1,720,960 research outputs found
Competitive strategies and barriers to achieving competitive advantage : a study of two Saudi Arabian industries.
Full text linkThis study focuses on how organisations achieve and sustain competitive
advantage and the possible barriers to this advantage. It first deals with a
theoretical framework by examining related literature on developing a better
understanding of competitive advantage and generic strategies, as well as the
important aspects that may affect a firm's achievement and the sustainability of
its competitive advantage. This study extends the strategic management
literature on competitive advantage and generic strategies mainly based on
Porter's (1980, 1985) work. In particular, instead of the two generic strategies
(differentiation and cost leadership) put forward by Porter, four competitive
strategies are developed. These are (1) price leadership, (2) low cost
differentiation, (3) imitation and (4) differentiation.
Barriers to competitive advantage are conceptionalised in terms of
"strategic coherence" model, which has three aspects. Competitive strategies
require internal consistency referred to as 'competitive coherence'. In addition,
'organisational coherence' needs to be built, involving the structure of internal
and external elements affecting an organisation's ability to achieve its
competitive advantage. The creation of this structure is not automatic. The
difficulties increase with growing dynamism and complexity of the environment
in which an organisation is operating. While competitive and organisational
coherence might exist accidentally, the third aspect developed in this study is
called 'cognitive coherence'. The lack of coherence in one or more of these
aspects is a barrier to a firm achieving and sustaining its competitive advantage.
Secondly, this study reports empirical evidence on the validity of the theoretical
framework. This study takes the case of two different industries (petrochemical
and food) in Saudi Arabia.
Results indicate that all four competitive strategies are possible and
statistically defined. In addition, high-performing firms, in both industries, have
more strategic coherence than lower performing firms. The results suggest that
high-performing firms are able not only to achieve their competitive advantage
but also to sustain it over time. Moreover, in each industry, firms with different
competitive strategies have different barriers to achieving their competitive
advantage. These results are consistent with those found in the existing
literature, lending support to the view that western strategy models seem to be
applicable to developing countries such as Saudi Arabia
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Perceptions of quality in e-learning for higher education
No full textThesis (Ph.D.)-- Wichita State University, College of Engineering, Dept. of Industrial, Systems, and Manufacturing EngineeringE-learning quality is a complex and multi-faceted issue. Some argue that the quality of e-learning should be judged by the same criteria and standards as face-to-face education. Others hold that conventional quality concepts are not appropriate because e-learning is so structurally different. This research aimed at identifying perceptions of quality in e-learning. These included the perceptions of the students, instructors, and top administrators of higher education institutions offering e-learning programs, utilize three samples of publications. The first used to identify the perceptions of quality from the perspective of top administrators of e-learning institutions. The other two samples were randomly selected a pool of peer reviewed publications. A special coding scheme was developed based on these dimensions and validated by a panel of experts to ensure content validity. This coding scheme was then used in Computer-Aided Text Analysis (CATA) coupled with factor analysis (FA) to examine the relevance of these dimensions’ top administrators’, Instructors’, and students’ perceptions of quality in e-learning for higher education.
The findings indicate that all 12 dimensions were essential to adequately represent perceptions of quality in e-learning for higher education. Three sets of meta-dimensions were identified for the main stakeholders. First, trust, and engagement, which affect the perception of top administrators. Second, Aptitude, infrastructure, friendliness, and operational procedures, which influence the perceptions of instructors. Finally, Students’ perceptions are dominated by reliable interaction, self-efficacy, trust, and institutional commitment.
The research findings are supposed to contribute to a better understanding of the dimensions of quality and to the direction of improvement efforts in this essential service sector
Top administrators' perceptions of the quality in e-learning
No full textPresented to the 16th Annual Symposium on Graduate Research and Scholarly Projects (GRASP) held online, Wichita State University, May 1, 2020.Research completed in the Department of Industrial, Systems, and Manufacturing Engineering, College of EngineeringINTRODUCTION: Many educational institutions around the world have adopted e-learning programs. The success of these programs depends on the availability of supporting technologies and the efficiency by which they are utilized. PURPOSE: As was pointed out by Parasuraman et al (1985), differences in perceptions between administrators and stakeholders result in one of the four gaps associated with the design, marketing, and delivery of services. This research is aimed to identify administrators' perceptions of quality in top-ranked e-learning institutions in the U.S. METHOD: The top 100 ranked universities offering E-Learning in the US as of 2018, were identified from U.S. News and World Report. Public announcements made by administrators in these programs were downloaded from the institutions' websites. These were used as units of analysis in performing content analysis utilizing NVivo 12 software (QSR International Pty Ltd. Version 10. 3.2, 2016, Melbourne, Australia). RESULTS: The Pareto chart of the reported frequencies indicated that program administrators tend to stress features, performance, competence, access, communication, understanding, and conformance in their communication to the public. These constructs have a relatively high frequency of occurrence (85%) within the sample of the top 100 universities in the US. Factor analysis (FA) was applied in an attempt to reduce the dimensionality of the data into two uncorrelated factors that can be extracted from the data. These are nontrivial factors accounting for 82% of the total variation. They appear to be used by administrators to distinguish their programs from others within the sample. The results indicate that access, communication, competence, understanding, and responsiveness made significant contributions to the first factor. This factor contributes 69% of the total variability and suggests engagement as a distinguishing factor. Engagement refers to the program's ability to maintain communication, identify students' needs, and address these needs. This is especially important in e-learning where attrition rates are higher than in the face-to-face setting, as was noted by (Allen and Seaman, 2015; Boston and Ice, 2011). The second distinguishing factor includes conformance, reliability, security, and credibility. This factor is shown to contribute 13% of the total variability and can be referred to as trust. In this context, trust relates to the environment and the ability to protect students' information consistently. CONCLUSIONS: While no attempts were made to consider cost nor pedagogical-related factors, this research suggests that administrators consider engagement and trust as decisive factors in achieving quality in e-learning. It is also of interest to identify the perceptions of e-learners and instructors as major stakeholders. These authors are currently designing appropriate instruments that can be used to identify the perceptions of these two important groups. This would help determine perception gaps and direct efforts for quality improvement.Graduate School, Academic Affairs, University Librarie
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
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