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1 – 10 of 101This paper presents a novel interface system to aid people with visual impairment to become proficient with operating unfamiliar devices. The system works by adding touch sensors…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper presents a novel interface system to aid people with visual impairment to become proficient with operating unfamiliar devices. The system works by adding touch sensors that trigger audio tags to tactile controls. The touch sensors trigger the audio tags before the control is activated.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper describes how several devices were enhanced with the new technology, tested and evaluated. Initial informational interviewing with visually impaired people was followed by user studies with blindfolded but visually able people. A final evaluation of the system was conducted by a visually impaired group.
Findings
This paper shows that the technology is of benefit to a visually impaired user when using a complex unfamiliar device.
Originality/value
This novel application of touch sensors coupled with audio tags has the potential to benefit visually impaired people. This technology can easily be incorporated into commercial devices. The idea can also be implemented using off the shelf development boards coupled with smart phones.
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Keywords
– The purpose of this paper is to present a novel non-contact method of using head movement to control software without the need for wearable devices.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present a novel non-contact method of using head movement to control software without the need for wearable devices.
Design/methodology/approach
A webcam and software are used to track head position. When the head is moved through a virtual target, a keystroke is simulated. The system was assessed by participants with impaired mobility using Sensory Software’s Grid 2 software as a test platform.
Findings
The target user group could effectively use this system to interact with switchable software.
Practical implications
Physical head switches could be replaced with virtual devices, reducing fatigue and dissatisfaction.
Originality/value
Using a webcam to control software using head gestures where the participant does not have to wear any specialised technology or a marker. This system is shown to be of benefit to motor impaired participants for operating switchable software.
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Using data relating to eBay transactions, investigates the economic, demographic, and geographic factors affecting willingness to pay for purchases online.
Abstract
Purpose
Using data relating to eBay transactions, investigates the economic, demographic, and geographic factors affecting willingness to pay for purchases online.
Design/methodology/approach
Carries out regression analysis of 3,386 eBay transactions, over a two‐year period, reported by two American sellers operating on the United States eBay site. In all auctions examined, consumers had the option of making payment online or by various traditional payment methods.
Findings
Analysis identifies several variables as reasonable predictors of the chosen payment method, including the value of the transaction, the buyer's gender, rural versus urban residence, and several other characteristics of the community in which the buyer lives.
Research limitations/implications
The general demographic, geographic, and economic variables of consumers can be used by researchers and planners to predict consumers' willingness to make online payments. The effect of income demands further investigation. Factors not identified – such as consumer personality and ethnicity or product category – might also influence this form of online consumer behaviour. The study is restricted to online consumer auction transactions in one country only.
Originality/value
Uses a larger sample than most previous studies of eBay to identify general demographic, geographic, and economic characteristics of an American sample of eBay consumers, which act as predictors of willingness to make online payments for purchases. Can be a departure point for further research in other countries.
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In this article, the ideas and methods behind the “patent-paper citation” are scrutinised by following the intellectual and technical development of approaches and ideas in early…
Abstract
Purpose
In this article, the ideas and methods behind the “patent-paper citation” are scrutinised by following the intellectual and technical development of approaches and ideas in early work on patentometrics. The aim is to study how references from patents to papers came to play a crucial role in establishing a link between science and technology.
Design/methodology/approach
The study comprises a conceptual history of the “patent paper citation” and its emergence as an important indicator of science and technology interaction. By tracing key references in the field, it analyses the overarching frameworks and ideas, the conceptual “hinterland”, in which the approach of studying patent references emerged.
Findings
The analysis explains how interest in patents – not only as legal and economic artefacts but also as scientific documents – became evident in the 1980s. The focus on patent citations was sparked by a need for relevant and objective indicators and by the greater availability of databases and methods. Yet, the development of patentometrics also relied on earlier research, and established theories, on the relation between science and technology.
Originality/value
This is the first attempt at situating patentometrics in a larger societal and scientific context. The paper offers a reflexive and nuanced analysis of the “patent-paper citation” as a theoretical and historical construct, and it calls for a broader and contextualised understanding of patent references, including their social, legal and rhetorical function.
