Interest To Practitioners Research Articles

Categorisation of social media influencers and determinants of their engagement effectiveness

Social media influencers have been a topic of interest for both practitioners and scientific community in recent years. Understanding their importance and explaining the mechanisms contributing to their success requires a multidisciplinary approach, incorporating insights from the fields of psychology, media, and economics. This paper explores the current classification of social media influencers based on various relevant criteria as content type, influence type, and followers’ count. Furthermore, this study aims to provide a synthesis of the fragmented findings related to the key determinants of their engagement effectiveness in order to understand the complexity of influencer culture and its implications for marketing science and consumer behavior.

Integer estimation of inner-cell values in RxC ecological tables

The estimation of the inner entries of a set of related RxC contingency tables when only the margins are known poses one of the most difficult problems in the field of the social sciences, present in many areas from marketing to quantitative history; being particularly prevalent in political science and sociology. With dozens of methods proposed to solve this, (almost) all of them have been devised to infer conditional proportion distributions, despite interior values of contingency tables being integers. This paper develops, within the linear programming framework, a new algorithm to output integer solutions, and assesses it using real data from more than 500 elections where actual cross-distributions of votes are known. Although the new approach is proposed with the expectation that more accurate solutions would be obtained by narrowing the search space from a continuous to a discrete simplex space, the results attained suggest that the use of a pure integer approach does not lead to more accurate solutions. The recommendation is therefore to integer-adjust decimal solutions when the focus is on counts. Interested practitioners can easily use the new models as they have been programmed in the R-package lphom.

A local convergent ecological inference algorithm for RxC tables

ABSTRACT Over the years, a number of methods have been proposed to forecast the unknown inner-cell values of a set of related RxC contingency tables when only their margins are known. This is a classical problem that emerges in many areas, from economics to quantitative history, being particularly ubiquitous when dealing with electoral data in sociology and political science. However, the two current major algorithms to solve this problem, based on Bayesian statistics and iterative linear programming depend on adjustable (hyper-)parameters and do not yield a unique solution: their estimates tend to fluctuate (when convergence is reached) around a stationary distribution. Within the linear programming framework, this paper proposes a new algorithm (lclphom) that always converges to a unique solution, having no adjustable parameters. This characteristic makes it easy to use and robust to claims of hacking. Furthermore, after assessing lclphom with real and simulated data, lclphom is found to yield estimates of (almost) similar accuracy to the current major solutions, being more preferable to the other lphom-family algorithms the more heterogeneous the row-fraction distributions of the tables are. Interested practitioners can easily use this new algorithm as it has been programmed in the R-package lphom.

A Bibliometric Analysis on Visualising and Mapping Green Supply Chain Management

The emergent field of green supply chain management (GSCM) has recently piqued the interest of both academics and practitioners, owing to its crucial role in integrating sustainable environmental processes into the traditional supply chain. An essential research goal is to understand the overall structure of research and what has been completed in the area so far to build a strong research program to address forthcoming GSCM problems. The purpose of conducting a bibliometric analysis of GSCM in its current state is to gain insights into the existing body of knowledge, identify trends, and understand the research landscape. Several literature reviews concentrating on certain elements of GSCM have been published from 2002 to 2021 (data update time is April 10, 2021). Thus, this study used a bibliometric method to examine the present level of research on the GSCM. The Scopus database, one of the world-leading publishers-independent global citation databases, was used to search for documents related to GSCM. A bibliometric tool called Bibliometrix was executed to examine the data collected from the search, which generated 717 documents. This software was used to build maps based on scientific publication network data, revealing relationships between researchers, countries, and journals. This comprehensive mapping of the field serves to graphically depict the evolution of publications over time as well as identify current research interests. Finally, the findings of the bibliometric analysis point out a growing trend in green supply chain studies around the world, indicating that people are becoming more conscious of the need for environmental management and protection, and sustainable development.

