Organizational effectiveness at seaports: a systems approach

Organizational Effectiveness (OE) is a rather new concept in the port business literature and not widely studied before. From the systems perspective, this concept focuses on the goals of the organization, the resources needed to achieve these goals, and the relationship between the organization and its environment. The reason behind choosing a systems approach is the significant role of seaports as open systems affected by changes and developments in world trade, supply chain and logistics trends, maritime transport, and technological developments. While seaports are multi-faceted organizations that constitute different interdependent and integrated units in their structure, they can also be regarded as the subsystems of the supply chain system. As being the social and technical systems, port organizations have unique characteristics that should be examined in detail to assess their effectiveness. To assess the effectiveness of port organizations, principally a set of effectiveness measures applicable to seaports should be determined. The main aim of this study is to assess the relative importance of the main effectiveness criteria in seaports and to determine the significance of main inputs and port subsystems which can be referred as the means to achieve effectiveness. By using the systems approach, the inputs, the processes, and the outputs of the port organizations are clearly defined with a conceptual model. Thirty-three statements have been developed under the main categories in the systems model and a two-round delphi survey is conducted, and qualitative analysis of the experts' opinions is carried out. The results of the delphi survey show that the main port inputs are port infrastructure, equipments, technology, and port labor; the major port processes are ship and cargo operations together with the logistics services, safety and security, information technologies, and marketing; and the most important effectiveness measures for the seaports are productivity, efficiency, service quality, adaptability, information and communication management, profitability, human resource quality, and customer satisfaction

Dimensions of brand knowledge: Turkish university students' consumption of international fashion brands

Purpose – Previous research has suggested that brand knowledge could be affected by companies and consumer characteristics such as consumer personality. The purpose of this study is to analyse the impacts of gender, field of education, and having consumed the brand, on consumers' brand knowledge. Design/methodology/approach – An exploratory study is designed to reveal the impacts of gender, field of education, and usage of a brand by evaluating Turkish university students' knowledge of nine international fashion brands. The survey is conducted by using convenience sampling method to reach a heterogeneous group of different departments, gender, and usage frequencies that would reveal whether these variables have an effect on brand knowledge or not. The students are also asked to describe each brand by two or three words. Findings – Significant differences are found with respect to usage, gender, and departments. Students belonging to the departments more related to fashion and female students have more knowledge about these nine brands. Furthermore, the findings demonstrate that consumption of a brand increases both brand awareness and brand image. Research limitations/implications – Future studies could analyse brands by grouping them in accordance with their target segments and product types in order to compare them more strictly. It is also purposeful to compare the brand knowledge of the same brands in different samples and different countries. Practical implications – Since brand associations are used in positioning, the results of the open-ended questions advise firms operating marketing activities whether to strengthen or to alter these associations. Originality/value – The study could be beneficial for academicians and business practitioners, since it reveals the effects of gender, field of education, and usage on brand knowledge. © 2010, Emerald Group Publishing Limite

The Contribution of Self-Directed Strategies to the Development of Adult Metacognition at Higher Maritime Education and Training

ABSTRACT Self-directed learning, "an approach enabling to engage learners in the learning process "to acquire higher-order thinking outcomes" (Borich , 2004 : 294), should be the primary focus at higher maritime education and training. This focus could be attributed to such peculiar characteristics of adult learning as the willingness to put the knowledge and skills gained immediately into practice, the high interests in learning the subject matters directly related to their profession, the wealth of experience already owned, and enthusiasm in conducting their own cognitive strategies up to metacognitive levels resulting in "higher-order thinking" and "life long learning". This study aims to seek possible means of engaging adult learners at higher maritime education and training in the learning process through effective use of self-directed learning strategies so as to promote their metacognition. The problem based discussion sessions are thought to provide the promising environment for this purpose. Hence, the practices conducted at the higher maritime education and training institution, where the authors teach, are analyzed, which will include the learners' perceptions. The study comprises four parts. The first part highlights the basic requirements in effective adult learning. The second part focuses on the importance of raising cognitive strategies up to metacognitive levels. The third part analyzes the practices experienced, which includes learners' perceptions through "Higher-order Thinking and Problem Solving Checklist." The fourth part highlights the results of accompanying discussions on the aspects that need to be improved

