The ‘T-Shaped Buyer’: a transactional perspective on supply chain relationships

This paper challenges the normative view of interdependent buyer-seller relationships and provides a more holistic perspective of the contextual reality that shapes buyer behaviour. By proposing an innovative qualitative methodology, which focusses on boundary-spanning, pre-sales interactions, the research penetrates complex and commercially sensitive buyer-seller relationships. The longitudinal research design uses web-based diaries and follow-up interviews to explore conditions of power based interdependence between buyers and sellers. The ensuing data is mapped using qualitative content analysis and the results are aggregated graphically for assessment. Using this approach the study develops a nuanced view of the dominant patterns of buyer behaviour, and challenges the opinion that a search for competitive advantage will strengthen cooperative relationships in conditions of power based interdependence. The paper introduces the metaphor of the 'T-Shaped Buyer' to explain the empirical findings and, while acknowledging the contextual limits of the study, suggests that this metaphor may cause both academics and practitioners to reflect on normative thinking

Qualitative doctoral research in educational settings: reflecting on meaningful encounters

In qualitative doctoral research the methodological approach, and the research design are extremely important when ensuring the rigorousness of the work. This is particularly significant for all researchers, and even more for doctoral students who are still developing their research and analytical skills. This paper aims to support doctoral students in their research journey by highlighting some of the tensions involved in conducting qualitative research by unpicking the experiences of two doctoral students to learn from the concerns, questions and reflections on the use of qualitative methodology in their doctoral research projects. The findings reveal challenges and insights with regards to reflection, educational research and the developing identity of being a researcher. The paper discusses these reflections to support and guide doctoral students as early career researchers when planning and conducting qualitative research in educational settings

Suicide prevention: The contribution of psychoanalysis

The contemporary relevance of psychoanalysis is being increasingly questioned; Off the Couch challenges this view, demonstrating that psychoanalytic thinking and its applications are both innovative and relevant, in particular to the management and treatment of more disturbed and difficult to engage patient groups. Chapters address: Clinical applications in diverse settings across the age range. The relevance of psychoanalytic thinking to the practice of CBT, psychosomatics and general psychiatry The contribution of psychoanalytic thinking to mental health policy and the politics of conflict and mediation. This book suggests that psychoanalysis has a vital position within the public health sector and discusses how it can be better utilised in the treatment of a range of mental health problems. It also highlights the role of empirical research in providing a robust evidence base. Off the Couch will be essential reading for those practicing in the field of mental health and will also be useful for anyone involved in the development of mental health and public policies. It will ensure that practitioners and supervisors have a clear insight into how psychoanalysis can be applied in general healthcare

Simplified models of stellar wind anatomy for interpreting high-resolution data: Analytical approach to embedded spiral geometries

Recent high-resolution observations have shown stellar winds to harbour complexities which strongly deviate from spherical symmetry, generally assumed as standard wind model. One such morphology is the archimedean spiral, generally believed to be formed by binary interactions, which has been directly observed in multiple sources. We seek to investigate the manifestation in the observables of spiral structures embedded in the spherical outflows of cool stars. We aim to provide an intuitive bedrock with which upcoming ALMA data can be compared and interpreted. By means of an extended parameter study, we model rotational CO emission from the stellar outflow of asymptotic giant branch stars. To this end, we develop a simplified analytical parametrised description of a 3D spiral structure. This model is embedded into a spherical wind, and fed into the 3D radiative transfer code LIME, which produces 3D intensity maps throughout velocity space. Subsequently, we investigate the spectral signature of rotational transitions of CO of the models, as well as the spatial aspect of this emission by means of wide-slit PV diagrams. Additionally, the potential for misinterpretation of the 3D data in a 1D context is quantified. Finally, we simulate ALMA observations to explore the impact of interefrometric noise and artifacts on the emission signatures. The spectral signatures of the CO rotational transition v=0 J=3-2 are very efficient at concealing the dual nature of the outflow. Only a select few parameter combinations allow for the spectral lines to disclose the presence of the spiral structure. The inability to disentangle the spiral from the spherical signal can result in an incorrect interpretation in a 1D context. Consequently, erroneous mass loss rates would be calculated..

Do bold shakeups of the learning-teaching agreement work? A commognitive perspective on a LUMOS low lecture innovation

Mathematics undergraduates, and their lecturers, often describe the transition into university mathematics as a process of enculturation into new mathematical practices and new ways of constructing and conveying mathematical meaning (Nardi, 1996). Whatcharacterises the breadth and intensity of this enculturation varies according to factors such as (Artigue, Kent & Batanero, 2007): student background and preparedness for university level studies of mathematics; the aims and scope of each of the courses that thestudents take in the early days of their arrival at university; how distant the pedagogical approaches taken in these courses are from those taken in the secondary schools that the students come from; the students’ affective dispositions towards the subject and their expectations for what role mathematics is expected to play in their professional life. On their part, lecturers’ views on their pedagogical role may also vary according to factors such as (Nardi, 2008): length of teaching experience; type of courses (pure, applied, optional, compulsory etc.) they teach; perceptions of the goals of university mathematics teaching (such as to facilitate access to the widest possible population of participants in mathematics or select those likely to push the frontiers of the discipline); and, crucially, institutional access to innovative practices, e.g. through funded, encouraged and acknowledged research into such practices.In this paper I draw on my experiences as a member of the International Advisory Board of the LUMOS project (Barton & Paterson, 2013) to comment on aspects of aforementioned student enculturation. Here I see this enculturation as the adaptation of different ways to act and communicate mathematically. I take a perspective on these ways to act and communicate as discourses and I treat the changes to the mathematical and pedagogical perspectives of those who act as discursive shifts. To this purpose, I deploythe approach introduced by Anna Sfard (2008) and known as the commognitive approach

