Search results

This paper aimed to determine the self- and co-regulation influences on the community of inquiry (CoI) for collaborative online learning.

A quantitative survey was used on a sample of (N = 626) enrolled postgraduate students in a South African Open Distance and e-Learning (ODeL) university. The measuring instruments were the CoI and the shared metacognitive surveys. Correlation and multiple regression analyses were used to determine the association and influence of self- and co-regulation on the CoI.

The results indicated that self- and co-regulation related to the CoI (teaching, cognitive and social) presences. In addition, the results revealed that self- and co-regulation influence the CoI presences. Self-regulation had the highest influence on teaching and cognitive presence, while co-regulation influenced social presence.

The study’s convenience sampling method from a single university limited the applicability of the findings to other online learning environments.

Higher educational teachers who encourage student self- and co-regulation may enhance their online teaching, cognitive and social presence when studying online. The research’s findings may be valuable to teachers to enable them to provide a more collaborative and interactive online learning environment and promote productive online communities.

This study contributes to the body of knowledge about the relationship between teaching, social and cognitive presence and self- and co-regulation within the CoI framework. Furthermore, there has also been limited research focussing on the dynamics of shared metacognition within the CoI framework in an ODeL context.

The purpose of this study is to gain insight into the interaction-sensitive skills medical practitioners enact as they manage multiple organizational factors in the context of discharging patients.

For that purpose, we carried out a cognitive ethnographic study in a Danish hospital, where we video-recorded three pre-ward round meetings, five discharge conversations and conducted seven semi-structured interviews. Fieldnotes and interview transcripts were analyzed using the method Cognitive Task Analysis, and video-recordings were analyzed via the interactivity-based approach Cognitive Event Analysis.

Our findings show that practitioners coordinate multi-scalar resources (e.g. verbal patterns and cognitive artifacts) in order to discharge patients in a safe and integrated way, which we propose amounts to the social and intercorporeal ability to align simultaneously emerging factors, like organizational procedures in the hospital, artifacts in use, sociocultural resources and the individual medical expertise of the practitioner in the emerging social interaction with the patient. In pursing this claim, we investigate the linguistic and cognitive processes emerging in a single case study of a nurse who discharges a patient. We propose that the interaction-sensitive skill which enables the nurse to solve the task of discharging the patient can be characterized via hybrid cognition.

Thus, the value of the article is dual: On the one hand, it empirically contributes with knowledge of the complex organizational structures that constrains micro-level medical interactions in discharges, and on the other, the article contributes theoretically with a hybrid cognitive framework that allows organizational researchers to understand and assess complex cognitive and linguistic processes that goes into the social micro-coordination in complex organizational-medical task.

The results indicate that land prices exert pressure on retail performance (RP) and that the enhancement of digital means has a positive effect on RP. Additionally, digital instruments (DI) play a significant moderating role in the relationship between land prices and RP.

This paper empirically examines the impact of land prices on RP using panel data from 239 Chinese cities between 2011 and 2022.

The use of lagged land prices as instrumental variables effectively alleviates endogeneity issues. Both two-stage least squares (2SLS) and generalized method of moments (GMM) regression results suggest that higher land prices are associated with improved RP. Further analysis reveals that the increase in land prices leads to scale effects, structural effects and technological effects, contributing to the enhancement of RP. The impact of land prices on RP becomes more pronounced in larger cities and economically developed regions experience the pressure from land prices earlier.

The findings of this study have practical implications for discussions on retail industry development, site selection for retail businesses and the establishment of sustainable mechanisms for expanding domestic demand.

The European H2020 Families_Share project aims at offering a grass-root approach and a co-designed platform supporting families for sharing time and tasks related to childcare, parenting, after-school and leisure activities and other household tasks. To achieve this objective, the Families_Share project has been built on current practices which are already leveraging on mutual help and support among families, such as Time Banks, Social Streets and self-organizing networks of parents active at the neighbourhood level and seek to harness the potential of ICT networks and mobile technologies to increase the effectiveness of participatory innovation. The aim of this paper is to present and discuss the Families_Share methodology and platform, as well as the results obtained by several partecipating communities in different European countries.

This paper discusses how the Families Share approach (CAPS project, Horizon 2020) is bringing the sharing economy to childcare. Families Share developed a co-caring approach and a co-designed digital welfare platform to support parents with sharing time and tasks related to childcare, after-school and leisure activities. Families Share conducted two iterative pilot experiments and related socio-economic evaluations in six European cities. More than 3,000 citizens were engaged in the co-design process through their local community organizations and more than 1,700 parents and children actively experimented with the approach by organizing collaborative childcare activities. The authors discuss the challenges and solutions of co-designing a socio-technical approach aimed at facilitating socially innovative childcare models, and how the Families Share approach, based on technology-supported co-production of childcare, may provide a new sustainable welfare model for municipalities and companies with respect to life––work balance.

