scholarly journals Context, agency and professional workplace learning

2017 ◽  
Vol 59 (5) ◽  
pp. 516-533 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Bishop

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the ways in which organisational context and individual agency interact (co-participate) to shape the workplace learning of graduate trainee accountants, and to examine the role of firm size in conditioning this interaction. Design/methodology/approach A qualitative, comparative approach was used, involving interviews with 20 respondents across two large and three small accountancy firms in England. Findings Differences in individual learner biographies and trajectories generate divergent dispositions with regard to workplace learning. In turn, these dispositions influence the extent to which the generally less formal learning environment of the small firm is interpreted either positively or negatively. Research limitations/implications Further research is needed on processes of agency/context interaction across a wider range of organisational and professional environments. Practical implications Individual dispositions play an important role in determining the optimal approach towards professional development in practice. Originality/value The paper offers a novel insight into how variations in both context and agency – and the relationship between them – can generate significant divergences in the professional learning process.

2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 232-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hanifi Parlar ◽  
Mahmut Polatcan ◽  
Ramazan Cansoy

Purpose Professional learning communities that merge under the same goal in schools where social relationship networks are strong can contribute to creating an atmosphere which provides a basis for innovativeness. In this study the relationships between social capital, innovativeness climate and professional learning communities were examined through the views of teachers working at public schools. The paper aims to discuss this issue. Design/methodology/approach The data of this study, which utilised correlational survey model, were collected from 734 teachers who work in the Umraniye district of Istanbul, Turkey. Findings The findings revealed that there is a positive and statistically significant correlation between social capital, innovativeness climate and professional learning communities. The results demonstrated that teachers’ perceptions of social capital in schools affected their perceptions of innovativeness climate and that professional learning communities had an intermediary role in this relationship. These findings showed that the richness in social relationship networks provided a basis for the development of innovative teaching practices in schools and the professional learning environments created in schools contributed to this process. Research limitations/implications In this study, the intermediary role of professional learning communities on the effect of social capital on innovativeness climate was analysed via teachers’ views. In the literature no study studying the relationship between social capital, innovativeness climate and professional learning communities was found. Practical implications It can be put forward that there is a need for studies that analyse the effect of the roots of social capital on innovativeness culture to identify other variables that may potentially be relevant. In addition, this study may be a contribution to the literature by providing a study on the concepts of social capital and innovativeness climate, which were studied in the fields of social sciences extensively, in educational settings and this supports the field through theoretical and empirical studies. Originality/value This study demonstrated the effects of the concept of social capital on innovativeness climate which provides a basis for innovativeness in educational institutions. This topic is currently on the agenda of the OECD and World Bank. Moreover, this study aims to show the intermediary role of professional learning communities in the relationship between social capital and innovativeness climate.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 1225-1243 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seyed Mehrshad Parvin Hosseini ◽  
Maryam Mirzaei ◽  
Mohammad Iranmanesh

Purpose This study aims to investigate the factors that motivate Muslim consumers to pay for halal-certified food. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected through a survey of 272 Muslim consumers in Malaysia. The data were analyzed using the partial least squares technique. Findings The results showed that animal slaughter, halal logo, food quality and religious commitment have a positive effect on the willingness to pay for halal food. Religious commitment positively moderates the relationship between storage and transportation and the willingness to pay for halal-certified food. Practical implications Policy makers as well as managers of halal food companies can benefit from this study which provides insight into ways to increase demand for halal food. Originality/value The findings contribute to the literature on halal foods by illustrating the factors that determine Muslim consumers’ willingness to pay for halal food. This study also extends the literature by testing the moderating role of religious commitment.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Perengki Susanto ◽  
Mohammad Enamul Hoque ◽  
Najeeb Ullah Shah ◽  
Andel Hopi Candra ◽  
Nik Mohd Hazrul Nik Hashim ◽  
...  

