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1 – 10 of 318Misbahu S. Zubair, David Brown, Thomas Hughes-Roberts and Matthew Bates
Personae are simple tools for describing users, their characteristics and their goals. They are valuable tools when designing for a specific group of users, such as children with…
Abstract
Purpose
Personae are simple tools for describing users, their characteristics and their goals. They are valuable tools when designing for a specific group of users, such as children with autism spectrum condition (ASC). The purpose of this paper is to propose, validate and revise a methodology for creating accurate, data grounded personae for children with ASC.
Design/methodology/approach
The proposed method is based mainly on Cooper et al.’s (2007) persona construction method. It proposes gathering and analysing qualitative data from users and experts to either create a new persona or extend an existing one. The method is then applied to create personae for the design of a visual programming tool for children with ASC. Based on the results of the application, observations and lessons learnt, a revised version of the method is proposed.
Findings
The method’s combined use of user data and expert knowledge produced a set of personae that have been well reviewed by experts so far. The method’s use of a questionnaire to validate personae also produced relevant qualitative feedback. On review, possible downsides of extending existing personae were identified. Therefore, a revised method was introduced, eliminating the need to extend existing personae, and stressing the importance of utilising user data, expert knowledge and feedback.
Originality/value
This paper addresses the need for a well-defined method for creating data grounded personae that accurately describe the characteristics and goals of children with ASC. Such personae can be used to design and develop more accessible and usable products.
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Lyndel Bates, Marina Alexander and Julianne Webster
This paper aims to explore the link between dangerous driving and other criminal behaviour.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore the link between dangerous driving and other criminal behaviour.
Design/methodology/approach
Arksey and O’Malley’s (2005) five-step process for scoping reviews to identify, summarise and classify identified literature was used. Within the 30-year timeframe (1990–2019), 12 studies met the inclusion criteria.
Findings
This review indicates that individuals who commit certain driving offences are more likely to also have a general criminal history. In particular, driving under the influence, driving unlicensed and high-range speeding offences were associated with other forms of criminal behaviour. Seven of the studies mentioned common criminological theories; however, they were not integrated well in the analysis. No studies used explanatory psychosocial theories that investigate social and contextual factors.
Research limitations/implications
Future research in this area would benefit from exploring individual and social influences that contribute to criminal behaviour in both contexts.
Practical implications
There is the potential to develop an information-led policing approach to improve safety on the roads and reduce wider offending behaviour. However, it is critical that road policing officers continue to focus on ensuring the road system is as safe as possible for users.
Originality/value
Criminal behaviour on the roads is often seen as a separate from other types of offending. This paper explores if, and how, these two types of offending are linked.
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The purpose of this paper is to describe the initial stages of a year to 18 month project to design and produce a peer designed video game for teenagers for use across Derbyshire…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to describe the initial stages of a year to 18 month project to design and produce a peer designed video game for teenagers for use across Derbyshire Libraries.
Design/methodology/approach
The context is set with an overview of educational games focusing on the UK experience before examining both commercial off the shelf and bespoke games in schools, universities and libraries in the USA and UK.
Findings
The paper posits a specification it is believed will result in a game which is both educational and fun.
Originality/value
Describes the initial development of a peer designed game for young people.
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Helen Thacker, Ann Anka and Bridget Penhale
The purpose of this paper is to consider the importance of professional curiosity and partnership work in safeguarding adults from serious harm, abuse and neglect.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to consider the importance of professional curiosity and partnership work in safeguarding adults from serious harm, abuse and neglect.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper draws on a range of materials including: review of published materials in relation to professional curiosity, reports from adult serious case reviews (SCRs) and safeguarding adult reviews (SARs); relevant materials drawn from the SAR Library, thematic reviews of SARs and Google searches; observations from practice and experience. It also refers to the relevant academic literature.
Findings
Lessons from SCRs and SARs show that a lack of professional curiosity and poor coordination of support can lead to poor assessments and intervention measures that can fail to support those at risk of harm and abuse. There are a number of barriers to professionals practicing with curiosity. Working in partnership enhances the likelihood that professional curiosity will flourish.
Practical implications
There are clear implications for improving practice by increasing professional curiosity amongst professionals. The authors argue that there is a scope to improve professional curiosity by utilising and developing existing partnerships, and ultimately to help reduce the number of deaths and incidents of serious harm.
Originality/value
The paper considers the importance of employing professional curiosity and partnership work in safeguarding adults’ practice, so enabling practitioners to better safeguard adults at risk of abuse and neglect.
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Claire Bates and Rose Matthews
The purpose of this study is to explore the support needs surrounding intimate relationships and sexuality of autistic adults accessing funded social care in England.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to explore the support needs surrounding intimate relationships and sexuality of autistic adults accessing funded social care in England.
Design/methodology/approach
Semi-structured interviews with 15 autistic adults who were accessing funded social care examined their support needs surrounding intimate relationships and sexuality, with subsequent data analysis using reflexive thematic analysis.
Findings
Four themes were generated: Help at hand, but not too close for comfort, No “cookie-cutter rules”: personalised, inclusive approaches, Playing it safe, not leaving it too late, and Autism-informed education and support.
Practical implications
The authors produced an online learning module for social care staff in England on best practice in supporting autistic adults without learning disabilities with relationships and sexuality.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors' knowledge, there has been no other UK-based research published to date on the social care support needs of autistic adults without learning disabilities surrounding relationships, gender and sexuality.
