The Effectiveness of Customer Education: evaluating synchronous and asynchronous e-learning technologies

This paper considers the role played by customer education in enhancing their engagement by enriching the customer experience. Enrichment may be seen in terms of enhanced customer communication or service co-creation. This is often mediated by the effectiveness of customer education. Consequently, organisations are evolving new ways of educating their customers to carry out their roles as co-producers. Increasingly this process depends on the latest synchronous and asynchronous e-learning technologies, requiring significant resource investments. Whilst it is easy for organisations to become absorbed with the latest technological trends, we suggest a refocussing on how customers actually engage in learning and skills acquisition. A conceptual framework is developed that combines key concepts from IT service delivery with well-established models of learning acquisitio

Evaluating the performance of public services: introducing the evaluator's comparison framework

As public services come under more scrutiny, practitioners are evaluating more of their investments in human capital. But, faced with numerous evaluation approaches, how do they compare them? This paper presents The Evaluator's Comparison Framework (ECF), a useful tool for comparing the planning, implementation (including monitoring and evaluation), and reporting elements of a project/initiative. It also demonstrates the framework in use with a comparison of the Logical Framework Approach (LFA) and the abdi Recommended ROI approach. From this demonstration, the differences between these approaches can be seen, allowing evaluators to select the one more appropriate to their needs

Learning and Applying Financial Metrics to Evaluate Human Capital Investments: The case of Return on Investment

Return on Investment (ROI) is one of several financial metrics increasingly advocated and used to evaluate expenditures on human capital initiatives. This thesis explored empirically the discrepancy between growing interest in, and uptake of, ROI for human capital investments on the one hand; and evidence to date that implementation is problematic and actual usage limited, on the other. From within a constructivist/interpretivist paradigm, ten attempts to apply ROI were identified and reconstructed using the qualitative techniques of observations, interviews and document analyses. These attempts were drawn from three different contexts - corporate, health service and international development. Concepts from seminal theories on learning and skills acquisition, knowledge, practice, context and their relationship with each other, as well as the introduction of new technical approaches, were selected to provide a framework to guide the enquiries and interpretation of data. The study found the term ROI was used as a bridging metric and understood in three ways - metaphorically, as an aspiration of value; literally, as a metric; and procedurally, as a method for planning and evaluating human capital investments. The metaphorical use of ROI was widespread as a way of expressing a common goal when dealing with key stakeholders. However, the metric was rarely utilised to measure human capital investments because applying it was difficult and time consuming; particularly linking the investment and service system performance through people performance. Methodically, ROI seemed to function as an aspirational map for planning and evaluating human capital investments. Learning and applying the method, even partially, was valued and tended to lead to changed behaviour and organisational culture. Significant variations between the three contexts were noted, and it is argued that the contingencies affecting the uptake and appropriateness of ROI in different settings would likely affect the appropriateness of other financial metrics for evaluating human capital investments

Blockchain Adoption Model for the Global Banking Industry

Blockchain has become the new hype term in the business world for the last decade. Due to the new technology’s characteristics and innovative applications, it is being adopted globally in a wide number of industries including the banking industry, yet no adoption model is provided to guide this process. This research aims to contribute to facilitating the successful adoption and implementation of the blockchain new technology in the banking industry. Building on the assumption that the blockchain’s adoption in banking will be directed by the regulations and best practices guidelines of the global banking regulatory bodies and practitioner, this research asks: What is the blockchain adoption model for the banking industry? The currently available official documents of the regulatory bodies, practitioners, and research bodies were collected, text mined and analysed, based on the adoption factors identified in the literature review and investigating the adoption factors’ importance. This research was able to find three categories of adoption factors: supporting, hindering and circumstantial, identify a new adoption factor and establish the factors’ importance. As a result, an adoption model for blockchain technology in the banking industry from an institutional perspective is proposed. Based on this, it is recommended to carry further research on applying the proposed model at banks adopting the new technology to study its fitness

Quarterly Survey of Small Business in Britain - 30th anniversary issue

This special issue marks a particular milestone: it is now three decades since the Quarterly Survey of Small Business in Britain began the task of monitoring emerging trends and examining the experiences and opinions of business owners and managers. In this report, we have assembled contributions from a variety of sources with the following aims: to shed some new light on this important period in the history of small firms’ research in the UK; to explore the main changes and continuities in the small firms landscape over this extended period; and lastly, to draw some lessons for future work in this important research field. The remainder of the report comprises three parts: Section 2 sets out the historical background to the launch of the Quarterly Survey in 1984. This includes an account of the highly influential Bolton Committee Report of 1971, drafted by John Bolton’s biographer, and personal accounts from two small business specialists who were directly involved in establishing the Quarterly Survey. Section 3 opens with a small selection of the survey’s research topics and findings over the last 30 years. This is followed by a review of the technical challenges of conducting survey-based research, particularly when the work extends over such a long period, and an assessment of the Quarterly Survey’s contribution to the SME research and policy communities. We also hear from the editor in chief of the International Small Business Journal, which was also established in the early 1980s, on the challenges of establishing an academic publication that addresses the issues faced by smaller firms. In Section 4, some of our longest-serving panel respondents discuss the trends and changes that their businesses have faced over this period and comment on the prospects for 2015. They also reflect on the experience of completing all of those survey questionnaires. Section 5 offers some brief concluding remarks and comments on possible future directions for research of this kind

Resilience and recovery: SME experiences of extreme weather events and other external threats

Objectives: To examine how small and medium-sized firms deal with external shocks of various kinds, with particular reference to extreme weather events. The research asks how business owners and managers prepare themselves for these inherently uncertain events and how they deal with immediate impact on the business when it faced with an external crisis. It also explores the longer term effects of exposure to adverse conditions, to see whether these experiences tend to undermine businesses, or help to make them more resilient over time. Prior Work: The research is informed by contributions to the resilience literature, which spans individual, organisational, inter-organisational and regional levels of analysis. It identifies a variety of factors as potential sources of resilience for smaller firms and potential vulnerabilities. Some empirical work has been conducted in this area but there is scope for a more in-depth examination of the ways that SME owners and managers perceive and prepare for external threats, their experiences in responding to crises, and implications of the promotion of environmentally sustainable practices. Approach: Evidence was collected from a large quarterly survey of SMEs in Britain. Statistical findings are based on 1,353 useable questionnaire responses comprising a sub-sample drawn from a larger telephone omnibus survey, supplemented by a sub-sample of respondents to a slightly longer online version. The statistical data were augmented by qualitative evidence from online respondents and a series of six semi-structured interviews which explored issues emerging from the survey in greater detail. Results: Organisational resilience is an important issue for SMEs. Nearly three quarters (73%) of respondents identified at least one external event that posed a ‘real threat’ to their business over the last five years and many identified multiple threats. Extreme weather conditions were identified as a real threat by 27% of respondents, a finding underlined by graphic qualitative accounts of damage caused to businesses by events such as flooding and heavy snowfall (n.b. the survey was conducted prior to the extended period of storms and flooding that disrupted many businesses in late 2013). Value: This working paper makes an empirical contribution to the organisational resilience literature by providing evidence from a relatively large and broadly representative sample of British SMEs, coupled with tentative policy implications and suggestions for further research. Recent years have seen a policy focus on promoting high growth firms. Given continuing economic uncertainties and the prospect of increasing threats from extreme weather events, it may also be advisable to consider initiatives that foster the longer-term resilience of SMEs, and to pay particular attention to the needs of smaller and more vulnerable firms