Learning lessons from evaluating eGovernment: Reflective case experiences that support transformational government

Central Government strategy of e-inclusion is being manifested in the form of eGovernment. Given that it is the public purse that funds such investments, there is increasingly attention being paid to the evaluation of these investments, such that value for money and organisation learning can be realised. In this paper the authors report the findings from three interpretive in-depth organisational case studies that explore eGovernment evaluation within a UK public sector setting. The paper elicits insights to organisational and managerial aspects with the purpose of improving knowledge and understanding of eGovernment evaluation. The findings that are extrapolated from the case study analysis are presented in terms of lessons that gravitate around social factors, evaluation, adoption, ownership, prioritisation sponsorship and, responsibility. These lessons are extrapolated from the empirical enquiry to improve eGovernment evaluation practice. The paper concludes that eGovernment evaluation is an under developed area, with most work being developmental in nature and as a result calls for decision makers to engage with the eGovernment agenda and commission eGovernment evaluation exercises to improve evaluation practice such that transformational Government can realise its full potential. The paper ends by highlighting political, economic, technical and social issues as the drivers of the evaluation cycle

Superchilling of food: A review

a b s t r a c t Food preservation is very important for the safety and the reliability of the product. Superchilling as used for preserving foods, has been defined as a process by which the temperature of a food product is lowered to 1-2°C below the initial freezing point. Fresh and high quality food products are in great demand worldwide. Temperature is a major factor determining the shelf life and quality of food products. Fish and meat are perishable food commodities, where better and more advanced preservation technology is needed. Deterioration of these foods mainly occurs as a result of chemical, enzymatic and bacteriological activities leading to loss of quality and subsequent spoilage. Storing food at superchilling temperature has three distinct advantages: maintaining food freshness, retaining high food quality and suppressing growth of harmful microbes. It can reduce the use of freezing/thawing for production and thereby increase yield, reduce energy, labour and transport costs. The study on the growth mechanism of ice crystals, modelling and computer simulation of foods during superchilling and superchilling storage is needed

Expanding the parameters of academia

This paper draws on qualitative data gathered from two studies funded by the UK Leadership Foundation for Higher Education to examine the expansion of academic identities in higher education. It builds on Whitchurch’s earlier work, which focused primarily on professional staff, to suggest that the emergence of broadly based projects such as widening participation, learning support and community partnership is also impacting on academic identities. Thus, academic as well as professional staff are increasingly likely to work in multi-professional teams across a variety of constituencies, as well as with external partners, and the binary distinction between ‘academic’ and ‘non-academic’ roles and activities is no longer clear-cut. Moreover, there is evidence from the studies of an intentionality about deviations from mainstream academic career routes among respondents who could have gone either way. Consideration is therefore given to factors that influence individuals to work in more project-oriented areas, as well as to variables that affect ways in which these roles and identities develop. Finally, three models of academically oriented project activity are identified, and the implications of an expansion of academic identities are reviewed

Progress in information technology and tourism management: 20 years on and 10 years after the Internet—The state of eTourism research

This paper reviews the published articles on eTourism in the past 20 years. Using a wide variety of sources, mainly in the tourism literature, this paper comprehensively reviews and analyzes prior studies in the context of Internet applications to Tourism. The paper also projects future developments in eTourism and demonstrates critical changes that will influence the tourism industry structure. A major contribution of this paper is its overview of the research and development efforts that have been endeavoured in the field, and the challenges that tourism researchers are, and will be, facing

Professional superheroes: Are changes in higher education stretching hospitality management academics' professionalism to the limit?

