-Creation.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 36461265 The Mediating Effect of MSMEs Export Performance between Technological Advancement Capabilities and Business Performance
Authors: Fawad Hussain, Mohammad Basir Bin Saud, Mohd Azwardi Md Isa
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The aim of this study is to empirically investigate the mediating impact of export performance (EP) between technological advancement capabilities and business performance (BP) of Malaysian manufacturing micro, small and medium sized enterprises (MSME’s). Firm’s technological advancement resources are hypothesized as a platform to enhance both exports and BP of manufacturing MSMEs in Malaysia. This study is twofold, primary it has investigated that technological advancement capabilities helps to appreciates main performance measures noted in terms of EP and Secondly, it investigates that how efficiently and effectively technological advancement capabilities can contribute in overall Malaysian MSME’s BP. Smart PLS-3 statistical software is used to know the association between technological advancement capabilities, MSME’s EP and BP. In this study, the data was composed from Malaysian manufacturing MSME’s in east coast industrial zones known as the manufacturing hub of MSMEs. Seven hundred and fifty (750) questionnaires were distributed, but only 148 usable questionnaires are returned. The finding of this study indicated that technological advancement capabilities helps to strengthen the export in term of time and cost efficient and it plays a significant role in appreciating their BP. This study is helpful for small and medium enterprise owners who intend to expand their business overseas and though smart technological advancement resources they can achieve their business competitiveness and excellence both at local and international markets.Keywords: Technological advancement capabilities, export performance, business performance, small and medium manufacturing enterprises, Malaysia.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 17671264 The Impact of Semantic Web on E-Commerce
Authors: Karim Heidari
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Semantic Web Technologies enable machines to interpret data published in a machine-interpretable form on the web. At the present time, only human beings are able to understand the product information published online. The emerging semantic Web technologies have the potential to deeply influence the further development of the Internet Economy. In this paper we propose a scenario based research approach to predict the effects of these new technologies on electronic markets and business models of traders and intermediaries and customers. Over 300 million searches are conducted everyday on the Internet by people trying to find what they need. A majority of these searches are in the domain of consumer ecommerce, where a web user is looking for something to buy. This represents a huge cost in terms of people hours and an enormous drain of resources. Agent enabled semantic search will have a dramatic impact on the precision of these searches. It will reduce and possibly eliminate information asymmetry where a better informed buyer gets the best value. By impacting this key determinant of market prices semantic web will foster the evolution of different business and economic models. We submit that there is a need for developing these futuristic models based on our current understanding of e-commerce models and nascent semantic web technologies. We believe these business models will encourage mainstream web developers and businesses to join the “semantic web revolution."Keywords: E-Commerce, E-Business, Semantic Web, XML.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 34601263 Media and Information Literacy (MIL) for Thai Youths
Authors: Waralak Vongdoiwang Siricharoen, Nattanun Siricharoen
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The objectives of this study are to determine the role of media that influence the values, attitudes and behaviors of Thai youths. Analytical qualitative research techniques were used for this purpose. Data collection based techniques was used which were individual interviews and focus group discussions with journalists, sample of high school and university students, and parents. The results show that “Social Media" is still the most popular media for Thai youths. It is also still in the hands of the marketing business and it can motivate Thai youths to do so many things. The main reasons of media exposure are to find quality information that they want quickly, get satisfaction and can use social media to get more exciting and to build communities. They believe that the need for media and information literacy skills is defined as making judgments, personal integrity, training of family and the behavior of close friends.
Keywords: Media and Information Literacy, Making Judgments, Personal integrity, Behavior of close friends
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 27881262 Oracle JDE Enterprise One ERP Implementation: A Case Study
Authors: Abhimanyu Pati, Krishna Kumar Veluri
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The paper intends to bring out a real life experience encountered during actual implementation of a large scale Tier-1 Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system in a multi-location, discrete manufacturing organization in India, involved in manufacturing of auto components and aggregates. The business complexities, prior to the implementation of ERP, include multi-product with hierarchical product structures, geographically distributed multiple plant locations with disparate business practices, lack of inter-plant broadband connectivity, existence of disparate legacy applications for different business functions, and non-standardized codifications of products, machines, employees, and accounts apart from others. On the other hand, the manufacturing environment consisted of processes like Assemble-to-Order (ATO), Make-to-Stock (MTS), and Engineer-to-Order (ETO) with a mix of discrete and process operations. The paper has highlighted various business plan areas and concerns, prior to the implementation, with specific focus on strategic issues and objectives. Subsequently, it has dealt with the complete process of ERP implementation, starting from strategic planning, project planning, resource mobilization, and finally, the program execution. The step-by-step process provides a very good learning opportunity about the implementation methodology. At the end, various organizational challenges and lessons emerged, which will act as guidelines and checklist for organizations to successfully align and implement ERP and achieve their business objectives.
