Business Commons^™

The Missing Entrepreneurs 2017: Policies For Inclusive Entrepreneurship In Ireland, Thomas M. Cooney

Reports

This profile presents data on self-employment and entrepreneurship by key target groups of inclusive entrepreneurship policies in Ireland such as women, youth and seniors. It also briefly describes recent inclusive entrepreneurship policy actions such as the new measure “Training for Women Returning to the Workforce and Women’s Entrepreneurship."

Seasonal Recruiting Policies For Table Grape Packing Operations: A Hybrid Simulation Modelling Study, Mohammed Mesabbah, Siham Rahoui, Mohamed Af Ragab, Amr Mahfouz, Amr Arisha

Conference papers

The packing process is a critical post-harvesting activity in table grape industry. Workers in packing stations are hired under seasonal contracts because of product seasonality and operations labor intensity. Seasonal workers, however, are usually characterized by inconsistent performance, high turnover and experience variation which leads to low productivity and high waste. Few mathematical models were used for evaluating fresh products packing operations, but in a deterministic nature which hinders the complexity and dynamics of the business processes. Hence, a hybrid Discrete Event Simulation (DES) and Agent-Based Modelling (ABM) are employed to evaluate a set of seasonal recruiting policies in a …

The Evolution Of Ethics In The Irish Real Estate Profession, Lorna Colley, Lloyd Scott

Conference papers

Since the Economic Collapse of 2008 much discussion and analysis of the role of ethics in the financial sector in Ireland has occurred. However little if any of this focus has been on the real estate profession. The purpose of this paper is to examine how the Irish Real Estate Profession deals with the issue of ethics. How has this relationship evolved over time? Has the Irish political context influenced the approach to ethics on a societal level and has this fed into the profession’s approach? The role of ethics education is also examined in current Irish real estate qualifications, …

Applications Of Optimisation In Serious Games Design: An Integrated Framework, Ayman Tobail, Amr Arisha

Conference papers

It is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the need to get out of the traditional learning methods especially in complex fields such as operations management (OM) and supply chain management (SCM). Simulation-based serious games have been identified as a promising learning tool to leverage the learning ability for the current generation known as virtual era generation. Literature lacks for formal guidelines to design and implement a simulation-based serious game to achieve learning, entertaining, keeping an active instructor role, and collecting real-time learning efficiency indicators. This study proposes a comprehensive framework and implementation for simulation-based serious game AUSUM (AUtomobile SUpply chain …

Market Dimensions Of Industrial Juice Production, Anushree Priyadarshini

Articles

The juice sector is currently demonstrating positive and dynamic growth mainly due to a change in lifestyle, the tendency of consumers to prefer healthy products, and an increase in purchasing power. Fruit juices form part of what are termed the “new age beverages.” In sync with growing consumer inclination toward healthier choices, manufacturers are moving over to healthier ingredients in their juices. Numerous new and innovative products are being launched globally by manufacturers to stimulate sales through innovations in flavor blends, calorie and sweetness levels, and functional benefits, very much shaped by the major lifestyle trends. This chapter aims to …

Managing Energy Price Risk Using Futures Contracts: A Comparative Analysis, Jim Hanly

Articles

This paper carries out a comparative analysis of managing energy risk through futures hedging, for energy market participants across a broad dataset that encompasses the largest and most actively traded energy products. Uniquely, we carry out a hedge comparison using a variety of risk measures including Variance, Value at risk (VaR), and Expected Shortfall as well as a utility based performance metric for two different investor horizons; weekly and monthly. We find that hedging is effective across the spectrum of risk measures we employ. We also find significant differences in both the hedging strategies and the hedging effectiveness of different …

A Corporate Ethical Compass Tool To Measure Public Relations Decision Making, Lian Qing Luo

Masters

Corporate Public Relations (PR) Ethics is always a top research topic in theory and practice as PR practitioners often have numerous ethical choices to make when addressing controversial issues. However, how to quantify or measure the ethical alternatives of PR decision making and help public relations practitioners make more ethically correct decisions is an open problem. To address this problem, this thesis proposes the PR "Ethical Compass" as a measuring tool or technique to help corporations justify and evaluate the consequences of their ethical public relations decision making. To investigate the advantages and disadvantages of the Ethical Compass technique, qualitative …

