Business Administration, Management, and Operations Commons^™

The Moderation Effect Of Social Factors On Marketing Factors In Consumer Research, Xiaochuang Wu, Helen Chen, Xiaohong Li

Articles

Consumer research tends to isolate the impact of marketing and social factors. Little has been done to include both. This paper aimed to find out what would happen when these two sets of factors are included. Two models were built in this paper, Model I with the marketing factors only and Model II with both the marketing and social factors. Data was collected in Ireland among more than 1473 transition year students in a personal survey regarding their willingness to learn Chinese. Data were analysed by using structural equation modelling (SEM). Results showed the two social variables, acculturation and intergenerational …

Ex-Post Service Contract Performance Management, Brian Forbes, Malcolm Brady

Articles

This paper highlights how contract incompleteness can threaten the performance of public procurement facilities management contracts during their implementation stages, based on a multiple case study comprising five public procurement services contracts. The paper takes a principle-agent view and with the unit of analysis being the contract itself. The paper shows that contract contingencies are almost inevitable and may stem from the written contract or from the participating organisations. Written and unwritten contract management mechanisms were used in practice to deal with contingencies as they arose in the services case studies examined. The paper found that written contracts do not …

Expanding University Entrepreneurial Ecosystems To Under-Represented Communities, Emma O'Brien, Thomas M. Cooney, Per Blenker

Articles

Purpose – Entrepreneurship education has moved from an elitist view focussing on a start-up and picking-the-winners philosophy towards a broader enterprising behaviour approach; recognising entrepreneurship as an activity of relevance for everybody. The purpose of this paper is to extend this development and identify how university entrepreneurial ecosystems can be expanded to support communities that are under-represented in entrepreneurship.

Design/methodology/approach – Based on an integrative literature review (Torraco, 2005), this paper draws together and synthesises literature from the field of entrepreneurship, higher education studies and under-represented communities in an integrated fashion, leading to the development of a new conceptual model. …

External And Internal Networks And Access To Hrd Resources In Small Professional Service Firms, Ciara Nolan Dr, Thomas Garavan

Articles

A key challenge facing small professional service firms (PSFs) in the context of implementing human resource development (HRD) is access to resources. The use of external and internal networks represents an important means of identifying and acquiring needed resources. We utilize resource dependency and network theories to explore the types of networks used by owner-managers to acquire HRD resources and the types of resources that are acquired. We investigate these issues utilizing three case study organizations located in the Republic of Ireland and interview data from owner-managers and employees. We found that small PSFs derived resources from both coercive and …

Investigating The Enduring Fascination With Dublin's Victorian Pubs, James Peter Murphy

Conference papers

Victorian pubs of Dublin have played an integral role in the social, cultural and economic history of Ireland’s capital from their early development in the front rooms and parlours of Dublin homes they are one of the most iconic elements of Irish culture. These pubs have always been a strange mixture of tradition and curiosity which forms an integral part of the rich tapestry of Dublin life dating back to their creation nearly 200 years ago. A proud brewing and distilling tradition of these pubs combined with their natural hospitality and sociability, have all contributed to making the pubs of …

Understanding Crude Oil Spot And Futures Prices Dynamics During Major Crises, Miroslava Zavadska

Doctoral

This thesis examines crude oil, the dominant energy resource worldwide, its historical behaviour and the resulting implications for world economies. It analyses the role of spot and futures oil prices and their dynamics during periods of market uncertainty. The focus of attention is the understanding of the lead-lag relationship of crude oil spot and futures prices during major crises periods (the first Gulf War in 1990/91, the Asian financial crisis in 1997/98, the US terrorist attack in 2001 and the global financial crisis in 2008/9), and its implications for investors and policy-makers. The mix of applied econometric models gives strength …

Investigating The Impact Of Internationally Acquired Qualifications On Labour Market Performance: The Case Of Brazil, Charles Alves De Castro

Articles

The aim of this study is to examine the labour market performance of Brazilian students who have acquired international qualifications in the areas of engineering and science. A comprehensive analysis of the literature review demonstrates the importance of international qualifications covering both their benefits and challenges. The gaps found in the literature review are also discussed, as well as the need for a more concrete theoretical framework about the subject. The data used in this research was gathered by semi-structured one-to-one interviews conducted in both person and through telephone. The participants consisted of Brazilian students who have acquired international qualifications …

An Investigation Of The Benefits And Barriers Of E‐Business Adoption Activities In Yemeni Smes, Ahmed Abdullah, Brychan Thomas, Lyndon Murphy, Eoin Plant

