Introducing multivariate Markov modeling within QFD to anticipate future customer preferences in product design

2018 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 762-778 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katerina Gotzamani ◽  
Andreas Georgiou ◽  
Andreas Andronikidis ◽  
Konstantina Kamvysi
Keyword(s):  
Quality Function Deployment ◽  
Fuzzy Ahp ◽  
Markov Modeling ◽  
Design Decisions ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Customer Preferences ◽  
First Time ◽  
The Voice ◽  
Product Specifications

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide an enhanced version of quality function deployment (QFD) that captures customers’ present and future preferences, accurately prioritizes product specifications and eventually translates them into desirable quality products. Under rapidly changing environments, customer requirements and preferences are constantly changing and evolving, rendering essential the realization of the dynamic role of the “Voice of the Customer (VoC)” in the design and development of products. Design/methodology/approach The proposed methodological framework incorporates a Multivariate Markov Chain (MMC) model to describe the pattern of changes in customer preferences over time, the Fuzzy AHP method to accommodate the uncertainty and subjectivity of the “VoC” and the LP-GW-AHP to discover the most important product specifications in order to structure a robust QFD method. This enhanced QFD framework (MMC-QFD-LP-GW-Fuzzy AHP) takes into consideration the dynamic nature of the “VoC” captures the actual customers’ preferences (WHATs) and interprets them into design decisions (HOWs). Findings The integration of MMC models into the QFD helps to handle the sequences of customers’ preferences as categorical data sequences and to consider the multiple interdependencies among them. Originality/value In this study, a MMC model is introduced for the first time within QFD, in an effort to extend the concept of listening to further anticipating to customer wants. Gaining a deeper understanding of current and future customers’ preferences could help organizations to design products and plan strategies that more effectively and efficiently satisfy them.

A “Learning from Action” workshop in Japan

2019 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 77-83
Author(s):  
Robert Douglas Hinshelwood ◽  
Luca Mingarelli ◽  
Simona Masnata
Keyword(s):  
Far East ◽  
Opportunity To Learn ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Work Activities ◽  
Defensive Role ◽  
Feedback Data ◽  
Experiential Workshop ◽  
First Time ◽  
Practical Implications

Purpose Many people in severe mentally disturbed states do not use language or other symbolic media well or coherently. Therefore, the non-verbal medium needs to be understood by workers with such people. The “Learning from Action” experiential workshop was developed in order to provide an opportunity to learn about hidden messages in the relationships and roles occurring in activities. In August 2017, a workshop was run for the first time in Japan. The purpose of this paper is to report the experience and dynamics observed by the three consultants, who are here the authors of this paper. Design/methodology/approach After the workshop all the staff and members, including interpreters, were invited to give feedback. Findings Analysis of the feedback data showed certain important dynamics, concerning especially dependence, cultural defences and the defensive role of activity in a multicultural context. Research limitations/implications This is an initial experience to be followed up by later feedback and further workshops. Practical implications Workers awareness of non-verbal communication within the roles of work activities is a training possibility. It faces various resistances including the mental health assumptions of meaninglessness of any communication outside the verbal. Originality/value This is a method of training not widely used even in European countries, and is the first in a country in the far east.

Seeking attention: an eye tracking study of in-store merchandise displays

2015 ◽  
Vol 43 (6) ◽  
pp. 561-574 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia Huddleston ◽  
Bridget K. Behe ◽  
Stella Minahan ◽  
R. Thomas Fernandez
Keyword(s):  
Visual Attention ◽  
Eye Tracking ◽  
Purchase Intention ◽  
Product Information ◽  
Product Category ◽  
Practical Significance ◽  
Content Type ◽  
First Time ◽  
Tracking Technology