Winners and losers in Africa: a longitudinal examination of market-share gains by advanced and emerging market multinationals versus local firms

Purpose Market share gain is one of the key objectives for all firms for seeking growth. It is also a fundamental aspect of competitive rivalry. The extant review of the literature points to a gap among market share performances of emerging market multinationals (EMNEs) firms, advanced economy multinationals (AMNEs) and local firms. The purpose of this study is to delineate and contrast the market share performance of EMNEs, AMNEs and local firms in Africa. Design/methodology/approach The study used available longitudinal data (2013–2022) of six industries across four African countries from Euromonitor Passport, a rich, proprietary database. Findings Applying contingency theory, the study shows that, over time, there is no clear-cut winner in all markets and industries. Rather, market share gain is contingent on country and industry settings in Africa. Empirical analysis demonstrates that high-tech EMNE firms operating in Africa will exceed those of high-tech AMNEs and local firms. The findings also show that local firms generally performed better during the pandemic. Originality/value As Africa is a region of interest for scholars and practitioners, critical international business (IB) research contributions in Africa have predominantly focused on foreign investments from a particular nation. The present study enriches the literature by comparing the market share performance of AMNEs, EMNEs and local firms in this important region – during and prepandemic. The study offers theoretical and managerial implications for understanding the long-term performance of these three types of firms.

Green Sourcing: Supplier Assessment and Selection Practices across Industries

Background: Over the last years, the assessment and selection of suppliers, based on the environmental performance of their products/services and their operations, has reached paramount importance and attracted the interest of many researchers and practitioners. Based on the prevailing perspective of supplier selection as a purely decision-making problem, this interest has been channeled towards the development of decision-support methods and tools. Other broader issues, such as whether there are converging or diverging green supplier evaluation and selection organizational processes across industries has not been addressed. Methods: Here, for the first time, we address this question by adopting a systems perspective and by considering green supplier evaluation and selection as an organizational sub-process of the broader sourcing process. We use activity theory to represent green supplier evaluation and selection as two interconnected activities, each comprising a set of organizational practices. Based on this representation, we developed a research instrument to carry out empirical research in a sample of 80 companies from five industries (pharmaceuticals, food processing, aquaculture, construction materials, waste management and recycling) in Greece. Results: The results of the survey suggest that green supplier evaluation and selection practices do not fully converge, but there are differences across industries. Conclusions: The cultural and historical context of industries influences the adoption of specific environmental supplier evaluation and selection practices.

The good, the bad and the evil: A unified conceptualization of negative leadership behaviour

AbstractThe level of scholarly and practitioner interest in negative leadership behaviour has been increasing, but research in this field remains fragmented, and we lack a common understanding of what constitutes negative leadership behaviour and its antecedents, consequences and contexts. To address these research gaps, we systematically review 352 papers and identify 25 different negative leadership behaviours with large overlaps in their conceptualization and operationalization. Our analysis of conceptualizations reveals common attributes that constitute the behavioural intensity and the behavioural valence of negative leadership behaviour. Behavioural intensity attributes constitute negative leadership behaviour as active, reoccurring and intentional behaviour that targets subordinates’ psychological states. Behavioural valence attributes constitute negative leadership behaviour as being unethical, lack of empathy, leader self‐worthiness and self‐orientation, verbal hostility, use of power asymmetry and harming and belittling of others. The vast majority of operationalizations for negative leadership behaviour reflect the perceptions of subordinates or colleagues, whereas only a few operationalizations reflect supervisors’ self‐assessments. Our findings further reveal that the antecedents of negative leadership behaviour focus mainly on supervisors, whereas the consequences of negative leadership behaviour focus mainly on subordinates. We develop a unified conceptualization of negative leadership behaviour and discuss our findings in the light of an impactful future research agenda that revolves around the unified conceptualization and empirical representation of negative leadership behaviour on the basis of behavioural attributes, the role of subordinates and dyad‐related factors leading to negative leadership behaviour and the integration of the negative and positive psychological and economic consequences of negative leadership behaviour.

