Abstract: Company strategy expresses a basic idea of how to reach company objectives. A whole range of models of strategic management are used in practice. The concept of strategic management should fulfill some basic requirements to make it applicable for both the typical, but also more specific company environment. The financial strategy plays an important role in corporate strategy. The paper develops a methodology of strategic model implementing into the category of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Furthermore, the methodology recommends procedures while solving an up-to-date worldwide task of the definition of the company strategy and its financial strategy.
Abstract: Food mileage is one of the important issues concerning environmental sustainability. In this research we have utilized a prototype platform with iterative user-centered testing. With these findings we successfully demonstrate the use of the context of persuasive methods to influence users- attitudes towards the sustainable concept.
Abstract: The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect
of combining Real Experimentation (RE) With Virtual
Experimentation (VE) on students- conceptual understanding of
photo electric effect. To achieve this, a pre–post comparison study
design was used that involved 46 undergraduate students. Two
groups were set up for this study. Participants in the control group
used RE to learn photo electric effect, whereas, participants in the
experimental group used RE in the first part of the curriculum and
VE in another part. Achievement test was given to the groups
before and after the application as pre-test and post test. The
independent samples t- test, one way Anova and Tukey HSD test
were used for testing the data obtained from the study.
According to the results of analyzes, the experimental group
was found more successful than the control group.
Abstract: In this empirical research, how marketing managers evaluate their firms- performances and decide to make innovation is examined. They use some standards which are past performance of the firm, target performance of the firm, competitor performance, and average performance of the industry to compare and evaluate the firms- performances. It is hypothesized that marketing managers and owners of the firm compare the firms- current performance with these four standards at the same time to decide when to make innovation relating to any aspects of the firm, either management style or products. Relationship between the comparison of the firm-s performance with these standards and innovation are searched in the same regression model. The results of the regression analysis are discussed and some recommendations are made for future studies and applicants.
Abstract: To fight against the economic crisis, French
Government, like many others in Europe, has decided to give a boost
to high-speed line projects. This paper explores the implementation
and decision-making process in TGV projects, their evolutions,
especially since the Mediterranean TGV-line. This project was
probably the most controversial, but paradoxically represents today a
huge success for all the actors involved.
What kind of lessons we can learn from this experience? How to
evaluate the impact of this project on TGV-line planning? How can
we characterize this implementation and decision-making process
regards to the sustainability challenges?
The construction of Mediterranean TGV-line was the occasion to
make several innovations: to introduce more dialog into the decisionmaking
process, to take into account the environment, to introduce a
new project management and technological innovations. That-s why
this project appears today as an example in terms of integration of
sustainable development.
In this paper we examine the different kinds of innovations
developed in this project, by using concepts from sociology of
innovation to understand how these solutions emerged in a
controversial situation. Then we analyze the lessons which were
drawn from this decision-making process (in the immediacy and a
posteriori) and the way in which procedures evolved: creation of new
tools and devices (public consultation, project management...).
Finally we try to highlight the impact of this evolution on TGV
projects governance. In particular, new methods of implementation
and financing involve a reconfiguration of the system of actors. The
aim of this paper is to define the impact of this reconfiguration on
negotiations between stakeholders.
Abstract: In this paper we propose a method for vision systems
to consistently represent functional dependencies between different
visual routines along with relational short- and long-term knowledge
about the world. Here the visual routines are bound to visual properties
of objects stored in the memory of the system. Furthermore,
the functional dependencies between the visual routines are seen
as a graph also belonging to the object-s structure. This graph is
parsed in the course of acquiring a visual property of an object to
automatically resolve the dependencies of the bound visual routines.
Using this representation, the system is able to dynamically rearrange
the processing order while keeping its functionality. Additionally, the
system is able to estimate the overall computational costs of a certain
action. We will also show that the system can efficiently use that
structure to incorporate already acquired knowledge and thus reduce
the computational demand.
Abstract: Academic digital libraries emerged as a result of advances in computing and information systems technologies, and had been introduced in universities and to public. As results, moving in parallel with current technology in learning and researching environment indeed offers myriad of advantages especially to students and academicians, as well as researchers. This is due to dramatic changes in learning environment through the use of digital library system which giving spectacular impact on these societies- way of performing their study/research. This paper presents a survey of current criteria for evaluating academic digital libraries- performance. The goal is to discuss criteria being applied so far for academic digital libraries evaluation in the context of user-centered design. Although this paper does not comprehensively take into account all previous researches in evaluating academic digital libraries but at least it can be a guide in understanding the evaluation criteria being widely applied.
