1,721,434 research outputs found
Il vissuto di separazione nella madre del neoanto prematuro dello psicodramma di Rorschach
No full textNO abstrac
Strategies for Sustainable Development: Organizational Motivations, Stakeholders’ Expectations and Sustainability Agendas
No full textSociety’s expectations of business are mounting and stakeholders are asking organizations
to become more mindful of their interests. Companies are responding by becoming more
involved in the resolution of social–environmental challenges. Their sustainability agendas,
however, are often claimed to be ineffective and to lack strategic thinking. The purpose of
this paper is to reflect on the factors that determine the scope and features of these agendas.
Specifically, we investigate organizational objectives (the starting point of any strategy) and
the posture towards mounting – and sometimes conflicting – expectations. We find that pessimistic
judgments about sustainability agenda effectiveness may have been too hasty from
both a micro-level and a macro-level standpoin
Religion, science and secularization: a consumer-centric analysis of religion’s functional obsolescence
No full textPurpose
This paper aims to offer a marketing perspective to the multidisciplinary debate on whether religion is expanding, declining or resurging in contemporary and allegedly secular society. Specifically, it examines the “secularization hypothesis”, which predicts that religion tends to lose its central role in people’s lives as secular reasoning spreads and scientific knowledge accumulates.
Design/methodology/approach
Borrowing from psychology literature, the authors identify the psychological and social needs satisfied by religion and in doing so uncover its functions. They then discussed whether religion can be claimed to be functionally obsolete.
Findings
The authors identified four functions of religion: explanatory, relieving, membership and moral. The content of religious doctrines offers consumers of religion unambiguous knowledge, absolute morality and promises of immortality, immanent justice and centrality in the universe. Religion also provides a social identity, through which people can build meaningful connections with others in the community and with their own history.
Originality/value
A change in the role of religion would be highly relevant for consumer research because religious ideologies shape consumption practices, social relations, products and brands. The authors observe that the content of religious answers is so well-crafted around human psychology that the explaining, relieving and moral functions of religion have not lost reliability. However, cultural change has weakened religion’s ability to gratify human psychology through social identity and meaningful socialization, which led to the marketization of religion, the rise of spirituality and the intensification of socialization around consumption
Numerical analysis of a laboratory centrifugal pump for the training of graduate engineers
No full textThe up-to-date design of turbomachinery involves the use of three dimensional computational fluid dynamic analyses to match the challenge of the ever increasing speed of the product development. Recently, these analyses applied to turbomachinery, which in past years were confined to special fields, have became widespread in many industrial applications. Hence, besides the teachings of traditional methods for turbomachinery design, an important part of modern engineering education is to produce graduates with advanced skills in Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) techniques applied to turbomachinery design . Moreover, at this time, these skills should either match the needs of research laboratories or be compatible with industrial needs, since three dimensional numerical calculation is becoming to be seen as a feasible tool also in ordinary applications.
For these reasons, CFD courses for the training of graduated and undergraduated students have been grown. To match the requirements of an as complete as possible knowledge of the main features involved in a numerical analysis, a number of different issues should be addressed and properly treated within the course.
In this paper, the methodology followed and the work carried out by the students of the course of the Fluid Dynamic Design of Turbomachinery held at the University of Ferrara is presented. In particular, three levels of investigation are taken into consideration and presented:
(i) the focus in the fundamentals which should be addressed to achieve a basic knowledge of a design process based on numerical simulation;
(ii) the extension to an higher level of in-depth analyses of the specific models which could be used in every phase of a numerical simulation;
(iii) the insight into the specificity of the main thermodynamic and fluid dynamic characteristics of turbomachinery.
To do this, the numerical analysis of a simple but exhaustive geometry (a laboratory centrifugal pump for which extensive information are available in literature) has been carried out and the results obtained are addressed. In particular, special emphasis is devoted to the comparison among the numerical models which can be chosen throughout the simulations of turbomachinery (turbulence models, rotor/stator interface, etc.) and the analysis of the most important fluid dynamic phenomena inside a centrifugal pump
Houston, we have a family! Family governance, investors ́ expectation and long term orientation
No full textExtant research maintains that the governance arrangements of listed family firms are shaped by conflicting institutional pressures from the family and from financial markets ́ observers. While the family ́s socioemotional priorities pressure the firm to adopt a family-intensive governance, financial markets ́ stakeholders expect listed firms to operate according to a business logic characterized by efficiency, merit, competition and performance. We posit that this characterization is too simplistic, as it does not take into consideration that logics are affected by values and that values vary across cultures. We thus propose that consideration of the cross-cultural differences in business logics would lead to refine and advance our understanding of the determinants of listed family firms ́ governance arrangements. We argue and show that in long-term oriented societies an intense involvement of the family in the governance of listed firms is not considered as negatively as past research has assumed
Non-contact measurement techniques to study the microsized particle adhesion phenomenon
No full textAirborne microsized particles are generated by artificial activity and natural sources. Due to their characteristics, these airborne particles are highly volatile and can cover thousands of kilometers according to weather conditions (in particular, wind intensity and humidity). As a result, these microsized particles could contaminate engineering systems determining their operation and performance modification. Phenomena such as photovoltaic panel soiling or gas turbine fouling are two of the most detrimental effects generated by the interaction between airborne particles and the relevant surfaces of the system. The present work proposes a set of non-contact measurement methodologies to study the adhesion phenomenon. The non-contact techniques are devoted to studying the deposited layer without altering the deposits. Image and video analysis have been used to show how the deposit can be studied in detail. Stationary and rotating facilities have been employed to show the applicability and the related constraints to the non-contact measurement techniques
Acquisitions Of Non-Controlling Equity Stakes: Agency Conflicts And Profitability
Full text linkWhile past research on minority acquisitions has ignored how agency conflicts could prevent acquirers from realizing value creation opportunities, this study investigates whether principal–agent and principal–principal conflicts with the target’s managers and controlling shareholder hinder acquirers’ ability to capture value from acquisitions of non-controlling equity stakes. Using archival data from a global sample of 443 minority acquisitions announced between 2011 and 2019, we found that cumulative abnormal returns are positively associated to minority shareholder protection and negatively associated to the presence of a strong controlling shareholder in the target firm. We also found that acquisitions of small non-controlling equity stakes amplify the negative effect of the strong controlling shareholder, which instead weakens if acquirers purchase large non-controlling equity stakes. This study contributes to the development of our understanding of the conditions that expose acquirers to value losses from minority acquisitions by examining the intricate bundle of agency conflicts with the target’s managers and controlling shareholder. In so doing, this study also provides useful insights to business practice
Collecting Money through Blockchain Technologies: First Insights on the Determinants of the Return on Initial Coin Offerings
No full textInitial Coin Offerings (ICOs), i.e. the initial offer of a crypto-token, represent an increasingly popular method to raise money. However, the determinants of ICOs ́ returns for investors are still overlooked. Following this cue, the empirical outcomes of our study based on crypto-tokens issued between 2017 and 2018 evidence the main determinants of ICOs ́ returns: first, crypto-tokens returns are positively associated to Ether’s returns; second, ICO price is negatively associated to later price increases; third, crypto-tokens returns are lower when they are offered in presale; finally, the more a crypto-token price increases between the ICO and the listing-date on the secondary-market and the more its price rises in the following month. In so doing, we contribute to a better understanding of the ICO phenomenon and highlight which aspects may benefit fund raising, which are relevant for the establishment of new startups and more broadly for the economic development of a country
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