Keywords: ERP, ATO, MTS, ETO, discrete manufacturing, strategic planning.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 17991261 WiFi Data Offloading: Bundling Method in a Canvas Business Model
Authors: Majid Mokhtarnia, Alireza Amini
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Mobile operators deal with increasing in the data traffic as a critical issue. As a result, a vital responsibility of the operators is to deal with such a trend in order to create added values. This paper addresses a bundling method in a Canvas business model in a WiFi Data Offloading (WDO) strategy by which some elements of the model may be affected. In the proposed method, it is supposed to sell a number of data packages for subscribers in which there are some packages with a free given volume of data-offloaded WiFi complimentary. The paper on hands analyses this method in the views of attractiveness and profitability. The results demonstrate that the quality of implementation of the WDO strongly affects the final result and helps the decision maker to make the best one.
Keywords: Bundling, canvas business model, telecommunication, WiFi Data Offloading.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 8881260 The Effect of Religious Tourist Motivation and Satisfaction on Behavioral Intention
Abstract:
In recent years, the Chaoshan area, a special place located in the southeast of Guangdong province in China, actively protects religious heritage and is developing religious tourism, which is attracting many expatriate Chinese who are coming back for travel and to worship. This paper discussed three questions. Firstly, what is the current situation about the different social background of tourists’ motivation, satisfaction and behavioral intention? Secondly, is there a relationship between the motivation, satisfaction and behavioral intention and the different social backgrounds of tourists? Thirdly, what is the relationship between religious tourists’ motivation, satisfaction and behavioral intention? The research methods use a combination of qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis. Qualitative analysis uses the method of observation and interviews. Convenient sampling technique was used for quantitative analysis. The study showed that the different social backgrounds of tourists’ forms diverse cognition and experiences about religious tourism, and their motivations, satisfaction and behavioral intention as tourists vary. Tourists’ motivation and satisfaction has a positive phase relation. Tourists’ motivation with satisfaction as the intervening variable also has a positive phase effect on tourists’ behavior intention. The result shows that religious tourists’ motivations include experiencing a religious atmosphere, and having a rest and recreation. The result also shows that religious tourists want to travel with their family members and friends. While traveling, religious tourists like to talk with Buddhist monks or nuns. Compared to other tourism types, religious tourists have higher expectations about temple environment, traveling experience, peripheral service and temple management.Keywords: Behavioral intension, motivation, religious tourism, satisfaction.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 20251259 The System Architecture of the Open European Nephrology Science Centre
Authors: G. Lindemann, D. Schmidt, T. Schrader, M. Beil, T. Schaaf, H.-D. Burkhard
Abstract:
The amount and heterogeneity of data in biomedical research, notably in interdisciplinary research, requires new methods for the collection, presentation and analysis of information. Important data from laboratory experiments as well as patient trials are available but come out of distributed resources. The Charite Medical School in Berlin has established together with the German Research Foundation (DFG) a new information service center for kidney diseases and transplantation (Open European Nephrology Science Centre - OpEN.SC). The system is based on a service-oriented architecture (SOA) with main and auxiliary modules arranged in four layers. To improve the reuse and efficient arrangement of the services the functionalities are described as business processes using the standardised Business Process Execution Language (BPEL).
Keywords: Software development management, Business dataprocessing, Knowledge based systems in medicine
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 14721258 A New Framework to Model a Secure E-Commerce System
Authors: A. Youseef, F. Liu
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The existing information system (IS) developments methods are not met the requirements to resolve the security related IS problems and they fail to provide a successful integration of security and systems engineering during all development process stages. Hence, the security should be considered during the whole software development process and identified with the requirements specification. This paper aims to propose an integrated security and IS engineering approach in all software development process stages by using i* language. This proposed framework categorizes into three separate parts: modelling business environment part, modelling information technology system part and modelling IS security part. The results show that considering security IS goals in the whole system development process can have a positive influence on system implementation and better meet business expectations.Keywords: Business Process Modelling (BPM), Information System Security, Software Development Process, Requirement Engineering.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2037