Purpose Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are an important contributor to emerging countries’ economic growth. However, SMEs have been struggling to sustain their performance in a highly competitive environment. Thus, this study aims to re-examine the effect of SMEs’ entrepreneurial orientation (EO) on firms’ performance during the COVID-19. This study has also studied the moderating role of social media usage and the mediating role of marketing capabilities and social media usage. Design/methodology/approach This study used a structured questionnaire for data collection, where the unit of analysis was the manager or owner of SMEs. The data were analyzed using partial least square-structural equation modeling. Findings The findings show that an EO has a significant and positive effect on an SME’s performance, but the outcomes are conditional on the role of social media and marketing capabilities. The empirical results reveal that marketing capabilities significantly mediate the relationship between EO and SME performance. In addition, social media usage moderates the relationship between EO and SME performance and it also partially mediates the EO-performance nexus of SMEs. Finally, this study discovers that the EO-Performance nexus of SMEs is serially mediated by social media usage and marketing capabilities. Research limitations/implications This study has important implications for SMEs that are seeking to gain a competitive advantage. For example, an SME should deploy market activities through social media channels. In situations such as a pandemic and uncertainty, this could be the most effective tool. Originality/value This study builds a theory-based mediation-moderation model to explain the link between EO and SME performance. In explaining mediation-moderation effects, the current study provides insight into EO-performance relationships. Moreover, the current model facilitates exploring whether serial mediation passes through social media usage and market capabilities. Therefore, with new findings, the study extends the literature on serial mediation in the EO-performance of SMEs. Additionally, this study extends the literature on the moderating role of social media on SMEs in Indonesia, which has not been investigated. Besides, the current study adds new insight into the EO-performance of SME in COVID-19 condition.


2018 ◽  
Vol 27 (7) ◽  
pp. 781-792 ◽  
Author(s):  
David R. Sloan ◽  
Damon Aiken ◽  
Alan C. Mikkelson

Purpose The purpose of this research is to explore the effects of regional geographic brand congruency (GBC) on brand trust, brand parity, perceived value, brand honesty and purchase intentions. Design/methodology/approach The research uses an experimental method in two studies to test hypotheses derived from the literature. Findings This research conceptualizes GBC as the relationship between products/services and geographic regions that are authentic, credible and fitting. Results from the two studies support the hypothesis that brands with regional GBC have higher levels of consumer evaluation compared to brands with geographic incongruence or with no geographic reference at all. Research limitations/implications This research offers insight into the decision to name a brand. If one is going to associate a product with a regional geographic location, it is more effective to use a location that is fitting as it applies to that product; otherwise, it would be best to avoid a geographic association in a brand name. Originality/value The exploration of regional geographic brand congruency in relation to outcomes of brand trust, brand parity, perceived value, purchase intentions and honesty offers new insights into the nature and role of place images.


2019 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
pp. 249-259
Author(s):  
Joseph Acquisto

This essay examines a polemic between two Baudelaire critics of the 1930s, Jean Cassou and Benjamin Fondane, which centered on the relationship of poetry to progressive politics and metaphysics. I argue that a return to Baudelaire's poetry can yield insight into what seems like an impasse in Cassou and Fondane. Baudelaire provides the possibility of realigning metaphysics and politics so that poetry has the potential to become the space in which we can begin to think the two of them together, as opposed to seeing them in unresolvable tension. Or rather, the tension that Baudelaire animates between the two allows us a new way of thinking about the role of esthetics in moments of political crisis. We can in some ways see Baudelaire as responding, avant la lettre, to two of his early twentieth-century readers who correctly perceived his work as the space that breathes a new urgency into the questions of how modern poetry relates to the world from which it springs and in which it intervenes.


2017 ◽  
Vol 38 (5) ◽  
pp. 630-645 ◽  
Author(s):  
Won Ho Kim ◽  
Young-An Ra ◽  
Jong Gyu Park ◽  
Bora Kwon

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the mediating role of burnout (i.e. exhaustion, cynicism, professional inefficacy) in the relationship between job level and job satisfaction as well as between job level and task performance. Design/methodology/approach The final sample included 342 Korean workers from selected companies. The authors employed the Hayes (2013) PROCESS tool for analyzing the data. Findings The results showed that all three subscales of burnout (i.e. exhaustion, cynicism, professional inefficacy) mediate the relationship between job level and job satisfaction. However, only two mediators (i.e. cynicism, professional inefficacy) indicated the mediating effects on the association between job level and task performance. Originality/value This research presented the role of burnout on the relationships between job level, job satisfaction, and task performance especially in South Korean organizational context. In addition to role of burnout, findings should prove helpful in improving job satisfaction and task performance. The authors provide implications and limitations of the findings.