The higher education sector in the UK has changed considerably over the last few decades, but particularly in the last ten years. As a result, working practices are such that hospitality management academics are ‘stretching’ their professional orientations in-order to accommodate increased bureaucratic and market-focused requirements, which in-turn impacts upon their professionalism. A typology is introduced in this empirical paper which is used to gain a deeper understanding of professionalism and professional orientations of this vocational academic group in the context of a changed higher education working environment

Instructor approaches to blended management learning : a tale of two business schools

The body of academic research on technology-supported learning is growing rapidly, with much of the focus upon student learning effectiveness This paper addresses the gap in educational technology literature on the examination of instructor characteristics. We shift the focus from student outcomes to instructor input, pedagogy and their strategy of technology selection. In particular, we explore instructors' approaches to blended learning, pedagogical aims and instructional design. Our study of management academics at two UK business schools reveals that blended learning adoption varies greatly. Based on forty semi-structured interviews with management academics, we find that this adoption depends on personal predispositions of academics towards educational technology. Personal understanding and interpretation of the blended learning phenomenon cluster into four distinct groups: traditionalist, pedagogy-centric, techno-centric and cautious, and instructional design and delivery preferences vary widely between groups. The findings of this study demonstrate that there is a wide variation in instructor approaches to blended management learning and that manifests itself markedly in the pedagogical strategies and instructional design and delivery of management education

Not All Managers Are Managerial: A Self-Evaluation of Women Middle-Managers' Experiences in a UK University

The focus of this small-scale self-evaluation is the implementation of a new middle-management role in a post-92 UK university. A realist appreciative inquiry was undertaken with five women who had been promoted to a middle-management role 18 months prior to the inquiry. This evaluation for knowledge offered an opportunity to reflect on experiences in practice and sought to understand the experiences of the women in this role and how they cope with the challenges middle-management brings. Particular challenges (instability-generating) accorded with existing literature and included: lack of role clarity, lack of pre-preparation for management role, colleagues’ views of management, including perceptions of women in management roles and malicious intent of managed academics in rare cases. Supportive factors (provisional-stability-generating) included: personal resilience, informal peer support, external support and reflection. The co-evaluators offered reflections for the future from this co-evaluation. These suggest that training may contribute to provisional-stability in role and should be considered for new entrants to middle-management. The alternative construct of humanistic management is proposed as a way of understanding these women’s values-based decision-making practices in complex situations

'Excellence' and exclusion:the individual costs of institutional competitiveness

A performance-based funding system like the United Kingdom’s ‘Research Excellence Framework’ (REF) symbolizes the re-rationalization of higher education according to neoliberal ideology and New Public Management technologies. The REF is also significant for disclosing the kinds of behaviour that characterize universities’ response to government demands for research auditability. In this paper, we consider the casualties of what Henry Giroux (2014) calls “neoliberalism’s war on higher education” or more precisely the deleterious consequences of non-participation in the REF. We also discuss the ways with which higher education’s competition fetish, embodied within the REF, affects the instrumentalization of academic research and the diminution of academic freedom, autonomy and criticality

Do affective variables make a difference in consumers behavior toward mobile advertising?

Research into permission-based mobile marketing is increasingly common due to the widespread adoption of mobile technology and its use as a communication channel. Yet few studies have attempted to analyze the factors that determine attitudes toward mobile advertising while simultaneously considering: the links among them and consumers' intentions, behavior, and/or cognitive and affective variables simultaneously. The present research therefore sought to deepen understanding of the antecedents and consequences of attitudes toward permission-based mobile advertising. More specifically, it sought to identify the antecedents of attitudes toward mobile advertising and the bridges between these attitudes and consumers' intentions upon receiving advertising on their mobile devices. To this end, a causal model was proposed and tested with a sample of 612 mobile phone users that was collected from a panel of Spanish adults who receive advertising on their mobile phones in the form of SMS text messages. The structural model used was validated using the partial least squares (PLS) regression technique. The results show that the greatest influence was that exerted by positive emotions on feelings, suggesting that positive emotions have an indirect effect on attitude toward mobile advertising. This influence was even greater than their direct effect. Another important, though less powerful, effect was the influence of attitude on behavioral intentions to receive mobile advertising. In contrast, the influence of cognitive variables on attitude was less relevant.This work was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness under Research Project ECO2014-59688-R,“National Program for Research, Develop and Innovation Oriented toward Societal Challenges, ”within the context of the 2013-2016 National Scientific and Technical Research and Innovation Plan