Business Commons^™

Glass Ceiling Or Saran Wrap™? Women In Gaming Management, Wanda M. Costen, Christian E. Hardigree, Michael A. Testagrossa

UNLV Gaming Research & Review Journal

This study explores women's representation in gaming management in the 24 highest gross revenue gaming establishments in America. While almost 54% of foodservice and lodging employees are women, and approximately 44% of the managers in foodservice and lodging are women, one area of hospitality seems to be lagging-gaming. Our data indicated that women held 123 of 496 positions or 24.8% of casino management positions. Almost 68% of these female managers were in non-gaming positions. Our findings appear to support social closure theory since 11 of the 40 women in gaming management positions were in the cage department, and 4 of …

Summerbridge Case For Support, Summerbridge San Diego

Fundraising and Marketing

Summerbridge seeks to close the summer learning loss gap between low and high income students and encourage talented college students to consider a career in teaching.

This is their case for support.

December 2012, Inland Empire Business Journal

Inland Empire Business Journal

News and Features

The End of Marketing As We Know It A number of

studies are showing that people no longer pay much

attention to traditional marketing as they progress

through the “buyer’s decision journey” says Bill Lee. . . 7

E-Commerce Business Stand to Lose More

Without Asset Protection Find out what

differentiates commerce businesses from traditional

businesses when it comes to asset protection. . . . . . . . . 9

Duct Tape My Software and Hope for the Best? A

redesign of a website is simply a repackaging. There

can be only a handful of reasons …

Room Service Principles And Practices: An Exploratory Study, Stanley Douglas Suboleski

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Room service is the delivery of food and beverage products to a guest's sleeping room in a hotel. It is an important, distinguishing characteristic and a necessary service for first-class and luxury hotels. Very little academic research has been conducted on the operating procedures of room service. This was an exploratory study that aimed at identifying the key principles and practices of room service operations in first-class and luxury hotels. This study used a mixed-method approach. Using content analysis on operating audits for room service from a range of hospitality companies, expert panel review, field testing, and analysis of variance …

E-Government Application: The Challenges In Malaysia, Saliza Abdul Aziz

saliza abdul aziz

The changing trend to electronic device instead of manual filing system could enhance the collection of revenue and expedite the process. In fact it could help in reducing the burden and time of routine task i.e. checking and processing. However the acceptance level yet to be concern in certain area in government applications particularly in Malaysia. The idea of moving towards e-government in Malaysia as an alternative of the existing manual system started with the vision to be achieved in year 2020 in becoming a fully developed country. In rationalizing the vision, the Malaysian Government since then continuously spends a …

The Development Of A User Self-Help Knowledge Management System For Help Desk: Deployment Of Knowledge Management Approach And Software Agent Technology, Kar Yin Leung, Sim K. Lau

Dr Sim Kim Lau

Most help desks have admitted their call volume has increased in the past decade while “help unavailable when needed” is the major reason for service delivery failure and user dissatisfaction. The habit of calling help desk for simple problems has prompted the investigation of transferring part of first-level troubleshooting duty from help desk to user. This research proposes the development of user self-help knowledge management system that allows user to solve simple and routine technical enquiries. The proposed approach incorporates software agent to allow autonomous handling of enquiries so that the most appropriate solution and user communication can be facilitated.

Knowledge Management In Information Technology Help Desk: Past, Present And Future, Kar Yin Leung, Sim K. Lau

Dr Sim Kim Lau

Information technology has changed the way organizations function. This resulted in the reliance of help desks to deal with information technology related areas such as hardware, software, and telecommunication. Besides, the adoption of business process reengineering and downsizing have led to the shrinkage of the size of help desk. The shorter information technology product life cycle has worsened the situation by increasing the already sizeable help desk’s user base. Consequently, the help desk has to cover more information technology products and resolute more technical enquiries with less staff. Thus, the outcome is clear that users have to wait comparably longer …

A Multi-Agent Approach Towards Collaborative Supply Chain Management, Xin Li, Sim K. Lau

Dr Sim Kim Lau

Supply chain collaboration has become a critical success factor for supply chain management and effectively improves the performance of organizations in various industries. Supply chain collaboration builds on information sharing, collaborative planning and execution. Information technology is an important enabler of collaborative supply chain management. Many information systems have been developed for supply chain management from legacy systems and enterprise resource planning (ERP) into the newly developed advanced planning and scheduling system (APS) and e-commerce solutions. However, these systems do not provide sufficient support to achieve collaborative supply chain. Recently, intelligent agent technology and multi-agent system (MAS) have received a …

