E-business adoption in Saudi Arabian private sector

Despite the proliferation of e-business adoption by organisations and the world-wide growth of the e-business phenomenon, there is a paucity of empirical studies that examine the adoption of e-business in the Middle East. The aim of our study is to provide insights into the salient e-business adoption issues by focusing on Saudi Arabian businesses. We developed a conceptual model for electronic business (e-business) adoption incorporating nine factors. Survey data from 550 businesses were used to test the model and hypotheses. The findings of the study suggest that firm's technological readiness, top management Support, technology orientation, consumer readiness, trading partner readiness and regulatory support are important facilitators of e-business adoption. In addition, the study finds that, competitive pressure and organisational customer and competitor orientation is not a predictor for e-business adoption. The implications of the findings are discussed and suggestions for future inquiry are presented.

The core critical success factors in implementation of enterprise resource planning systems

The Implementation of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems require huge investments while ineffective implementations of such projects are commonly observed. A considerable number of these projects have been reported to fail or take longer than it was initially planned, while previous studies show that the aim of rapid implementation of such projects has not been successful and the failure of the fundamental goals in these projects have imposed huge amounts of costs on investors. Some of the major consequences are the reduction in demand for such products and the introduction of further skepticism to the managers and investors of ERP systems. In this regard, it is important to understand the factors determining success or failure of ERP implementation. The aim of this paper is to study the critical success factors (CSFs) in implementing ERP systems and to develop a conceptual model which can serve as a basis for ERP project managers. These critical success factors that are called “core critical success factors” are extracted from 62 published papers using the content analysis and the entropy method. The proposed conceptual model has been verified in the context of five multinational companies.

Intuition in strategic decision making:implications for strategic decision effectiveness

Intuition can produce effective strategic decisions because of its speed and ability to solve less-structured problems. Despite this, there are only a very small number of empirical studies that have examined intuition in the strategic decision-making process. We examine the relationship between the use of intuition in the strategic decision-making process, and strategic decision effectiveness. We propose that the expertise of the decision-maker, environmental dynamism and the characteristics of the strategic decision itself moderate the relationship between the use of intuition in the strategic decision making process, and strategic decision effectiveness. We make a significant theoretical contribution by integrating the management and social-psychology literatures in order to identify the variables that affect the relationship between the use of intuition in the strategic decision-making process, and strategic decision effectiveness. This article builds upon existing empirical research that has examined intuition in the strategic decision-making process, and reconciles some of the confounding results that have emerged. The paper presents a conceptual model and research propositions, which if empirically examined, would make a significant contribution to knowledge in the strategic decision-making domain of literature.

Tracing social influence in responses to strategy change in an online community

Interest into the effects of social influence on members of online communities is growing but there is a lack of knowledge about the impact of influential members in online communities on responses to strategy change within the wider community. We explore social influence in responses to strategy change through content analysis of forum posts before and after a change in strategy. Acceptance or non-acceptance of strategy change and subsequent positive and negative behavioural responses online are dependent on individual factors. The details of these behavioural responses to a change in strategy are tabulated and included in a conceptual model to inform decision-makers. Strategy change precipitates a reduction in social influence effects. Non-acceptance of strategy change is associated with competitor advertisement, inflammatory behaviour, offensive behaviour and complaints. This negative behaviour has important ramifications for acceptance of strategy change within the wider community and impacts on the viability of setting up online forums. © 2014 © 2014 Taylor & Francis.

Putting policy initiatives into practice:adopting an “honest broker” approach to adapting small businesses against flooding

Purpose: Amidst the current economic climate, which places many constraints on expensive flood defence schemes, the policy makers tend to favour schemes that are sympathetic to the needs of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and which promote empowering local communities based on their individual local contexts. Research has shown that although several initiatives are in place to create behavioural change among SMEs in undertaking adaptation approaches against flooding, they often tend to delay their responses by means of a "wait and see" attitude. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach: This paper argues that unless there are conscious efforts in the policy-making community to undertake explicit measures to engage with SMEs in a collaborative way, the uptake of adaptation measures will not be achieved as intended. With the use of the "honest broker" approach the paper provides a conceptual way forward of how a sense of collaboration can be instigated in an engagement process between the policy makers and SMEs, so that the scientific knowledge is translated in an appropriately rational way, which best meets the expectations of the SMEs. Findings: The paper proposes a conceptual model for engaging SMEs that will potentially increase the uptake of flood adaptation measures by SMEs. This could be a useful model with which to kick start a collaborative engagement process that could escalate to wider participation in other areas to improve impact of policy initiatives. Originality/value: The paper lays the conceptual foundation for a new theoretical base in the area, which will encourage more empirical investigations that will potentially enhance the practicality of some of the existing policies. © Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

