30472 research outputs found
Sort by
The impact of national culture on strategic IT alignment: a multiple-case study of subsidiaries of multinational corporations
No full textThrough a multiple-case study of three subsidiaries of multinational corporations (MNCs), we examined the impact of national culture on strategic information technology (IT) alignment. We found that the headquarters and subsidiary host national cultures affect alignment indirectly, through variables in the organizational context, including intercultural communications, IT governance, management style, differences in work values and practices, and cultural conflict and mistrust. Based on the findings, we propose a model of national culture and alignment
The algebra of non-deterministic programs: demonic operations, orders and axioms
Get PDFDemonic composition, demonic refinement and demonic union are alternatives to the usual “angelic” composition, angelic refinement (inclusion) and angelic (usual) union defined on binary relations. We first motivate both the angelic and demonic via an analysis of the beha- viour of non-deterministic programs, with the angelic associated with partial correctness and demonic with total correctness, both cases emerging from a richer algebraic model of non- deterministic programs incorporating both aspects. Zarecki ̆ı has shown that the isomorphism class of algebras of binary relations under angelic composition and inclusion is finitely axio- matised as the class of ordered semigroups. The proof can be used to establish that the same axiomatisation applies to binary relations under demonic composition and refinement, and a further modification of the proof can be used to incorporate a zero element representing the empty relation in the angelic case and the full relation in the demonic case. For the signature of angelic composition and union, it is known that no finite axiomatisation exists, and we show the analogous result for demonic composition and demonic union by showing that the same axiomatisation holds for both. We show that the isomorphism class of algebras of binary relations with the “mixed” signature of demonic composition and angelic inclusion has no finite axiomatisation. As a contrast, we show that the isomorphism class of partial algebras of binary relations with the partial operation of constellation product and inclusion (also a “mixed” signature) is finitely axiomatisable
Oxford and Grenoble: multiple anchors, strong dyadic relationships and national policy in fostering cluster architectures
Get PDFThis paper explores the divergence in patterns of regional development in twin towns, one in France, Grenoble and one in the UK, Oxford. Since the early 2000s a number of changes in national policies in each country have had a direct effect on the dynamics of local technology-led economic development. Here the particular interest is in those which relate to inter-relationships (dyads) between anchor organisations (public sector research laboratories) and major local firms. The paper’s focus is on how changes in policy have an effect on strong local relationships and how multiple anchor organisations drive cluster development
Understanding the differential impact of children’s TV on executive functions: a narrative-processing analysis
Get PDFEvidence from multiple empirical studies suggests children’s Executive Functions are depleted immediately after viewing some types of TV content but not others. Correlational evidence suggests any such effects may be most problematic during the pre-school years. To establish whether “screen-time” is developmentally appropriate at this age we believe a nuanced approach must be taken to the analysis of individual pieces of media and their potential demands on viewer cognition. To this end we apply a cognitive theory of visual narrative processing, the Scene Perception and Event Comprehension Theory (SPECT; Loschky, Larson, Smith, & Magliano, 2020) to the analysis of TV shows previously used to investigate short-term effects of TV viewing. A theoretical formalisation of individual content properties, together with a quantitative content-based analysis of previously used children’s content (Lillard & Peterson, 2011; Lillard et al., 2015b) is presented. This analysis found a pattern of greater stimulus saliency, increased situational change and a greater combined presence of cognitively demanding features for videos previously shown to reduce children’s EF after viewing. Limitations of this pilot application of SPECT are presented and proposals for future empirical investigations of the psychological mechanisms activated by specific TV viewing content are considered
Exposure trajectory recovery from motion blur
Get PDFMotion blur in dynamic scenes is an important yet challenging research topic. Recently, deep learning methods have achieved impressive performance for dynamic scene deblurring. However, the motion information contained in a blurry image has yet to be fully explored and accurately formulated because : (i) the ground truth of dynamic motion is difficult to obtain; (ii) the temporal ordering is destroyed during the exposure; and (iii) the motion estimation from a blurry image is highly ill-posed. By revisiting the principle of camera exposure, motion blur can be described by the relative motions of sharp content with respect to each exposed position. In this paper, we define exposure trajectories, which represent the motion information contained in a blurry image and explain the causes of motion blur. A novel motion offset estimation framework is proposed to model pixel-wise displacements of the latent sharp image at multiple timepoints. Under mild constraints, our method can recover dense, (non-)linear exposure trajectories, which significantly reduce temporal disorder and ill-posed problems. Finally, experiments demonstrate that the recovered exposure trajectories not only capture accurate and interpretable motion information from a blurry image, but also benefit motion-aware image deblurring and warping-based video extraction tasks. Codes are available on https://github.com/yjzhang96/Motion-ETR
A mixed-methods evaluation of a peer mentoring intervention in a UK school setting: perspectives from mentees and mentors
