Business Colleagues Research Articles

Secrets and Lies.

The article discusses a study by Michael Slepian, a psychologist at Columbia Business School and colleagues, that provides an explanation for its known links of secrecy to drpression, anxiety and poor overall health. The most common secrets identified by researchers include extrarelational thoughts, romantic desire and sexual desire. The study was published in the "Journal of Personality and Social Psychology"

Introduction to Volume 9, Issue 2 of topiCS.

This issue contains two very different and very interesting topics. We lead with the latest entry in our ongoing series, “Visions of Cognitive Science,” a paper by Robert Hamlin (University of Otago, New Zealand) titled, The gaze heuristic: Biography of an adaptively rational decision process. This is an unusual paper that must have been fun to write as it was exceedingly interesting and fun to read. Indeed, having read it straight through in one sitting, I immediately sent this to my friend and colleague Professor Gerd Gigerenzer to ask him to give it a fast “reality check” for me. His response was swift and his reaction was much the same as mine. We decided that not only was this a great paper for Topics in Cognitive Science but that we would write a short introduction that would frame the paper's contributions and help catch the eye of our busy colleagues with a somewhat whimsical title: A simple heuristic successfully used by humans, animals, and machines: The story of the RAF and Luftwaffe, hawks and ducks, dogs and frisbees, baseball outfielders and Sidewinder missiles – Oh My! After having been the Editor of topiCS for nine years, I am also happy that in this issue, I have published my own topic, Game-XP: Action Games as Experimental Paradigms for Cognitive Science. However, rather than saying more about that topic in this space, it seems more appropriate for me to refer you to the Topic Editor's introduction. In case you missed it …—a brief mention of topics appearing in recent issues of topiCS. A year ago in April 2016 (Volume 8, Issue 2), Topic Editor D. Kimbrough Oller published the collection of papers “New Frontiers in Language Evolution and Development.” This collection is already attracting attention with 10 ISI citations to date for the papers. Five of these citations are to the Lupyan and Bergen paper, “How Language Programs the Mind” with the other five citations evenly distributed among other papers. In our field, a year between when one paper is published and a second paper written, submitted, reviewed, revised, published, and indexed is not a long time. We commend this interesting, scholarly, and (at times) provocative collection of papers to our readers. topiCS encourages letters and commentaries on all topics, and proposals for new topics. Letters are typically 400–1,000 words (maximum: two published pages) and will be published without abstract or references (possibly 1–2 but usually none). Commentaries are often solicited by Topic Editors prior to the publication of their topic. However, commentaries after publication are also considered and should range between 1,000 and 2,000 words. Most commentaries would not have an abstract and would not include many references. The Executive Editor and the Senior Editorial Board (SEB) members are constantly searching for new and exciting topics for topiCS. Feel free to open communications with a short note to the Executive Editor ([email protected]) or an SEB member (SEB members are listed under the Editorial Board heading on the publisher's homepage for topiCS (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1756-8765/homepage/EditorialBoard.html).

We Are In This Together: Sharing Expertise as a Way to Increase Publication Success

We Are In This Together: Sharing Expertise as a Way to Increase Publication Success

Mapping plant community ecology

Plant communities form the structural and functional basis for nearly all terrestrial ecosystems. Good knowledge about plant communities is therefore necessary to understand and protect life on our planet. Journal of Vegetation Science publishes papers on all aspects of plant community ecology with an emphasis on articles that develop new concepts and methods, test theory, or identify general patterns. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Factors Affecting Entrepreneurial Self-efficacy of Engineering Students