The forgotten brand personality dimension

Aaker's (1997) brand personality framework has become influential across many streams of brand personality research, but it fails to capture an important dimension that reflects consumer's anxious feelings towards brands. Consumers are increasingly evaluating brands through expressions of negative emotive language. For example, the BP oil spillage in the Gulf of Mexico stimulated negative emotions among consumers. This paper is the first to thoroughly incorporate a brand personality dimension reflective of consumer anxious tense and frustrated feelings towards brands. From the extant literature we propose and define negative brand personality. Four adjacent studies were conducted to explore, purify and refine in what form negative brand personality traits exist among consumers. This paper concludes with a conceptual model detailing the antecedent constructs to negative brand personality and behavioral consequences. © 2012.

Towards Useful Overall Network Teletraffic Definitions

A detailed conceptual and a corresponding analytical traffic models of an overall (virtual) circuit switching telecommunication system are used. The models are relatively close to real-life communication systems with homogeneous terminals. In addition to Normalized and Pie-Models Ensue Model and Denial Traffic concept are proposed, as a parts of a technique for presentation and analysis of overall network traffic models functional structure; The ITU-T definitions for: fully routed, successful and effective attempts, and effective traffic are re-formulated. Definitions for fully routed traffic and successful traffic are proposed, because they are absent in the ITU-T recommendations; A definition of demand traffic (absent in ITU-T Recommendations) is proposed. For each definition are appointed: 1) the correspondent part of the conceptual model graphical presentation; 2) analytical equations, valid for mean values, in a stationary state. This allows real network traffic considered to be classified more precisely and shortly. The proposed definitions are applicable for every telecommunication system.

The antecedents and consequences of anticipatory identification

The aim of this thesis was to investigate anticipatory identification: newcomers’ identification with an organisation prior to entry; in particular by exploring the antecedents and consequences of the construct. Although organisational identification has been frequently investigated over the past 25 years, surprisingly little is known about what causes an individual to identify with a new organisation before entry and whether this has an impact on their relationship with the organisation after formally taking up membership. Drawing on a Social Identity approach to organisational identification, it was hypothesised that newcomers would more closely identify with an organisation prior to entry when the organisation was seen as a source of positive social identity and was situationally relevant and meaningful to the newcomer, i.e. salient, during the pre-entry period. It was also hypothesised that anticipatory identification would have post-entry consequences and would predict newcomers’ post-entry identification, turnover intentions and job satisfaction. An indirect relationship between anticipatory identification and post-entry identification through post-entry social identity judgements (termed a “feedback loop” mechanism) was additionally proposed. Finally anticipatory identification was also predicted to moderate the relationship between post-entry social identity judgements and post-entry identification (termed a “buffering” mechanism). Four studies were conducted to test these hypotheses. Study One served as a pilot study, using a retrospective self-report design with s sample of 124 university students to initially test the proposed conceptual model. Studies Two and Three adopted experimental designs. Each used a unique sample of 72 staff and students from Aston University to respectively test the hypothesised positive social identity motive and salience antecedents of anticipatory identification. Study Four explored the relationship between anticipatory identification, its antecedents and consequences longitudinally, using an organisational sample of 45 employees. Overall, these studies found support for a social identity motive antecedent of anticipatory identification, as well as more limited evidence that anticipatory identification was associated with the salience of an organisation prior to entry. Support was inconsistent for a direct relationship between anticipatory identification and post-entry identification and there was no evidence that anticipatory identification was a significant direct predictor of turnover intention and job satisfaction. Anticipatory identification was however found to act as a buffer in the relationship between post-entry social identity judgements and post-entry identification in all but one of the four samples measured. A feedback loop mechanism was observed within the experimental designs of Studies Two and Three, but not within the organisational samples of Studies One and Four. Overall the findings of these four studies highlight key ways through which anticipatory identification can develop prior to entry into an organisation. Moreover, the research observed several important post-entry consequences of anticipatory identification, indicating that an understanding of post-entry identification may be enriched by attending more closely to the extent to which newcomers identify with an organisation prior to entry.