Dimensions of brand knowledge

Purpose – Previous research has suggested that brand knowledge could be affected by companies and consumer characteristics such as consumer personality. The purpose of this study is to analyse the impacts of gender, field of education, and having consumed the brand, on consumers' brand knowledge. Design/methodology/approach – An exploratory study is designed to reveal the impacts of gender, field of education, and usage of a brand by evaluating Turkish university students' knowledge of nine international fashion brands. The survey is conducted by using convenience sampling method to reach a heterogeneous group of different departments, gender, and usage frequencies that would reveal whether these variables have an effect on brand knowledge or not. The students are also asked to describe each brand by two or three words. Findings – Significant differences are found with respect to usage, gender, and departments. Students belonging to the departments more related to fashion and female students have more knowledge about these nine brands. Furthermore, the findings demonstrate that consumption of a brand increases both brand awareness and brand image. Research limitations/implications – Future studies could analyse brands by grouping them in accordance with their target segments and product types in order to compare them more strictly. It is also purposeful to compare the brand knowledge of the same brands in different samples and different countries. Practical implications – Since brand associations are used in positioning, the results of the open-ended questions advise firms operating marketing activities whether to strengthen or to alter these associations. Originality/value – The study could be beneficial for academicians and business practitioners, since it reveals the effects of gender, field of education, and usage on brand knowledge. © 2010, Emerald Group Publishing Limite

Forecasting Domestic Shipping Demand of Cement: Comparison of SARIMAX, ANN and Hybrid SARIMAX-ANN

Accurate forecasting of shipping demand for cement is valuable for the ensure of proper supply and demand match. Due to the perishability nature of the shipping industry, accuracy performances of the models in the industry is particularly important. Therefore, supply and demand in the industry should match. This paper compares three methods, Seasonal Autoregressise Integrated Moving Average with Exogenous Variable (SARIMAX), Artificial Neural Network-Multilayer Perceptron (MLP), and SARIMAX-MLP hybrid model for domestic shipping demand of cement loaded at ports of Turkey. The hybrid model forecasting of the shipping demand of cement appears to be more applicable than that of the single SARIMAX. The results indicate that the prediction accuracy of SARIMAX model is higher than the MLP model and that the hybrid model is the most satisfactory of the three models

The Contribution of Self-Directed Strategies to the Development of Adult Metacognition at Higher Maritime Education and Training

March 29, 2007Self-directed learning, ???an approach enabling to engage learners in the learning process ???to acquire higher-order thinking outcomes??? (Borich , 2004 : 294), should be the primary focus at higher maritime education and training. This focus could be attributed to such peculiar characteristics of adult learning as the willingness to put the knowledge and skills gained immediately into practice, the high interests in learning the subject matters directly related to their profession, the wealth of experience already owned, and enthusiasm in conducting their own cognitive strategies up to metacognitive levels resulting in ???higher-order thinking??? and ???life long learning???. This study aims to seek possible means of engaging adult learners at higher maritime education and training in the learning process through effective use of self-directed learning strategies so as to promote their metacognition. The problem based discussion sessions are thought to provide the promising environment for this purpose. Hence, the practices conducted at the higher maritime education and training institution, where the authors teach, are analyzed, which will include the learners??? perceptions. The study comprises four parts. The first part highlights the basic requirements in effective adult learning. The second part focuses on the importance of raising cognitive strategies up to metacognitive levels. The third part analyzes the practices experienced, which includes learners??? perceptions through ???Higher-order Thinking and Problem Solving Checklist.??? The fourth part highlights the results of accompanying discussions on the aspects that need to be improved.Dokuz Eylul University School of Maritime Business and Managemen

An empirical study of the relationship between normlessness, business ethics and social responsibility

This paper aimed to examine the differences of normlessness levels of university students according to their ages, genders, majors and classes. The study also investigated the relationship between normlessness, perceived business ethics and social responsibility. After a thorough review of the literatures of normlesness, anomie, business ethics and social responsibility, relevant measurement scales were selected; a survey was prepared and conducted among 200 university students from Izmir University of Economics. The findings represented that students' normlessness levels differed according to certain demographics such as age, and gender. Results also showed that students who have different ideas about normlessness also have different business ethics and social responsibility perceptions. According to the findings, normlessness, perceived business ethics and social responsibility levels of students from different majors were also significantly different from each other