Articles

Yemeni small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) are at the early stages of e‐business adoption and their owners and managers need to be supported to gain an understanding of the benefits that their business can achieve from adopting e‐business. Yemeni SMEs are at the early stages of e‐business adoption. The delay in adopting more advanced e‐business solutions are due to factors including the comparatively low level of technology usage within the organization, lack of qualified staff available to develop, implement and support firms’ websites, and limited financial resources. A lack of computer software and hardware resources appears to have a detrimental …

A Multi-Method Scheduling Framework For Medical Staff, Wael Rashwan, John Fowler, Amr Arisha

Conference Papers

Hospital planning teams are always concerned with optimizing staffing and scheduling decisions in order to improve hospital performance, patient experience, and staff satisfaction. A multi-method approach including data analytics, modeling and simulation, machine learning, and optimization is proposed to provide a framework for smart and applicable solutions for staffing and shift scheduling. Factors regarding patients, staff, and hospitals are considered in the decision. This framework is piloted using the Emergency Department(ED) of a leading university hospital in Dublin. The optimized base staffing patterns and shift schedules actively contributed to solving ED overcrowding problem and reduced the average waiting time for …

Technological Mediated Applications At Sacred Heritages: Usefulness And Challenges- A Managerial Perspective, Vreny Enongene

Conference papers

The rapid development of technologies introduces smartness to all organisations and communities (Buhalis, & Amaranggana, 2014. P. 553), for which sacred heritages are no exception, as evident in their increasing use of technological mediated applications towards enhancing the visitors experience and data generation. This development in the use of technological applications, has in part been triggered by the identified changing needs and expectations of contemporary sacred site visitors, as well as their importance and role in changing the nature of the consumers expectations and the nature of the visitor’s experience.

Thus, applying these smart tourism concept in addressing the changing …

The Contribution Of Higher Education-Based Technology Start-Up Incubators To The Co-Production Of Knowledge, Innovation And Growth: Experiences From The Edge, Anthony Paul Buckley, Stephen Davis

Articles

Start-up incubators are one of a number of micropolicy interventions used by states to support their technology entrepreneurs. Since 2000, the number of incubators in the United States has almost trebled while that in Europe has more than doubled. This article outlines the challenges involved in attempting to evaluate the contribution of the higher education technology start-up incubator process. It advocates theory-based evaluation (TBE) methodology as a possible solution for effective evaluation (and policy learning) in complex research settings such as this, where a study is unable, for myriad reasons, to meet the stringent requirements of experimental research design. TBE …

Research Methodology In Business: A Starter’S Guide, Mohamed Af Ragab, Amr Arisha

Articles

A cardinal requisite of successful research lies in the proper selection of the research methodology applied to achieve research objectives using the available resources. In addition to acquiring sufficient knowledge of their specific research topic, researchers are urged to develop good understanding of alternative research methodologies at their disposal to be able to identify the best-suited methods to address the research question. This, however, often poses a challenge for novice researchers who face difficulty in grasping the vast methodology landscape and its encompassing array of debates. The purpose of this paper is to provide new researchers with a comprehensive overview …

A Scientometric Analysis Of Knowledge Management Research And Practice Literature: 2003 – 2015, Ahmed Ramy, Jenni Floody, Mohamed Af Ragab, Amr Arisha

Articles

The purpose of this paper is to explore the current research trends in Knowledge Management (KM) through a scientometric analysis of all literature published in KMRP between 2003 and 2015 (506 articles). The review framework explores three sets of review questions addressing Research Productivity, Research Themes and Methods, and Citation Analysis. The study elucidates wide global interest in KM and an increasing trend towards multi-author collaboration. Although more than 55 different industries have featured in the journal, certain knowledge-intensive sectors remain underrepresented. Country productivity shows few nations taking the lead with an interesting correlation between research activity and economic prosperity. …

Understanding How Immigrant Entrepreneurs View Business Opportunity Formation Through Ethnicity, Kingsley C. Njoku, Thomas M. Cooney

Books/Book Chapters

Given that international research is now consistently showing higher rates of entrepreneurial activity from immigrants above native people, research regarding our understanding of how immigrant entrepreneurs view business opportunity formation remains underdeveloped. Based upon a review of the literature, this chapter examines how ethnicity relates to business opportunity formation through constant interactions. It also introduces the Visual Mixed Embeddedness Framework as an empirical lens for understanding the differences in the business opportunity formation process models between immigrant and native entrepreneurs. By explaining how factors and traits from both home and host countries impact upon the immigrant entrepreneurial business activity process, …

Informing Quality In Emergency Care: Understanding Patient Experiences, Esmat Swallmeh, Vivienne Byers, Amr Arisha

Articles

Purpose: Assessing performance and quality in healthcare organisations is moving from focussing solely on clinical care measurement to considering the patient experience as critical. Much patient experience research is quantitative and survey based. The purpose of this paper is to report a qualitative study gathering in-depth data in an emergency department (ED).