No full textPeer mentoring is a popular type of school-based support. However, peer mentoring models can vary substantially and evidence for the efficacy of such support is mixed. 377 participants took part in ‘More than Mentors’, as either mentors or mentees, in select London-based secondary schools. Participants completed standardised measures to explore changes over time in their wellbeing, resilience, and mental health. A subsample also completed qualitative interviews about their experiences. Multi-level modelling analysis revealed that mentees experienced improvements in their overall mental health and mentors experienced improvements in their sense of participation in school and home life. Higher numbers of mentoring sessions attended also yielded positive effects. A thematic analysis highlighted the mechanisms behind impact, including for mentees, the importance of having someone to talk to, and for mentors, gaining new skills and knowledge. This study provides preliminary evidence for the positive impact of a peer mentoring intervention on select outcomes for mentors and mentees in a UK school setting
Enabling rapid financial response to disasters: knotting and reknotting multiple paradoxes in interorganizational systems
Get PDFWhile market-based solutions are increasingly being proposed to address major societal and development issues, they are also often considered antithetical to issues such as climate change, poverty alleviation and disaster response. In particular, the interorganizational systems involved in such market solutions gives rise to multiple contradictory tensions, known as paradoxes. We therefore adopt a paradox lens to explain the dynamics through which different actors within these systems navigate the contradictions that are generated. Drawing on a global qualitative study of multi-country risk pools that provide rapid capital in the immediate aftermath of disaster, we advance paradox theory by showing how organizational actors’ interactions i) maintain equilibrium by generating mutually reinforcing balance among paradoxes, whilst ii) the clustering of poles from different paradoxes generates disequilibrium, and iii) the reknotting of poles from different paradoxes restores equilibrium. As our process framework shows, these dynamics form an iterative cycle between equilibrium and disequilibrium that is essential in enhancing the promise of market-based solutions to address development issues; in our study increasing the rapid availability of capital to respond to disasters such as hurricanes, earthquakes and droughts
Millennials and repurchasing behaviour: a collectivist emerging market
Get PDFPurpose: This study explains how retailers can use the knowledge function of attitudinal
theories to understand how millennials in a collectivist emerging market, trade-off between
a satisfactory customer service experience versus price when repurchasing a smartphone.
Design/methodology/approach: 356 useable questionnaires (86% response rate) were
collected and analysed using structural equation modelling (SEM), AMOS.
Findings: Millennials in Vietnam tend to adopt an individualistic approach when
repurchasing a smartphone and utilise their knowledge of the product. However, they value
personalised customer service that is specific to their needs, especially interactions with
sales staff that raises their confidence and self-esteem. The unique interaction allows
authorised retailers to distinguish themselves from unauthorised retailers. Repurchase
behaviour is encouraged by low uncertainty avoidance in conjunction with price
sensitivity; and the desire to be seen as achieving a high social status.
Research limitations/implications: The data for the study was collected in Hanoi, the
main city of Vietnam and is representative only of urban-based millennials.
Practical implications: Retailers considering entering an collectivist emerging market
need to understand that millennials are price sensitive and may repurchase from
unauthorised retailers. Accurate information and sales promotions can be used to stimulate
demand for a high involvement product.
Originality/value: Functional theories of attitudes is used to link the concept of customer
service with knowledge function utilisation in order to establish how customers in an
collectivist emerging market process information and share knowledge through
socialisation
Enhanced Discrete Multi-modal Hashing: more constraints yet less time to learn
Get PDFDue to the exponential growth of multimedia data, multi-modal hashing as a promising technique to make cross-view retrieval scalable is attracting more and more attention. However, most of the existing multi-modal hashing methods either divide the learning process unnaturally into two separate stages or treat the discrete optimization problem simplistically as a continuous one, which leads to suboptimal results. Recently, a few discrete multi-modal hashing methods that try to address such issues have emerged, but they still ignore several important discrete constraints (such as the balance and decorrelation of hash bits). In this paper, we overcome those limitations by proposing a novel method named "Enhanced Discrete Multi-modal Hashing (EDMH)" which learns binary codes and hashing functions simultaneously from the pairwise similarity matrix of data, under the aforementioned discrete constraints. Although the model of EDMH looks a lot more complex than the other models for multi-modal hashing, we are actually able to develop a fast iterative learning algorithm for it, since the subproblems of its optimization all have closed-form solutions after introducing two auxiliary variables. Our experimental results on three real-world datasets have revealed the usefulness of those previously ignored discrete constraints and demonstrated that EDMH not only performs much better than state-of-the-art competitors according to several retrieval metrics but also runs much faster than most of them
How can digital technology be used to maximise the social value delivered through major infrastructure projects?
Get PDFThe primary aim of this working paper is to inform readers as to what opportunities exist to use digital technology to maximise social value through major infrastructure projects. This research looks through the lenses of social value, infrastructure, and digital business, and addresses the gap around the intersection between social value, digital technology, and the infrastructure sector.
This research methodology is a literature research, followed by the collection of qualitative data from 12 interviews, with participants in 12 organisations, during August 2020. The research findings reported in this working paper are structured around 2 questions:
1. What are the opportunities for the use of digital technology in maximising social value?
2. What are the risks and barriers to the use of digital technology to maximise social value?
This research makes 12 actionable and practical recommendations as a contribution to the discussion and implementation of policy in the UK
Data sources:
Access Repository Dashboard
Do you manage Birkbeck Institutional Research Online? Access insider analytics, issue reports and manage access to outputs from your repository in the CORE Repository Dashboard!