Правозащитная деятельность с использованием уголовно-правовых, криминалистических и оперативно-розыскных мер как актуальное направление междисциплинарных исследований

Due to the adoption of a new nomenclature of scientific specialties in specialty 5.1.4 — “Criminal Law Sciences”, research on human rights activities can now be carried out using an interdisciplinary approach, that is, using criminal law, criminal procedure, criminalistic, operational investigative and other knowledge. The article examines the main directions of interdisciplinary research in the field of human rights activities, such as: criminal law, forensic and operational investigative means of protecting businesses; nomination and verification of protective versions in criminal cases of certain categories, and others. There are 11 directions in total. Some methodological and, most importantly, ethical requirements for this kind of interdisciplinary research are analyzed. It is noted that, despite the lack of scientific literature, in recent years, leading Russian law universities have prepared and successfully implemented educational projects of the appropriate profile. The data on the level of interest of young lawyers, practitioners and trainees in obtaining relevant knowledge and conducting scientific research are presented. It is necessary to stimulate such developments, develop their methodology, and offer young scientists, including lawyers, practice-oriented human rights thesis topics that take into account personal professional strategies. It has been established that the increased demand of the population for information in the field of protection from defamation, mass inspections and criminal prosecution (especially business) determines the rapid growth of human rights content in social networks, messengers, profile sites and business magazines. However, this is mainly journalistic and educational content that does not have a proper scientific basis. In conclusion, conclusions are formulated about the high level of relevance and relevance of interdisciplinary knowledge of human rights issues. And this demand, of course, must be met by appropriate scientific research.

William Paulet Carey and Irish Caricature, 1780–92

Though best known for his involvement with the United Irishmen and his brief career as a newspaper editor, William Paulet Carey (1768–1848) was one of the first, and most interesting practitioners of graphic satire in Ireland during its inaugural phase. Having demonstrated his potential with an artistically indifferent caricature of the Gordon Riots in 1780, he acquired a fuller knowledge of the craft engraving copy plates for William Allen, then Dublin’s primary print seller. Subsequently, Carey sought, unsuccessfully, to make his mark in London in 1783–84, though he did produce a number of distinctive engravings in the Whig cause. Back in Dublin, he resumed his relationship with William Allen, in the course of which he produced a series of superior copies of William Bunbury’s single sheets and smaller engravings for a Dublin edition of the Geoffrey Gambado’s Annals of Horsemanship . Carey possessed strong political opinions, and having manifested his unease at the energizing of Irish conservativism with caricatures critical of the advocates of ‘Protestant Ascendancy’ in 1786–87, he prioritized literary satire until the early 1790s when he joined the United Irishmen and established a radical newspaper. However, his failure, other than on one occasion, to use his artistic skills in the radical cause deprived Irish radicalism of a potentially important means of promoting their cause.

THE ESSENCE OF GOODWILL IN DISCLOSING THE INTANGIBLE VALUE OF BUSINESS IN THE CONTEXT OF DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

The intangible component of business value is increasing, yet remains inadequately disclosed in financial reporting. Current accounting standards have not fully developed the tools and methodologies for its comprehensive recognition, measurement, assessment, and full disclosure in reports. Discussions on the essence of goodwill have long been ongoing, and it's evident that this category extends beyond accounting and financial reporting. Digital transformation enhances the interest of researchers, scholars, and practitioners in the essence of goodwill, emphasizing the necessity to consider it as a means of disclosing the intangible value of business in modern conditions.The methodological basis of the conducted research includes methods of analysis, synthesis, historical conceptual review, comparison, logical generalization, grouping, abstraction, and a systematic approach.Studying the history of the development of the goodwill concept allowed identifying the main stages of its formation as an object of accounting, reporting, and management. An in-depth critical analysis of definitions supplemented economic, legal, and accounting approaches to understanding the essence of goodwill with new ones, such as marketing, branding, value, emotional, quantitative, and systemic. The developed classification allows considering all aspects of goodwill manifestation and the views of various assessment subjects on its essence and role in disclosing the intangible value of the business. It is proposed to define goodwill as the intangible value of a business reflecting its reputation, brand, customer loyalty, intellectual property, innovative and technological capabilities, digital user experience, online presence, and a set of other unique intangible assets, which together contribute to the sustainable growth of the company's market value and create competitive advantages, enabling adaptation to changes in the era of digital transformation.Goodwill is a category that exists not only in consolidated reporting, as it characterizes the intangible components of business value and requires appropriate recognition and management.

