3,863 research outputs found

    Subsidiary Entrepreneurial Alertness: Antecedents and Outcomes

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    This thesis brings together concepts from both international business and entrepreneurship to develop a framework of the facilitators of subsidiary innovation and performance. This study proposes that Subsidiary Entrepreneurial Alertness (SEA) facilitates the recognition of opportunities (the origin of subsidiary initiatives). First introduced by Kirzner (1979) in the context of the individual, entrepreneurial alertness (EA) is the ability to notice an opportunity without actively searching. Similarly, to entrepreneurial alertness at the individual level, this study argues that SEA enables the subsidiary to best select opportunities based on resources available. The research further develops our conceptualisation of SEA by drawing on work by Tang et al. (2012) identifying three distinct activities of EA: scanning and search (identifying opportunities unseen by others due to their awareness gaps), association and connection of information, and evaluation and judgement to interpret or anticipate future viability of opportunities. This study then hypothesises that SEA leads to opportunity recognition at the subsidiary level and further hypothesises innovation and performance as outcomes of opportunity recognition. This research brings these arguments together to develop and test a comprehensive theoretical model. The theoretical model is tested through a mail survey of the CEOs/MDs of foreign subsidiaries within the Republic of Ireland (an innovative hub for foreign subsidiaries). This method was selected as the best method to reach the targeted respondent, and due to the depth of knowledge the target respondent holds, the survey can answer the desired question more substantially. The results were examined using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM). The study’s findings confirm two critical aspects of subsidiary context, subsidiary brokerage and subsidiary credibility are positively related to SEA. The study establishes a positive link between SEA and both the generation of innovation and the subsidiary’s performance. This thesis makes three significant contributions to the subsidiary literature as it 1) introduces and develops the concept of SEA, 2) identifies the antecedents of SEA, and 3) demonstrates the impact of SEA on subsidiary opportunity recognition. Implications for subsidiaries, headquarters and policy makers are discussed along with the limitations of the study

    Educating Sub-Saharan Africa:Assessing Mobile Application Use in a Higher Learning Engineering Programme

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    In the institution where I teach, insufficient laboratory equipment for engineering education pushed students to learn via mobile phones or devices. Using mobile technologies to learn and practice is not the issue, but the more important question lies in finding out where and how they use mobile tools for learning. Through the lens of Kearney et al.’s (2012) pedagogical model, using authenticity, personalisation, and collaboration as constructs, this case study adopts a mixed-method approach to investigate the mobile learning activities of students and find out their experiences of what works and what does not work. Four questions are borne out of the over-arching research question, ‘How do students studying at a University in Nigeria perceive mobile learning in electrical and electronic engineering education?’ The first three questions are answered from qualitative, interview data analysed using thematic analysis. The fourth question investigates their collaborations on two mobile social networks using social network and message analysis. The study found how students’ mobile learning relates to the real-world practice of engineering and explained ways of adapting and overcoming the mobile tools’ limitations, and the nature of the collaborations that the students adopted, naturally, when they learn in mobile social networks. It found that mobile engineering learning can be possibly located in an offline mobile zone. It also demonstrates that investigating the effectiveness of mobile learning in the mobile social environment is possible by examining users’ interactions. The study shows how mobile learning personalisation that leads to impactful engineering learning can be achieved. The study shows how to manage most interface and technical challenges associated with mobile engineering learning and provides a new guide for educators on where and how mobile learning can be harnessed. And it revealed how engineering education can be successfully implemented through mobile tools

    Chinese Benteng Women’s Participation in Local Development Affairs in Indonesia: Appropriate means for struggle and a pathway to claim citizen’ right?