One of the most significant current discussions in economic development is entrepreneurship. Given government’s commitment to entrepreneurship and innovation, higher institutions of learning are faced with the responsibility of curbing inherent challenges in today’s graduate education. This is of particular concern among engineering students. This study was propelled by the tendency for engineering students to shy away from entrepreneurship as a career choice, particularly when they possess lower entrepreneurial self-efficacy than their fellow business students. A survey of engineering students from a Malaysian public university was conducted using 204 respondents. There were two major data analyses in this study. The relationship between personality traits and entrepreneurial self-efficacy of students were examined. Relationships between family background, as well as entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurial self-efficacy were also explored using Pearson correlation. Results obtained show that the relationship between each personality traits and entrepreneurial self-efficacy are different, emphasizing the relevance of personality traits in enhancing entrepreneurial self-efficacy. Positive correlations were found between family factors and entrepreneurial self-efficacy as well as between entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurial self-efficacy. Furthermore a multiple regression analysis showed that three variables entrepreneurship education, family factor and personality type reliably predicted entrepreneurial self-efficacy among engineering students surveyed. The results of this investigation show that perceived supports from family, competencies gained via entrepreneurship education and personality types affect entrepreneurial self-efficacy of engineering students.

Memaknai Pesan Islam: Studi Fenomenologi Mualaf di Purwokerto

The phenomenon of a person to change religions is an interesting thing to be studied more in depth. However, the decision to convert is not a trivial thing, and should be considered carefully. The refusal of parents, friends, business colleagues and others is a challenge that must be faced when a person chooses to convert. Nevertheless, the existence of a spiritual experiences are experienced, makes faith grow stronger to convert. In other words, a person attempts to move this religion has its own meaning and appreciation for such individuals. This study intends to study forms of experience from the perspective of a new convert to Islam (convert), or in other words can be defined as the study of meaning, where meaning is broader than just the language they represent. Thus, in this study the authors attempted menggungkap deepest essence or meaning of the experiences of the subject.

Role of Communication and Information Flow In The Adoption And Use of Mobile Technology By Women Entrepreneurs In Machakos County, Kenya

The purpose of this study was to to investigate the role of communication and information flow in the adoption and use of mobile technology by women entrepreneurs in Machakos County, Kenya. The study adopted the use of Uses and Gratifications theory. Mixed method design was used. Systematic random sampling was used to select 350 respondents. Survey method was used to collect quantitative data. Quantitative data was analyzed using descriptive statistics and then presented in tables, figures and bar graphs. Purposive sampling was used to select 8 key informants and participants in the focus groups discussions. In-depth interviews and interview guide were used to collect qualitative data. Qualitative data was analyzed thematically and presented in narrative form. The study established that interpersonal communication is the media which is commonly used by women entrepreneurs to get information about adoption and use of mobile technology services at 45.1% followed closely by mobile service providers at 31.6%. The findings show that women entrepreneurs regularly consult family members, business colleagues and other business stakeholders. The findings further revealed that service providers were the strong campaigners of adoption and use of mobile phone technology services at 41% while county government did the least campaigns at 4%. Voice communication on the mobile phone at 52% was the service of the mobile phone technology that was mostly used by the women entrepreneurs in Machakos County. The least rated service was e-banking at 4%. On the area of empowering women entrepreneurs in Machakos County, the findings show that 23% of the women entrepreneurs have acquired new skills by using their mobile phones in business, 27% indicated that they have grown their business to higher levels even opening new branches while 31.6% attested to increasing their sales revenue. These findings show that when properly harnessed, mobile phone technology can create a very great impact in the empowerment of women entrepreneurs. The study concluded that mobile phone usage supports women entrepreneurs in their enterprises but it cannot replace face-to-face transactions which remain crucial among women entrepreneurs more particularly for meetings of group micro finance. It was recommended that communicators should come up with communication strategies which will aid in information flow in the adoption of any technology. They also need to come up with gender based theoretical frameworks to gather knowledge in the operation of enterprises which will add knowledge to the adoption process of technology and especially mobile phone technology.

Operations Course Icebreaker: Campus Club Cupcakes Exercise

ABSTRACTCampus Club Cupcakes is an in‐class ‘introduction to operations management’ experiential learning exercise which can be used within minutes of starting the course. After reading the one‐page mini case, students are encouraged to meet each other and collaborate to determine if making and selling cupcakes to fellow business students would be a viable fundraising activity for a student club interested in completing a community development project in a developing country. The exercise is a variation and extension of the popular Kristen's Cookie Co. Harvard case which addresses capacity and bottlenecks. Campus Club additionally incorporates supply chain management and risk management concepts while also revealing how operations management integrates with the functional areas of marketing, accounting, and finance.

