The relationship between Internet use and perceived performance in retail and professional service firms

lnformation technology (IT) and, in particular, the Internet is dramatically impacting on the services sector. This paper specifically investigates the relative impact of several forms of internet use on perceived performance for two groups of service organisations - retail service firms and professlonal health service firms. Using a mailed out self-administered questionnaire, 625 completed questionnaires were obtained and 43 per cent of respondents reported that they used the lternet. Thus the final usable sample in the study comprised 262 respondents. Results showed that the Internet does significantly influence perceived performance in both types of service firms. However,there are differences in the forms of lntemet use between the two service groups and their relative effect on performance. For retail firms, use of transactional function, such as ordering, selling and payment was found to be positively related to increases in perceived performance. In contrast, for professional health service firms, the ability to search for information on products and/or services was found to be positively associated with perceived performance. Finally, theoretical and managerial implications of the findings of this study are discussed.

Business process modeling : perceived benefits

The process-centered design of organizations and information systems is globally seen as an appropriate response to the increased economic pressure on organizations. At the methodological core of process-centered management is process modeling. However, business process modeling in large initiatives can be a time-consuming and costly exercise, making it potentially difficult to convince executive management of its benefits. To date, and despite substantial interest and research in the area of process modeling, the understanding of the actual benefits of process modeling in academia and practice is limited. To address this gap, this paper explores the perception of benefits derived from process modeling initiatives, as reported through a global Delphi study. The study incorporates the views of three groups of stakeholders – academics, practitioners and vendors. Our findings lead to the first identification and ranking of 19 unique benefits associated with process modeling. The study in particular found that process modeling benefits vary significantly between practitioners and academics. We argue that these variations may point to a dangerous disconnect between research projects and practical demands.

Consumers' accounts of perceived risk online and the influence of communication sources

The purpose of this paper is to extend marketing knowledge into perceived risk in online transactions beyond the current positivistic, hypotheses-driven research by providing qualitative insights into how individuals construct their accounts of perceived risk online. Additionally, the study reported in this paper aims to explore how communication sources influence both these subjective constructions and individuals' behavioural experiences with transaction activity on the web. Design/methodology/approach - The study was developed within a grounded theory method.Ten in-depth interviews were conducted which were analysed using constant comparison of incidents procedures to provide rich descriptions of the interviewees' subjective perceptions and lived experiences with online transaction activity. Findings - The findings provide insights into how the human clement is present in individuals'perceptions and constructions of their accounts of the risk involved online.The findings also identify the influence of mass communication sources on the construction of these accounts. The study provides insights into whether change agent communication sources, such as marketers or web designers,influence consumers' behaviours towards online transaction activity through mediating their perceptions of the risks involved. The study also reveals how social communication networks influence the interviewees' decisions to use the web (or transaction activities, in particular online purchasing, and how the group in this study might act as a communication source to influence others. Research limitations/Implications - While the findings cannot be generalised to the internet population overall, the sample used was able to provide relevant information regarding the phenomenon of interest. Future research should continue to examine perceived risk and the influence of communications sources, such as e-mail, discussion groups and virtual communities. Originality/value - The value of the paper lies in permitting the participants to account for perceived risk for themselves. The findings ex.plore what this means at increasing levels of personal relevance and the influence of communication sources to create, sustain or mediate perceptions of this phenomenon.

The impact of perceived stage of cancer on carers’ anxiety and depression during the patients’ final year of life

Objective: This paper explores the effects of perceived stage of cancer (PSOC) on carers' anxiety and depression during the patients' final year. Methods: A consecutive sample of patients and carers (N=98) were surveyed at regular intervals regarding PSOC, and anxiety and depression using the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale. Means were compared by gender using the Mann-Whitney U-test. The chi-square was used to analyse categorical data. Agreement between carers' and patients' PSOC was estimated using kappa statistics. Correlations between carers' PSOC and their anxiety and depression were calculated using the Spearman's rank correlation. Results: Over time, an increasing proportion of carers reported that the cancer was advanced, culminating at 43% near death. Agreement regarding PSOC was fair (kappa=0.29-0.34) until near death (kappa=0.21). Carers' anxiety increased over the year; depression increased in the final 6 months. Females were more anxious (p=0.049, 6 months; p=0.009, 3 months) than males, and more depressed until 1 month to death. The proportion of carers reporting moderate-severe anxiety almost doubled over the year to 27%, with more females in this category at 6 months (p=0.05). Carers with moderate-severe depression increased from 6 to 15% over the year. Increased PSOC was weakly correlated with increased anxiety and depression. Conclusions: Carers' anxiety exceeded depression in severity during advanced cancer. Females generally experienced greater anxiety and depression. Carers were more realistic than patients regarding the ultimate outcome, which was reflected in their declining mental health, particularly near the end.