The authors discuss the challenges and solutions of co-designing a technological tool aimed at facilitating socially innovative childcare models, and how the Families Share approach may provide a new sustainable welfare model for municipalities and companies with respect to work–life balance.

As a main difference with state-of-the-art proposals, Families_Share is aimed to provide support to networks of parents in the organization of self-managed activities, this way being orthogonal with respect either to social-network functionalities or to supply and demand services. Furthermore, Families_Share has been based on a participative approach for both the ICT platform and the overall structure.

Work overload has become a relevant issue in the Information Technology (IT) industry, with negative effects for individuals and organizations alike. This study aims to analyse the role of personal resources in a broad model regarding the effects of work overload on performance and well-being for the particular case of IT professionals. Considering the specificities of the IT industry, three personal resources were included in this study: one stable personality variable (conscientiousness) and two more malleable variables (work-life balance and psychological detachment).

To test the model, the authors use a sample of 144 IT Portuguese professionals. The authors collected data through an online questionnaire shared in social networks and IT social network communities. The authors use partial least squares (PLS) for data analysis.

The results show that work overload negatively impacts on employees’ life satisfaction, psychological detachment, work-life balance and task performance. Conscientiousness is positively related with two positive outcomes: task performance and life satisfaction. Work-life balance has a mediating effect in the relationship between work overload and life satisfaction.

These findings emphasize the need to promote conscientiousness in IT professionals, as well as reduce workload and promote family-friendly working environments to foster work-life balance and life satisfaction.

By testing this model, the authors aim to contribute to the current knowledge on the role of personal resources in the Job Demands-Resources model, which is still unclear and under-researched.

This paper aims to analyze the performance determinants of listed companies in the Iberian Peninsula, focusing on the analysis of the effect of gender diversity and the structure of the board of directors.

To achieve this aim, the authors analyzed 97 listed companies, of which 23 are Portuguese and 74 are Spanish, between 2015 and 2019. The authors use Arellano and Bond’s (1991) generalized method of moments system model to test the hypotheses.

The results show an important impact of corporate governance variables on corporate performance. Specifically, board size, average director age and board academic qualifications are crucial to explaining profitability and market value. Moreover, the authors identified a nonlinear relationship between gender diversity and profitability and market value levels due to critical mass theory and quotas that enhance more social justice. The authors concluded that the corporate performance determinants differ depending on the performance measures.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to analyze the nonlinear effect of gender diversity and board structure (size, educational qualifications and average director age) on the performance of Iberian listed companies as a single market.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of work-life balance (WLB) practices on the financial results of Spanish accounting audit SMEs.

Using survey data from 148 Spanish accounting audit SMEs, a regression analysis was developed to estimate the direct effects of WLB practices on firms’ financial results (return on capital employed and return on assets). Firm age and size are considered as control variables.

Senior managers should foster some WLB practices (time-reduction and flexible-work practices) so as to enhance SME audit firms’ financial results. Work-leave practices should be analyzed so as to promote some positive outcomes for firms, through internal reorganization or by reorienting employees to resorting to the most beneficial practices.

Not all WLB practices have positive effects on the business results of SMEs. Therefore, managers may try to reduce these negative effects or redirect employees to WLB practices that have more positive effects on their firms’ financial results. Strategic information is also provided to employees and public institutions about fostering WLB in SMEs.

The availability of WLB practices has been deemed fundamental not only for policy makers and society, but also for the organizational culture and for human resource management practices.

This study is the first to investigate the association between the availability of WLB initiatives in SMEs and firms’ financial results.

This paper develops a typology of omnichannel retailer activities and corresponding customer responses during a rapidly changing external coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic environment, to contribute towards academic research on omnichannel strategies and to assist retailers when making future investment and resource decisions.

Implementing a dual desk research process, the authors carry out a document review of 61 retailers operating globally and connected customer reviews and categorise them using a content analysis.

The findings show that retailers employ a multitude of new omnichannel strategies during a pandemic and implement new or upgraded cross-channel services. Customer data show that delivery and customer service issues largely persist. The authors divide retailer actions and microfoundations into five broad categories and present a typology of strategic retailer activities and customer responses.

This research presents insights into omnichannel strategies from both a retailer and customer perspective, and offers guidance on improving the implementation of future omnichannel strategies.