Quality costing and quality management maturity in Greece

2018 ◽  
Vol 67 (1) ◽  
pp. 171-191 ◽  
Author(s):  
Odysseas Moschidis ◽  
Evrikleia Chatzipetrou ◽  
George Tsiotras
Keyword(s):  
Quality Management ◽  
Hierarchical Cluster ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Quality Costs ◽  
Food And Beverage ◽  
Unstable Environment ◽  
Costing System ◽  
Effective Use ◽  
First Time

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore how the sophistication of a quality costing system depends on the quality management maturity (QMM) level in Food and Beverage (F&B) enterprises. Since no previous research has taken place in this area, the paper aims at analyzing the relationships between quality costing and the specific variables that define the various maturity stages. Design/methodology/approach A structured questionnaire was used to survey 457 F&B companies. This produced 104 usable responses (23 percent response rate). Multidimensional correspondence analysis (MCA) with hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) were used to detect and represent underlying structures in the categorical data set and to detect possible clusters between variables. Findings The more mature a company’s QMM, the more emphasis they placed on appraisal quality costs and effective use of quality costs information. Prevention costs have no statistically significant connection with the level of maturity. A generalized “expensive” use of quality costing, with no focus on problematic areas and possible solutions, does not always lead to the resolution of problems. Research limitations/implications A complicated – and some think unfair – tax system, combined with limited cash liquidity constitutes an unstable environment for Greek companies, in which they have to survive and develop. This environment does not support quality costing, thus resulting in limited interest by company management in participating in the authors’ research. Furthermore, the Greek Uniform Chart of Accounts and the Greek Accounting Standards do not include specific quality-related accounts, making it difficult for companies to measure quality costs and for researchers to investigate the quality costing field. Originality/value It is the first time that QMM levels of Greek F&B companies have been reported. The research explores the characteristics that a quality costing system of Greek F&B organizations develop at the various maturity levels. The analysis uses an exploratory method – MCA – which can highlight intense correspondences of characteristics and clusters, which cannot be predicted in advance.

Decision fusion-based approach for content-based image classification

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 310-331 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sudeep Thepade ◽  
Rik Das ◽  
Saurav Ghosh
Keyword(s):  
Feature Extraction ◽  
Image Classification ◽  
Image Recognition ◽  
Extraction Techniques ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Knowledge Fusion ◽  
Knn Classifier ◽  
Query Classification ◽  
First Time

Purpose Current practices in data classification and retrieval have experienced a surge in the use of multimedia content. Identification of desired information from the huge image databases has been facing increased complexities for designing an efficient feature extraction process. Conventional approaches of image classification with text-based image annotation have faced assorted limitations due to erroneous interpretation of vocabulary and huge time consumption involved due to manual annotation. Content-based image recognition has emerged as an alternative to combat the aforesaid limitations. However, exploring rich feature content in an image with a single technique has lesser probability of extract meaningful signatures compared to multi-technique feature extraction. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to explore the possibilities of enhanced content-based image recognition by fusion of classification decision obtained using diverse feature extraction techniques. Design/methodology/approach Three novel techniques of feature extraction have been introduced in this paper and have been tested with four different classifiers individually. The four classifiers used for performance testing were K nearest neighbor (KNN) classifier, RIDOR classifier, artificial neural network classifier and support vector machine classifier. Thereafter, classification decisions obtained using KNN classifier for different feature extraction techniques have been integrated by Z-score normalization and feature scaling to create fusion-based framework of image recognition. It has been followed by the introduction of a fusion-based retrieval model to validate the retrieval performance with classified query. Earlier works on content-based image identification have adopted fusion-based approach. However, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, fusion-based query classification has been addressed for the first time as a precursor of retrieval in this work. Findings The proposed fusion techniques have successfully outclassed the state-of-the-art techniques in classification and retrieval performances. Four public data sets, namely, Wang data set, Oliva and Torralba (OT-scene) data set, Corel data set and Caltech data set comprising of 22,615 images on the whole are used for the evaluation purpose. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, fusion-based query classification has been addressed for the first time as a precursor of retrieval in this work. The novel idea of exploring rich image features by fusion of multiple feature extraction techniques has also encouraged further research on dimensionality reduction of feature vectors for enhanced classification results.