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    It had been more than two decades passing by aftermath the devastating Asia’s Financial Crisis in 1997, subsequently followed by Suharto’s step down from his presidential throne which he occupied for more than three decades. The financial turmoil turned to a political disaster furthermore has led to massive looting that severely impacted Indonesians of Chinese descendant, including unresolved mystery of the most atrocious sexual violation against women and covert killings of students and democracy activists in this country. Since then, precisely aftermath May 1998, which publicly known as “Reformasi”1, Indonesia underwent political reform that eventually corresponded positively to its macroeconomic growth. Twenty years later, in 2018, Indonesia captured worldwide attention because it has successfully hosted two internationally renowned events, namely the Asian Games 2018 – the most prestigious sport events in Asia – conducted in Jakarta and Palembang; and the IMF/World Bank Annual Meeting 2018 in Bali. Particularly in the IMF/World Bank Annual Meeting, this event has significantly elevated Indonesia’s credibility and international prestige in the global economic powerplay as one of the nations with promising growth and openness. However, the narrative about poverty and inequality, including increasing racial tension, religious conservatism, and sexual violation against women are superseded by friendly climate for foreign investment and eventually excessive glorification of the nation’s economic growth. By portraying the image of promising new economic power, as rhetorically promised by President Joko Widodo during his presidential terms, Indonesia has swept the growing inequality in this highly stratified society that historically compounded with religious and racial tension under the carpet of digital economy.Arte y Humanidade

    Industry 4.0: product digital twins for remanufacturing decision-making

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    Currently there is a desire to reduce natural resource consumption and expand circular business principles whilst Industry 4.0 (I4.0) is regarded as the evolutionary and potentially disruptive movement of technology, automation, digitalisation, and data manipulation into the industrial sector. The remanufacturing industry is recognised as being vital to the circular economy (CE) as it extends the in-use life of products, but its synergy with I4.0 has had little attention thus far. This thesis documents the first investigating into I4.0 in remanufacturing for a CE contributing a design and demonstration of a model that optimises remanufacturing planning using data from different instances in a product’s life cycle. The initial aim of this work was to identify the I4.0 technology that would enhance the stability in remanufacturing with a view to reducing resource consumption. As the project progressed it narrowed to focus on the development of a product digital twin (DT) model to support data-driven decision making for operations planning. The model’s architecture was derived using a bottom-up approach where requirements were extracted from the identified complications in production planning and control that differentiate remanufacturing from manufacturing. Simultaneously, the benefits of enabling visibility of an asset’s through-life health were obtained using a DT as the modus operandi. A product simulator and DT prototype was designed to use Internet of Things (IoT) components, a neural network for remaining life estimations and a search algorithm for operational planning optimisation. The DT was iteratively developed using case studies to validate and examine the real opportunities that exist in deploying a business model that harnesses, and commodifies, early life product data for end-of-life processing optimisation. Findings suggest that using intelligent programming networks and algorithms, a DT can enhance decision-making if it has visibility of the product and access to reliable remanufacturing process information, whilst existing IoT components provide rudimentary “smart” capabilities, but their integration is complex, and the durability of the systems over extended product life cycles needs to be further explored

    A Syntactical Reverse Engineering Approach to Fourth Generation Programming Languages Using Formal Methods

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    Fourth-generation programming languages (4GLs) feature rapid development with minimum configuration required by developers. However, 4GLs can suffer from limitations such as high maintenance cost and legacy software practices. Reverse engineering an existing large legacy 4GL system into a currently maintainable programming language can be a cheaper and more effective solution than rewriting from scratch. Tools do not exist so far, for reverse engineering proprietary XML-like and model-driven 4GLs where the full language specification is not in the public domain. This research has developed a novel method of reverse engineering some of the syntax of such 4GLs (with Uniface as an exemplar) derived from a particular system, with a view to providing a reliable method to translate/transpile that system's code and data structures into a modern object-oriented language (such as C\#). The method was also applied, although only to a limited extent, to some other 4GLs, Informix and Apex, to show that it was in principle more broadly applicable. A novel testing method that the syntax had been successfully translated was provided using 'abstract syntax trees'. The novel method took manually crafted grammar rules, together with Encapsulated Document Object Model based data from the source language and then used parsers to produce syntactically valid and equivalent code in the target/output language. This proof of concept research has provided a methodology plus sample code to automate part of the process. The methodology comprised a set of manual or semi-automated steps. Further automation is left for future research. In principle, the author's method could be extended to allow the reverse engineering recovery of the syntax of systems developed in other proprietary 4GLs. This would reduce time and cost for the ongoing maintenance of such systems by enabling their software engineers to work using modern object-oriented languages, methodologies, tools and techniques