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to elucidate the role that visual measures of attention to product and information and price display signage have on purchase intention. The authors assessed the effect of visual attention to the product, information or price sign on purchase intention, as measured by likelihood to buy. Design/methodology/approach – The authors used eye-tracking technology to collect data from Australian and US garden centre customers, who viewed eight plant displays in which the signs had been altered to show either price or supplemental information (16 images total). The authors compared the role of visual attention to price and information sign, and the role of visual attention to the product when either sign was present on likelihood to buy. Findings – Overall, providing product information on a sign without price elicited higher likelihood to buy than providing a sign with price. The authors found a positive relationship between visual attention to price on the display sign and likelihood to buy, but an inverse relationship between visual attention to information and likelihood to buy. Research limitations/implications – An understanding of the attention-capturing power of merchandise display elements, especially signs, has practical significance. The findings will assist retailers in creating more effective and efficient display signage content, for example, featuring the product information more prominently than the price. The study was conducted on a minimally packaged product, live plants, which may reduce the ability to generalize findings to other product types. Practical implications – The findings will assist retailers in creating more effective and efficient display signage content. The study used only one product category (plants) which may reduce the ability to generalize findings to other product types. Originality/value – The study is one of the first to use eye-tracking in a macro-level, holistic investigation of the attention-capturing value of display signage information and its relationship to likelihood to buy. Researchers, for the first time, now have the ability to empirically test the degree to which attention and decision-making are linked.

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.

Too resilient for anyone’s good

Kybernetes ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 751-768 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lance Nizami
Keyword(s):  
Auditory Stimulus ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Detection Thresholds ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Infant Vision ◽  
Efficacious Treatment ◽  
Stimulus Detection ◽  
First Time

Purpose This study aims to examine the observer’s role in “infant psychophysics”. Infant psychophysics was developed because the diagnosis of perceptual deficits should be done as early in a patient’s life as possible, to provide efficacious treatment and thereby reduce potential long-term costs. Infants, however, cannot report their perceptions. Hence, the intensity of a stimulus at which the infant can detect it, the “threshold”, must be inferred from the infant’s behavior, as judged by observers (watchers). But whose abilities are actually being inferred? The answer affects all behavior-based conclusions about infants’ perceptions, including the well-proselytized notion that auditory stimulus-detection thresholds improve rapidly during infancy. Design/methodology/approach In total, 55 years of infant psychophysics is scrutinized, starting with seminal studies in infant vision, followed by the studies that they inspired in infant hearing. Findings The inferred stimulus-detection thresholds are those of the infant-plus-watcher and, more broadly, the entire laboratory. The thresholds are therefore tenuous, because infants’ actions may differ with stimulus intensity; expressiveness may differ between infants; different watchers may judge infants differently; etc. Particularly, the watcher’s ability to “read” the infant may improve with the infant’s age, confounding any interpretation of perceptual maturation. Further, the infant’s gaze duration, an assumed cue to stimulus detection, may lengthen or shorten nonlinearly with infant age. Research limitations/implications Infant psychophysics investigators have neglected the role of the observer, resulting in an accumulation of data that requires substantial re-interpretation. Altogether, infant psychophysics has proven far too resilient for its own good. Originality/value Infant psychophysics is examined for the first time through second-order cybernetics. The approach reveals serious unresolved issues.

Insurance regulations, risk and performance in Ghana

2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 74-96
Author(s):  
Baah Aye Kusi ◽  
Abdul Latif Alhassan ◽  
Daniel Ofori-Sasu ◽  
Rockson Sai
Keyword(s):  
Random Effect ◽  
Least Square ◽  
Insurance Market ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Ordinary Least Square ◽  
Negative Effect ◽  
And Performance ◽  
First Time

Purpose This study aims to examine the hypothesis that the effect of insurer risks on profitability is conditional on regulation, using two main regulatory directives in the Ghanaian insurance market as a case study. Design/methodology/approach This study used the robust ordinary least square and random effect techniques in a panel data of 30 insurers from 2009 to 2015 to test the research hypothesis. Findings The results suggest that regulations on no credit premium and required capital have insignificant effects on profitability of insurers. On the contrary, this study documents evidence that both policies mitigate the effect of underwriting risk on profitability and suggests that regulations significantly mitigate the negative effect of underwriting risk to improve profitability. Practical implications The finding suggests that policymakers and regulators must continue to initiate, design and model regulations such that they help tame risk to improve the performance of insurers in Ghana. Originality/value This study provides first-time evidence on the role of regulations in controlling risks in a developing insurance market.