Design/methodology/approach: The authors used empirical data from seven focus groups to understand patient experience as participants progressed through a major teaching hospital in an Ireland ED. A convenience sampling technique was used, and 42 participants were invited to share their perceptions and outline key factors affecting their journey. …

What Lessons Can Be Learned From The Delivery Of The First Building On The Grangegorman Campus Using Building Information Management (Bim)?, Pat O'Sullivan, Avril Behan

Conference papers

There is an acceptance that BIM, via data management, can be integrated with FM to reduce costs during the Operations and Maintenance stage of a project. However, what has not been documented is the ‘on the ground’ reality which can be reviewed as a lessons learnt exercise to improve the implementation of BIM FM for future projects. This case study sets out to explore the realities of a client’s adoption of BIM based upon the actual experience of the Greenway Hub. Rather than relying on anecdotal evidence the research was based upon the real practices and experiences of the Dublin …

Strategic Management In Irish Construction Professional Service Firms: A Comparative Study Across Professions, Oluwasegun Seriki, Roisin Murphy

Conference papers

The Irish construction industry has undergone substantial change in the past decade. Following a deep, lengthy recession the improving outlook of the construction sector makes the inquiry into strategy within the firms both timely and appropriate. Determining how construction organizations successfully adapt in a highly turbulent industry is critical to ensure survival in a highly cyclical industry sector. Strategizing in construction professional service firms (CPSFs) is not well documented, and there is little understanding of the strategy processes, and implications of these processes in the firms. As part of an ongoing study, the strategic management process in CPSFs is reviewed …

A Hybrid Process-Mining Approach For Simulation Modeling, Waleed Abo-Hamad, Ahmed Ramy, Amr Arisha

Conference Papers

This paper presents a hybrid Modeling and Simulation framework to address business process challenges. The framework has integrated process mining techniques in the conceptual modeling phase to support developing simulation models that are unbiased and close reflection of reality in a timely manner. The hybrid approach overcomes the pitfalls of traditional conceptual modeling by using process mining techniques to discover valuable process knowledge from the analysis of event logs. The proposed hybrid framework has been applied to an Emergency Department (ED) in order to identify performance bottlenecks and explore improvement strategies in an attempt to meet national performance targets. A …

The International Review Of Retail, Distribution And Consumer Research, Edmund O'Callaghan, John Murray Dr.

Conference proceedings

This special issue of The International Review of Retail, Distribution and Consumer Research offers a selection of the best papers presented at the 19th International Conference on Research in the Distributive Trades of the European Association for Education and Research in Commercial Distribution (EAERCD). The EAERCD has continued to offer a forum for academic exchange over a 27 year period on both current and emerging issues within the distributive trades and retailing. This year the School of Retail and Services Management, Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT) hosted the EAERCD conference. The School of Retail & Services Management offers specialist retail …

Analysing Supply Chain Resilience: Integrating The Constructs In A Concept Mapping Framework Via A Systematic Literature Review, Abubakar Ali, Amr Mahfouz, Amr Arisha

Articles

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyse the concept of supply chain resilience (SCRES) using a concept mapping framework to seek conceptual clarity, with an emphasis on SCRES definitions, essential capabilities, elements and managerial practices.

Design/methodology/approach: A systematic literature review was conducted of 103 peer-reviewed journal articles covering the period from 2000 to 2015, with the aim to identify supply chain resilience concept.

Findings: Through analysis and synthesis of the literature, the study revealed three major constructs used to define resilience in supply chain: SCRES phases, strategies, and capabilities. The study has addressed five core …

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 …

Connected Health: An Open Innovation Perspective., Anushree Priyadarshini, Maria Quinlan, Gerardine Doyle

Articles

The concept of connected health has gained traction in recent years as a new technology enabled and networked model of health care delivery. It is often used as an umbrella term for eHealth, digital health, health informatics, telemedicine, mHealth and involves the establishment and management of a network of stakeholders with the aim of improving health care quality and out- comes. Yet a lack of open interactions and knowledge networks and the missing integration of the larger constituency of interdisciplinary experts are limiting the execution of the model and restricting its potential to devise services and interventions around patient’s needs …

How To Use Analogies For Creative Business Modelling, Ryan Rumble, Niall Minto

Articles

Purpose

This paper aims to present a method for interpreting and reinterpreting business models as analogies to support the creation of new business model ideas.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors use the literature on cognitive frames and attention to demonstrate the often-overlooked potential of analogies. From this, the authors derive practical recommendations for the use of analogies in creative business model design.