    Insider Views on English Language Pathway Programmes to Australian Universities

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    This chapter reports the findings of doctoral research on trauma-informed teaching of English as a second language (ESL) at three university English language centres in Australia. Trauma and post-traumatic stress affect verbal learning and concentration, yet most ESL teachers do not receive formal training in teaching traumatised English language learners (ELLs). The field has suffered from a dearth of empirical studies, and student voice is often absent from the research. Most previous research has focused on refugee students, with little attention paid to international students, trauma, and learning an additional language. This qualitative study used a validated tool to measure the post-traumatic stress responses of 39 participants, including international students, immigrants, and former refugees. Twenty of these students completed semi-structured interviews about the ESL learning environment, based on a framework of trauma-informed principles. Data were analysed using critical, qualitative methods through a trauma-informed lens. A major theme that emerged in the findings was the importance of ESL teachers’ understanding of and responsiveness towards students. Within this theme, four sub-themes are explored: personal engagement and attention, acceptance and understanding of the ELL role, understanding the lives of students outside the classroom, and an understanding of students’ cultures

    A Genealogy of Consumer Surveillance: From the First Public Market to Eatons Department Store to Amazon

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    Consumer surveillance has intensified over time and across differing forms of consumption space and spatial arrangement, which in turn raises the question of what explains the historical changes in the modalities of consumer surveillance. Contemporary surveillance literatures focus primarily on the current phenomenon with little consideration of the historical processes upon which the changes in the scope and intensity of the modalities of consumer surveillance were made possible. My study employs Foucauldian genealogical methodology as a system of inquiry to map the historical transformation in the modalities of consumer surveillance, by utilizing archival records, across three different consumption spaces in key stages of retail development: the first regulatory public market in the Town of York during the pre-industrial period, Eatons department store in the industrial economy, and Amazon that coincided with the rise of information economy. Conversely, contemporary theories of surveillance generally approach the intensification question by focusing on the surveillance-space axis or surveillance-consumption axis, and the spatiality of consumer surveillance is reduced to Foucauldian disciplinary panopticon. Utilizing Foucaults theories of power and governmentality and his intriguing account of the role of space in the exercise of power, my genealogical project examines the intersection of surveillance-space-consumption to understand the intensification of consumer surveillance over time across the three spaces under study. In my genealogical project, I identify five key moments pertaining to differing modalities of consumer surveillance: marketization of space, standardization of consuming bodies, statistification of consumers, virtualization of consumption, and AI inhabitation in consumer spaces. My genealogical project demonstrates that spatiality and spatialization are a recurring issue in differing modalities of consumer surveillance over time. Yet, the spatial techniques have changed and become more complex to augment the scope and intensity of monitoring and gaining of new knowledge about consumers and consumption, as part of long-standing efforts to manage the unpredictable dynamics of consumer behaviour by attaining control over all aspects of consumers life

    Distributed cognition and businesses as 'mental institutions'

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    This thesis explores distributed cognition within the context of business and argues that businesses can be considered ‘mental institutions’. It therefore defends a liberal view of cognition, recognising the integration of stakeholders within a larger business structure that contains multiple cognitive schemas that conduct, constrain, and amplify one’s thoughts and affectivity in relation to the organisation. The aim of this thesis is therefore to broaden the scope of investigation regarding the socially extended mind and demonstrate the real-world applicability of these discussions to business consultancy. Following a revision of how the ‘mental institution’ should be considered and a deconstruction of the concept of ‘business’, the thesis picks out six institutional artefacts and structures that are common features of business organisations. These are logos, products, shops, offices, hierarchies, and narratives. Mental business institutions are designed with cognition in mind, and thus these institutional features can become integral parts of thought for both employees within business organisations and external consumers. Chapters individually explore the various ways we can become coupled to these artefacts and structures as internal or external stakeholders, and thus integrated within the cognitive niche of the business institution. Finally, an empirical study of a large UK-based utility company provides an example of how one can investigate the collaborative efforts of employees within an organisation through the lens of distributed cognition. Ultimately, an application of distributed cognition and mental institutions to business within this text brings to fruition new additional conceptual resources for management and marketing studies
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