Abstract: This paper shows that the economy of any country
can be presented as three different shells such as: economic shell of a
big, a medium and a small business. The new concepts were
introduced such as: volume of an economic shell, coefficient of
shell-s expansion (compression) etc. These shells can expansion or
compress under action by internal or external powers and when shell
expansions - it means the rising of a business activity and
compression shows us that economy goes on recession. This process
of an expansion or a compression can develop in the various ways
like linear, logarithm or any other mathematical laws.
Abstract: The paper shows how the perceptions of five organizational virtuousness dimensions (optimism, trust, compassion, integrity, and forgiveness) explain organizational citizenship behaviors (altruism, sportsmanship, courtesy, conscientiousness, and civic virtue). A sample comprising 216 individuals from 14 industrial organizations was collected. Individuals reported their perceptions of organizational virtuousness, their organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB) being reported by their supervisors. The main findings are the following: (a) the perceptions of trust predict altruism; (b) the perceptions of integrity predict civic virtue.
Abstract: Technology transfer by international trade and
foreign direct investment is the most important positive
outcome of open economy. It is widely accepted that new
technology and knowledge have an important role in
enhancing economic growth. Human capital is the other
important factor assisting economic growth. In this study, the
role of human capital in the growth process is examined in a
view of new endogenous growth theory emphasizing on the
technology transfer resulting from international trade. Using
the panel data of 10 developed and 10 developing countries,
impact of human capital and openness on the rate of economic
growth of different countries is analysed. Evidence suggests
the view that human capital and openness contribute to the
economic growth in both developing and developed countries,
but with different rates.
Abstract: The culture of riding heavy motorcycles originates
from advanced countries and mainly comes from Europe, North
America, and Japan. Heavy duty motorcycle riders are different from
people who view motorcycles as a convenient mean of transportation.
They regard riding them as a kind of enjoyment and high-level taste.
The activities of riding heavy duty motorcycles have formes a
distinctive landscape in domestic land in Taiwan. Previous studies
which explored motorcycle culture in Taiwan still focused on the
objects of motorcycle engine displacement under 50 cc.. The study
aims to study the heavy duty motorcycles of engine displacement over
550 cc. and explores where their attractiveness is. For finding the
attractiveness of heavy duty motorcycle, the study chooses Miryoku
Engineering (Preference-Based Design) approach. Two steps are
adopted to proceed the research. First, through arranging the letters
obtained from interviewing experts, EGM (The Evaluation Grid
Method) was applied to find out the structure of attractiveness. The
attractive styles are eye-dazzling, leisure, classic, and racing
competitive styles. Secondarily, Quantification Theory Type I analysis
was adopted as a tool for analyzing the importance of attractiveness.
The relationship between style and attractive parts was also discussed.
The results could contribute to the design and research development of
heavy duty motorcycle industry in Taiwan.
Abstract: The emergence of networked information and communication has transformed the accessibility and delivery of scholarly information and fundamentally impacted on the processes of research and scholarly communication. The purpose of this study is to investigate disciplinary differences in the use of networked information for research and scholarly communication at Sultan Qaboos University, Oman. This study has produced quantitative data about how and why academics within different disciplines utilize networked information that is made available either internally through the university library, or externally through networked services accessed by the Internet. The results indicate some significant differences between the attitudes and practice of academics in the science disciplines when compared to those from the social sciences and humanities. While respondents from science disciplines show overall longer and more frequent use of networked information, respondents from humanities and social sciences indicated more positive attitudes and a greater degree of satisfaction toward library networked services.
Abstract: IT consultants often take over an important role as an
interface between technological, organizational and managerial
structures. As a result, the services offered are in many cases
assigned to different disciplines which can cause a lack of
transparency on the market for consulting services. However, not all
consulting products are suitable for every company because of
different frameworks and business processes. In this context the
questions arises as to what consulting products are currently offered
and how they can be compared as well as how the market for IT
consulting services is structured on the supply side. The presented
study aims to shed light on the IT consulting market by giving an
overview of the current structure of the supply-side for IT consulting
services as well as proposing a categorization of the currently
available consulting services (consulting fields) in order to provide a
theoretical background for the empirical study. Apart from these
theoretical considerations, the empirical results of field surveys on
the Austrian IT consulting market are presented and analyzed.
