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Analyzing organizational performance of family and non-family businesses using the HPO framework
No full textAn article published in : Journal of Family Business Management, Vol. 7 No. 3, 2017, pp. 242-255Purpose – Many businesses in the world are family-owned. A family-owned business differs from other types of businesses in several ways, because it is composed of both a family and a business. A recurring question in management research has been: which type of business performs better, the family-owned or the non-family owned? An alternative question which in this respect can also be asked, in the light of the high performance organization (HPO) theory which has become popular these past years, is: which type of business is more likely to become and stay high performing, the family-owned or the non-family owned? To try to answer these questions, many studies have been done in which the performance of family firms was compared with firms that have no family ties, but these studies gave mixed results and conflicting opinions.
The paper aims to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach – It seems evident that a new research approach is needed. A way forward is to use the HPO concept which looks at the factors important for an organization to become an HPO. Thus, the research question which this study attempts to answer is: are there differences in performance between family and non-family businesses, and if so, can these be traced back to differences in the way these
businesses deal with the factors of high performance? The research used the HPO questionnaire and interviews to collect data at Palestine family and non-family owned businesses.
Findings – The research shows that Palestine non-family businesses significantly outperform family-owned businesses. Family businesses thus seem “a living paradox.” Balancing family interest and business interest often requires a compromise between family and business goals. It seems that Palestinian family businesses
focus more on family interest by putting the goal of survival and “keeping the business in the family” above (short-term) financial goals. Family businesses might also feel more that the company’s money is the family money, and as a result their investment and expenses strategies are more conservative thus missing possible
economic investment opportunities.
Research limitations/implications – The study results add to the current debate in the literature about which type of business performs better, and at the same time they add knowledge because if there are differences these might be explained by the factors of high performance. In this vein, the study results also contribute to the literature on high performance, as the HPO framework has not been used before for this type of comparative research.
Originality/value – The study results have practical value because they yield knowledge about the ways to organize a business so it can achieve high organizational results which is of great value to managers attempting to make their organizations perform better
Document similarity for Arabic and cross-lingual Web content
No full textDocument similarity is basic for Information Retrieval. Cross Lin-
gual (CL) similarity is important for many data processing tasks such as CL palgiarism detection and retrieval and document quality assessment. We study CL similarity based on the Explicit Semantic Association (ESA) adapted to a cross lingual setting with focus on Arabic. We compare the degree to which CL similarity testing performs where one of the language is Arabic with its monolingual counterpart for various text chunk sizes. We describe the used
infrastructure and report on some of the testing results, study the possible sources of encountered weaknesses and point to the possible directions for improvement
Diagnosis and repair of perineal injuries: Knowledge before and after expert training. A multicentre observational study among Palestinian Physicians and Midwives
No full textObjective: To assess whether a 2 days training with experts teaching on diagnosis and repair of perineal injuries among Palestinian midwives and physicians could change their level of knowledge towards the correct diagnosis and treatment.
Study design: Multicentre observational study. Setting: Obstetric departments in 6 government
Palestinian hospitals. Participants: All physicians and midwives who
attended the training.
Methods: A questionnaire comprising of 14 questions on the diagnosis and repair of perineal tears was distributed to all participants before the training (n=150; 64 physicians and 86 midwives) and 3 months after the training (n=124, 53 and 71, respectively). Characteristics, differences of the study population and level of knowledge before and after the training were presented as frequencies and percentages. Consistency in responses was tested by estimating the p value of McNemar test.
Results: Among physicians only 11.4% had accurate knowledge on perineal anatomy before the
training compared with 78.85% after the training (p<0.001). For midwives, the corresponding
numbers were 9.8% and 54.2%, respectively (p<0.001). Before the training, 5.8% of the
physicians were aware that rectal examination is mandatory before and after suturing of episiotomies compared with 45.8% after the training (p<0.001). The corresponding numbers for midwives were 0% and 18% ( p<0.001), respectively. Physicians knowledge of best practice of skin repair following episiotomy improved from 36.5% to 64.5% (p=0.008) and among midwives from 26.1% to 50.7% ( p<0.001). Physicians knowledge of the overlap technique in the repair of full thickness external anal sphincter tears improved from 28.5% to 42.8% ( p=0.05), whereas knowledge of repairing torn internal anal sphincter separately improved
from 12.8% to 86.8% ( p<0.001).
Conclusions: Improvement in the level of knowledge on diagnosis and repair of perineal tears
was observed for all physicians and midwives who attended the 2 days’ expert training. Regular ongoing training will serve to maintain the newly acquired knowledge
Enhancing the intelligence of web tutoring systems using a multi-entry based open learner model
No full textThe accuracy of learner model is the heart of any Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS). More intelligence in the ITS needs a more accurate learner model. In the earlier versions of ITS, the student
must submit a test before using the ITS. at test was used to build the student model, which contains information about the knowledge of the student, his/her misconceptions, preferences and other
related issues. However, this method doesn’t work e ciently for school students, because one test can t accurately evaluate their knowledge and misconceptions. In this research, we implement
a system (web application) to get the student model for school students by allowing the students, parents, and instructors to add their assessment and feedback to the model. en the system uses
these multi-entries together with the traditional test to build an enhanced student model (smart learner model). Furthermore, in order to support collaborative learning, the implemented system gives the
student the access to open his/her model for other instructors and peers. e proposed system has been applied on a group of students, their parents and instructors. According to the obtained results and the surveys, the student s knowledge has been improved in many students. also the students, parents, instructors found the system to be useful, interesting and easy to use. Furthermore, all parties
were happy to be engaged in the educational proces
Search of islands of stability for hypothetical superheavy nuclei using covariant density functional theory
No full textA systematic search for the location of islands of stability has been performed for
the proton number 100 < Z < 220 and the neutron number Z +30 < N < 2Z +30 using the
Covariant Density Functional Theory (CDFT), a Relativistic Hartree-Bogoliubov (RHB)
formalism with separable pairing, for two different force parameters DD-ME2 and NL3*.
Location of the islands of stability are identified by the analysis of the two neutron and the
two proton separation energy, two nucleon shell gaps, vanishing neutron and proton pairing
gap, energy surface and the single particle states. The results show that beyond 120 292 only
Z = 154 and N> 220 can be a center of new island of stability
