Towards an understanding of knowledge sharing behavior of CCOs in Bangladesh : a proposed structural equations model

This paper explores the question or whether Call Center Operators (CCO) share information or knowledge with their clients and if their knowledge sharing behavior has any impact on the sustainability of their relationships with their clients.

Structural equation model of construction contract dispute potential

This paper presents the results of a structural equation model (SEM) for describing and quantifying the fundamental factors that affect contract disputes between owners and contractors in the construction industry. Through this example, the potential impact of SEM analysis in construction engineering and management research is illustrated. The purpose of the specific model developed in this research is to explain how and why contract related construction problems occur. This study builds upon earlier work, which developed a disputes potential index, and the likelihood of construction disputes was modeled using logistic regression. In this earlier study, questionnaires were completed on 159 construction projects, which measured both qualitative and quantitative aspects of contract disputes, management ability, financial planning, risk allocation, and project scope definition for both owners and contractors. The SEM approach offers several advantages over the previously employed logistic regression methodology. The final set of structural equations provides insight into the interaction of the variables that was not apparent in the original logistic regression modeling methodology.

The Impact of Internal Market Orientation on Staff Service Behaviours

The impact of service direction, service training and staff behaviours on perceptions of service delivery are examined. The impact of managerial behaviour in the form of internal market orientation (IMO) on the attitudes of frontline staff towards the firm and its consequent influence on their customer oriented behaviours is also examined. Frontline service staff working in the consumer transport industry were surveyed to provide subjective data about the constructs of interest in this study, and the data were analysed using structural equations modelling employing partial least squares estimation. The data indicate significant relationships between internal market orientation (IMO), the attitudes of the employees to the firm and their consequent behaviour towards customers. Customer orientation, service direction and service training are all identified as antecedents to high levels of service delivery. The study contributes to marketing theory by providing quantitative evidence to support assumptions that internal marketing has an impact on services success. For marketing practitioners, the research findings offer additional information about the management, training and motivation of service staff towards service excellence.

Buying a sponsor’s brand : the role of affective commitment to the sponsored team

Sponsorship is increasingly important in a firm’s communication mix. Research to date has focused on the impact of sponsorship on brand awareness and its subsequent consequences for image congruency and consumer attitudes towards sponsors’ brands. A lesser studied area is the effect of sponsorship on consumers’ purchase intentions and behaviours. We argue that existing models of sponsorship driven purchase behaviour fail to account for affective commitment, which mediates relationship between affiliation with the team and social identification with the team. We propose a modified framework describing the effect of sponsorship on purchase intentions in the context of low and high performing sports teams. The framework is tested using structural equations modelling; employing PLS estimation and data collected via online survey of AFL chat room participants. Results confirm the role of affective commitment in sport sponsorship purchase intentions and indicate that team success has a significant influence on fans’ purchase behaviours.

The impact of internal and external market orientations on firm performance.

The role of internal marketing in developing organisational competencies is identified as a key area for continued research (Rafiq and Ahmed, 2003). One competence of particular interest to marketers is market orientation. This paper examines the impact of internal marketing, operationalised as a set of internal market orientated behaviours (IMO) on market orientation (MO), and consequently organisational performance, and provides the first quantitative evidence to support the long held assumption that internal marketing has an impact on marketing success. Data from UK retail managers were analysed using structural equations modelling employing LISREL software. These data indicate significant relationships between internal market orientation, employee motivation and external marketing success (market orientation, financial performance and customer satisfaction). Our results also support previous findings indicating a positive impact of external market orientation on customer satisfaction and financial performance. For marketing practitioners, the role of internal market orientation is developing marketing strategies is discussed.