Structural Analysis of Contours as the Sequences of the Digital Straight Segments and of the Digital Curve Arcs

Recognition of the object contours in the image as sequences of digital straight segments and/or digital curve arcs is considered in this article. The definitions of digital straight segments and of digital curve arcs are proposed. The methods and programs to recognize the object contours are represented. The algorithm to recognize the digital straight segments is formulated in terms of the growing pyramidal networks taking into account the conceptual model of memory and identification (Rabinovich [4]).

Supply chain management resources, capabilities and execution

This paper identifies inter- and intra-organisational management resources that determine the level of execution of inter-firm alliance supply chain management (SCM). By drawing on network and resource-based view theories, a conceptual model proposes the effects of SCM resources and capabilities as influencing factors on SCM execution. The model was tested using survey data from studies conducted in two European supply chain environments. Variance-based structural equation modelling confirmed the hypothesised hierarchical order of three proposed antecedents: internal SCM resources affect joint SCM resources, which in turn influence collaborative SCM-related processes and finally SCM execution. An importance-performance analysis for both settings shows that providing and investing in internal SCM resources should be a priority when aiming to increase SCM execution. The theoretical contribution of this paper lies in confirming that the improvement of SCM execution follows a clear pathway featuring internal supply chain resources as one of the main drivers. The practical implications of this research include the development of a prioritisation list of measures that elevate SCM execution in the two country settings. © 2014 © 2014 Taylor & Francis.

The influence of organizational and national culture on new product performance

The authors conduct a meta-analysis on the combined influence of organizational and national culture on new product performance. For this purpose, they refer to the effectiveness of value congruency and develop a conceptual model describing the fit between organizational culture types as suggested by the competing values framework and national culture, as described by Hofstede's cultural dimensions. The meta-analysis is based on 489 effect sizes taken from 123 manuscripts. The findings show that organizations with a market culture show the highest new product performance, while hierarchy-type organizations show the lowest performance. The influence of national culture variables supports the effect of value congruency, and shows that in individualistic cultures the impact of a clan culture decreases, the impact of an adhocracy culture type decreases with uncertainty avoidance, and the influence of a hierarchy culture type increases with power distance. The superior effect of a market culture type can be matched by other organizational orientations, but in particular national cultures only. The combined findings underline the importance for firms that seek to improve the success rate of new products on international markets to consider the fit of a national culture with a firm's organizational culture.

Do managerial strategies influence service behaviours? Insights from a qualitative study

Based on a review of the extant literature, a conceptual framework for analyzing the associations between managerial strategies (internal communications, empowerment, supportive leadership and professional development), employee job attitudes (organizational commitment and job satisfaction) and prosocial service behaviours (PSBs) is developed. The authors explore the relevance of the proposed conceptual model and testable propositions regarding the associations between managerial strategies, employee attitudes and PSBs by conducting in-depth interviews of FLEs in a travel service organization. Based on the findings of the in-depth interviews, the relationships between managerial strategies, job attitudes and PSBs in the conceptual framework are largely supported.