Findings

Managers can design creative business models by seeking multiple interpretations of the way other businesses create and capture value.

Originality/value

Business model frameworks are commonplace, but there is little discussion on how to use them effectively. Furthermore, while analogies …

Health Care For All In Ireland? The Consequences Of Politics For Health Policy, Vivienne Byers

Articles

The Irish health-care system is a complicated mix of public and private providers, with inequitable and unclear routes for health-service users to access and navigate the system. In 2011, the Irish Government committed to significant health reform to develop a universal single-tier health system. In line with other European nations this was to be underpinned by the principle of social solidarity, with equitable access based on need rather than ability to pay. The road to this reform and its recent collapse highlights the practical implications of political and policy choices in health care, and has implications for financing and delivery, …

Construction Professional Service Firm Management: A Longitudinal Study Of Strategic Planning In Irish Quantity Surveying Practices, Roisin Murphy

Conference papers

This paper reports on the ongoing investigation of strategic planning in Irish Quantity Surveying practices. The construction industry in Ireland has undergone a period of significant change in the last five years fuelling a shift in focus from tactical to strategic planning in professional service firms operating within the sector. A previous paper identified the type, scope and extent of strategic planning within Quantity Surveying (QS) practices in Ireland in the years up to and during the economic downturn. The current paper expands on the previous research by identifying changes in approach to strategic management within these professional service firms …

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

Other resources

The School of Culinary Arts & Food Technology - Autumn 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 Autumn period of 2016.

A Comparative Study Of Performance Management Practice In The Republic Of Ireland, As Influenced By Its Expansion From The Private Sector To Its Public Equivalent., Kevin Paul Corbett

Masters

This is a study of performance management (PM) that examines its comparative practice in the Republic of Ireland, as influenced by its expansion from the private sector to the public equivalent. The research objectives of this study are to establish the level of incidence of PM practice in both sectors, to consider how PM is practised, including the mechanisms employed, to determine the objectives of the PM processes for these organisations and to ascertain the comparative perceived impact and effectiveness of PM. It was established that there was a gap of nine years since the last quantitative analysis of the …

A Cross-Cultural Examination Of Preferences For Work Attributes, Melissa S. Woodard, Jane K. Miller, Daniel Miller, Kirk D. Silvernail, Chun Guo, Sudhir Nair, Mehmet Devrim Aydin, Ana Helosia Da Costa Lemos, Paul Donnelly, Vilmante Kumpikaite, Robert Marx, Linda M. Peters

Articles

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between individual- and country-level values and preferences for job/organizational attributes. Design/methodology/approach – Survey data were collected from 475 full-time employees (average of nine years work experience, and three years in a managerial position) enrolled in part-time MBA programs in seven countries. Findings – Preference for a harmonious workplace is positively related to horizontal collectivism, whereas preference for remuneration/advancement is positively related to vertical individualism. The authors also find a positive relationship between preference for meaningful work and horizontal individualism, and between preference for employer prestige and social adjustment …

The Welfare Effects Of Nationalization In A Mixed Duopoly Public Transport Market, Feifei Qin, Xiaoning Zhang, Eoin Plant

Articles

Recently, many cities have launched new rail transit lines. Once these new rail transit lines start commercial operation, they will play important roles as competitors to conventional bus services. In this paper, the effects of nationalization on equilibria have been studied in a mixed duopoly public transport market, in which one publicly-owned rail transit operator competes with one private bus operator. Two numerical case studies show the nationalization of a rail transit company is always socially desirable both in Bertrand pricing game in the short run and in Nash non-cooperative game in the long run.

Overcoming Fraud & Dishonesty In The Hospitality Industry, James Peter Murphy

Conference papers

The licensed industry is an increasingly competitive market place, many bars have responded by empowering staff and undertaking structural and management reforms in recent years. Undoubtedly, these changes have significantly raised the levels of customer service and enhanced customer satisfaction. Paradoxically these changes, combined with the responsibilities allocated to bar staff and management to supervise and manage bars with autonomous control have created more fertile conditions, scope and opportunity for dishonest actions by staff members.

The way licensed premises approach the issue of staff fraud is changing in response to the increased risk. Many bars have historically been anxious to …