Use of social media to enable medical teams to work virtually (and better)

Refers to: Sophie Scott The researcher of the future…makes the most of social media The Lancet, Volume 381, Supplement 1, 27 February 2013, Pages S5-S6

Connecting social media to e-commerce:cold-start product recommendation using microblogging information

In recent years, the boundaries between e-commerce and social networking have become increasingly blurred. Many e-commerce websites support the mechanism of social login where users can sign on the websites using their social network identities such as their Facebook or Twitter accounts. Users can also post their newly purchased products on microblogs with links to the e-commerce product web pages. In this paper, we propose a novel solution for cross-site cold-start product recommendation, which aims to recommend products from e-commerce websites to users at social networking sites in 'cold-start' situations, a problem which has rarely been explored before. A major challenge is how to leverage knowledge extracted from social networking sites for cross-site cold-start product recommendation. We propose to use the linked users across social networking sites and e-commerce websites (users who have social networking accounts and have made purchases on e-commerce websites) as a bridge to map users' social networking features to another feature representation for product recommendation. In specific, we propose learning both users' and products' feature representations (called user embeddings and product embeddings, respectively) from data collected from e-commerce websites using recurrent neural networks and then apply a modified gradient boosting trees method to transform users' social networking features into user embeddings. We then develop a feature-based matrix factorization approach which can leverage the learnt user embeddings for cold-start product recommendation. Experimental results on a large dataset constructed from the largest Chinese microblogging service Sina Weibo and the largest Chinese B2C e-commerce website JingDong have shown the effectiveness of our proposed framework.

Chinese host country nationals' willingness to help expatriates:the role of social categorization

In this study, we examine Chinese host country nationals' (HCNs') willingness to offer role information and social support to expatriates from the United States. Using data from 132 Chinese managers, we find that ethnocentrism, interpersonal affect, and guanxi significantly impact HCNs' willingness to offer help to expatriates. Furthermore, we find that the job level of the expatriate has a significant impact on HCNs' willingness to offer role information but not on willingness to offer social support. The results suggest that paying attention to the perceptions and reactions of HCNs toward expatriates is imperative for multinational companies if expatriates are to succeed on their assignments. ©2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Chinese host country nationals' willingness to support expatriates:the role of collectivism, interpersonal affect and Guanxi

The willingness of host country nationals (HCNs) to provide support to the expatriate has received a lot of attention in the literature on international assignments. Surprisingly, though, the number of empirical studies examining this relationship is extremely limited. This study examines the role of HCNs' collectivistic orientation, interpersonal affect, and guanxi in relation to their willingness to support expatriates. Using data from 212 HCNs in China, it is found that HCNs' perceived relationship quality with the expatriate has a significant impact on their willingness to provide assistance, both role information and social support, to expatriates. Further, it is found that relationship quality is related to perceived cultural similarity. The results reinforce the importance of paying attention to the perceptions and reactions of HCNs towards expatriates. Implications of the findings are discussed, and suggestions are offered for future research.

Online social capital:understanding e-impulse buying in practice

Socially constructed marketing imageries (e.g. e-atmospherics) help consumers while making choices and decisions. Still, human and retailing technology interactions are rarely evaluated from a social practice perspective. This article explores the potential impact of socially constructed e-atmospherics on impulse buying. A framework with three interrelated factors, namely social acoustic, co-construction and mundane language enactment is analysed. The way these allow for e-social norms to organically emerge is elaborated through a set of propositions. Retailing implications are subsequently discussed.