The Peculiarity of Nikolai Kochergin’s Creative Method in Illustrations to Chinese Fairy Tales

The article is devoted to the study of the creative heritage of Nikolai Mikhailovich Kochergin (1897—1974) in the field of illustrating Chinese fairy tales. The relevance of the topic is conditioned by the insufficient degree of study of the artist’s heritage in this area with the general interest of practitioners and art theorists in book illustration for children’s literature in the 20th century.The aim of the article is to theoretically comprehend the artistic heritage of N.M. Kochergin on the basis of revealing the originality of the artist’s creative method of illustrating Chinese fairy tales. The following tasks are solved: to trace the creative path of N.M. Kochergin, in particular, his work in the field of illustrating literature of Eastern and Asian countries; to make a list of illustrated editions of Asian fairy tales by the artist; to reveal the influence of traditions of Chinese Gohua art on the artist’s work, specifically to study the compositional solution, the use of diffused perspective, other expressive means; to analyze the methods of stylization of images and symbols of Chinese culture and folklore in illustrations.The presented research allows not only to determine the originality of N.M. Kochergin’s creative method of illustrating Chinese fairy tales, but also to identify the specificity of representation of Chinese culture for Russian readers. This problematic can contribute to the emergence of a holistic view of the synthesis and integration of Chinese art and culture in the Russian and world artistic process. The article studies illustrations by N.M. Kochergin for such editions of Asian fairy tales as “Chinese Folk Tales” (1953), “Ten Little Friends” (1954), “The Yellow Stork and the Mountain of the Sun” (1954), “The Liu Brothers” (1955), “Persistent Yun Su” (1955), “Fairy Tales of the Peoples of Asia” (1959).

A survey on optimization studies of group centrality metrics

AbstractCentrality metrics have become a popular concept in network science and optimization. Over the years, centrality has been used to assign importance and identify influential elements in various settings, including transportation, infrastructure, biological, and social networks, among others. That said, most of the literature has focused on nodal versions of centrality. Recently, group counterparts of centrality have started attracting scientific and practitioner interest. The identification of sets of nodes that are influential within a network is becoming increasingly more important. This is even more pronounced when these sets of nodes are required to induce a certain motif or structure. In this study, we review group centrality metrics from an operations research and optimization perspective for the first time. This is particularly interesting due to the rapid evolution and development of this area in the operations research community over the last decade. We first present a historical overview of how we have reached this point in the study of group centrality. We then discuss the different structures and motifs that appear prominently in the literature, alongside the techniques and methodologies that are popular. We finally present possible avenues and directions for future work, mainly in three areas: (i) probabilistic metrics to account for randomness along with stochastic optimization techniques; (ii) structures and relaxations that have not been yet studied; and (iii) new emerging applications that can take advantage of group centrality. Our survey offers a concise review of group centrality and its intersection with network analysis and optimization.

Личностные основания профилактики неконструктивного рискового поведения подростков

The purpose of the presented study is to describe the application of the basics of a personal methodological approach in the prevention of unconstructive risky behavior of adolescents. The interest of researchers and practitioners of pedagogy in studying the nature of the emergence of risky behavior in adolescents is associated with solving the problems of finding effective technologies for its prevention. The peculiarities of unconstructive risky behavior of adolescents include the fact that it begins as experimentation against the background of a demonstrated willingness to take risks. However, risky behavior can become entrenched due to the formation of a psychological complex in the structure of a teenager's personality. An active scientific search in this area is due to the fact that this form of behavioral manifestations carries a balance of positive and negative outcomes in relation to his life and health that is not obvious to a teenager. The analysis of the sources allowed the author to come to the conclusion that a personal approach in line with the prevention of unconstructive risky behavior of adolescents presupposes the teacher's attitude to the pupil as a person, as a self-conscious responsible subject of his own development and as a subject of educational interaction and is implemented through the principles of pedagogical expediency (defines a set of means to achieve a predictable goal, contributing to a positive result with a focus on the personality traits of the teenager himself) and conformity to nature (involves taking into account the natural characteristics of adolescence in the work, contributing to the emergence of behavioral deviations, and building a pedagogically appropriate preventive trajectory).