An Integrated Retail Supply Chain Risk Management Framework: A System Thinking Approach, John Crowe

Doctoral

It is often taken for granted that the right products will be available to buy in retail outlets seven days a week, 52 weeks a year. Consumer perception is that of a simple service requirement, but the reality is a complex, time sensitive system - the retail supply chain (RSC). Due to short product life-cycles with uncertain supply and demand behaviour, the RSC faces many challenges and is very vulnerable to disruptions. In addition, external risk events such as BREXIT, extreme weather, the financial crisis, and terror attacks mean there is a need for effective RSC risk management (RSCRM) processes …

Hybrid Simulation-Based Planning Framework For Agri-Fresh Produce Supply Chain, Mohammed Mesabbah

Doctoral

The ever-increasing demand for fresh and healthy products raises the economic importance of managing Agri-Fresh Produce Supply Chain (AFPSC) effectively. However, the literature review has indicated that many challenges undermine efficient planning for AFPSCs. Stringent regulations on production and logistics activities, production seasonality and high yield variations (quantity and quality), and products vulnerability to multiple natural stresses, alongside with their critical shelf life, impact the planning process. This calls for developing smart planning and decision-support tools which provides higher efficiency for such challenges. Modelling and simulation (M&S) approaches for AFPSC planning problems have a proven record in offering safe and …

Elite Formation In The Higher Education Systems Of Ireland And The Uk: Measuring, Comparing And Decomposing Longitudinal Patterns Of Cabinet Members., Sharon Feeney, John Hogan, Brendan O'Rourke

Articles

The role of higher education systems in the formation and reproduction of governing elites, and their countervailing potential for the creation of a more egalitarian, or meritocratic, society has been an enduring subject of concern, debate and research. Many of these debates are made all the more difficult by our inability to directly compare elite formation systems within and between countries and over time. To resolve these problems, this paper employs elite formation quantitative indices to directly and transparently compare elite formation systems, namely the role of higher education systems in political elite formation over three quarters of a century …

Taxation, Debt And Relative Prices In The Long Run: The Irish Experience., Vahagn Galstyan, Adnan Velic

Articles

This paper investigates the effects of public debt and distortionary labour taxation on the long-run behaviour of Irish relative non-traded goods prices. We highlight that higher public debt, acting through higher taxes, has an equivocal impact on the relative supply of non-traded goods and, correspondingly, relative prices. Our empirical analysis for Ireland suggests that taxes and public debt play significant roles in the long run, comoving negatively with the relative price of non-tradables. Accordingly, shifts in public debt and taxation bear implications for the country’s international price competitiveness.

Investigating Industry Expert Discourses On Aspirational Csr Communication, Lisa Koep

Articles

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate industry expert discourses on aspirational corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication. Analysing CSR managers’ and communication consultants’ talk about aspirational talk as constitutive of aspirational CSR communication, the data provide valuable insights into the dominant discourses, and draw attention to the manifold elements in the process of aspirational CSR communication. Design/methodology/approach – Data gathered during 11 in-depth, qualitative interviews with food industry experts in CSR and CSR communication roles in Ireland, the UK and the USA are studied. Findings – The analysis of industry expert discourses suggests that communicating CSR, and …

School Of Culinary Arts & Food Technology Winter Newsletter 2016, James Peter Murphy

Other resources

The School of Culinary Arts & Food Technology - Winter Newsletter captured the many events, research, awards, significant contributions and special activities which the students and staff members of the school have successfully completed leading up to the Winter period of 2016.