Abstract: The new status generated by technological advancements and changes in the global economy raises important issues on how communities and organisations need to innovate upon their traditional processes in order to adapt to the challenges of the Knowledge Society. The DialogoS+ European project aims to study the role of and promote social dialogue in the banking sector, strengthen the link between old and new members and make social dialogue at the European level a force for innovation and change, also given the context of the international crisis emerging in 2008- 2009. Under the scope of DialogoS+, this paper describes how the community of Europe-s banking sector trade unions attempted to adapt to the challenges of the Knowledge Society by exploiting the benefits of new channels of communication, learning, knowledge generation and diffusion focusing on the concept of roadmapping. Important dimensions of social dialogue such as collective bargaining and working conditions are addressed.
Abstract: The purpose of this study is to review representative
cases of green space development in order to compare the Garden City
concept and Green Belt concept as applied and to examine its direction
in major Asian and Oceanic cities. The results of previous studies and
this study show that there are two major directions in such
green-oriented city planning. One direction is toward Multi-Regional
Development, and the other focuses on an Environmentally Symbiotic
City based on the Garden City concept. In large cities and the suburbs
where extremely strong pressure to urbanize makes it impossible to
keep Green Belts, it is essential to strictly control land use and adopt
the Garden City concept to conserve the urban environment.
Abstract: Firms have invested heavily in knowledge
management (KM) with the aim to build a knowledge capability and
use it to achieve a competitive advantage. Research has shown,
however, that not all knowledge management projects succeed. Some
studies report that about 84% of knowledge management projects
fail. This paper has integrated studies on the impediments to
knowledge management into a theoretical framework. Based on this
framework, five cases documenting failed KM initiatives were
analysed. The analysis gave us a clear picture about why certain KM
projects fail. The high failure rate of KM can be explained by the
gaps that exist between users and management in terms of KM
perceptions and objectives
Abstract: Green incentives are included in the “American
Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009" (ARRA). It is, however,
unclear how these government incentives can be carried out most
effectively according to market-based principles and if they can serve
as a catalyst for an accelerated green transformation and an ultimate
solution to the current U.S. and global economic and financial crisis.
The article will compare the existing U.S. green economic policies
with those in Germany, identify problems, and suggest improvements
to allow the green stimulus incentives to achieve the best results in
the process of an accelerated green transformation. The author argues
that the current U.S. green stimulus incentives can only be most
successful if they are carried out as part of a visionary,
comprehensive, long-term, and consistent strategy of the green
economic transformation.
Abstract: The paper presents the Romanian realities and perspectives from the point of view of reaching the sustainable development model in the context of the recent accession to the European Union, based on the analysis of the indicators listed in the EU Sustainable Development Strategy. The analysis of the economic-social potential for sustainable development and of the environment aspects show that the objectives stipulated in the renewed EU Sustainable Development Strategy of 2006 can be reached, but an extra effort must be put-in in order to overcome the existing substantial gaps in several areas in relation to the developed countries of the EU. The paper-s conclusions show that even if sustainable development is not an easy target to reach in Romania, there are resources and a growing potential, which can lead to sustainable development if used rationally.
Abstract: There is an urgent need to conserve the biological diversity of the Nigerian Environment for the future and present generation in the face of current energy resources development. This paper gives an in-depth analysis of the impact of oil and gas activities on the biological diversity of the Nigerian Niger Delta area and its consequences on the sustainable development of the host communities as it relates to their social, economic and environmental issues, particularly on the womenfolk who are the key managers of environmental resources. Also reviewed is the frustration of these communities that is reflected in unending conflicts.
Abstract: The use of Virtual Reality (VR) in schools and higher education is proliferating. Due to its interactive and animated features, it is regarded as a promising technology to increase students- spatial ability. Spatial ability is assumed to have a prominent role in science and engineering domains. However, research concerning individual differences such as spatial ability in the context of VR is still at its infancy. Moreover, empirical studies that focus on the features of VR to improve spatial ability are to date rare. Thus, this paper explores the possible educational values of VR in relation to spatial ability to call for more research concerning spatial ability in the context of VR based on studies in computerbased learning. It is believed that the incorporation of state-of-the-art VR technology for educational purposes should be justified by the enhanced benefits for the target learners.