Reflections from the field (mountain, cityscape and park): walking for management development and links to being-in-the world, belonging and “Ba”

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Arthur F. Turner ◽  
Gareth Edwards ◽  
Catherine Latham ◽  
Harriet Shortt
Keyword(s):  
Leadership Development ◽  
Management Development ◽  
Learning And Development ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Personal Story ◽  
The World ◽  
Effective Use ◽  
The Impact ◽  
First Time

PurposeThe purpose of this paper, based on reflections from practice, is to shed light on the realities of using walking as a tool for learning and development. This is done through an initial analysis of longitudinal reflective data spanning seven years and connecting these reflections to the concepts: being-in-the-world, belonging and Ba.Design/methodology/approachThis research takes a practice based phenomenological and reflective approach. The value of this approach is to seek a new understanding, through three distinct conceptual frames, of the effective use of walking within management development.FindingsThe findings connect three conceptual approaches of being-in-the-world, belonging and “Ba” to the practicalities of delivery, thus encouraging practitioners and designers to deeply reflect on the role of walking in management development.Research limitations/implicationsA limitation is that this is largely a personal story exploring the impact of an intuitively developed set of interventions. Despite this, the paper represents a unique and deep interpretation of walking as a mechanism for management development.Practical implicationsThe paper concludes with three recommendations to practitioners wanting to use walking in management development programmes. These are: facilitators need to be familiar with their surroundings; they should look for spaces and places where participants can connect and build relationships; and organisers and sponsors need to recognise how walking not only consolidates knowledge but can help create knowledge too.Originality/valueThis is a unique, seven-year longitudinal study that broadens the theoretical focus of walking as a mechanism for management and leadership development that combines the theoretical lenses of being-in-the-world, belonging and “Ba”, the authors believe, for the first time in research on management development.

Empirical classification of European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) model enabler sub-criteria using a quadrant matrix

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Narasimha Murthy ◽  
Kuldip Singh Sangwan ◽  
Nuggenahalli S. Narahari
Keyword(s):  
Quality Management ◽  
Organizational Context ◽  
Underlying Structure ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Assessment Scores ◽  
Business Results ◽  
Efqm Model ◽  
European Foundation ◽  
The Impact ◽  
First Time

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine how sub-criteria of the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) model is structurally connected and influence each other. This paper also tries to find the underpinning logics in the EFQM model.Design/methodology/approachThe study uses the empirical methodology based on assessment scores of 58 different organizations to gauge the underlying structure, develop the construct and establish interlinkages among the various sub-criteria in the EFQM model. Statistical analysis is used to find the impact on results and cross influencing of criteria at the sub-criteria level. The factorial analysis is carried out using the Doe technique to create factorial plots for result categories (customer results, people results, society results and business results). The approach is to unravel (1) the role played by each sub-criterion of the model, (2) the effects of sub-criteria on the results of the EFQM model and (3) the influence of sub-criteria on the managerial aspects of the model in an organizational context.FindingsThe EFQM sub-criteria are categorised as promoters, proponents, defenders or detractors based on their impact on the results and cross-influence on each other. The study unfolded seven sub-criteria positively impacting the results and one sub-criterion negatively impacting the results if not handled properly. Out of 32 sub-criteria, nine sub-criteria are influencing more than six other sub-criteria.Originality/valueThe paper investigates, for the first time: (1) the role played by each sub-criteria of the model; (2) the relationships that are produced between these sub-criteria on the EFQM results and (3) identify how such sub-criteria would influence the managerial aspects of the model in an organizational context. This research develops underlying logics in the EFQM model using Doe factorial methods for overcoming the multi-collinearity.

Determinants of Marathoners’ event expenditures: an in-depth exploration of past experience

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 110-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kwangsoo Park ◽  
Jeong-Yeol Park ◽  
Robin M. Back
Keyword(s):  
Negative Influence ◽  
Total Expenditure ◽  
Related Factors ◽  
Planning Time ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Food And Beverage ◽  
Past Experiences ◽  
The Impact ◽  
First Time ◽  
Repeat Visits

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the determinants of Marathon event spending by estimated expenditure models. Design/methodology/approach This study analyzes the impact of socio-demographic and travel-context factors on aggregated and disaggregated expenditures by event visitors who participated in the Fargo Marathon in Fargo, North Dakota. Findings The results indicate that event satisfaction does not have an influence on any types of expenditure. As the planning time increases, however, there is a positive effect on total expenditure. First-time visitors are shown to spend more money, especially on food and beverage, lodging and total expenditure. Conversely, the number of past experiences of the event had a negative influence on these expenditure types. Originality/value In addition to travel-related factors and socio-demographic variables, researchers had not examined the influence of repeat visits on travelers’ spending. The originality of this study lies in revealing that repeat visits decrease spending in specific categories, especially in the case of a Marathon event.

