Adaptation and change in organizational learning research

To understand the role of organizational learning in the organization’s endeavor to overcome challenges, organizational learning research need to be spread out to the field of adaptation and change. This paper is the first part of a bigger empirical research, a literature review that examines the link between these topics and search for gaps in prior literature. However, these phenomena are closely related in the prior literature, the thinking about organizational learning is rather idealistic than reflective and there are still research gaps regarding the following questions: (1) Is there a need to examine internal organizational challenges from the organizational learning perspective? (2) How can the earlier organizational adaptation be characterized using the constructs of organizational learning? (3) Is the earlier adaptation process or organizational learning process always good and useful for the organization? Based on reviewing prior literature the author formulated an own organizational learning definition and identified future research directions in order to fill these gaps.

Hospitality Research: How to Plan, Fund, Execute, and Publish

Researchers interested in exploring topics of concern to the hospitality industry can discover a wide range of areas to be explored and a variety of sources to fund the research. The authors discuss a four-step plan for conducting and publishing quality research, including tips for the writing process.

Factors Impacting Grandparent and Grand Child Communication Across Sex- Related Topics in Kenya

Background: Although many studies have investigated sexual communication between parents and children in Kenya, none have focused singularly on grandparent and grandchild communication when grandparents are primary caregivers. Further, few studies have asked about specific topics related to sex, instead asking generally about “sex related topics” or focusing on HIV/AIDS. This research aims to investigate communication on ten specific sex- related topics between grandparents who are primary caregivers and their grandchildren. The primary research aim was to identify facilitators and barriers to grandparent-grandchild communication associated with frequency of communication. A secondary exploratory question was whether frequency of communication and youth satisfaction with communication were associated with youth’s desire for more communication in the future. Methods: The study was conducted in urban and peri-urban central Kenya. A convenience sample of 193 grandparents and 166 twelve to fifteen year old grandchildren were identified by community health workers. A cross sectional survey assessed nine potential barriers or facilitators to communication (e.g., frequency of communication, perceived grandparent knowledge, grandparent sense of responsibility to communication on a given topic) on ten specified sex- related topics (e.g., peer pressure on sex topics, romantic relationships, condoms). Bivariate and multivariable analyses identified significant associations between communication variables and the outcomes of interest. Results: Bivariate regression showed that higher grandchild age, grandchild gender, higher perceived grandparent knowledge, higher perceived grandparent comfort, higher grandparent-reported sense of responsibility, higher grandparent-reported belief that child should be aware of a given topic before initiating in sex, and higher youth’s own comfort during communication, were significantly associated with higher levels of communication frequency. In the multivariable model, higher grandchild age, gender, higher comfort during communication, and higher perceived grandparent knowledge remained significantly associated with higher levels communication frequency. For the secondary research question, higher communication frequency and higher levels of youth satisfaction were both significantly associated with higher levels of youth desire for more communication in bivariate regression, and higher levels of youth’s satisfaction with communication remained significantly associated with higher levels of youth’s desire for more in the adjusted analysis. Conclusions: This study found that several potential barriers and facilitators of communication are associated with both frequency of and youth’s desire for more communication. The association between grandchild age, gender and perceived grandparent knowledge and frequency of communication is similar to findings from other studies that have examined sex-related communication between parent primary caregivers and children. This finding has important implications for understanding grandparent and grandchild communication, and communication on specific topics in a population from Kenya. The positive association between youth satisfaction of and desire for more communication has important education policy and intervention implications, suggesting that if youth are satisfied with the communication with their caregivers, they may want to learn more.

Almetrics: measuring the influence of the media on the social impact of research

Social media is changing the way we interact, present ideas and information and judge the quality of content and contributions. In recent years there have been hundreds of platforms to freely share all kinds of information and connect across networks. These new tools generate activity statistics and interactions among users such as mentions, retweets, conversations, comments on blogs or Facebook; managers references showing popularity ratings of more references shared by other researchers or repositories that generate statistics of visits or downloads of articles. This paper analyzes that have meaning and implications altmetrics, what are its advantages and critical platforms (Almetric.com, ImpactStory, Plos altmetrics, PlumX), reports progress and benefits for authors, publishers and librarians. It concluded that the value of alternative metrics as a complementary tool citation analysis is evident, although it is suggested that you should dig deeper into this issue to unravel the meaning and the potential value of these indicators to assess their potential.

Qualitative Comparative Analysis as a Tool for Concept Clarification, Typology Building, and Contextualized Comparisons in Gender and Feminist Research

Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) is a method for the systematic analysis of cases. A holistic view of cases and an approach to causality emphasizing complexity are some of its core features. Over the last decades, QCA has found application in many fields of the social sciences. In spite of this, its use in feminist research has been slower, and only recently QCA has been applied to topics related to social care, the political representation of women, and reproductive politics. In spite of the comparative turn in feminist studies, researchers still privilege qualitative methods, in particular case studies, and are often skeptical of quantitative techniques (Spierings 2012). These studies show that the meaning and measurement of many gender concepts differ across countries and that the factors leading to feminist success and failure are context specific. However, case study analyses struggle to systematically account for the ways in which these forces operate in different locations.

