scholarly journals The websites adoption in the Spanish agrifood firms

2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. e0107 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erasmo I. López-Becerra ◽  
Narciso Arcas-Lario ◽  
Francisco Alcon
Keyword(s):  
Technology Adoption ◽  
Empirical Study ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Relative Advantage ◽  
Do So

Currently, the use of websites in the firms of the Spanish agrifood sector has not become widespread despite the possible benefits to be derived from their adequate integration and management within the firms. Among these advantages, the increase in the quality of the services offered and the improvement in the relations with their stakeholders should be highlighted. In this context, the objective of the present work is to determine to what extent websites are used by firms in the agrifood sector of Spain, analysing the background which explains why they are adopted and the consequences of introducing them. To do so, a theoretical framework is posed which allows these factors to be identified, and an empirical study is carried out with Spanish agrifood firms. The results of the work indicate that the adoption of websites will be favoured when the directors of the firm are higher qualified, the firm is bigger in size, the firm’s function is distribution, and when the relative advantage and technology compatibility is perceived, among others. Technology adoption consequences analysis suggests that the benefits of adoption are related with improving the relationships with suppliers, customers, owning partners and, in general, the quality of the services offered by the firm.

Livelihoods, Poverty and Development of Adivasis: Reflections from a Village in South India

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 194-208 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kasi Eswarappa
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Empirical Study ◽  
South India ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
The State ◽  
Vulnerable Groups ◽  
Marginalized Communities ◽  
Marginalized Groups ◽  
People Development

The terms ‘livelihoods’, ‘poverty’ and ‘development’ have different meanings in different societies and people. Development implies a better quality of life and enahancement of opportunities, and better access to assets and services to marginal communities: particularly the Adivasis, women and other marginalized communities. Developing its theoretical framework around the existing literature on the issues, this article argues that prevailing factional politics and apathy on the part of the governing agency are preventing the marginalized groups from adequately benefitting from the developmental interventions. Keeping in view the aforementioned argument, an empirical study was conducted in a tribal settlement in South India in order to understand the implications of different developmental interventions initiated both by the state and NGOs to improve the lives and livelihoods of marginalized groups. On the basis of this argument, this article has sought to raise policy questions pertinent to both the policymakers and practitioners on the efficacy of policies related to vulnerable groups.

scholarly journals Guidelines for Qualitative Research in Organization Studies: Controversy and Possibilities

2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 457-488
Author(s):  
Maria Fernanda Rios Cavalcanti
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Empirical Study ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Management Theory ◽  
Valuable Contribution ◽  
Organization Studies ◽  
Theoretical Contribution ◽  
Organization And Management ◽  
Do So

The aim of the present article is to tackle the controversy of establishing guidelines for qualitative research in Organization and Management Theory (OMT) and to present a summary of suggestions on how to conduct good qualitative research given by methodologists on top-tier international publications. In order to do so, the article discusses: general guidelines for qualitative research; how to achieve coherence and transparency in a qualitative empirical study; the meaning and importance of the concept of reflexivity; and, finally how to establish a theoretical contribution and transferability of findings in such context. The work presents a valuable contribution because such guidelines, concepts, and approaches can be adopted by students and researchers when conducting a qualitative research proposal, and by periodic reviewers to evaluate the quality of existing empirical studies.

The Influence of the Established Links between University Courses on the Quality of Teaching

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 35-48
Author(s):  
Jiří Rybička ◽  
Petra Čačková
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Empirical Study ◽  
The Other ◽  
Coherent System ◽  
University Courses ◽  
Quality Of Teaching ◽  
Education Courses ◽  
Initial Knowledge

One of the tools to determine the recommended order of the courses to be taught is to set the prerequisites, that is, the conditions that have to be fulfilled before commencing the study of the course. The recommended sequence of courses is to follow logical links between their logical units, as the basic aim is to provide students with a coherent system according to the Comenius' principle of continuity. Declared continuity may, on the other hand, create organizational complications when passing through the study, as failure to complete one course may result in a whole sequence of forced deviations from the recommended curriculum and ultimately in the extension of the study period. This empirical study deals with the quantitative evaluation of the influence of the level of initial knowledge given by the previous study on the overall results in a certain follow-up course. In this evaluation, data were obtained that may slightly change the approach to determining prerequisites for higher education courses.

Directive Guidance as a Cultural Practice for Learning by Chinese-Heritage Babies

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Yu Zhang ◽  
Su-hua Wang ◽  
Shinchieh Duh
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Study ◽  
Early Development ◽  
Filial Piety ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Cultural Practice ◽  
European American ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Children’S Learning ◽  
The Usa ◽  
The Individual

We provide a framework of analysis for Chinese ways of learning that extends beyond the individual level. The theoretical framework focuses on Confucian principles of <i>xiào</i> (孝, filial piety), <i>guăn</i> (管, to govern), and <i>dào dé guān</i> (道德觀, virtues), which leads us to argue that directive guidance as a cultural practice nourishes Chinese-heritage children’s learning as early as in infancy. To illustrate how directive guidance occurs in action for infants, we present an empirical study that examined the interaction of mother-infant dyads in Taipei, Taiwan, when they played with a challenging toy. The dyads co-enacted directive guidance more frequently than their European-American counterparts in the USA – through hand holding, intervening, and collaboration – while infants actively participate in the practice. We discuss the early development of strengths for learning that is fostered through culturally meaningful practices recurrent in parent-infant interaction.

scholarly journals What do class comments tell us? An investigation of comment evolution and practices in Pharo Smalltalk

2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Pooja Rani ◽  
Sebastiano Panichella ◽  
Manuel Leuenberger ◽  
Mohammad Ghafari ◽  
Oscar Nierstrasz
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Study ◽  
Programming Languages ◽  
Program Comprehension ◽  
Assessment Tools ◽  
Support Program ◽  
Writing Style ◽  
High Quality ◽  
Types Of Information ◽  
Similar Code

Abstract Context Previous studies have characterized code comments in various programming languages, showing how high quality of code comments is crucial to support program comprehension activities, and to improve the effectiveness of maintenance tasks. However, very few studies have focused on understanding developer practices to write comments. None of them has compared such developer practices to the standard comment guidelines to study the extent to which developers follow the guidelines. Objective Therefore, our goal is to investigate developer commenting practices and compare them to the comment guidelines. Method This paper reports the first empirical study investigating commenting practices in Pharo Smalltalk. First, we analyze class comment evolution over seven Pharo versions. Then, we quantitatively and qualitatively investigate the information types embedded in class comments. Finally, we study the adherence of developer commenting practices to the official class comment template over Pharo versions. Results Our results show that there is a rapid increase in class comments in the initial three Pharo versions, while in subsequent versions developers added comments to both new and old classes, thus maintaining a similar code to comment ratio. We furthermore found three times as many information types in class comments as those suggested by the template. However, the information types suggested by the template tend to be present more often than other types of information. Additionally, we find that a substantial proportion of comments follow the writing style of the template in writing these information types, but they are written and formatted in a non-uniform way. Conclusion The results suggest the need to standardize the commenting guidelines for formatting the text, and to provide headers for the different information types to ensure a consistent style and to identify the information easily. Given the importance of high-quality code comments, we draw numerous implications for developers and researchers to improve the support for comment quality assessment tools.

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