Econometric analysis of stuctural systems with permanent and transitory shocks

This paper considers the implications of the permanent/transitory decomposition of shocks for identification of structural models in the general case where the model might contain more than one permanent structural shock. It provides a simple and intuitive generalization of the influential work of Blanchard and Quah [1989. The dynamic effects of aggregate demand and supply disturbances. The American Economic Review 79, 655–673], and shows that structural equations with known permanent shocks cannot contain error correction terms, thereby freeing up the latter to be used as instruments in estimating their parameters. The approach is illustrated by a re-examination of the identification schemes used by Wickens and Motto [2001. Estimating shocks and impulse response functions. Journal of Applied Econometrics 16, 371–387], Shapiro and Watson [1988. Sources of business cycle fluctuations. NBER Macroeconomics Annual 3, 111–148], King et al. [1991. Stochastic trends and economic fluctuations. American Economic Review 81, 819–840], Gali [1992. How well does the ISLM model fit postwar US data? Quarterly Journal of Economics 107, 709–735; 1999. Technology, employment, and the business cycle: Do technology shocks explain aggregate fluctuations? American Economic Review 89, 249–271] and Fisher [2006. The dynamic effects of neutral and investment-specific technology shocks. Journal of Political Economy 114, 413–451].

Buying a sponsor's brand : the role of affective commitment to the sponsored team

Sponsorship is increasingly important in a firm's communication mix. Research to date has focused on the impact of sponsorship on brand awareness and its subsequent consequences for image congruency and consumer attitudes towards sponsors' brands. A lesser studied area is the effect of sponsorship on consumers' purchase intentions and behaviours. We argue that existing models of sponsorship driven purchase behaviour fail to account for affective commitment, which mediates relationship between affiliation with the team and social identification with the team. We propose a modified framework describing the effect of sponsorship on purchase intentions in the context of low and high performing sports teams. The framework is tested using structural equations modelling; employing PLS estimation and data collected via online survey of AFL chat room participants. Results confirm the role of affective commitment in sport sponsorship purchase intentions and indicate that team success has a significant influence on fans' purchase behaviours.

Internal market orientation and market-oriented behaviours

Purpose: The purpose of this empirical paper is to investigate internal marketing from a behavioural perspective. The impact of internal marketing behaviours, operationalised as an internal market orientation (IMO), on employees’ marketing and other in-role behaviours (IRB) were examined. ---------- Design/methodology/approach: Survey data measuring IMO, market orientation and a range of constructs relevant to the nomological network in which they are embedded were collected from the UK retail managers. These were tested to establish their psychometric properties and the conceptual model was analysed using structural equations modelling, employing a partial least squares methodology. ---------- Findings: IMO has positive consequences for employees’ market-oriented and other IRB. These, in turn, influence marketing success. Research limitations/implications – The paper provides empirical support for the long-held assumption that internal and external marketing are related and that organisations should balance their external focus with some attention to employees. Future research could measure the attitudes and behaviours of managers, employees and customers directly and explore the relationships between them. ---------- Practical implications: Firm must ensure that they do not put the needs of their employees second to those of managers and shareholders; managers must develop their listening skills and organisations must become more responsive to the needs of their employees. ---------- Originality/value: The paper contributes to the scarce body of empirical support for the role of internal marketing in services organisations. For researchers, this paper legitimises the study of internal marketing as a route to external market success; for managers, the study provides quantifiable evidence that focusing on employees’ wants and needs impacts their behaviours towards the market.