Post-traumatic stress disorder in response to HIV infection

This study investigated the psychological impact of HIV infection through assessment of posttraumatic stress disorder in response to HIV infection. Sixty-one HIV-positive homosexual/bisexual men were assessed for posttraumatic stress disorder in response to HIV infection (PTSD-HIV) using a modified PTSD module of the DIS-III-R. Thirty percent met criteria for a syndrome of posttraumatic stress disorder in response to HIV diagnosis (PTSD-HIV). In over one-third of the PTSD cases, the disorder had an onset greater than 6 months after initial HIV infection diagnosis. PTSD-HIV was associated with other psychiatric diagnoses, particularly the development of first episodes of major depression after HIV infection diagnosis. PTSD-HIV was significantly associated with a pre-HIV history of PTSD from other causes, and other pre-HIV psychiatric disorders and neuroticism scores, indicating a similarity with findings in studies of PTSD from other causes. The findings from this preliminary study suggest that a PTSD response to HIV diagnosis has clinical validity and requires further investigation in this population and other medically ill groups. The results support the inclusion of the diagnosis of life-threatening illness as a traumatic incident that may lead to a posttraumatic stress disorder, which is consistent with the DSM-IV criteria.

Concepts of normal bereavement

This study used a 25-item questionnaire to examine the perceptions of 128 people with a close interest in bereavement and its literature. The study is part of a project to identify key aspects and the bereavement process. Subjects were asked to rate their perceptions of key bereavement phenomena with regards their frequency in the acute and later stages of bereavement. Descriptive results are presented and discussed, and a profile of phenomena perceived to be common to both stages is outlined.

An empirical study : a role of financial and non-financial performance measurement and perceived innovation effectiveness

Practitioners and academics often assume that investments in innovation will lead to organizational improvements. However, previous research has often shown that implemented innovations fail to realise these potential improvements. On the other hand, organisation, perhaps, has been growing and productive because of the innovation, but traditional measurements have failed to capture that growth. In order to help organizations capture their innovation performance effectively, this study examined the organizations which employ different types of performance measurement and their perception of innovation effectiveness.

Does occupational stress really matter? A study of psychological climate and stress on job satisfaction in Thailand

This study explored the prediction of psychological climate and stresses on job satisfaction in non U.S. setting. A total of 450 surveys were sent to 11 organisations in Thailand and employees were asked to fill out the survey. The first hypothesis that positive psychological climate dimensions predicted lower level of stresses among Thai employees was partially accepted. Further regression analysis tested second hypothesis that positive psychological climate dimensions and low level of stresses predict job satisfaction among Thai employees. Contrary to expectation, only stress variables predicted job satisfaction. Thai culture influence was discussed.

Clypeotheca, a new skeletal structure in scleractinian corals : a potential stress indicator

Physiological responses to environmental stress are increasingly well studied in scleractinian corals. This work reports a new stress-related skeletal structure we term clypeotheca. Clypeotheca was observed in several livecollected common reef-building coral genera and a two to three kya subfossil specimen from Heron Reef, Great Barrier Reef and consists of an epitheca-like skeletal wall that seals over the surface of parts of the corallum in areas of stress or damage. It appears to form from a coordinated process wherein neighboring polyps and adjoining coenosarc seal themselves off from the surrounding environment as they contract and die. Clypeotheca forms from inward skeletal centripetal growth at the edges of corallites and by the merging of flange-like outgrowths that surround individual spines over the surface of the coenosteum. Microstructurally, the merged flanges are similar to upsidedown dissepiments and true epitheca. Clypeotheca is interpreted primarily as a response to stress that may help protect the colony from invasion of unhealthy tissues by parasites or disease by retracting tissues in areas that have become unhealthy for the polyps. Identification of skeletal responses of corals to environmental stress may enable the frequency of certain types of environmental stress to be documented in past environments. Such data may be important for understanding the nature of reef dynamics through intervals of climate change and for monitoring the effects of possible anthropogenic stress in modern coral reef habitats.

