Managerial long-term responsibility in family-controlled firms

Evidence suggests that long-term orientation (lto) as a dominant strategic logic contributes to the sustainable performance of family-controlled firms (fcfs). Combining a review of the literature on lto with stewardship theory and upper echelons theory reasoning, this article presents a typology of managerial responsibility and introduces the concept of long-term responsibility as a managerial characteristic constituting a major driving force behind creating lto. The antecedents of long-term responsibility under family firm-specific conditions (stemming from the family system, the governance system, and family-firm managers personal characteristics) are also identified and presented in an integrated model. The paper contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of intertemporal choice in fcfs and explains why they tend to be more long-term oriented than other types of firms

Adaptive strategies in response to the economic crisis

This study builds on prior research on culture-specific differences in strategic decision-making and strategic issue analysis, and extends it to the field of strategic crisis adaptation. Taking an upper echelons perspective, it is investigated whether the cultural dimension of uncertainty avoidance had an effect on strategic directions that managers chose in response to the 20082009 global financial and economic crisis. Building on a framework of strategic crisis responses and a quantitative survey conducted among 257 managers in Austria and Slovenia, the findings suggest that strategic issue interpretations of the economic crisis as well as country differences influence whether firms are using externally versus internally-directed strategic responses, and pro-active versus retrenchment strategies. The differences in strategy deployment between the two countries, however, could not be consistently traced to differences in the cultural dimension of uncertainty avoidance, thus suggesting that other country-specific factors like institutional or social differences also play an important role

Dynamic primitives of motor behavior

We present in outline a theory of sensorimotor control based on dynamic primitives, which we define as attractors. To account for the broad class of human interactive behaviors—especially tool use—we propose three distinct primitives: submovements, oscillations, and mechanical impedances, the latter necessary for interaction with objects. Owing to the fundamental features of the neuromuscular system—most notably, its slow response—we argue that encoding in terms of parameterized primitives may be an essential simplification required for learning, performance, and retention of complex skills. Primitives may simultaneously and sequentially be combined to produce observable forces and motions. This may be achieved by defining a virtual trajectory composed of submovements and/or oscillations interacting with impedances. Identifying primitives requires care: in principle, overlapping submovements would be sufficient to compose all observed movements but biological evidence shows that oscillations are a distinct primitive. Conversely, we suggest that kinematic synergies, frequently discussed as primitives of complex actions, may be an emergent consequence of neuromuscular impedance. To illustrate how these dynamic primitives may account for complex actions, we brieflyreviewthree typesof interactivebehaviors: constrained motion, impact tasks, and manipulation of dynamic objects.United States. National Institutes of Health (T32GM008334)American Heart Association (11SDG7270001)National Science Foundation (U.S.) (NSF DMS-0928587

The Use of Story Reading as a Method of Improving Verbal Expression of Head Start Children

The purpose of this experimental study was to conduct and evaluate a teaching method for improving verbal expression performance of Head Start children. The teaching method of language stimulation given the experimental subjects was based on story reading and retelling with active participation by the children in daily small group tutoring sessions, for seven weeks. An academic program given the control subjects included specific vocabulary and sequencing training. Verbal expression was measured by an analysis of stories told by each subject before and after tutoring, in response to sequence pictures and standup figures. Measures of vocabulary, sentence structure and evidence of sequence were used in the analysis. The experimental language tutored group gained significantly from pre- to posttest in 11 Of 20 verbal expression criteria. Although a comparison of group means showed the experimental group\u27s performance to have exceeded that of the control group in 15 criteria, only one vocabulary score was significantly greater for the experimental subjects. It was concluded that verbal expression skills can be accelerated through training. The teaching method based on story reading was recommended for use by Odgen Head Start teachers as one method of improving verbal expression

FACTORS WHICH HAVE FATAL INFLUENCE ON ERP IMPLEMENTATION ON SLOVENIAN ORGANIZATIONS

A lot of ERP implementations are failure, because organizations which bought ERP systems thought that this was all what they should do. But failure cases of ERP implementation showed, that organizations have to do extensive work on implementation. Because of that, organizations have to create conditions, in which they can implement chosen solution in expected time, scope and evaluated costs. That means that organizations should be aware of what most critical factors for success (CSF) in ERP implementations are. The high failure rate of ERP implementations call for better understanding of critical success factors (CSFs). In the paper we will research the CSFs in ERP implementation by studying published prior research on the field of ERP implementation. We will build a model of CSFs for ERP implementation, discuss in depth some most important factors and present preliminary results of importance CSFs of ERP implementation in Slovenian organizations

ERP Solution Acceptance by Students

ERP acceptance by its users in companies has been researched by several authors while ERP acceptance by students within study programmes has not been researched so often. For teachers should be important to know which factors have influence on student ERP acceptance. Our study researches student acceptance of ERP solutions while they are exposed to ERP solution and they are involved in ERP actual use. Our research is based on TAM which provides a basis for tracing impact of external factors on internal beliefs (perceived usefulness – PU and perceived ease of use – PEOU), attitudes (AT), intentions (behavioural intention – BI) and actual use. Research model includes additional external factors such as: experience with computer, computer self-efficiency, personal innovativeness toward IT, computer anxiety, user manuals (help), system quality, social influence (environment), training and education etc. Research was conduct within a group of 121 students after short interaction with Microsoft Dynamics NAV ERP solution. Results show that most important external factors for student ERP acceptance are: individual benefits, training and education on ERP system and quality of ERP system