Genetics of brain fiber architecture and intellectual performance

The study is the first to analyze genetic and environmental factors that affect brain fiber architecture and its genetic linkage with cognitive function. We assessed white matter integrity voxelwise using diffusion tensor imaging at high magnetic field (4 Tesla), in 92 identical and fraternal twins. White matter integrity, quantified using fractional anisotropy (FA), was used to fit structural equation models (SEM) at each point in the brain, generating three-dimensional maps of heritability. We visualized the anatomical profile of correlations between white matter integrity and full-scale, verbal, and performance intelligence quotients (FIQ, VIQ, and PIQ). White matter integrity (FA) was under strong genetic control and was highly heritable in bilateral frontal (a 2 = 0.55, p = 0.04, left; a 2 = 0.74, p = 0.006, right), bilateral parietal (a 2 = 0.85, p < 0.001, left; a 2 = 0.84, p < 0.001, right), and left occipital (a 2 = 0.76, p = 0.003) lobes, and was correlated with FIQ and PIQ in the cingulum, optic radiations, superior fronto- occipital fasciculus, internal capsule, callosal isthmus, and the corona radiata (p = 0.04 for FIQ and p = 0.01 for PIQ, corrected for multiple comparisons). In a cross-trait mapping approach, common genetic factors mediated the correlation between IQ and white matter integrity, suggesting a common physiological mechanism for both, and common genetic determination. These genetic brain maps reveal heritable aspects of white matter integrity and should expedite the discovery of single-nucleotide polymorphisms affecting fiber connectivity and cognition.

Flexible Budgeting under Uncertainty: A Real Options Perspective

This paper examines the relationships between uncertainty and the perceived usefulness of traditional annual budgets versus flexible budgets in 95 Swedish companies. We form hypotheses that the perceived usefulness of the annual budgets as well as the attitudes to more flexible budget alternatives are influenced by the uncertainty that the companies face. Our study distinguishes between two separate kinds of uncertainty: exogenous stochastic uncertainty (deriving from the firm’s environment) and endogenous deterministic uncertainty (caused by the strategic choices made by the firm itself). Based on a structural equations modelling analysis of data from a mail survey we found that the more accentuated exogenous uncertainty a company faces, the more accentuated is the expected trend towards flexibility in the budget system, and vice versa; the more endogenous uncertainty they face, the more negative are their attitudes towards budget flexibility. We also found that these relationships were not present with regard to the attitudes towards the usefulness of the annual budget. Noteworthy is, however, that there was a significant negative relationship between the perceived usefulness of the annual budget and budget flexibility. Thus, our results seem to indicate that the degree of flexibility in the budget system is influenced by both general attitudes towards the usefulness of traditional budgets and by the actual degree of exogenous uncertainty a company faces and by the strategy that it executes.

Transonic Aeroelastic Numerical Simulation in Aeronautical Engineering

A lower-upper symmetric Gauss-Seidel (LU-SGS) subiteration scheme is constructed for time-marching of the fluid equations. The Harten-Lax-van Leer-Einfeldt-Wada (HLLEW) scheme is used for the spatial discretization. The same subiteration formulation is applied directly to the structural equations of motion in generalized coordinates. Through subiteration between the fluid and structural equations, a fully implicit aeroelastic solver is obtained for the numerical simulation of fluid/structure interaction. To improve the ability for application to complex configurations, a multiblock grid is used for the flow field calculation and transfinite interpolation (TFI) is employed for the adaptive moving grid deformation. The infinite plate spline (IPS) and the principal of virtual work are utilized for the data transformation between the fluid and structure. The developed code was first validated through the comparison of experimental and computational results for the AGARD 445.6 standard aeroelastic wing. Then, the flutter character of a tail wing with control surface was analyzed. Finally, flutter boundaries of a complex aircraft configuration were predicted.

Capacidades directivas y aprendizaje en las pymes exportadoras

[ES] La importancia de las percepciones de la dirección de la empresa ante la exportación puede afectar de manera significativa al comportamiento exportador de las pymes. En concreto, este aspecto puede incidir sobre el hecho de comenzar una política de exportación en la empresa, así como en políticas de consolidación de dichas exportaciones. El trabajo presentado analiza empíricamente estos dos hechos. En primer lugar en qué medida la percepción de la dirección ante la exportación afecta al hecho de comenzar la exportación. En segundo lugar, en caso de ya ser pymes exportadoras, se estudian qué percepciones directivas ayudan a consolidar dicho compromiso exportador. Para ello se desarrollan y validan ciertas escalas que miden la percepción de las ventajas y las barreras a la exportación mediante el empleo de ecuaciones estructurales. Ambos estudios se efectúan teniendo en cuenta la condición de familiar o no de las pymes objeto de estudio, con el fin de efectuar un análisis exploratorio sobre la potencial incidencia de este hecho.