Efficiency improvements to the Groupe Special Mobile (GSM) digital mobile radio system

Groupe Spécial Mobile (GSM) has been developed as the pan-European second generation of digital mobile systems. GSM operates in the 900 MHz frequency band and employs digital technology instead of the analogue technology of its predecessors. Digital technology enables the GSM system to operate in much smaller zones in comparison with the analogue systems. The GSM system will offer greater roaming facilities to its subscribers, extended throughout the countries that have installed the system. The GSM system could be seen as a further enhancement to European integration. GSM has adopted a contention-based protocol for multipoint-to-point transmission. In particular, the slotted-ALOHA medium access protocol is used to coordinate the transmission of the channel request messages between the scattered mobile stations. Collision still happens when more than one mobile station having the same random reference number attempts to transmit on the same time-slot. In this research, a modified version of this protocol has been developed in order to reduce the number of collisions and hence increase the random access channel throughput compared to the existing protocol. The performance evaluation of the protocol has been carried out using simulation methods. Due to the growing demand for mobile radio telephony as well as for data services, optimal usage of the scarce availability radio spectrum is becoming increasingly important. In this research, a protocol has been developed whereby the number of transmitted information packets over the GSM system is increased without any additional increase of the allocated radio spectrum. Simulation results are presented to show the improvements achieved by the proposed protocol. Cellular mobile radio networks commonly respond to an increase in the service demand by using smaller coverage areas. As a result, the volume of the signalling exchanges increases. In this research, a proposal for interconnecting the various entitles of the mobile radio network over the future broadband networks based on the IEEE 802.6 Metropolitan Area Network (MAN) is outlined. Simulation results are presented to show the benefits achieved by interconnecting these entities over the broadband Networks.

A configuration framework of manufacturing strategy paradigm in state owned enterprises within China's petrochemical industry:building context-embedded configurations for the paradigm of strategic manufacturing management from exploratory case studies

The role of the production system as a key determinant of competitive performance of business operations- has long been the subject of industrial organization research, even predating the .explicit conceptua1isation of manufacturing, strategy in the literature. Particular emergent production issues such as the globalisation of production, global supply chain management, management of integrated manufacturing and a growing e~busjness environment are expected to critically influence the overall competitive performance and therefore the strategic success of the organization. More than ever, there is a critical need to configure and improve production system and operations competence in a strategic way so as to contribute to the long-term competitiveness of the organization. In order to operate competitively and profitably, manufacturing companies, no matter how well managed, all need a long-term 'strategic direction' for the development of operations competence in order to consistently produce more market value with less cost towards a leadership position. As to the long-term competitiveness, it is more important to establish a dynamic 'strategic perspective' for continuous operational improvements in pursuit of this direction, as well as ongoing reviews of the direction in relation to the overall operating context. However, it also clear that the 'existing paradigm of manufacturing strategy development' is incapable of adequately responding to the increasing complexities and variations of contemporary business operations. This has been factually reflected as many manufacturing companies are finding that methodologies advocated in the existing paradigm for developing manufacturing strategy have very limited scale and scope for contextual contingency in empirical application. More importantly, there has also emerged a deficiency in the multidimensional and integrative profile from a theoretical perspective when operationalising the underlying concept of strategic manufacturing management established in the literature. The point of departure for this study was a recognition of such contextual and unitary limitations in the existing paradigm of manufacturing strategy development when applied to contemporary industrial organizations in general, and Chinese State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) in particular. As China gradually becomes integrated into the world economy, the relevance of Western management theory and its paradigm becomes a practical matter as much as a theoretical issue. Since China markedly differs from Western countries in terms of culture, society, and political and economic systems, it presents promising grounds to test and refine existing management theories and paradigms with greater contextual contingency and wider theoretical perspective. Under China's ongoing programmes of SOE reform, there has been an increased recognition that strategy development is the very essence of the management task for managers of manufacturing companies in the same way as it is for their counterparts in Western economies. However, the Western paradigm often displays a rather naive and unitary perspective of the nature of strategic management decision-making, one which largely overlooks context-embedded factors and social/political influences on the development of manufacturing strategy. This thesis studies the successful experiences of developing manufacturing strategy from five high-performing large-scale SOEs within China’s petrochemical industry. China’s petrochemical industry constitutes a basic heavy industrial sector, which has always been a strategic focus for reform and development by the Chinese government. Using a confirmation approach, the study has focused on exploring and conceptualising the empirical paradigm of manufacturing strategy development practiced by management. That is examining the ‘empirical specifics’ and surfacing the ‘managerial perceptions’ of content configuration, context of consideration, and process organization for developing a manufacturing strategy during the practice. The research investigation adopts a qualitative exploratory case study methodology with a semi-structural front-end research design. Data collection follows a longitudinal and multiple-case design and triangulates case evidence from sources including qualitative interviews, direct observation, and a search of documentations and archival records. Data analysis follows an investigative progression from a within-case preliminary interpretation of facts to a cross-case search for patterns through theoretical comparison and analytical generalization. The underlying conceptions in both the literature of manufacturing strategy and related studies in business strategy were used to develop theoretical framework and analytical templates applied during data collection and analysis. The thesis makes both empirical and theoretical contributions to our understanding of 'contemporary management paradigm of manufacturing strategy development'. First, it provides a valuable contextual contingency of the 'subject' using the business setting of China's SOEs in petrochemical industry. This has been unpacked into empirical configurations developed for its context of consideration, its content and process respectively. Of special note, a lean paradigm of business operations and production management discovered at case companies has significant implications as an emerging alternative for high-volume capital intensive state manufacturing in China. Second, it provides a multidimensional and integrative theoretical profile of the 'subject' based upon managerial perspectives conceptualised at case companies when operationalising manufacturing strategy. This has been unpacked into conceptual frameworks developed for its context of consideration, its content constructs, and its process patterns respectively. Notably, a synergies perspective towards the operating context, competitive priorities and competence development of business operations and production management has significant implications for implementing a lean manufacturing paradigm. As a whole, in so doing, the thesis established a theoretical platform for future refinement and development of context-specific methodologies for developing manufacturing strategy.