Supervision practices in allied mental health : relationships of supervision characteristics to perceived impact and job satisfaction

This study examined whether supervision characteristics impacted on mental health practice and morale, and developed a new Supervision Attitude Scale (SAS). Telephone surveys were conducted with a representative sample of 272 staff from public mental health services across Queensland. Although supervision was widely received and positively rated, it had low average intensity, and assessment and training of skills was rarely incorporated. Perceived impact on practice was associated with acquisition of skills and positive attitudes to supervisors, but extent of supervision was related to impact only if it was from within the profession. Intention to resign was unrelated to extent of supervision, but was associated with positive attitudes to supervisors, accessibility, high impact, and empathy or praise in supervision sessions. The SAS had high internal consistency, and its intercorrelations were consistent with it being a measure of relationship positivity. The study supported the role of supervision in retention and in improving practice. It also highlighted supervision characteristics that might be targeted in training, and provided preliminary data on a new measure.

Mood and self-efficacy : impact of joy and sadness on perceived capabilities

Examined the impact of happy and sad moods on efficacy judgments concerning a variety of activities in 16 undergraduates who scored between 9 and 12 on the Harvard Group Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility—Form A. The mood was induced by having hypnotized Ss recall and revive their feelings about a romantic success or failure. Changes in efficacy that these memories induced were not restricted to the romantic domain but were also seen on interpersonal, athletic, and other activities remote from romance. Results suggest that emotional states have widespread impact on judgments by making mood-congruent thoughts more available. Implications for self-efficacy theory and practical applications are discussed.

Eye-movements and visual imagery : a working memory approach to the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder

It has been claimed that the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can be ameliorated by eye-movement desensitization-reprocessing therapy (EMD-R), a procedure that involves the individual making saccadic eye-movements while imagining the traumatic event. We hypothesized that these eye-movements reduce the vividness of distressing images by disrupting the function of the visuospatial sketchpad (VSSP) of working memory, and that by doing so they reduce the intensity of the emotion associated with the image. This hypothesis was tested by asking non-PTSD participants to form images of neutral and negative pictures under dual task conditions. Their images were less vivid with concurrent eye-movements and with a concurrent spatial tapping task that did not involve eye-movements. In the first three experiments, these secondary tasks did not consistently affect participants' emotional responses to the images. However, Expt 4 used personal recollections as stimuli for the imagery task, and demonstrated a significant reduction in emotional response under the same dual task conditions. These results suggest that, if EMD-R works, it does so by reducing the vividness and emotiveness of traumatic images via the VSSP of working memory. Other visuospatial tasks may also be of therapeutic value.

The manipulation of apoptosis-related genes to generate resistance to Fusarium wilt and water stress in banana