MiCa: Lightweight and mobile collaboration across a collaborative editing service in the cloud

Nowadays, we assist to an explosion of mobile applications due to the rapid development of mobile devices, which are becoming the device of choice for people to collaborate with family members, friends and business colleagues and/or customers. Mobile devices (such as smartphones, tablets and laptops) are well-suited for information delivery than sophisticated desktop PCs in many professional areas (e.g. writing reports for disaster management). However, collaboratively editing a shared document in real-time through ad-hoc peer-to-peer mobile networks requires increasing amounts of computation, data storage and network communication. More particularly, preserving the consistency in a decentralized way of the manipulated shared document under constraints of the mobile applications, namely the freshness and the energy consumption, remains still problematic. In this paper, we propose a new cloud service-based approach, called MiCa (Mobile Collaboration in the Cloud), to achieve efficient and scalable real-time editing works by allowing mobile users an online access to abundant computing power and data storage. Our service is a two levels system. The first level provides self-protocol to create clones of mobiles, manage users’ groups and recover failed clones in the cloud. The second level supports safe mechanisms for synchronizing collaborative works in fully decentralized way. On the mobile side, the energy consumption is largely reduced since all procedures for maintaining consistency of shared documents are executed on the clone side. Based on three important criteria (energy consumption, network traffic and responsiveness time), an experimental evaluation demonstrates the efficiency and effectiveness of our service MiCa.

Managing Different Types of Partners and Firm Performance

Although existing literature has focused on managing diverse partners within a single type of relationship (e.g. an alliance portfolio), there is little research on the advantages and risks associated with having different sets of relationships simultaneously. This could happen, for example, when a firm has two different kinds of ties-ties to other firms and ties to government. Each of these relationships may be valuable in isolation, yet-taken together -they can create synergies or constrain each other, depending on the extent to which a firm can manage divergent and even conflicting demands from these partners. I examine the ways in which Korean business groups(chaebols) fared when their owner-families simultaneously maintained marriage ties to families in the fellow business group (business ties) and marriage ties to politicians and government officials(political ties). I find that the effect of a chaebol’s business ties is constrained by its political ties, which is particularly salient during institutional transitions. Furthermore, when I classify political ties into ties to 1) politicians, 2) financial officials and 3) non- financial officials, I find that a chaebol’s business ties are constrained by its politician ties and financial ties, whereas the business ties are strengthened by non-financial ties. This happens because each political partner transits to new institutions at different speeds, which affects the degree of divergent interests and goals between business partners and political partners. Taken together, the core contribution of this study is to unpack diverse partnerships across different networks and link it to institutional changes.

Data scientists at work.

Scientists at Work is a collection of interviews with sixteen of the world's most influential and innovative data scientists from across the spectrum of this hot new profession. Data scientist is the sexiest job in the 21st century, according to the Harvard Business Review. By 2018, the United States will experience a shortage of 190,000 skilled data scientists, according to a McKinsey report. Through incisive in-depth interviews, this book mines the what, how, and why of the practice of data science from the stories, ideas, shop talk, and forecasts of its preeminent practitioners across diverse industries: social network (Yann LeCun, Facebook); professional network (Daniel Tunkelang, LinkedIn); venture capital (Roger Ehrenberg, IA Ventures); enterprise cloud computing and neuroscience (Eric Jonas, formerly Salesforce.com); newspaper and media (Chris Wiggins, The New York Times); streaming television (Caitlin Smallwood, Netflix); music forecast (Victor Hu, Next Big Sound); strategic intelligence (Amy Heineike, Quid); oceanographic big data (Andre Karpistsenko, Planet OS); geospatial marketing intelligence (Jonathan Lenaghan, PlaceIQ); advertising (Claudia Perlich, Dstillery); fashion e-commerce (Anna Smith, Rent the Runway); specialty retail (Erin Shellman, Nordstrom); email marketing (John Foreman, MailChimp); predictive sales intelligence (Kira Radinsky, SalesPredict); and humanitarian nonprofit (Jake Porway, DataKind). Each of these data scientists shares how he or she tailors the torrent-taming techniques of big data, data visualization, search, and statistics to specific jobs by dint of ingenuity, imagination, patience, and passion. Scientists at Work parts the curtain on the interviewees' earliest data projects, how they became data scientists, their discoveries and surprises in working with data, their thoughts on the past, present, and future of the profession, their experiences of team collaboration within their organizations, and the insights they have gained as they get their hands dirty refining mountains of raw data into objects of commercial, scientific, and educational value for their organizations and clients. Readers will learn: How the data scientists arrived at their positions and what advice they have for others What projects the data scientists work on and the techniques and tools they apply How to frame problems that data science can solve Where data scientists think the most exciting opportunities lie in the future of data science How data scientists add value to their organizations and help people around the world Who this book is for The primary readership for this book is general-interest readers interested in this hot new profession and in the nature of the people who work up the readers' own data trails. The secondary readerships are (a) scientists, mathematicians, and students in feeder disciplines who are interested in scouting the vocational prospects and daily working conditions of data scientists with a view to becoming data scientists themselves, and (b) of business colleagues and managers seeking to understand and collaborate with data scientists to integrate their data management and interpretation capabilities into the competitive intelligence capabilities of the enterprise.