Enhancing The Reusability Of Inter-Organizational Knowledge: An Ontology-Based Collaborative Knowledge Management Network, Joshua P. Fan, Nelson K Y Leung, Sim K. Lau

Dr Sim Kim Lau

Researchers have developed various knowledge management approaches that only focus on managing organizational knowledge. These approaches are developed in accordance with organizational KM strategies and business requirements without the concern of system interoperation. The lack of interoperability means that heterogeneous Knowledge Management Systems from different organizations are unable to communicate and integrate with one another, this results in limitation to reuse inter-organizational knowledge. Here, inter-organizational knowledge is defined as a set of explicit knowledge formalized and created by other organizations. In this research, a collaborative inter-organizational KM network is proposed to provide a platform for organizations to access and retrieve …

Management By Interruptions (Mbi): Mini Not Micro Management, Andrew Sikula Sr., John Sikula

Andrew Sikula, Sr.

Do you want to affirmatively continue your and Tom Peters's Search for Excellence? Then practice MBI. A corollary to Ken Blanchard's idea of the One Minute Manager is the concept of Management by Interruptions (MBI). Although we do not want to overly manage the details of work, usually called micro management, we are often called upon as leaders and managers to supply frequent small segments of data and information. Mini management is good; micro management is not.

Quality Management In Public Sector; How Is The Qm Approach Employed In The Public Administration Of The Republic Of Kosovo?, Shkelzen Sopjani

UBT International Conference

Quality Management as approach started to be rapidly developed and gained use in the early 1950‘s in Japan, while the result produced in Japan made the US organizations to embrace this approach and develop it further by introducing the ‗new‘ approach called Total Quality Management. Quality Management produced enormous results in the private sector; however, number of authors questioned the suitability of the Quality Management approach in the Public Sector1. Despite the hesitation expressed, many others see a little problem in adopting this approach in the government sector. Government of Kosovo made its priority the reform of Public Administration. In …

Surfers For Cetaceans Marketing Strategy, Surfers For Cetaceans

Fundraising and Marketing

Surfers for Cetaceans (S4C) is dedicated to the conservation and protection of marine wildlife, in particular whales and dolphins also known as cetaceans.

The organization’s primary markets are ocean-minded people including surfers, sailors, and divers. S4C also attracts environmental enthusiasts and animal rights activists.

Resources such as funding, volunteers, brand recognition and awareness limit the organization’s ability to execute its mission.

November 2012, Inland Empire Business Journal

Inland Empire Business Journal

Oops, My Bad: Five Ways Your Business Can

Improve by Admitting to Mistakes According to

Michael Houlihan, owner of Barefoot Cellars,

mistakes are a fact of life. No matter how much you

try, you can’t completely avoid making them. It

improves your company’s effectiveness and

reputation if you handle them well. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Market Trends That Will Affect Your Bottom Line

Global trends are like a river. Sometimes they are

powerful, sometimes they are weak and sometimes

they’re so mellow your business can glide along them …

Drinking Water Resource Directory, New England Environmental Finance Center

Sustainable Communities Capacity Building

This document is intended to help local and regional planning agencies, and their constituent water utilities, integrate drinking water infrastructure planning and investments into plans for sustainable development. Resources listed here provide guidance on making land use decisions that protect water resources, setting adequate and sustainable drinking water rates, controlling water loss, funding water infrastructure projects, and managing water utilities.

The directory was developed by the Environmental Finance Center Network through the Capacity Building for Sustainable Communities program funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Environmental Protection Agency. Through this program, EFCN is providing capacity …

Wikis: The Perfect Platform For Library Policies And Procedures, Melanie J. Dunn

The Southeastern Librarian

The term wiki, derived from the Hawaiian adjective “wiki wiki” meaning quick or fast, was coined by Ward Cunningham who created the original WikiWikiWeb for the Portland Pattern Repository (Leuf, 2001, 15). Touted by Cunningham as “the simplest online database that could possibly work” (Cunningham, 2002, June 27) “ wiki” is alternately used to refer to both a wiki website and the software used to create and maintain it and was designed to allow multiple users to collaborate in its development (Klobas 2006, 3). Wikipedia is perhaps one of the best examples, as well as the most recognized, of wikis. …

Nonprofit Administrators' Perceptions Of Time Use And Effective Time Management Strategies That Impact Organizational Success, Deborah Johnson-Blake