Escalando no estado de São Paulo: levantamento dos ginásios e dos praticantes

The practice of sport climbing has been growing, especially in recent years, with the inclusion of this sport in the Olympic Games, showing greater adherence of the population, despite the need for investment to practice it. The present study surveyed and analyzed the spaces of this indoor practice in the state of Sao Paulo and the climbers who attend these spaces. The method used was exploratory descriptive research with the application of a questionnaire, whose sample consisted of 28 climbing spaces and 152 subjects, all climbers divided in 102 men and 50 women, all aged 18 years or older. As a result, it was possible to realize that the spaces are concerned in promoting the sport; with the practice guided by qualified professionals; provide events for socialization and dissemination of climbing; offer specific equipment and other activities to improve the technique and performance of climbers. Regarding to climbers it was observed that they use these spaces to prepare themselves for later climbing in natural environment; as well to health gains; they practice recreationally rather than competitively, preferring mainly the guided/top rope style and; they have in the psychological factor their greatest difficulty. It is possible to conclude that indoor climbing has expanded in the state of Sao Paulo, as well as the interest of practitioners in this practice, especially for women.

Testing the past: can we still run tests in past snapshots for Java projects?

Building past snapshots of a software project has shown to be of interest both for researchers and practitioners. However, little attention has been devoted specifically to tests available in those past snapshots, which are fundamental for the maintenance of old versions still in production. The aim of this study is to determine to which extent tests of past snapshots can be executed successfully, which would mean these past snapshots are still testable. Given a software project, we build all its past snapshots from source code, including tests, and then run the tests. When tests do not result in success, we also record the reasons, allowing us to determine factors that make tests fail. We run this method on a total of 86 Java projects. On average, for 52.53% of the project snapshots on which tests can be built, all tests pass. However, on average, 94.14% of tests pass in previous snapshots when we take into account the percentage of tests passing in the snapshots used for building those tests. In real software projects, successfully running tests in past snapshots is not something that we can take for granted: we have found that in a large proportion of the projects we studied this does not happen frequently. We have found that the building from source code is the main limitation when running tests on past snapshots. However, we have found some projects for which tests run successfully in a very large fraction of past snapshots, which allows us to identify good practices. We also provide a framework and metrics to quantify testability (the extent to which we are able to run tests of a snapshot with a success result) of past snapshots from several points of view, which simplifies new analyses on this matter, and could help to measure how any project performs in this respect.

PROPOSING A MODEL FOR UNDERSTANDING BLOCKCHAIN TECHNOLOGY ADOPTION IN ORGANIZATIONS

Blockchain technology was first introduced in 2008, and since then it has been a subject of interest for both academicians and practitioners. Blockchain has many applications in business areas, such as: cryptocurrency, health information systems, electronic notary, supply chain management, human resources management, music industry, real estate management and much more. Despite the growing interest in blockchain technology, the literature regarding it is relatively new and limited. In the context of technology adoption studies, especially in blockchain field, there are limited number of studies that investigate innovation adoption at the organizational level. This paper proposes a model that integrates diffusion of innovation theory, technology-organization-environment framework, and institutional theory for future blockchain adoption studies at the organizational level.