BRASS at 25

In 2013, the Business Reference and Services Section (BRASS) celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary as a section of the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA) of the American Library Association. Mary Gaylord and Gerald Gill documented the origins of back to 1964 to the Business Reference Services Committee of RASD (Reference and Adult Services Division--the predecessor to RUSA). The Committee hosted programs approximately biennially and published occasional bibliographies. By 1986, program attendance had reached over 400. At the Midwinter 1986 meeting, the Business Reference Services Discussion Group was formed and met for the first time. At the 1986 Annual Conference, a subcommittee drew up a petition for formation of a section. On June 27, 1987 the RASD Board of Directors established BRASS. (1) exists because of its many volunteers. The elected members (chair, vice-chair/chair-elect, past-chair, secretary, and three members at large) serve on the Executive Committee. Serving as secretary were Diane Strauss, Alice Littlejohn, Wendy Diamond, Leslie Hass, Tom Diamond, Lucy Heckman, Michael Oppenheim, Stacey Marien, Ann Fiegen, Mary Gilles, Christy Donaldson, Suzanne Sweeney, and Julia Martin. Serving as member at large were Rita Costello, Robert Rose, Judy Nixon, Susan DiMattia, Timothy Dixon, Linda Becketti, Susan Strehl, Barbara Butler, Robert W. Sears, Kelly Janousek, Susan Goshorn, Joanne Kosanke, Carol Krismann, Irwin Faye, Glenda Neely, Bill Kinyon, Jennifer Boettcher, Lynn Westney, Mark Andersen, Linda Dausch, Patricia Kenly, Greg Fleming, Chris LeBeau, Susan Neilson, Suzanne Sweeney, Kevin Harwell, Diane Campbell, and Rebecca Smith. The first past chair was Mary Gaylord who chaired the Discussion Group when the section was formed. Section chairs are presented in table 1. In its initial year as a section, consisted of an executive committee, the Business Reference Sources Committee, two program committees, two nominating committees, an ad hoc publications committee, and the discussion group. (2) The 2012-2013 roster listed the executive committee, one ad hoc committee, ten regular committees, five award committees, four support positions, twelve representatives, and the discussion group. I had the honor of being the middle child of as the thirteenth elected chair of the section and am considered by many as the link between the Old BRASS and the new. While I have been active in various organizations, has always been my home and family within ALA. I have seen committees come and go, major partnerships with publishers enhance what can offer its members, interesting programs, discussion groups, and forums but the members are the heart of and what has kept me involved. I always look forward to the dinners and anniversary celebrations as a chance to see fellow business librarians as well as those who may not have remained business librarians but come back each year. This article could be easily filled with just my own fond recollections. One of my most memorable conferences was in Toronto for the 15th anniversary during the SARS scare. I received a phone call from the program chair, Lisa O'Connor, to fill in for a speaker at the last minute on a topic with which I had virtually no experience and for which the speaker had not provided a speech. I was also asked to not only cover the American side of business planning but the Canadian as well! At the same conference, I rushed to a grocery store to purchase a cake for the anniversary and had to pay more to cut the cake (a conference requirement since at a conference facility) than the cake cost. I chaired the planning committee for the 20th and served on the anniversary committee for the 25th and in both cases served as the go to person for reaching out to our dignitaries (many took part in this article). It was a delight catching up with old friends. provided countless leadership opportunities and sharpened my organizational skills. …