Participative project management as a comprehensive response to postmodernism criticisms

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 935-959 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mehrdad Sarhadi ◽  
Saied Yousefi ◽  
Amin Zamani
Keyword(s):  
Project Management ◽  
Action Theory ◽  
Communicative Action ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Social Theories ◽  
Postmodern Philosophy ◽  
Paradigmatic Change ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
First Time

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to understand the philosophical changes which underpin research and practices in project management. This study is an attempt to challenge previous studies that have tried to explain this change in order to provide a better explanation.Design/methodology/approachThe authors adopt a critical review research method to challenge previous explanations of the paradigm change and definition of communication. For this purpose, philosophical and social theories and concepts have been used.FindingsThis paper proposed changing the paradigm from modernism to postmodernism and the paradigm shift, which happens from postmodernism to participation, as a better explanation for the paradigmatic change in project management. Furthermore, the important role of communication has been illustrated in the participation paradigm.Originality/valueFor the first time in project management, the authors attempt to clarify the role of power in this paradigmatic shift, especially because this concept is an axial concept in postmodern philosophy and a neglected concept in project management literature. In addition, communicative action theory has been used with the aim of pursuing the influence of informal power in the participation paradigm and paving the way for confronting its emerging challenges in future studies.

Narcissistic leadership and voice behavior: the role of job stress, traditionality, and trust in leaders

2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 543-563 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhu Yao ◽  
Xianchun Zhang ◽  
Zhenxuan Liu ◽  
Lili Zhang ◽  
Jinlian Luo
Keyword(s):  
Job Stress ◽  
Mediation Effect ◽  
Employee Voice ◽  
Employee Behavior ◽  
Voice Behavior ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Trust In Leaders ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Voice

Purpose This study aims to investigate the impact of narcissistic leadership on employee voice behavior from the perspective of job stress, trust in leaders and traditionality in China. Design/methodology/approach The authors conducted a survey on 437 employees to assess their narcissistic leadership in Time 1. In Time 2, they measured their job stress, trust in leaders and traditionality. In Time 3, they assessed the voice behavior of these employees. Findings Narcissistic leadership correlates positively with employees’ job stress, which mediates between narcissistic leadership and employee voice behavior. Trust in leaders negatively moderates the correlation between job stress and employee voice behavior, as well as moderates the mediation effect of job stress on the correlation between narcissistic leadership and employee voice behavior. In addition, traditionality positively moderates the correlation between job stress and employee voice behavior, as well as moderates the mediation effect of job stress on the correlation between narcissistic leadership and employee voice behavior. Originality/value This study establishes the impact of narcissistic leadership on employee behavior from the perspective of job stress, trust in leaders and traditionality.

scholarly journals A Markovian-QFD approach in addressing the changing priorities of the customer needs

2016 ◽  
Vol 33 (8) ◽  
pp. 1062-1075 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mehdi Rajabi Asadabadi
Keyword(s):  
Markov Chain ◽  
Markov Chains ◽  
Quality Function Deployment ◽  
Analytic Network Process ◽  
Analytic Hierarchy ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Customer Needs ◽  
Customer Preferences ◽  
Network Process ◽  
Qfd Method