Author(s):  
Miriam Bak McKenna

Abstract Situating itself in current debates over the international legal archive, this article delves into the material and conceptual implications of architecture for international law. To do so I trace the architectural developments of international law’s organizational and administrative spaces during the early to mid twentieth century. These architectural endeavours unfolded in three main stages: the years 1922–1926, during which the International Labour Organization (ILO) building, the first building exclusively designed for an international organization was constructed; the years 1927–1937 which saw the great polemic between modernist and classical architects over the building of the Palace of Nations; and the years 1947–1952, with the triumph of modernism, represented by the UN Headquarters in New York. These events provide an illuminating allegorical insight into the physical manifestation, modes of self-expression, and transformation of international law during this era, particularly the relationship between international law and the function and role of international organizations.


Humanomics ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 453-469 ◽  
Author(s):  
Muhammad Khaleel ◽  
Shankar Chelliah ◽  
Sana Rauf ◽  
Muhammad Jamil

Purpose This study aims to find out how corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives are perceived by pharmacists and how it influences employees’ organizational commitment and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and role of perceived supervisor support in the study. Design/methodology/approach Pharmacists of different hierarchical levels from five multinational pharmaceutical industries in Pakistan were selected as study samples. Data were collected from 136 pharmacists working in Punjab Region. PLS-SEM was used to test the hypotheses. Findings The results from this study found that CSR was a predictor of affective organizational commitment (AOC) and OCB. AOC fully mediates the relationship between CSR and OCB. While perceived supervisory support did not moderate the relationship between AOC and OCB. Pharmaceutical firms can promote commitment toward organization and OCBs by initiating CSR activities. Research limitations/implications This research is one of the innovative studies that empirically examine the predicting role of CSR and moderating role of perceived supervisory support on employees’ attitude and behaviors in the pharmaceutical companies’ context. Moreover, this research will also help the management by adopting CSR activities as core element in shaping employees attitudes and behaviors. Originality/value It is a significant study shifting the focus of research into organizational behavior context and further influences employee’s attitudes and behavior because of perceived CSR in the pharmacy industry.


2015 ◽  
Vol 57 (4) ◽  
pp. 429-447 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark P. Bowden ◽  
Subhash Abhayawansa ◽  
John Bahtsevanoglou

Purpose – There is evidence that students who attend Technical and Further Education (TAFE) prior to entering higher education underperform in their first year of study. The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of self-efficacy in understanding the performance of students who completed TAFE in the previous year in a first year subject of microeconomics in a dual sector university in Melbourne, Australia. Design/methodology/approach – The study utilises data collected by surveys of 151 students. Findings – A student’s self-efficacy is positively associated with their marks in a first year subject of microeconomics. However, the relationship between final marks and self-efficacy is negative for those students who attended TAFE in the previous year suggesting that they suffer from the problem of overconfidence. When holding self-efficacy constant, using econometric techniques, TAFE attendance is found to be positively related to final marks. Research limitations/implications – The findings are exploratory (based on a small sample) and lead to a need to conduct cross institutional studies. Practical implications – The research points to the need for early interventions so that TAFE students perform well in their first year of higher education. It also points to potential issues in the development of Victorian Certificate of Applied Learning (VCAL) programs. Originality/value – To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper to examine the inter-related impact of attendance at TAFE in the previous year and self-efficacy on the subsequent academic performance of TAFE students.


2014 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amira Galin

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to obtain insight into court-referred mediation in the Israeli Labor Courts, by analyzing its processes and outcomes, as a function of tactics used by both the disputants and the mediator. Design/methodology/approach – Observation of 103 court-referred mediations, for each of which a detailed process and outcome were documented. Data on disputants' refusal to participate in the mediation was also collected. At the end of each mediation case, disputants were given a questionnaire in which they expressed their satisfaction with the outcome and their evaluation of the mediator's contribution. Findings – A low rate of refusal to participate in court-referred mediation was found. Also, the higher the ratio of soft tactics to pressure tactics employed (by all parties involved) during the process, the higher the rate of agreements. Mediators use significantly more soft tactics than disputants, and are more active in using tactics. The two significant variables that predict the mediation's agreement are the ratio between soft tactics to pressure tactics used by all parties, and mediator contribution to the process. Practical implications – The significant role of soft tactics in the process, outcome, and satisfaction of court-referred mediation may serve as a guideline for disputants and mediators. Originality/value – This unique research, which examines the impact of tactics on court-referred mediation, may provide added and significant theoretical insight into its process and outcome, as well as a better understanding of other “hybrid” (compulsory at the beginning, voluntary at the end) mediations.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document