Queries related to COVID-19: a more effective retrieval through finetuned ALBERT with BM25L question answering system

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Deepthi Godavarthi ◽  
Mary Sowjanya A.
Keyword(s):  
Question Answering ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Medical Community ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Benchmark Data ◽  
Open Research ◽  
First Time ◽  
Scientific Questions

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to build a better question answering (QA) system that can furnish more improved retrieval of answers related to COVID-19 queries from the COVID-19 open research data set (CORD-19). As CORD-19 has an up-to-date collection of coronavirus literature, text mining approaches can be successfully used to retrieve answers pertaining to all coronavirus-related questions. The existing a lite BERT for self-supervised learning of language representations (ALBERT) model is finetuned for retrieving all COVID relevant information to scientific questions posed by the medical community and to highlight the context related to the COVID-19 query. Design/methodology/approach This study presents a finetuned ALBERT-based QA system in association with Best Match25 (Okapi BM25) ranking function and its variant BM25L for context retrieval and provided high scores in benchmark data sets such as SQuAD for answers related to COVID-19 questions. In this context, this paper has built a QA system, pre-trained on SQuAD and finetuned it on CORD-19 data to retrieve answers related to COVID-19 questions by extracting semantically relevant information related to the question. Findings BM25L is found to be more effective in retrieval compared to Okapi BM25. Hence, finetuned ALBERT when extended to the CORD-19 data set provided accurate results. Originality/value The finetuned ALBERT QA system was developed and tested for the first time on the CORD-19 data set to extract context and highlight the span of the answer for more clarity to the user.

The problem of heterogeneity between protected geographical indications: a meta-analysis

2018 ◽  
Vol 120 (12) ◽  
pp. 2843-2856 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Leufkens
Keyword(s):  
Willingness To Pay ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Marginal Willingness To Pay ◽  
Great Heterogeneity ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Heterogeneity Analysis ◽  
The Individual ◽  
First Time

Purpose For a long time the European geographical indication (GI) regulation has been of great interest to economists and policymakers. To justify exclusive European regulation it is necessary to prove the positive value of a GI quality signal (i.e. label), which is often achieved by quantifying its monetary value for the consumers. But even though a large number of literary contributions already deal with this question, they lack the evaluation of overall effect sizes for the GI label. The purpose of this paper is, therefore, to quantify and evaluate the overall marginal consumer willingness to pay for the European GI label. Design/methodology/approach To reach this aim, a meta-analysis is used for which a literature survey had been carried out in order to determine the GI label effects (LEs). In addition to previous works, this paper not only includes a meta-analysis, but also implements a heterogeneity analysis to distinguish between the LEs of individual GI standards. To eliminate study- and product-specific determinants of heterogeneity, moderator variables are used. Findings The empirical results indicate that consumers have a highly significant and positive marginal willingness to pay for GIs. However, the marginal willingness to pay differs significantly between the individual GI standards and indicates great heterogeneity between the protected products. Originality/value As an extension to previous studies and meta-analysis; this paper includes the most extensive GIs meta-data set so far, and conducts for the first time an independent heterogeneity analysis to distinguish between the LEs of individual GI standards and implements a moderator analysis to eliminate study- and product-specific determinants of heterogeneity from the GI effects.

Replications hardly possible: reporting practice in top-tier marketing journals

2016 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 427-445 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sebastian Lehmann ◽  
Paul Bengart
Keyword(s):  
Marketing Research ◽  
Knowledge Development ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Reporting Practices ◽  
Descriptive Research ◽  
Research Journal ◽  
Replication Research ◽  
First Time

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to highlight the role of replications for science, and in particular the knowledge development process. Design/methodology/approach Descriptive research on the disclosure of sample parameters which are needed for replication was conducted. The analysis includes 2,982 studies from four top-tier marketing journals. Findings Published parameters are insufficient for replication and, therefore, impede knowledge development. Originality/value The paper offers a unique data set for further investigation. In total, 2,982 studies from the defined journals (Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research and Marketing Science) were analyzed. Hereby this paper enables insights into reporting practices of current marketing research and highlights the role of replication research in validating earlier research. It empirically shows, to the authors' best knowledge for the first time, that the insufficient reporting is one of the major reasons for the lack of replications.