Becoming Intimately Mobile

As more and more people become mobile to visit friends, family, and business colleagues using social networking websites, technologies in use today like Couchsurfingcom or online hitchhiking websites (OHWS) are allowing people to create new, planned encounters between other strangers. This book adds to the small body of work currently existing in the social sciences which describes ways in which the internet aids such face-to-face intimacy.

‘Competitors or Business Colleagues?’: Central Johannesburg Managers/Owners of Formal Businesses’ Perceptions of Informal Trading

This article looks at how owners/managers of established businesses in central Johannesburg perceive informal trading in the city’s CBD. Data were gathered using semi-structured interviews and the questionnaire. It was established that the majority of the owners/managers of formal businesses have negative views of most aspects of informal trading in the CBD such as the competition it creates for their businesses and the social ills it attracts. However, some of them expressed appreciation of some benefits that informal trading brings to their businesses such as the fact that sometimes informal traders patronise formal businesses for wares that they go on to sell and the attraction of customers to Central Johannesburg. In keeping with Johannesburg’s claim to be a world class African city, the paper recommends the strengthening and implementation of policies regulating informal trading to tame the informal trading jungle characteristic of some parts of the city centre. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n4p206

Outsiders: An Exploratory History of IS in Corporations

This paper is an exploratory study that provides a brief history of information systems (IS) in corporations that are not part of the Information Technology sector, such as retailers, banks, government agencies and so on. It looks at the development of the IS function and the changing roles of IS practitioners in such organisations over the past 60 years, and assesses how they perceived themselves and were perceived by their peers, by business colleagues and by others. It uses the testimony of successful IS practitioners to provide a grounded perspective on the history of the IS worker over this time. The research identifies a trajectory of a gradual diminishment in the role and status of the IS worker in the corporation over the lifetime of the discipline. It observes that the IS worker has experienced changed fortunes: from a position of influence at the outset, leading to a peak of status and reward in the years up to the millennium; and to the present day where the occupation has a much lower profile. It ascribes this to the increasing commoditisation of IS, manifested by phenomena such as end-user computing, outsourcing and cloud computing. The paper is of relevance to academics who are interested in IS in the corporate organisation; to business professionals, who are sometimes bewildered by their IS colleagues; and to those who work in IS. The research is presented as an interpretative study and is intended to help future researchers frame questions and design research projects. It also aims to inform and witness, and provide a perspective on a currently neglected part of the business world.

Profitability at Any Cost? (A Case Study on Business Ethics)

The purpose of this case study (real life case study of a client who sought advice from the author) is to develop an insight into the ethical dilemmas faced by an entrepreneur. The case study outlines the situation faced by Mr. Saran Prasad (name altered to protect the identity of the client), an entrepreneur who is in the business of manufacturing and trading of mustard oil. Influenced by the environment and watching some of the practices followed by his fellow business persons, he is confused and was thinking whether he needs to adapt to a similar practices for increasing the profitability of his business.. One such decision is to sell inferior quality product to increase profitability. So the challenge is to identify ethical and pragmatic practices for profitability as well as sustainability. Further research is needed to explore in detail the causes for this kind of behavior in entrepreneurs.