Faculty Dissertations

The purpose of this mixed methods study was to explore leaders’ perceptions of time use and the use of effective time management strategies. The study included five research questions and responses from 20 nonprofit administrators working within 33 technical college foundations across the state of Georgia. Respondents participated in follow-up interviews after completing the online Time Management Practices Inventory (TMPI) survey. The findings of the study revealed statistically significant relationships between TMPI scores and selected demographics. Findings revealed that leaders’ perception of time use, demographic characteristics, attitudes, and time management strategies were factors in implementing effective time management techniques to …

An Empirical Investigation Of Strategic Planning In Qs Practices, Roisin Murphy

Conference papers

The benefit of engaging in strategic planning has been well documented over several decades of strategic management research. Despite the significant body of existing knowledge in the field, there remains a limited collection of empirically tested research pertaining to strategic planning within professional service firms (PSFs) in construction, particularly from an Irish context.

The research is an exploratory study involving in-depth, semi-structured interviews and a widespread survey of Quantity Surveying (QS) practices in Ireland. The aim of the research is to ascertain the extent of strategic planning undertaken within Irish QS practices, and to gain an insight into the characteristics …

Managing Union Management, Ken Margolies

Ken Margolies

[Excerpt] Management is a function, as well as a class of people. In this article, network member Ken Margolies discusses the management function within unions. It’s a subject he knows pretty well, having written a thesis about it. However, despite some great work by Ken and others, we are still a long way from a union theory of management. We know that command-and-control leads to endless problems, but we are still scratching our heads over what to do instead. Perhaps one place we could start is within our own organisations – labor unions. It seems unlikely that we can meet …

Measures Of Perceived Credibility Of Blogs: Construct Validation By Lisrel, Uday S. Tate, Elizabeth Alexander, Suneel K. Maheshwari

Elizabeth Alexander

Predictions are that blogs will be the promotional tool of the future, if not now. The question remains: how credible are blogs as a source of consumer information? How do consumers perceive the credibility of blogs from different sources when making purchase decisions and product evaluations? The primary objective of the present study is to assess validity and reliability of a set of Semantic Differential scales purported to measure perceived credibility of different types of blogs. Confirmatory factor analysis via LISREL8.5 package was used to obtain appropriate statistics for convergent validity, discriminant validity, and composite reliability. In general, the scales …

September 2012, Inland Empire Business Journal

Inland Empire Business Journal

Inside Job: Why Dealing with “Difficult” Colleagues Will Lead to Happier Customers Read advice on how you can use difficult situations to start building an uplifting service culture in your organization. . . . . . . . . . . . 9

“It’s Not MY Fault!” Seven Ways Leaders Can Unearth (and Neutralize) the Fear That Lurks Behind the Blame Game Mike Staver explains that fear-based leadership lurks at the heart of the blame game. Read his advice on how you can take responsibility and help your followers to do the same. . . . . . . . …

A Knowledge Mapping Approach To Facilitate Strategic Human Resource And Knowledge Management, Debbie Richards, Peter R. Massingham, Peter Busch

Peter Massingham

A key challenge facing organisations is how to effectively connect employees who seek knowledge with those who have the necessary knowledge. From case studies conducted in three separate knowledge intensive organisations, briefly introduced in this paper, we found that locating and measuring expertise were major challenges with no current satisfactory solutions. We offer a method to map intellectual capital within organisations distinct from previous expertise location methods in several significant ways. First, it includes the measurement of knowledge value within the context of the organisation's strategy and activities. Second, it addresses concerns with existing methods such as subjectivity associated with …

Using The Brand Molecule Concept To Guide The Management And Marketing Of A Professional Sports Team, Alan Pomering, Dirk Melton, Gregory Kerr

Gregory Kerr

The sports industry is an important one; it is estimated to be the 11th largest industry in the United States. Within this industry, individual sports, at both the amateur and professional levels, compete for talented players, supporters, government funding, and sponsorship dollars. It is therefore important for sports to manage their sports brands. We use Lederer and Hill’s (2001) brand molecule concept to explain the brand management implications for a professional, national sports team, the Bulldogs, a Sydney-based team in Australia’s National Rugby League competition. The brand molecule highlights for the brand manager the positive and negative atoms that comprise …

Articulating Knowledge Work: The Contributions Of Activity Theory And Task-Based Knowledge Management, Henry Linger, Frada Burstein, Helen M. Hasan

