Internet banking acceptance in the context of developing countries

Although a regional leader, Internet banking in Saudi Arabia is yet to be properly utilised as a real value added tool to improve customer relationships and to achieve cost advantages...

Controlled study into the effectiveness of individual client-centred counselling for young offenders in residential care

This study is toe first documented account in the British Isles of an evaluation of the effectiveness of client-centred counselling with young offenders in secure residential care. It is a test of Rogers' (1957) position on the 'necessary and sufficient' conditions of therapeutic personality change within a counselling relationship. Forty teenage male offenders, the subjects of Training School Orders, were randomly allocated in equal numbers to either an experimental or control group. Boys in the experimental group received weekly individual sessions of client-centred counselling over a seven month period. Boys in the control group received no formal counselling but were shown to have similar intellectual, personality, socio-economic and criminal backgrounds to those in the experimental group. It was hypothesised that counselled subjects would show more positive outcomes than control subjects over a range of measures relating to criminal behaviour and self-conception. The results indicated that the counselled subjects had a significantly lower rate of offending and a srnaller range of offences over a mean follow-up period of 2.5 years. They were also licensed from the institution significantly earlier and spent less time in custody during a one year follow-up after counselling was completed. Self-conception measures gave less clear-cut results. The direction of change towards better adjustment favoured the counselled subjects but the magnitude was often small. Those counselled subjects with most positive behaviour change tended to have significantly improved self-evaluation, less self/ideal self discrepancy and more variation on 'actual' self concept compared to pre-counselling. The results are discussed in the context of client-centred theory, methodological adequacy of the experimental design, and their application to the future treatment of young offenders in secure residential care.

Questioning in simulated accountant-client consultations:exploring implications for ESP teaching

The field of accountancy plays a vital role in the financial health of modern-day economies. It also attracts very large numbers of students, many for whom English is not their first language, who train in a variety of undergraduate and postgraduate programs at English-medium universities. Yet, surprisingly, the discourse of accountants has been under-reported in the ESP literature (Burns & Moore, 2007a). This paper reports research investigating spoken accounting discourse derived from simulated accountant–client consultations. It draws on the work of Drew and Heritage (1992), in which questioning is identified as a key discursive feature in institutional talk, and also the more recent work reported in Heritage and Maynard (2006), in which the complexity of the formulation of questions and responses is revealed in doctor–patient consultations. The paper discusses the use of simulations in cases where access to actual workplace settings by ESP teachers is unattainable, as well as the usefulness of the interactional data these simulations generate. The paper reports a questioning typology, derived from the data, showing six typical question types found in advice-giving simulated encounters in accountant–client taxation-based consultations: information; clarification; client-specified; backchannel; discourse-related; and interpersonal. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of this research for ESP teaching.

Dynamic client portfolios as sources of ambidexterity:exploration and exploitation within and across client relationships

This paper explains how dynamic client portfolios can be a source of ambidexterity (i.e., exploration and exploitation) for knowledge-intensive firms (KIFs). Drawing from a unique qualitative dataset of firms in the global reinsurance market, we show how different types of client relationships underpin a dynamic client portfolio and become a source of ambidexterity for a KIF. We develop a process model to show how KIFs attain knowledge by segmenting their client portfolios, use that knowledge to explore and exploit within and across their client relationships, and dynamically adjust their client portfolios over time. Our study contributes to the literature on external sources of ambidexterity and dynamic management of client knowledge within KIFs.

An investigation into the acceptance of online banking in Saudi Arabia

Although a regional leader, Internet banking in Saudi Arabia is yet to be fully utilised as a value-adding tool to improve customer relationships and achieve cost advantages. The aim of this study was to identify the factors that encourage customers to adopt online banking in Saudi Arabia. The research constructs were developed based on the technology acceptance model (TAM) and incorporated some extra important control variables. The model was empirically verified to examine the factors influencing the online banking adoption behaviour of 400 customers. The findings of the study suggests that the quality of the Internet connection, the awareness of online banking and its benefits, the social influence and computer self-efficacy have significant effects on the perceived usefulness (PU) and perceived ease of use (PEOU) of online banking acceptance. Education, trust and resistance to change also have significant impact on the attitude towards the likelihood of adopting online banking. The implications of the findings are discussed and suggestions for future research are presented.

Role of community acceptance in sustainable bioenergy projects in India

Community acceptance has been identified as one of the key requirements for a sustainable bioenergy project. However less attention has been paid to this aspect from developing nations and small projects perspective. Therefore this research examines the role of community acceptance for sustainable small scale bioenergy projects in India. While addressing the aim, this work identifies influence of community over bioenergy projects, major concerns of communities regarding bioenergy projects and factors influencing perceptions of communities about bioenergy projects. The empirical research was carried out on four bioenergy companies in India as case studies. It has been identified that communities have significant influence over bioenergy projects in India. Local air pollution, inappropriate storage of by-products and credibility of developer are identified as some of the important concerns. Local energy needs, benefits to community from bioenergy companies, level of trust on company and relationship between company and the community are some of the prime factors which influence community's perception on bioenergy projects. This research sheds light on important aspects related to community acceptance of bioenergy projects, and this information would help practitioners in understanding the community perceptions and take appropriate actions to satisfy them. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd.

How to Use a Desktop Version of a DBMS for Client-Server Applications

DBMS (Data base management systems) still have a very high price for small and middle enterprises in Bulgaria. Desktop versions are free but they cannot function in multi-user environment. We will try to make an application server which will make a Desktop version of a DBMS open to many users. Thus, this approach will be appropriate for client-server applications. The author of the article gives a concise observation of the problem and a possible way of solution.