Pupil resistance to their schooling experience

The thesis explores the nature of pupil resistance; it investigates what constitutes it and how it can be explained. Various ethnic and national group, male and female working-class resistance if analysed in two secondary schools in Birmingham (England) and one school in Sydney (Australia). It focuses on the pupils’ experience of school. ‘Compressed ethnographies’ (Walford and Miller, 1991) were conducted in each school to examine pupil resistance. The research found that structural societal state factors, regional, community and formal, informal and physical characteristics of each school, together with the teachers and pupils characteristics and background all influence resistance. The class, gender, ethnic and national identity of each pupil shapes resistance. In all three schools that were involved with the research, girls were more likely to exhibit overt, collective forms of resistance, whereas lads were more likely to operate alone. Islander pupils in Sydney and African-Caribbean kids in Birmingham were more likely to display engaged forms of resistance. Girls tended to show more engaged forms compared to their male counterparts across all ethnic and national cultures. Resistance is complex and dynamic, the definition alters depending upon context. Dimensions of resistance are developed; including overt, covert; individual, collective; intentional, unintentional; engaged and detached forms. Resistance operates within a structure and agency framework, the pupils can shape their own schooling experience mediated within the structures of their school, community and society. Some pupils manage their resources and the structures better than others; how the pupil manages and operates within the structures influences their resistance response. Resistance is contradictory and can reinforce the status quo. To fully understand resistance, it must be contextualised.

Cost-based pricing in the NHS internal market : accounting choices and the achievement of economic efficiency

Since 1988, quasi-markets have been introduced into many areas of social policy in the UK, the NHS internal market is one example. Markets operate by price signals. The NHS Internal Market, if it is to operate efficiently, requires purchasers and providers to respond to price signals. The research hypothesis is - cost accounting methods can be developed to enable healthcare contracts to be priced on a cost-basis in a manner which will facilitate the achievement of economic efficiency in the NHS internal market. Surveys of hospitals in 1991 and 1994 established the cost methods adopted in deriving the prices for healthcare contracts in the first year of the market and three years on. An in-depth view of the costing for pricing process was gained through case studies. Hospitals had inadequate cost information on which to price healthcare contracts at the inception of the internal market: prices did not reflect the relative performance of healthcare providers sufficiently closely to enable the market's espoused efficiency aims to be achieved. Price variations were often due to differing costing approaches rather than efficiency. Furthermore, price comparisons were often meaningless because of inadequate definition of the services (products). In April 1993, the NHS Executive issued guidance on costing for contracting to all NHS providers in an attempt to improve the validity of price comparisons between alternative providers. The case studies and the 1994 survey show that although price comparison has improved, considerable problems remain. Consistency is not assured, and the problem of adequate product definition is still to be solved. Moreover, the case studies clearly highlight the mismatch of rigid, full-cost pricing rules with both the financial management considerations at local level and the emerging internal market(s). Incentives exist to cost-shift, and healthcare prices can easily be manipulated. In the search for a new health policy paradigm to replace traditional bureaucratic provision, cost-based pricing cannot be used to ensure a more efficient allocation of healthcare resources.