An empirical examination of emotional and cognitive responses to threat appeals

Advertising and other forms of communications are often used by government bodies, non-government organisations, and other institutions to try to influence the population to either a) reduce some form of harmful behaviour (e.g. smoking, drunk- driving) or b) increase some more healthy behaviour (e.g. eating healthily). It is common for these messages to be predicated on the chances of some negative event occurring if the individual does not either a) stop the harmful behaviour, or b) start / increase the healthy behaviour. This design of communication is referred to by many names in the relevant literature, but for the purposes of this thesis, will be termed a ‘threat appeal’. Despite their widespread use in the public sphere, and concerted academic interest since the 1950s, the effectiveness of threat appeals in delivering their objective remains unclear in many ways. In a detailed, chronological and thematic examination of the literature, two assumptions are uncovered that have either been upheld despite little evidence to support them, or received limited attention at all, in the literature. Specifically, a) that threat appeal characteristics can be conflated with their intended responses, and b) that a threat appeal always and necessarily evokes a fear response in the subject. A detailed examination of these assumptions underpins this thesis. The intention is to take as a point of departure the equivocality of empirical results, and deliver a novel approach with the objective of reducing the confusion that is evident in existing work. More specifically, the present thesis frames cognitive and emotional responses to threat appeals as part of a decision about future behaviour. To further develop theory, a conceptual framework is presented that outlines the role of anticipated and anticipatory emotions, alongside subjective probabilities, elaboration and immediate visceral emotions, resultant from manipulation of the intrinsic message characteristics of a threat appeal (namely, message direction, message frame and graphic image). In doing so, the spectrum of relevant literature is surveyed, and used to develop a theoretical model which serves to integrate key strands of theory into a coherent model. In particular, the emotional and cognitive responses to the threat appeal manipulations are hypothesised to influence behaviour intentions and expectations pertaining to future behaviour. Using data from a randomised experiment with a sample of 681 participants, the conceptual model was tested using analysis of covariance. The results for the conceptual framework were encouraging overall, and also with regard to the individual hypotheses. In particular, empirical results showed clearly that emotional responses to the intrinsic message characteristics are not restricted to fear, and that different responses to threat appeals were clearly attributed to specific intrinsic message characteristics. In addition, the inclusion of anticipated emotions alongside cognitive appraisals in the framework generated interesting results. Specifically, immediate emotions did not influence key response variables related to future behaviour, in support of questioning the assumption of the prominent role of fear in the response process that is so prevalent in existing literature. The findings, theoretical and practical implications, limitations and directions for future research are discussed.

Consumers' responses to sponsorship by foreign companies

Purpose: The study aims to explore the novel issue of how consumers perceive sponsorship initiatives by foreign companies and how the sponsors' country-of-origin (COO) cue may influence sponsorship outcomes. Design/methodology/approach: The measurement model and proposed relationships were tested based on a sample of 811 Chinese consumers using confirmatory factor analysis and structural path analysis. Findings: The results reveal that attitudes toward the sponsor completely mediate the effect of event involvement on willingness to buy from the sponsor (WBS). Attitudes toward the sponsor also partially mediate the relationship between economic animosity towards a specific sponsor's COO and WBS. Additionally, the level of a country's economic competitiveness found to moderate the negative relationship between economic animosity, attitudes toward the sponsor and WBS. Research limitations/implications: The nature of the product type and the desire of the consumer to own such a product may have influenced the measurement of willingness to buy. Practical implications: The research adds to the existing knowledge by identifying the opportunities and potential biases that a foreign company may encounter when considering sponsoring a mega sport event in a different cultural context. The study helps managers to understand how sports sponsorship could be used effectively in emerging markets. Originality/value: The proposed conceptual model advances the application of classical conditioning theory, the consumer animosity model of foreign product purchase and the belief-attitude-intention hierarchy in the sponsorship arena. It is the first investigation of the role of event involvement and economic animosity in understanding sponsorship responses. © Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

Patients’ perceptions and experiences of cardiovascular disease and diabetes prevention programmes:a systematic review and framework synthesis using the Theoretical Domains Framework

Background - This review provides a worked example of ‘best fit’ framework synthesis using the Theoretical Domains Framework (TDF) of health psychology theories as an a priori framework in the synthesis of qualitative evidence. Framework synthesis works best with ‘policy urgent’ questions. Objective - The review question selected was: what are patients’ experiences of prevention programmes for cardiovascular disease (CVD) and diabetes? The significance of these conditions is clear: CVD claims more deaths worldwide than any other; diabetes is a risk factor for CVD and leading cause of death. Method - A systematic review and framework synthesis were conducted. This novel method for synthesizing qualitative evidence aims to make health psychology theory accessible to implementation science and advance the application of qualitative research findings in evidence-based healthcare. Results - Findings from 14 original studies were coded deductively into the TDF and subsequently an inductive thematic analysis was conducted. Synthesized findings produced six themes relating to: knowledge, beliefs, cues to (in)action, social influences, role and identity, and context. A conceptual model was generated illustrating combinations of factors that produce cues to (in)action. This model demonstrated interrelationships between individual (beliefs and knowledge) and societal (social influences, role and identity, context) factors. Conclusion - Several intervention points were highlighted where factors could be manipulated to produce favourable cues to action. However, a lack of transparency of behavioural components of published interventions needs to be corrected and further evaluations of acceptability in relation to patient experience are required. Further work is needed to test the comprehensiveness of the TDF as an a priori framework for ‘policy urgent’ questions using ‘best fit’ framework synthesis.