A nascent market for digital assets: Exploration of consumer value of NFTs

Despite widespread academic and practitioner interest in non-fungible tokens (NFTs) as a form of digital assets, little is known about how consumers perceive NFT value. This exploratory research investigates why people create, trade or collect NFTs, what value they derive from them, and how online communities contribute to value co-creation. Over the course of two rounds, we interview 38 participants, most of whom are digital natives. We find that engaging with NFTs is the new form of day trading, reflecting financialization of everyday life. The value of NFTs is mainly speculative and utilitarian, and NFTs themselves are best thought of as derivatives. Value co-creation in NFT project communities is largely focused on gaining superior information about the project. We contribute to the crypto-marketing and web3 literature by advancing a novel model of NFT consumer value that extends Holbrook's (1999) typology and distinguishes both positive and negative aspects of consumer value that have been overlooked in mainstream literature. We shed light on the role of communities in an unusual setting: a nascent, illiquid, speculative, informationally opaque market for digital assets. Our study helps creators and brand managers to develop effective NFT strategies.

Analysis of Seasonal Time Poverty and Aspirations in the Upper East Region of Ghana

While studies on aspiration formation have progressively gained the interest of development practitioners and policymakers, little is known about the link between seasonal time poverty and aspirations. This study uses primary data on 337 smallholder households in rural northern Ghana to examine the relationship between seasonal time poverty and aspirations about income, assets, child education, and social status from household headship and age perspectives. The results indicate that seasonal time poverty is correlated with higher aspirations of income and assets but a lower social status. The effect is more significant in dry than wet seasons, and more evident in female- and adult-headed households. The findings are robust to alternative estimation methods for addressing endogeneity. Income is identified as the main potential channel through which seasonal time poverty influences aspirations formation and the implications of the findings are discussed. HIGHLIGHTS In Ghana, seasonal time poverty is positively associated with income and asset aspirations. Seasonal time poverty reduces social status aspiration. The effect of seasonal time poverty on aspiration is higher among women and adults. Programs that promote rural household income must be targeted, pursued, and sustained to improve aspirations.

Factors of interest of general practitioners in scientific research in first-level care centers in Bolivia

Introduction: Publication, as part of scientific and academic communication, is a key element of the ethical and moral obligation of every researcher. Our study addresses the factors of interest that general practitioners have in scientific research in first-level public health care centers in the municipality of El Alto.Objective: Determine the factors of interest that general practitioners have in scientific research in first-level public health care centers in the municipality of El Alto, department of La Paz, Bolivia.Methods: It is a qualitative, descriptive, analytical and cross-sectional study, under a non-experimental design. The universe consisted of 3,520 general practitioners in the department of La Paz, 103 general practitioners agreed to participate as a sample of the research, and who met inclusion and exclusion criteria.Results and discussion: 68% of the doctors are between 31 and 40 years old. 46.6% graduated from a university abroad, however it had no impact on the research process. 62.1% of all doctors have an academic degree at the bachelor's level. The majority of doctors after graduating do not continue with higher professional training studies. 80.6% did not publish scientific articles. 41.7% indicate that they do not carry out scientific research because there is no institutional support.Conclusions: The majority of doctors who participated in our study are relatively young – adults. Regardless of the school they graduate from, it has no impact on the research processes. Their academic degree is a bachelor's degree, followed by diplomas and none with a doctorate. After graduating, they do not continue with higher or postgraduate studies. The vast majority of doctors do not publish any research articles. Based on these results, it is necessary to implement strategies that encourage the development of research in general practitioners at the first level of care.

The importance of digital skills for the Western Balkans -comparative analysis between the Western Balkans and the European Union

In knowledge-intensive economies, skills emerged as crucial resources, determining economic development. Thus, in the post-pandemic, digital world, digital skills gain new ground, attracting the interest of researchers and practitioners, especially in the Western Balkan (WB) countries, which aspire to be a part of the European Union (EU). As a result, the article aims to investigate the level of digital, computer, and skills in evaluating data, information, and digital content in WB and to compare it with the EU region. Furthermore, we found that EU countries are way ahead in terms of basic or above basic overall digital skills on average. In the WB context, Serbia and Montenegro are close to converging with the EU average related to computer skills while Montenegro and North Macedonia lead in skills in evaluating data, information, and digital content. The results point out that the level of digital skills highly correlates with labor productivity and GDP per capita in WB.