Aplicación de la Lógica Dominante del servicio (LDS) en el sector turístico: el marketing interno como antecedente de la cultura de co-creación de innovaciones con clientes y empleados

[ES] Este trabajo trata de profundizar en la comprensión del concepto de marketing interno (MI), considerado como un recurso operante desde la óptica de la Lógica Dominante del Servicio (LDS), así como en su influencia en la obtención de resultados empresariales superiores a los de la competencia. Para ello, se examina el efecto del MI en la predisposición de las empresas analizadas a que sus clientes y empleados de primera línea participen en el desarrollo de innovaciones de servicio, ampliando de este modo, de acuerdo con la LDS, las oportunidades de co-creación de valor disponibles para las organizaciones. Para contrastar las hipótesis planteadas se aplica un análisis de ecuaciones estructurales a la información facilitada por los gerentes de 240 hoteles de una muestra de ámbito nacional.

Numerical Analyses of Transonic Fluid/Structure interaction in Aircraft Engineering

Through the coupling between aerodynamic and structural governing equations, a fully implicit multiblock aeroelastic solver was developed for transonic fluid/stricture interaction. The Navier-Stokes fluid equations are solved based on LU-SGS (lower-upper symmetric Gauss-Seidel) Time-marching subiteration scheme and HLLEW (Harten-Lax-van Leer-Einfeldt-Wada) spacing discretization scheme and the same subiteration formulation is applied directly to the structural equations of motion in generalized coordinates. Transfinite interpolation (TFI) is used for the grid deformation of blocks neighboring the flexible surfaces. The infinite plate spline (IPS) and the principal of virtual work are utilized for the data transformation between fluid and structure. The developed code was fort validated through the comparison of experimental and computational results for the AGARD 445.6 standard aeroelastic wing. In the subsonic and transonic range, the calculated flutter speeds and frequencies agree well with experimental data, however, in the supersonic range, the present calculation overpredicts the experimental flutter points similar to other computations. Then the flutter character of a complete aircraft configuration is analyzed through the calculation of the change of structural stiffness. Finally, the phenomenon of aileron buzz is simulated for the weakened model of a supersonic transport wing/body model at Mach numbers of 0.98 and l.05. The calculated unsteady flow shows, on the upper surface, the shock wave becomes stronger as the aileron deflects downward, and the flow behaves just contrary on the lower surface of the wing. Corresponding to general theoretical analysis, the flow instability referred to as aileron buzz is induced by a stronger shock alternately moving on the upper and lower surfaces of wing. For the rigid structural model, the flow is stable at all calculated Mach numbers as observed in experiment

Transonic Aeroelastic Numerical Simulation in Aeronautical Engineering

A lower-upper symmetric Gauss-Seidel (LU-SGS) subiteration scheme is constructed for time-marching of the fluid equations. The Harten-Lax-van Leer-Einfeldt-Wada (HLLEW) scheme is used for the spatial discretization. The same subiteration formulation is applied directly to the structural equations of motion in generalized coordinates. Through subiteration between the fluid and structural equations, a fully implicit aeroelastic solver is obtained for the numerical simulation of fluid/structure interaction. To improve the ability for application to complex configurations, a multiblock grid is used for the flow field calculation and transfinite interpolation (TFI) is employed for the adaptive moving grid deformation. The infinite plate spline (IPS) and the principal of virtual work are utilized for the data transformation between the fluid and structure. The developed code was first validated through the comparison of experimental and computational results for the AGARD 445.6 standard aeroelastic wing. Then, the flutter character of a tail wing with control surface was analyzed. Finally, flutter boundaries of a complex aircraft configuration were predicted.