Organizational Responses To Institutional Pressures: Reconfiguration Of Spaces In Nanosciences And Nanotechnologies, Nicolas Battard, Paul Donnelly, Vincent Mangematin

Articles

The literature on organizational responses to institutional pressures describes responses ranging from compliance to resistance via different modes of decoupling. However, although these studies provide a greater understanding of the phenomenon, they tend to be disparate and to consider the different elements separately. Through a comparative case study of six research teams in the area of nanosciences and nanotechnologies, we offer three contributions. Our first is to the decoupling literature by way of a complementary and cohesive framework, which shows that organizations vary in their responses by reconfiguring their physical (policy and materiality), mental (meaning) and social (identity) spaces, and …

International Construction Measurement Standard, Charles Mitchell

Other Resources

The International Construction Measurement Standard Coalition (the Coalition) was formed on 17 June 2015 after meeting at the International Monetary Fund in Washington DC, USA. The Coalition, comprising the organisations listed below at the date of publication, aims to bring about consistency in construction cost reporting standards internationally. This is achieved by the creation and adoption of this ICMS, an agreed international standard for the structuring and presentation of cost reports. ICMS sets out a structure for describing construction costs in terms of project scope, attributes and values descriptors. This document setting out the provisions of ICMS is the first …

Qualitative Analysis Methods Review, Mona Mohamed, Mohamed Af Ragab, Amr Arisha

Reports

Qualitative research plays an important role in business research. The popular research methods that researchers used are; Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods. Researchers who conduct qualitative studies, often struggle to pick the best technique to analyse their data. This report aims to present six different methods that can be used to analyse qualitative data collected for business studies. A comparison between the techniques is found useful to present in order to help decision made by researchers who are embarking upon qualitative research studies. Qualitative Analysis Methods (QAM) can be used in some of the mixed-methods approaches as appropriate.

The Problems Of Deficient Data When Planning For Religious Tourism: An Irish Case Study, Vreny Enongene, Kevin Griffin

Conference papers

This study stresses the importance of the availability of data and relevant statistics in the advancement of tourism knowledge and the enhancement of visitor experiences (pre-and post-experiences) for those particularly interested in visiting sacred sites, as well as its study. With sacred sites in the Island of Ireland as sites under study. The dearth in data and relevant statistics on religious tourism sites and their facilities, visitor numbers and their activities, management issues, and visitor experiences, at sacred sites in the Ireland of Ireland, although widely acclaimed as a country of saints and scholars, prompted the present investigation.

In arriving …

The Camino De Santiago De Compostela (Spain) And The Via Francigena (Italy): A Comparison Between Two Important Historic Pilgrimage Routes In Europe, Guido Lucarno

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

The Italian section of the Via Francigena, a Medieval pilgrimage route to Rome, has not yet been commercialised to its full potential when compared to the Camino de Santiago in Spain. There are many reasons for this under development. First, there is an absence of a specialised organisation focused on utilising the resources available; a difficulty that could be overcome by the forming a tourism body with the specific charter for developing these resources and attracting tourism. Second, the weight of the cultural heritage of Rome in the contest for religious tourism takes away from the valorisation of other pilgrimage …

Ignatius Of Loyola’S Traces In Manresa. A New Incentive For Religious Tourism?, Joan Carles Llurdés, Francesc Romagosa

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

The city of Manresa, located in the heart of Catalonia, has spent years trying to make profitable its cultural and urban heritage as a strategy for a better tourism positioning among other mid-sized cities that are competing for attracting tourists in an increasingly competitive global context. However, for various reasons the city has not been able to earn a place in Catalonia’s tourism scene, and it still remains in a preliminary tourism development stage. In this sense, the latest initiative taken by the city council has to do with its religious heritage, through the project ‘Manresa 2022’, which consists of …

Streets Of Orthodoxy: Developing Religious Tourism In The Mount Paiko Area, Central Macedonia, Greece, Fotis E. Kilipiris, Athanasios Dermetzopoulos

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

Religion and faith have always been strong motivations affecting society's evolution and people's actions. Additionally, religion and pilgrimage in contemporary societies have, among others, considerable economic implications. Religious tourism, an emerging form of tourism activity for many destinations, plays an important role for local economies. Rural economies can rely upon religious tourism as a supplementary source of income in many environments, to supplement agricultural income.