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Daniel Borgia and Alexander Newman
The purpose of this paper is to explore the importance of owner/manager characteristics in explaining the capital structure decisions of entrepreneurial enterprises in emerging…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the importance of owner/manager characteristics in explaining the capital structure decisions of entrepreneurial enterprises in emerging economies using a sample of Chinese small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs). Although mainstream theories from the finance literature are useful in explaining capital structure decisions for large firms in developed economies, they do not adequately explain the financing behaviour of SMEs in developing economies.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors' mixed methods approach utilized both quantitative and qualitative methods to understand how managerial factors influence the capital structure of Chinese SMEs.
Findings
The findings suggest that the capital structure of SMEs in China is primarily influenced by aversion to external control and propensity to take risk. It was also found that owners with better networking ties generally require less debt financing because they can access adequate external resources through informal channels.
Research limitations/implications
The main limitation concerns the extent to which the paper's findings can be generalised to outside of the specific location in which the research was undertaken. Future research might be extended to other emerging economies to determine whether the findings of this research are unique to China or robust across emerging economies, given different institutional contexts.
Practical implications
Given the critical importance of fostering growth of private enterprise in China, policy makers should be aware of how the attitudes of owner/managers impact on the development of SMEs when developing mechanisms to support them.
Social implications
Citizens in economies which provide sufficient financing and support to entrepreneurial enterprises generally enjoy a higher standard of living than societies which do not.
Originality/value
This paper fulfils an identified need for studying how entrepreneurial firms in emerging economies make the financing decisions necessary to expand and grow.
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Lyndel Judith Bates, Bridie Scott-Parker, Siobhan Allen and Barry Watson
Road policing is a key method used to improve driver compliance with road laws. However, the authors have a very limited understanding of the perceptions of young drivers…
Abstract
Purpose
Road policing is a key method used to improve driver compliance with road laws. However, the authors have a very limited understanding of the perceptions of young drivers regarding police enforcement of road laws. The paper aims to address this gap.
Design/methodology/approach
Within this study 238 young drivers from Queensland, Australia, aged 17-24 years (M=18, SD=1.54), with a provisional (intermediate) driver’s licence completed an online survey regarding their perceptions of police enforcement and their driver thrill-seeking tendencies. This study considered whether these factors influenced self-reported transient (e.g. traveling speed) and fixed (e.g. blood alcohol concentration) road violations by the young drivers.
Findings
The results indicate that being detected by police for a traffic offence, and the frequency with which they display P-plates on their vehicle to indicate their licence status, are associated with both self-reported transient and fixed rule violations. Licence type, police avoidance behaviors and driver thrill seeking affected transient rule violations only, while perceptions of police enforcement affected fixed rule violations only.
Practical implications
This study suggests that police enforcement of young driver violations of traffic laws may not be as effective as expected and that the authors need to improve the way in which police enforce road laws for young novice drivers.
Originality/value
This paper identifies that perceptions of police enforcement by young drivers does not influence all types of road offences.
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Matthew Fish, William Miller, D’Arcy Becker and Aimee Pernsteiner
The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of organizational culture as a company migrates through a four-stage model for designing a performance measurement system (PMS…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of organizational culture as a company migrates through a four-stage model for designing a performance measurement system (PMS) focused on customer profitability.
Design/methodology/approach
This is a single-site phenomenological case study, at Growth Spurt Marine Accessories (Growth Spurt), a manufacturing organization headquartered in the USA. Data were collected over a two-year period through interviews with accounting staff, internal company documents and recording observational notes.
Findings
The paper identifies three major factors that prevented Growth Spurt from transitioning its customer profitability analysis (CPA) reporting package through Kaplan and Cooper’s four-stage model of PMS design: executives exerting their power and spending political capital to prevent implementation without providing rationale, executives believing that the allocation methods were too subjective and executives relying on their own intuition in analyzing customer profitability rather than relying on data. These factors suggest that organizational culture plays an important role in migrating a customer-focused profitability PMS through Kaplan and Cooper’s four-stage model of PMS system design.
Research limitations/implications
The findings suggest that a PMS focused on customer profitability that does not advance beyond Stage II (financial reporting-driven) may still suit the needs of an organization. Additionally, managers should advocate for a multidisciplinary PMS design and implementation team to minimize potentially adverse effects of organizational culture.
Originality/value
This paper is unique because it applies Kaplan and Cooper’s four-stage model for PMS design to CPA and it uses a phenomenological case approach to explore impediments to a comprehensive CPA implementation.
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Robert Crawford and Matthew Bailey
The purpose of this paper is to explore the value of oral history for marketing historians and provide case studies from projects in the Australian context to demonstrate its…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the value of oral history for marketing historians and provide case studies from projects in the Australian context to demonstrate its utility. These case studies are framed within a theme of market research and its historical development in two industries: advertising and retail property.
Design/methodology/approach
This study examines oral histories from two marketing history projects. The first, a study of the advertising industry, examines the globalisation of the advertising agency in Australia over the period spanning the 1950s to the 1980s, through 120 interviews. The second, a history of the retail property industry in Australia, included 25 interviews with executives from Australia’s largest retail property firms whose careers spanned from the mid-1960s through to the present day.
Findings
The research demonstrates that oral histories provide a valuable entry port through which histories of marketing, shifts in approaches to market research and changing attitudes within industries can be examined. Interviews provided insights into firm culture and practices; demonstrated the variability of individual approaches within firms and across industries; created a record of the ways that market research has been conducted over time; and revealed the ways that some experienced operators continued to rely on traditional practices despite technological advances in research methods.
Originality/value
Despite their ubiquity, both the advertising and retail property industries in Australia have received limited scholarly attention. Recent scholarship is redressing this gap, but more needs to be understood about the inner workings of firms in an historical context. Oral histories provide an avenue for developing such understandings. The paper also contributes to broader debates about the role of oral history in business and marketing history.
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