Pricing-to-market for UK export sector

This thesis investigates the pricing-to-market (PTM) behaviour of the UK export sector. Unlike previous studies, this study econometrically tests for seasonal unit roots in the export prices prior to estimating PTM behaviour. Prior studies have seasonally adjusted the data automatically. This study’s results show that monthly export prices contain very little seasonal unit roots implying that there is a loss of information in the data generating process of the series when estimating PTM using seasonally-adjusted data. Prior studies have also ignored the econometric properties of the data despite the existence of ARCH effects in such data. The standard approach has been to estimate PTM models using Ordinary Least Square (OLS). For this reason, both EGARCH and GJR-EGARCH (hereafter GJR) estimation methods are used to estimate both a standard and an Error Correction model (ECM) of PTM. The results indicate that PTM behaviour varies across UK sectors. The variables used in the PTM models are co-integrated and an ECM is a valid representation of pricing behaviour. The study also finds that the price adjustment is slower when the analysis is performed on real prices, i.e., data that are adjusted for inflation. There is strong evidence of auto-regressive condition heteroscedasticity (ARCH) effects – meaning that the PTM parameter estimates of prior studies have been ineffectively estimated. Surprisingly, there is very little evidence of asymmetry. This suggests that exporters appear to PTM at a relatively constant rate. This finding might also explain the failure of prior studies to find evidence of asymmetric exposure in foreign exchange (FX) rates. This study also provides a cross sectional analysis to explain the implications of the observed PTM of producers’ marginal cost, market share and product differentiation. The cross-sectional regressions are estimated using OLS, Generalised Method of Moment (GMM) and Logit estimations. Overall, the results suggest that market share affects PTM positively.Exporters with smaller market share are more likely to operate PTM. Alternatively, product differentiation is negatively associated with PTM. So industries with highly differentiated products are less likely to adjust their prices. However, marginal costs seem not to be significantly associated with PTM. Exporters perform PTM to limit the FX rate effect pass-through to their foreign customers, but they also avoided exploiting PTM to the full, since to do so can substantially reduce their profits.

Using the theory of planned behaviour to understand binge drinking:the importance of beliefs for developing interventions

Objectives. To elicit students' salient beliefs in relation to binge drinking, and to examine the extent to which individual salient beliefs predict theory of planned behaviour (TPB) constructs in relation to binge drink, and actual drinking behaviour assessed later that evening. Design. Longitudinal, over a single evening. Methods. 192 students were recruited as they entered a campus bar at the beginning of the evening. They completed questionnaires with open-ended questions eliciting beliefs concerning binge drinking, and ratings scales assessing standard TPB constructs in relation to binge drinking. At the end of the evening, 181 completed a second questionnaire and recorded the number of alcoholic drinks they had consumed. Results. Beliefs were reliably coded (all kappas =0.79). Students with higher intentions to binge drink were more likely to believe that their friends approved of binge drinking, and that (lack of) money would make it difficult. Students who reported drinking more alcohol at the end of the evening were more likely to believe that getting drunk is an advantage/what they would like about binge drinking tonight, that their sports teams would approve, and that celebrating, drinking patterns, and environment would make it easy to binge drink. Conclusions. The present study has identified the individually salient beliefs relating to drinking behaviour that the TPB states should be addressed by interventions to alter behaviour, and which that should be assessed as mediators in intervention research. As a whole, these findings highlight the importance of perceived peer norms in binge drinking in this population, and support the idea of interventions to challenge the perception of social pressure to binge drink. ©2011 The British Psychological Society.