This paper, addresses issues regarding religious tourism development in a mountainous area in Greece, rich in religious as well as cultural and natural tourist attractions. The paper also highlights the role of the church as …

The Role Of Religious Tourism In Creating Destination Image: The Case Of Konya Museum, Murat Kocyi̇gi̇t

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

The image of a destination comprises perceptions acquired by individuals, oriented to the specifications of a destination. Touristic destinations are, in order to be able to attract more tourists in the competition environment, in charge of developing marketing efforts, making the best of positioning their products and services together with their economic, cultural and social dimensions in the intelligence of tourists. In this direction, the aim of this study is to determine the destination image perceived by tourists who travel with the purpose of religious tourism when they visit to Konya Museum (Mawlana Jalaladdin Rumi). The data for the study …

The Destination Marketing Development Of Religious Tourism In Uzbekistan, Bakhtiyor Navruz-Zoda, Zebiniso Navruz-Zoda

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

Uzbekistan has great potential to develop pilgrimage tourism based on the spiritual culture of the Islamic religion. Destination marketing development of religious tourism, based on Sufism is an innovative direction for the organisation of pilgrimage tourism. In this paper, the dual nature of this kind of religious tourism is revealed to comprise: first a pilgrimage nature, that consists of the Sufi pilgrimage to Sufi shrines to perform ritual and; secondly a religious-cognitive nature, whereby, a major segment of travellers can be Muslim, non-Sufis and scientists, researchers, teachers, tutors and other categories of tourists who are interested in the learning of …

Management Practices For The Development Of Religious Tourism Sacred Sites: Managing Expectations Through Sacred And Secular Aims In Site Development; Report, Store And Access, Peter Wiltshier, Maureen Griffiths

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

Through a distillation of practices reflective of the extant literature and socio-economic approaches to inclusive development of sites of religious experiences and worship, we posit that there are seven core conceptual approaches to support evolving site management needs. Therefore, developing sites of special significance necessarily requires the dissemination and sharing of both intellectual and practical contributions to meet those needs in a planned and stakeholder-driven approach. Traditional approaches to development emerged half a century ago with a focus on core competencies and the agreed understanding that open and fair competition would raise quality and assure reasonable profit margins. Creating awareness …

Vol. 4(Vii) - Cover And Table Of Contents

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

No abstract provided.

Mulberry Garden : Seasonal Dinner Menu, Mulberry Garden

Menus of the 21st Century

Mulberry Lane, Donnybrook, Dublin 4.

Exploring The Influence Of Holidaying In Wine Producing Countries On Consumer Wine Choice, Margaret Connolly

Conference papers

No abstract provided.

Investigating The Views Of Students To On-Campus Catering In A Third Level Educational Institution, Gereva Hackett, Detta Melia

Conference papers

The overall aim of this study was to investigate the views of students to on-campus catering, student preferences with food and to gather information and opinions on the current catering provision in a large third level educational institution. The survey sought to acertain factors influencing the type of food eaten by students, the type of establishments frequented for food, spend trends, how far students would walk to purchase food, the meal most frequently purchased during the college day, and factors important to students when eating out while at college. A questionnaire was administered to all students.

A comprehensive investigation of …

A Strange Revolution: Mock Compliance And The Failure Of The Oecd’S International Tax Transparency Regime, Richard Woodward

Books/Book Chapters

No abstract provided.

Impediments In The Corporate Social Responsibility (Csr) Space: A Mixed-Method Approach, Tony Kealy

Articles

Despite the potentially positive image and reputation implications of businesses implementing strategies in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), there appears to be a dearth of companies willing to play a leading role in moving CSR activities to upper levels within the consciousness of the organisation. The vast majority of businesses are merely complying with national regulations in their business sustainability efforts. This study investigates the reasons why there are road-blocks in the pursuit of higher levels of sustainable business development. A 17-question on-line survey was administered to a number of global participant businesses in a range of industries. The resulting qualitative …

Xuanzang And Bodhidharma: Pilgrimage And Peace-Building In Buddhist China And India, Ian S. Mcintosh

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

In the study of pilgrimage and peace-building, case studies deemed to be influential in initiating positive change in the world are in the spotlight. A novel example in which people with different ethnicities, cultures and walks of life have come together with a common purpose is associated with the spread of Buddhism from India to China beginning in the early centuries of the Common Era. Unlike other instances of the expansion of a world religion beyond its homeland, the spread of Buddhism along the maritime and overland ‘silk roads’ was not linked to domination or conquest. Rather, it was linked …