Bananas are susceptible to a diverse range of biotic and abiotic stresses, many of which cause serious production constraints worldwide. One of the most destructive banana diseases is Fusarium wilt caused by the soil-borne fungus, Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense (Foc). No effective control strategy currently exists for this disease which threatens global banana production. Although disease resistance exists in some wild bananas, attempts to introduce resistance into commercially acceptable bananas by conventional breeding have been hampered by low fertility, long generation times and association of poor agronomical traits with resistance genes. With the advent of reliable banana transformation protocols, molecular breeding is now regarded as a viable alternative strategy to generate disease-resistant banana plants. Recently, a novel strategy involving the expression of anti-apoptosis genes in plants was shown to result in resistance against several necrotrophic fungi. Further, the transgenic plants showed increased resistance to a range of abiotic stresses. In this thesis, the use of anti-apoptosis genes to generate transgenic banana plants with resistance to Fusarium wilt was investigated. Since water stress is an important abiotic constraint to banana production, the resistance of the transgenic plants to water stress was also examined. Embryogenic cell suspensions (ECS) of two commercially important banana cultivars, Grand Naine (GN) and Lady Finger (LF), were transformed using Agrobacterium with the anti-apoptosis genes, Bcl-xL, Bcl-xL G138A, Ced-9 and Bcl- 2 3’ UTR. An interesting, and potentially important, outcome was that the use of anti-apoptosis genes resulted in up to a 50-fold increase in Agrobacterium-mediated transformation efficiency of both LF and GN cells over vector controls. Regenerated plants were subjected to a complete molecular characterisation in order to detect the presence of the transgene (PCR), transcript (RT-PCR) and gene product (Western blot) and to determine the gene copy number (Southern blot). A total of 36 independently-transformed GN lines (8 x Bcl-xL, 5 x Bcl-xL G138A, 15 x Ced-9 and 8 x Bcl-2 3’ UTR) and 41 independently-transformed LF lines (8 x Bcl-xL, 7 x BclxL G138A, 13 x Ced-9 and 13 x Bcl-2 3’ UTR) were identified. The 41 transgenic LF lines were multiplied and clones from each line were acclimatised and grown under glasshouse conditions for 8 weeks to allow monitoring for phenotypic abnormalities. Plants derived from 3 x Bcl-xL, 2 x Ced-9 and 5 x Bcl-2 3’ UTR lines displayed a variety of aberrant phenotypes. However, all but one of these abnormalities were off-types commonly observed in tissue-cultured, non-transgenic banana plants and were therefore unlikely to be transgene-related. Prior to determining the resistance of the transgenic plants to Foc race 1, the apoptotic effects of the fungus on both wild-type and Bcl-2 3’ UTR-transgenic LF banana cells were investigated using rapid in vitro root assays. The results from these assays showed that apoptotic-like cell death was elicited in wild-type banana root cells as early as 6 hours post-exposure to fungal spores. In contrast, these effects were attenuated in the root cells of Bcl-2 3’ UTR-transgenic lines that were exposed to fungal spores. Thirty eight of the 41 transgenic LF lines were subsequently assessed for resistance to Foc race 1 in small-plant glasshouse bioassays. To overcome inconsistencies in rating the internal (vascular discolouration) disease symptoms, a MatLab-based computer program was developed to accurately and reliably assess the level of vascular discolouration in banana corms. Of the transgenic LF banana lines challenged with Foc race 1, 2 x Bcl-xL, 3 x Ced-9, 2 x Bcl-2 3’ UTR and 1 x Bcl-xL G138A-transgenic line were found to show significantly less external and internal symptoms than wild-type LF banana plants used as susceptible controls at 12 weeks post-inoculation. Of these lines, Bcl-2 3’ UTR-transgenic line #6 appeared most resistant, displaying very mild symptoms similar to the wild-type Cavendish banana plants that were included as resistant controls. This line remained resistant for up to 23 weeks post-inoculation. Since anti-apoptosis genes have been shown to confer resistance to various abiotic stresses in other crops, the ability of these genes to confer resistance against water stress in banana was also investigated. Clonal plants derived from each of the 38 transgenic LF banana plants were subjected to water stress for a total of 32 days. Several different lines of transgenic plants transformed with either Bcl-xL, Bcl-xL G138A, Ced-9 or Bcl-2 3’ UTR showed a delay in visual water stress symptoms compared with the wild-type control plants. These plants all began producing new growth from the pseudostem following daily rewatering for one month. In an attempt to determine whether the protective effect of anti-apoptosis genes in transgenic banana plants was linked with reactive oxygen species (ROS)-associated programmed cell death (PCD), the effect of the chloroplast-targeting, ROS-inducing herbicide, Paraquat, on wild-type and transgenic LF was investigated. When leaf discs from wild-type LF banana plants were exposed to 10 ìM Paraquat, complete decolourisation occurred after 48 hours which was confirmed to be associated with cell death and ROS production by trypan blue and 3,3-diaminobenzidine (DAB) staining, respectively. When leaf discs from the transgenic lines were exposed to Paraquat, those derived from some lines showed a delay in decolourisation, suggesting only a weak protective effect from the transgenes. Finally, the protective effect of anti-apoptosis genes against juglone, a ROS-inducing phytotoxin produced by the causal agent of black Sigatoka, Mycosphaerella fijiensis, was investigated. When leaf discs from wild-type LF banana plants were exposed to 25 ppm juglone, complete decolourisation occurred after 48 hours which was again confirmed to be associated with cell death and ROS production by trypan blue and DAB staining, respectively. Further, TdT-mediated dUTP nick-end labelling (TUNEL) assays on these discs suggested that the cell death was apoptotic. When leaf discs from the transgenic lines were exposed to juglone, discs from some lines showed a clear delay in decolourisation, suggesting a protective effect. Whether these plants are resistant to black Sigatoka is unknown and will require future glasshouse and field trials. The work presented in this thesis provides the first report of the use of anti-apoptosis genes as a strategy to confer resistance to Fusarium wilt and water stress in a nongraminaceous monocot, banana. Such a strategy may be exploited to generate resistance to necrotrophic pathogens and abiotic stresses in other economically important crop plants.

Public accountability : the perceived usefulness of School Annual reports

Annual reports are an important component of New Zealand schools’ public accountability. Through the annual report the governance body informs stakeholders about school aims, objectives, achievements, use of resources, and financial performance. We examine the perceived usefulness of the annual report in the discharge of public accountability. We find that 15% of the recipients (mainly parents/caregivers) do not read the annual report because they trust in the school to do the right thing or rely on others to monitor school activities. We find that the annual report is used for a variety of purposes including to determine if the school has conducted its activities effectively and achieved stated objectives and goals; to examine student achievements; to assess financial accountability and performance; and to make decisions about the school as a suitable environment for their child/children. We find that other forms of communication such as school newsletters, parent-teacher interviews, children and other parents are more important sources of information about the school than the annual report.