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to introduce a solution to the problem of changing priorities of customer needs (CNs) in quality function deployment (QFD). Customer preferences and priorities are not very stable and they may change before products are ready for the market. Therefore, finding CNs accurately is a key to reach a higher level of customer satisfaction through improving products. Design/methodology/approachIn the proposed model, a Markov chain is employed to model the changing priorities of CNs. The Markov chain finds a pattern of future CNs, the main inputs of QFD. The QFD method is applied to translate CNs into product requirements (PRs). The analytic network process (ANP) is attached to QFD to ensure that all the relations among the elements, inner and outer, are taken into consideration during the translation process. Thus, CNs are received and adjusted by a Markov chain. FindingsThe application of Markov chains for an ANP-QFD model develops an adequate method of finding a pattern of changing priorities of CNs. This pattern enables the ANP-QFD method to work independent of the initial CNs, and originates a Markovain ANP-QFD. Originality/valueThis study originates a stochastic ANP-QFD model. There have been several papers employing various tools and techniques such as the ANP or analytic hierarchy process for QFD to find accurate relations between PRs and CNs. While there are a few papers applying Markov chains to predict the future of the relations of QFD, there is no study which traces the changes in priorities of the CNs during the improvement process. This is addressed by applying a Markovian ANP-QFD. The model is validated through a case study.

scholarly journals Role of Calprotectin in Withholding Zinc and Copper from Candida albicans

2017 ◽  
Vol 86 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Angelique N. Besold ◽  
Benjamin A. Gilston ◽  
Jana N. Radin ◽  
Christian Ramsoomair ◽  
Edward M. Culbertson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Candida Albicans ◽  
Stress Responses ◽  
Metal Binding ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Nutritional Immunity ◽  
Numerous Cell ◽  
Transcriptional Changes ◽  
Opportunistic Fungal Pathogen ◽  
First Time

ABSTRACT The opportunistic fungal pathogen Candida albicans acquires essential metals from the host, yet the host can sequester these micronutrients through a process known as nutritional immunity. How the host withholds metals from C. albicans has been poorly understood; here we examine the role of calprotectin (CP), a transition metal binding protein. When CP depletes bioavailable Zn from the extracellular environment, C. albicans strongly upregulates ZRT1 and PRA1 for Zn import and maintains constant intracellular Zn through numerous cell divisions. We show for the first time that CP can also sequester Cu by binding Cu(II) with subpicomolar affinity. CP blocks fungal acquisition of Cu from serum and induces a Cu starvation stress response involving SOD1 and SOD3 superoxide dismutases. These transcriptional changes are mirrored when C. albicans invades kidneys in a mouse model of disseminated candidiasis, although the responses to Cu and Zn limitations are temporally distinct. The Cu response progresses throughout 72 h, while the Zn response is short-lived. Notably, these stress responses were attenuated in CP null mice, but only at initial stages of infection. Thus, Zn and Cu pools are dynamic at the host-pathogen interface and CP acts early in infection to restrict metal nutrients from C. albicans.

MEDIA-CAPITALISM: COLLOQUIAL MASS CULTURE AND NATIONALISM IN EGYPT, 1908–18

2010 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ziad Fahmy
Keyword(s):  
Mass Media ◽  
Mass Culture ◽  
Premature Death ◽  
Independence Movement ◽  
First Time ◽  
The Voice

In Egypt, during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, older, fragmented, and more localized forms of identity were replaced with new, alternative concepts of community, which for the first time had the capacity to collectively encompass the majority of Egyptians. The activism of Mustafa Kamil (1874–1908) and the populist message of the Watani Party began the process of defining and popularizing urban Egyptian nationalism. After Kamil's premature death in 1908, there was more of an “urgent need,” as described by Zachary Lockman, for “tapping into and mobilizing new domestic constituencies in order to build a more broadly based independence movement.” This article argues that the eventual mobilization of the Egyptian urban masses, and their “incorporation into the Egyptian nation,” was due in large part to the materialization of a variety of mass media catering to a growing national audience. To be more specific, I will examine early Egyptian nationalism through the lens of previously neglected audiovisual colloquial Egyptian sources. This, I argue, is crucial to any attempt at capturing the voice of “ordinary” Egyptians. Finally, the article documents the role of early colloquial Egyptian mass culture as a vehicle and forum through which, among other things, “hidden transcripts” of resistance and critiques of colonial and elite authority took place.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document