What is narrative research? Starting out

Narrative research has become a very popular field in contemporary social sciences. It promises new fields of inquiry, creative solutions to persistent problems, a way to establish links with other disciplines such as cultural and literary studies, enhanced possibilities of applying research to policy and practice, and a fresh take on the politics of social research (see for instance Andrews et al., 2013 [ 2008]; Andrews et al., 2004 [2000]; Andrews, Squire and Tamboukou,, 2004; Elliott, 2005; Emerson and Frosh, 2004; Freeman, 2009a; Herman, 2009; Hyvarinen et al., 2010; Lieblich et al., 2004; Patterson, 2002; Riessman, 2008; Trahar, 2009; Wells, 2011). This book aims to introduce you, step by step and with contemporary examples, to narrative research in the social sciences. It will give you an overview of a range of narrative methods, and it will situate narrative research in relation to other social science methods. It will show you what narrative research offers, as well as its difficulties. It will do this by drawing on work from a variety of disciplines, in theoretical and applied fields, across diverse topics, from health and the internet, to politics and sexualities, and in a number of different national contexts.

Topics in Behavioural Economics - Information and Fairness. Revised edition

This thesis dwells upon topics in behavioural economics: information and fairness, with five research papers. The first two contributions are concerned with the extension of standard auction formats with information acquisition strategies. The third paper addresses global games framed as a speculative attack and tests theoretical predictions for risk and ambiguity. The fourth contribution deals with disclosing conflicts of interest, where one player has a monetary incentive to deceive. The last paper extends a standard model of social preferences with a second fairness dimension and studies how economic agents distort fairness norms exhibiting a self-serving bias effect.

Research study for an entrepreneurship practical guide

This thesis is a research study, which is aimed to be published later, in the form of a practical guide for those who have an idea and plan to go one step forward on the creation of a brand and/or a business. The main questions addressed are regarding the main concerns of an entrepreneur, identifiying the main topics that an entrepreneur's practical guide must approach. This work aims to provide relevant and important insights for those who want to start a business, taking in consideration some best practices, advises from entrepreneurs that have already started their own businesses and shared their experience. It means to provide a strong contribution to the Portuguese ecosystem, more specifically, startups, small companies, projects or ideas at seed or startup stage, brands, clubs, and every initiative which is starting from nothing, or almost nothing. Apart from books and online researches, primary information and testimonials were collected through an online survey, from a target audience of entrepreneurs, leading to the main findings of this study. The conclusion of this thesis is the gross index of the future startuper's practical guide, which will be divided in 4 different stages: Preparation, Implementation, Leverage and Closure.

Everything Appeared (Todo parecia): Contemporary Cuban Poetry on Gay and Lesbian Topics

This flyer promotes a book presentation of the book " Everything Appeared (Todo parecia) : Contemporary Cuban Poetry on Gay and Lesbian Topics" by Coeditor Jesus J. Barquet. The edited volume offers a variety of authors from the 20th Century to the present. The event will be held in Spanish on November 2, 2015 at Books & Books Coral Gables.

Cross-country report:a first cross-country analysis and profiling of social enterprises prepared by the SEFORÏS research consortium

This cross-country report shares first insights from the World's Largest Panel Study of Social Enterprises, which covers seven European Countries (Germany, Hungary, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom), China and Russia. It captures the behavior and characteristics of representative samples of social enterprises in these countries who are employers. The report covers a range of topics from profiling social enterprise directors and their social enterprises, to innovation activities and barriers, their entrepreneurial orientation, social missions, social impact metrics to summarizing policy recommendations that social entrepreneurs would like to see being implemented in their countries. Who should read this report? The report is written for social enterprises, social enterprises support organisations and policy makers who want to get an overview of social enterprise in the UK. Thank you to all the social entrepreneurs who made this report possible by participating in our study!

Living Landscape: The European Landscape Convention in Research Perspective

This special issue reports some of the highlights of the conference Living Landscape – The European Landscape Convention in Research Perspective, organised jointly by UNISCAPE and Landscape Europe (UNISCAPE, 2010). Starting questions for this conference were: what has science contributed to the implementation of the European Landscape Convention (CoE, 2000) and what are the topics for the future of European landscape? The 10th anniversary of the Florence Convention in October 2010 was an opportunity to discuss the merits of landscape science in integrated research of a rapidly changing environment. Many interdisciplinary contributions presented referred to the Landscape Convention. The conference focused on cutting-edge research results at the crossroads of sciences and humanities, design and empiricism. Not by chance, the conference was also the occasion to launch a new ESF-COST Science-Policy Briefing on Landscape Research (Bloemers, Daniels, Fairclough, Pedroli, & Stiles, 2010 Bloemers, T., Daniels, S., Fairclough, G., Pedroli, B., & Stiles, R. (Eds.) (2010) Landscape in a changing world. Bridging Divides, integrating disciplines, serving society. Science Policy Briefing nr 41. Strasbourg and Brussels: ESF-COST. ): ‘Landscape in a Changing World – Bridging Divides, Integrating Disciplines, Serving Society’. It emphasises the importance of four interdisciplinary themes: Universal commons: securing landscape as a common good. Roots and routes: coming to terms with mobility and evolving lifestyles. Reactions and resilience: long-term landscape transformations. Road maps: landscape as baseline and context for future change. The papers in this special issue largely reflect these themes.