Helen Hasan

This chapter addresses issues of knowledge work in organisations with a concern that mainstream knowledge management (KM) has fallen short of expectations. The real nature of knowledge work remains hidden, and thus inaccessible, to those who are trying to improve organisational outcomes through KM practices. The authors have conducted independent research within a new discourse on knowledge work in the context of modem complex organisations, the results of which are converging to a common understanding of this critical phenomenon. Their two theoretical frameworks, one task-based and one activity-based, are described here as eminently suited to this research. Two sets of …

Q-Methodology For The Active Process Of Knowledge Management, Joseph A. Meloche, Helen M. Hasan, Michelle Mok

Helen Hasan

Knowledge Managament for the provision of Health Information Services is a developing field and one that is usefully informed by applied research. The current study is conducted with Intensive Care Unit (ICU) professionals to capture and distil their views in regard to a developing a Web-Based Information Service. This service is provided by a central coordination and monitoring unit for intensive care units across NSW, Australia. The study is part of a larger research initiative that is being done to advance the provision of health information in ICU's across the state. Given the complex and dynamic context of ICUs, there …

Overcoming Organisational Resistance To Using Wiki Technology For Knowledge Management, Charmaine C. Pfaff, Helen M. Hasan

Helen Hasan

Although Wikis emerged in the public domain more than a decade ago, a number of business organisations are now discovering the advantages of using Wiki technology to manage knowledge. However, there are many who are not convinced about the merits of this relatively new Wiki technology and are not yet prepared to risk its adoption because it exhibits many ideas that have yet to be tested and many issues that have yet to be resolved. This paper studies the merits of using a Wiki for knowledge management. While some cases of corporate adoption of Wiki technology have been reported, cases …

Implementation Of An Integrated Accounting And Cost Management System Using Sap System: A Field Study, Sudhir C. Lodh, Michael J. Gaffikin

Michael Gaffikin

Not only are in-depth (theoretically informed) longitudinal (reflexive) field studies few and far between, it has been argued in those studies that little is known about the design and implementation of accounting and information systems that operate in today's world-class organizations. Using such an approach this study seeks to illustrate and analyse the implementation processes of an integrated accounting and cost management system using the SAP system at a major steel producer in Australia. It is demonstrated that the technical design of the system is only a part of the implementation process. Keeping 'actor-networks' in line and managing change including …

Measures Of Perceived Credibility Of Blogs: Construct Validation By Lisrel, Uday S. Tate, Elizabeth Alexander, Suneel K. Maheshwari

Suneel K. Maheshwari

Predictions are that blogs will be the promotional tool of the future, if not now. The question remains: how credible are blogs as a source of consumer information? How do consumers perceive the credibility of blogs from different sources when making purchase decisions and product evaluations? The primary objective of the present study is to assess validity and reliability of a set of Semantic Differential scales purported to measure perceived credibility of different types of blogs. Confirmatory factor analysis via LISREL8.5 package was used to obtain appropriate statistics for convergent validity, discriminant validity, and composite reliability. In general, the scales …

Measures Of Perceived Credibility Of Blogs: Construct Validation By Lisrel, Uday S. Tate, Elizabeth Alexander, Suneel K. Maheshwari

Uday S. Tate

Predictions are that blogs will be the promotional tool of the future, if not now. The question remains: how credible are blogs as a source of consumer information? How do consumers perceive the credibility of blogs from different sources when making purchase decisions and product evaluations? The primary objective of the present study is to assess validity and reliability of a set of Semantic Differential scales purported to measure perceived credibility of different types of blogs. Confirmatory factor analysis via LISREL8.5 package was used to obtain appropriate statistics for convergent validity, discriminant validity, and composite reliability. In general, the scales …

An Investigation Of Employee Engagement And Business Outcomes At An Engineering Services Firm, Preetinder Singh Gill

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

This research study investigated the constructs and dimensions of employee engagement and their relationship with business outcome data from 2009 to 2011 at a mid-sized engineering services firm and two of its business units. Employee engagement ratios, as defined by Crabtree (2004), for all entities studied were below that associated with world-class organizations. Survey items related to salary and compensation received low scores from both engaged and disengaged employees. Kruskal-Wallis’s median comparison tests revealed that many survey items varied over the period of three years for each entity studied. A factor analysis of companywide survey data yielded 5 dimensions of …

August 2012, Inland Empire Business Journal

Inland Empire Business Journal

When Your Website Powers Your Business Why would you invest your hard-earned dollars to hire anyone less than a pro when designing your online business? After spending months developing your product, do yourself a favor and hire the right web developer—it will be well worth the investment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Need Work? Tech Companies Are Hiring Companies are hiring and will be hiring those students who have the educational capability of business with a …