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Stuart Macdonald and Jacqueline Kam
Publication in quality journals has become a major indicator of research performance in UK universities. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the notion of “quality…
Abstract
Purpose
Publication in quality journals has become a major indicator of research performance in UK universities. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the notion of “quality journal”.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper examines the situation in management studies and finds dizzying circularity in the definitions of “quality journal”.
Findings
The paper finds that what a quality journal is does not really matter: agreement that there are such things matters very much indeed. As so often happens with indicators of performance, the indicator has become the target. So, the challenge is to publish in quality journals, and the challenge rewards gamesmanship. Vested interests have become particularly skilful at the game, and at exercising the winners’ prerogative of changing the rules. All but forgotten in the desperation to win the game is publication as a means of communicating research findings for the public benefit. The paper examines the situation in management studies, but the problem is much more widespread.
Originality/value
This original and topical paper concludes that laughter is both the appropriate reaction to such farce, and also, perhaps, the stimulus to reform.
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Dhouha Jaziri and Raouf Ahmad Rather
This chapter renews the thought on conceptualizing customer experience (CX) through the perspective of customer knowledge management (CKM). It bridges two pathways: Tacit…
Abstract
This chapter renews the thought on conceptualizing customer experience (CX) through the perspective of customer knowledge management (CKM). It bridges two pathways: Tacit Knowledge and Lived experience of the customer. Hence, refreshing the CX conceptualization aims to grasp the depths of the in situ service lived experience by examining the tacit knowledge forms issued from the lived experience of the client-curist in the well-being tourism. Dealing primarily with the consumption of service experience into the thalassotherapy centers is already an uphill task. This is due to its subtle and embedded experiential nature. Notwithstanding these challenges, it offers substantial knowledge about the conceptualized customer experiential knowledge (CEK). Hence, a generation of a pool of items measuring the customer experiential knowledge-process competence construct (CEK-PC) comes to begin the empirical development of the customer experiential knowledge management (CEKM) approach (as developed by Jaziri, 2013, 2019a). It also offers empirical evidence that corroborates CEK conceptualization (Jaziri-Bouagina, 2017). Through the CEK-PC, this chapter explores the competence of management levels in adopting a phenomenological vision and a global approach of ethnography to acquire CEK for treating, sharing, and using it to implement an experience-based innovation. The thrust of the construct was preserved via the Q-sort technique that has assessed the content validity through two sorting rounds. Forty-two items are retained representing a first step of the measure development.
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Mark Peterson and Matthew B. Lunde
This paper reviews recent developments in marketing-related sustainable business practices (SBP) that macromarketing scholars have researched and debated for four decades. Such…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper reviews recent developments in marketing-related sustainable business practices (SBP) that macromarketing scholars have researched and debated for four decades. Such SBPs should be regarded as positive steps toward a future where business does more good than harm in society.
Methodology/approach
Using the approach of a literature review, this paper highlights the actions of entrepreneurs and firms to implement SBPs resulting from analysis of the interplay between markets, marketing and society. Such analysis is in the tradition of macromarketing scholarship.
Findings
The study identifies important developments about an important shift toward adopting SBPs among many firms, as well as among consumers − especially, in developed countries of the world.
Research implications
The study suggests that taking a macromarketing view offers scholars a broad lens on current complex marketplace phenomena that will prove effective in better understanding sustainability issues.
Practical implications
The results of the study underline the value of macromarketing scholarship through the last four decades. By being daring enough to consider other stakeholders other than marketers and owners of firms, macromarketers have provided scholars a more holistic understanding of business’ role in society.
Originality/value
Today, enlightened practitioners who utilize knowledge from macromarketing scholarship can gain a competitive advantage as they navigate markets increasingly influenced by a wider set of stakeholders. Such influential stakeholders include partner firms, employees, society and local communities, NGOs, media, government, as well as the environment and future generations. Scholars can gain perspective on the phenomena they investigate with such a macromarketing lens.
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