Value co-creation characteristics and creativity-oriented customer citizenship behavior

For the competitive advantage of service organization, it is important to improve the creative performance of human resources in the organization. For example, when employees perform creatively, in other words, if they generate novel and useful ideas, it will contribute to organizational competiveness. Therefore, there has been an increased focus in identifying its antecedents and consequences. Unfortunately, little is known about the creative performance of customers. According to service-centered dominant logic, customer is the value co-creator, it emphasizes co-opting customer involvement in the value creation process as an additional human resource. In addition, customers can be a valuable resource for service improvement efforts for firms. For instance, companies might benefit greatly from customer feedback and complaints regarding their offerings and can enhance their productivity in terms of quality and quantity. In this paper, the type of novel, creative-oriented customer behaviors highlighted in the preceding paragraph are referred to as creativity-oriented customer citizenship behaviors (CCBs). In the customer value co-creation context, creative-oriented CCBs refer to extra-role efforts by customers with regards the development of ideas about products, practices, services, and procedures that are novel and potentially useful to a firm. According to the intrinsic motivation perspective, the context in which customers create values, influences their intrinsic motivation, which in turn affects creativity-oriented CCBs. The intrinsic motivation perspective suggests that high intrinsic motivation is affected by information from both task characteristics (i.e., autonomy) and social characteristics (e.g., supplier support). Specifically, complex and challenging task characteristics such as high levels of variety, identity, significance, autonomy, and feedback are expected to increase customer intrinsic motivation. Under these conditions, customers should increase the likelihood of creativity-oriented CCBs. Therefore, customers are expected to be most creative when they experience a high level of intrinsic motivation. In contrast, complex and challenging task and social characteristics can have the opposite effect to customers. For example, in a high level of variety task, increased autonomy can lead to increased workload because they must take on related extra responsibilities and accountability. Increased workload, in turn, is expected to lead to decreased likelihood of creativity-oriented CCBs. Therefore, this study attempts to explore the impact of task characteristics and social characteristics on creativity-oriented CCBs. Furthermore, a substantial body of research has examined the possibility that creativity is affected by personal characteristics. As such, in addition to the relevant task and social characteristics, the moderating influence of several trait variables is also considered. This article makes several contributions. First, this study investigates the trade-off effect of the customer value co-creation related task and social characteristics by examining the underlying opposing mechanism of motivation and work overload. Second, this research provides a deeper understanding of contingency factors that systematically strengthen the relationships under consideration. Third, this study may indicate that companies seek to promote the creativity of their industrial customers and should design the tasks and social characteristics of their industrial customers in a way that maximizes their creativity. But, companies should be aware of the negative impact of specific tasks and social characteristics that may minimize the creativity of industrial customers

Beyond Formal Methods for Critical Interactive Systems: Dealing with Faults at Runtime

International audienceFormal methods provide support for validation and verification of interactive systems by means of complete and unambiguous description of the envisioned system. They can also be used (for instance in the requirements/needs identification phase) to define precisely what the system should do and how it should meet user needs. If the entire development process in supported by formal methods (for instance as required by DO 178C [7] and its supplement 333 [8]) then classical formal method engineers would argue that the resulting software is defect free. However, events that are beyond the envelope of the specification may occur and trigger unexpected behaviors from the formally specified system resulting in failures. Sources of such failures can be permanent or transient hardware failures, due to (when such systems are deployed in the high atmosphere e.g. aircrafts or spacecrafts) natural faults triggered by alpha-particles from radioactive contaminants in the chips or neutron from cosmic radiation. This position paper proposes a complementary view to formal approaches first by presenting an overview of causes of unexpected events on the system side as well as on the human side and then by discussing approaches that could provide support for taking into account system faults and human errors at design time

Is FinTech a Disruption or a New Eco-system? An Exploratory Investigation of Banks’ Response to Fintech in Australia

This research-in-progress aims at investigating what moderating effects use of Agile Software Development (ASD) methods and practices has on negative performance effects of faultlines, i.e. specific configurations of attributes in team members. Based on literature in ASD and psychology, a model of the moderating effects of ASD practices is developed and is to be assessed using a global online study. Since ASD practices shape team work and can be linked to known moderators of negative faultline effects, we expect to find moderating effects of ASD methods and practices on faultline effects. Information on the prevalence and moderation of faultline effects in ASD teams will help with a more detailed understanding of how ASD practices work and the contingencies that can inhibit or support their positive effects. Insights into group functioning in ASD settings will provide guidance on which ASD practices can help with negative team dynamics

Older adults and hoarding: Challenging medical and ageist constructions

The purpose of this article is to critically analyse the dominant discourses surrounding older adults who are labelled with a diagnosis of hoarding disorder. Hoarding has increasingly attracted social interest in recent decades, with a growing number of television shows, books and media dedicated to unpacking the explanations, implications and treatments of hoarding behaviour. The article seeks to disrupt deficit frameworks, applying critical social work perspectives to create new meanings, policy and practice directions for Social Workers. Informed by a postmodern and critical social work approach the article seeks to analyse how power is socially and systemically constructed, questioning universal grand narratives. It seeks to highlight how our understanding of hoarding is informed by Western, ageist and gender discourses. This theoretical platform recognises the diversity of human experiences, and the many ways in which people construct meaning throughout their lives. The article concludes with recommendations for future research