Activity apprehension in experiential purchases

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Chadwick J. Miller ◽  
Adriana Samper ◽  
Naomi Mandel ◽  
Daniel C. Brannon ◽  
Jim Salas ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Consumer Preferences ◽  
Secondary Data ◽  
Consumer Experience ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Customer Journey ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Experiential Purchases ◽  
Post Purchase ◽  
First Time

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine how the number of activities within a multi-activity experience influences consumer preferences before and after consumption. Design/methodology/approach The hypotheses are tested using four experiments and a secondary data set from a river cruise firm that includes first-time river cruise purchases by consumers from this firm between January 2011 and December 2015 (n = 337,457). Findings Consumers prefer experiences with fewer (vs more) activities before consumption – a phenomenon, this paper calls “activity apprehension” – but prefer experiences with more (vs fewer) activities after consumption. A mediation analysis indicates that this phenomenon occurs because the highly perishable nature of activities makes consumers uncertain about their ability to use all the activities within the experience (usage uncertainty). Practical implications Evaluations of a multi-activity experience depend on both the number of activities and on whether the consumer is at the pre- or post-consumption stage of the customer journey. As such, firms looking to sell multi-activity experiences should design and promote these experiences in a way that minimizes activity apprehension. Originality/value This study is the first to demonstrate that consumer perceptions of an optimal experience depend on both the number of included activities and on the stage of the customer journey (i.e. pre- or post-purchase). It further contributes to the consumer experience literature by examining an unexplored activity characteristic, perishability, in shaping experiential purchase decisions. Finally, it demonstrates a new way in which experiential purchases differ from tangible product purchases.

A model to guide the effective use of a business case for IT projects

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank David Einhorn ◽  
Jack Meredith ◽  
Carl Marnewick
Keyword(s):  
Project Success ◽  
Business Case ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Technology Project ◽  
Facilitating Factors ◽  
Effectiveness Model ◽  
Information Technology Project ◽  
Advance Theory ◽  
Effective Use ◽  
First Time

PurposeThe paper responds to calls in recent research for a model that shows how the business case should be used throughout the project's lifetime to achieve sound governance and thereby project success. The aim of the paper is to advance theory about the effective use of the business case.Design/methodology/approachBesides the processes and information required, the literature identified 43 organizational facilitating factors, structured into 5 categories, which are required for effective use of the business case. To offer a useful model, the authors' approach was to do a factor analysis, based on existing survey data, to reduce the number of facilitators and to validate their categorization.FindingsThe findings of the paper were as follows: (1) the classification of the proposed facilitating factors was validated; (2) the number of facilitators needed to ensure that the business case is used effectively was substantially reduced and (3) a “business case effectiveness model” is proposed to clarify the relationship between the organizational facilitating factors, the business case processes and the information required to effectively use the business case.Originality/valueThis is the first time that a business case effectiveness model has been proposed. Besides consolidating business case theory, it can be used to guide people and organizations on simple, affordable ways to improve their use of the business case to achieve sound governance and hence business/information technology project success.

Performance of TV programs: a robust MCDM approach

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 1188-1209 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liz Hassad de Andrade ◽  
Jorge Junio Moreira Antunes ◽  
Peter Wanke
Keyword(s):  
Principal Component ◽  
Performance Criteria ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Long Tail ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Relational Analysis ◽  
Complex Decision ◽  
Grey Relational ◽  
First Time ◽  
Practical Implications

PurposeThe aim of this paper is to provide an approach to analyze the performance of TV programs and to identify what can be done to improve them.Design/methodology/approachThe Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS), the Ng-model, Grey relational analysis (GRA), and principal component analysis (PCA) were applied to evaluate the programs, using audience, share, and duration as the performance criteria.FindingsBy comparing TOPSIS to the Ng-model, PCA, and GRA, we verified that SVD and bootstrap SVD TOPSIS provide a good balance between equal-weights TOPSIS and the other models. This is because SVD and bootstrap SVD TOPSIS break down the data to a higher degree, but are less impacted by outliers compared to the long tail models.Practical implicationsTo determine which TV programs should be replaced or modified is a complex decision that has not been addressed in the literature. The advantage of using a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) approach is that analysts can choose as many criteria as they want to rank TV programs, rather than relying on a single criterion (e.g., audience, share, target rating point).Originality/valueThis work represents the first time that robust MCDM methodology is applied to an audience data set to analyze the performance of TV programs and to identify what can be done to improve them. This study shows the application of a detailed methodology that is useful for the improvement of TV programs and other entertainment industry content.

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