Networks, Ethics, and Economic Values: Faith-Based Business and the Coffee Trade in Central America

In an era of increasing economic liberalization, much has been written on the challenges facing alternative trade movements. Religion is often overlooked in such research, and I examine how the faith identity of one set of actors infl uenced their in- volvement in the Central American coffee trade. On the basis of ethnographic research in Nicaragua, I examine how religious networks, ethics, and values shaped the economic behaviors of an evangelical Christian coffee network. Ultimately, I fi nd religion had a mixed impact. Local networks brought actors together in a common mission for eco- nomic justice, although transnational connections mattered little beyond providing aid. Although religious ethics promoted a sense of fairness, more radical was a focus on transparency, which altered economic relationships among those in the coffee chain. Fi- nally, actors leveraged their spiritual vision to challenge market dynamics and redefi ne the coffee product, although this vision both constrained and advanced efforts toward true empowerment of farmers. In a small conference room in El Salvador, coffee producers listened to the con- version testimony of a successful businessman. The coffee exporter was sharing his story not with coreligionists but with business colleagues interested in new coffee market opportunities. This was not merely an evangelism tactic: for the speaker, his personal history and faith were intimately connected with his busi- ness mission and practices. Though not part of the fair-trade network (Fairtrade Labelling Organizations International), his exporting company was involved in alternative market structures as it sought to economically assist small farmers in the country. Given the importance of coffee to the Central American region, the economic inequality inherent in the Latin American coffee trade, and the highly religious composition of the population, how faith actors connect religion and economics has important ramifi cations. In this article, I examine the role religion plays in the lives of a set of evangeli- cal Nicaraguan coffee actors, with a particular focus on their market involvement. Ultimately, religion had a mixed impact on their efforts toward greater economic

Writing for theBusiness Valuation Review

Introduction The Business Valuation Review (‘‘BVR’’) has been officially published by the Business Valuation Committee of the American Society of Appraisers since March 1982. It is a quarterly publication that has a regular circulation of several thousand. The BVR was the first publication geared to promoting the intellectual development of our fledgling profession of business appraisal. I published more than a dozen articles for the BVR between 1988 and 2008. Publishing in the BVR was an important element in establishing myself in the business appraisal profession. Because of my consistent publications in BVR over a number of years, I was asked to write an article, ‘‘Writing for the Business Valuation Review,’’ that was published in 1998. Our editor remembered the 1998 article and asked me to write a current update. This article is written to give future contributors to the BVR guidance, based on my writing experiences over more than thirty years, regarding writing articles for this professional publication. As you may know, the BVR has an Editorial Review Board composed of several experienced business appraisers. Articles are approved on a ‘‘double blind’’ basis. In other words, two members of the Editorial Review Board read and comment on article submissions on a ‘‘blind’’ basis, that is, with the author(s)’ name(s) removed. The purpose of this procedure is to ensure the highest possible quality for articles that are published. Many business appraisers use publishing as a means of building their businesses. Business-building articles can be written for industry publications, local and regional publications, and various publications directed to lawyers, accountants, financial planners, and other relevant groups. When we write for the BVR, however, we are writing for our fellow business valuation professionals. The standard of writing for the BVR, then, is elevated relative to the more marketing-oriented articles written for other publications. In writing for the BVR, we should be seeking to educate the profession. We do so by the merits of our arguments combined with the weight of the evidence that supports those arguments.

Accounting and networks of corruption

This study examines the nature and role of accounting practices in a network of corruption in an influence-market setting. The study focuses on the Canadian government’s Sponsorship Program (1994–2003), a national unification scheme that saw approximately $50 million diverted into the bank accounts of political parties, program administrators, and their families, friends and business colleagues. Relying on the institutional sociology of Bourdieu, the study demonstrates the precise role of accounting practices in the organization of a corrupt network imbued with a specific telos and certain accounting tasks. The study illustrates how accounting is accomplished and by whom, and it shows how the ‘skillful use’ of accounting practices and social interactions around these practices together enable corruption. In so doing, the study builds on a growing body of work examining criminogenic networks and the contextual, collaborative and systemic uses of accounting in such networks.

Creating Awareness for Using a Wiki to Promote Collaborative Health Professional Education

This publication on the use of a wiki in Bangladesh offers a glimmer of hope that the times are changing with respect to medical publication. People learning how to operate in the wiki environment are giving them a voice on the world stage and medical practitioners and educators cannot afford to ignore these developments. The question that remains to be answered, is how do advocates of open source knowledge get busy colleagues and students to donate their time? A number of possibilities are currently being examined by Wikipedia including: co-publication of high quality work both on Wikipedia and within a peer-reviewed, PubMed-indexed journal and scholarship awards to students who make significant contributions to these sources.