Rationality as a barrier to peace:micro-evidence from Kosovo

Despite a significant expansion of the literature on conflicts and fragility of states, only a few systematic attempts have been made to link the theoretical literature on social conflicts to the available micro-level information about the people who are involved in these conflicts. We address this lacuna in the literature using a household-level data set from Kosovo. Our analysis suggests that it is individually rational for competing ethnic communities, Kosovar Albanians and Kosovar Serbs, to resist a quick agreement on a social contract to share the region's resources.

Local economic development initiatives and the transition from training and enterprise councils to new institutional structures in England

Current British government economic development policy emphasises regional and sub-regional scale, multi-agent initiatives that form part of national frameworks to encourage a 'bottom up' approach to economic development. An emphasis on local multi-agent initiatives was also the mission of Training and Enterprise Councils (TECs). Using new survey evidence this article tracks the progress of a number of initiatives established under the TECs, using the TEC Discretionary Fund as an example. It assesses the ability of successor bodies to be more effective in promoting local economic development. Survey evidence is used to confirm that many projects previously set up by the TECs continue to operate successfully under new partnership arrangements. However as new structures have developed, and policy has become more centralized, it is less likely that similar local initiatives will be developed in future. There is evidence to suggest that with the end of the TECs a gap has emerged in the institutional infrastructure for local economic development, particularly with regard to workforce development. Much will depend in future on how the Regional Development Agencies deploy their growing power and resources.

Combining an enterprise resource planning system and informality:a study of efficiency and flexibility complmentarity [sic]

DUE TO COPYRIGHT RESTRICTIONS ONLY AVAILABLE FOR CONSULTATION AT ASTON UNIVERSITY LIBRARY AND INFORMATION SERVICES WITH PRIOR ARRANGEMENT One of the current research trends in Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) involves examining the critical factors for its successful implementation. However, such research is limited to system implementation, not focusing on the flexibility of ERP to respond to changes in business. Therefore, this study explores a combination system, made up of an ERP and informality, intended to provide organisations with efficient and flexible performance simultaneously. In addition, this research analyses the benefits and challenges of using the system. The research was based on socio-technical system (STS) theory which contains two dimensions: 1) a technical dimension which evaluates the performance of the system; and 2) a social dimension which examines the impact of the system on an organisation. A mixed method approach has been followed in this research. The qualitative part aims to understand the constraints of using a single ERP system, and to define a new system corresponding to these problems. To achieve this goal, four Chinese companies operating in different industries were studied, all of which faced challenges in using an ERP system due to complexity and uncertainty in their business environments. The quantitative part contains a discrete-event simulation study that is intended to examine the impact of operational performance when a company implements the hybrid system in a real-life situation. Moreover, this research conducts a further qualitative case study, the better to understand the influence of the system in an organisation. The empirical aspect of the study reveals that an ERP with pre-determined business activities cannot react promptly to unanticipated changes in a business. Incorporating informality into an ERP can react to different situations by using different procedures that are based on the practical knowledge of frontline employees. Furthermore, the simulation study shows that the combination system can achieve a balance between efficiency and flexibility. Unlike existing research, which emphasises a continuous improvement in the IT functions of an enterprise system, this research contributes to providing a definition of a new system in theory, which has mixed performance and contains both the formal practices embedded in an ERP and informal activities based on human knowledge. It supports both cost-efficiency in executing business transactions and flexibility in coping with business uncertainty.This research also indicates risks of using the system, such as using an ERP with limited functions; a high cost for performing informally; and a low system acceptance, owing to a shift in organisational culture. With respect to practical contribution, this research suggests that companies can choose the most suitable enterprise system approach in accordance with their operational strategies. The combination system can be implemented in a company that needs to operate a medium amount of volume and variety. By contrast, the traditional ERP system is better suited in a company that operates a high-level volume market, while an informal system is more suitable for a firm with a requirement for a high level of variety.