Article

The gandalf research project

Authors:
To read the full-text of this research, you can request a copy directly from the author.

No full-text available

Request Full-text Paper PDF

To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the author.

... The method chosen for this research was face-to-face interviews with subjects who were involved in either the Lottery Act adoption, the implementation of the policy or worked for either of the beneficiary fund groups that were charged with administration of the funds. The decision to conduct each interview in person was determined to be the best method in order for the investigator to assess body language clues along with spoken responses (Walliman, 2005). ...
... Each participant was interviewed in private using the same set of questions and probes (see Appendix F) and each was allowed to verbalize their thoughts and recollections uninterrupted. While the approach here was semi-structured (Walliman, 2005) each respondent interview was treated as an " elite interview " as described by Dexter (1970). Dexter characterizes elite interviews as allowing the respondent to decide what is relevant about the issue, to frame the problems in their own way and to permit the respondent to talk about the areas of the issue they feel are most important rather than accept the interviewer's perspective (pp. ...
... 18-19). After each interview, hand-written notes were reviewed and additional notes were made for later reference (Walliman, 2005). None of the interviews were recorded in any other manner. ...
Article
Funding K-12 education is one of the largest public expenditures for most states in the U.S., and Nebraska is no exception (Nebraska Department of Administrative Services, 2011). Since the 1960s, the policy of state-enacted lotteries has slowly but steadily spread throughout the country with all but seven states now operating a lottery to benefit a range of community and social programs with Education being the most common beneficiary (Novarro, 2002). Since the Nebraska lottery’s inception in 1993, about 400millionhasbeenraisedfortheseprimarybeneficiariesandotherbeneficiariesonasmallerscale.LegislativeandConstitutionalchangeshavelefttheeducationfundsvulnerabletobeingusedtofixstatebudgetshortfallsinsteadofbeingusedfortheoriginalpurposeofaddingextrafundstoK12education(AppendixB).Infact,duringfiscalyears200102through200607,thestateLegislaturepassedbillsthatdiverted86400 million has been raised for these primary beneficiaries and other beneficiaries on a smaller scale. Legislative and Constitutional changes have left the education funds vulnerable to being used to fix state budget shortfalls instead of being used for the original purpose of adding extra funds to K-12 education (Appendix B). In fact, during fiscal years 2001-02 through 2006-07, the state Legislature passed bills that diverted 86% of the education funds to the General Fund, amounting to more than 48 million, or diverting 8millionofthe8 million of the 9.4 million of the annual average available during that six-year period (Appendix E). The environmental fund, however, was not left as vulnerable and has been able to successfully withstand recent legislative challenges (Appendix B). Why wasn’t the environmental fund equally at risk? This study takes a first-cut attempt at explaining why one fund was protected from future legislatures looking for money to relieve budget shortfalls, and why the other fund was better positioned for sustainability. In order to describe and explain this phenomenon, the two groups of stakeholders of the primary lottery beneficiary funds in Nebraska were qualitatively researched to explain how one fund was provided greater protection from legislative fund diversions in an era of perceived lottery windfalls that were initially meant to supplement funding to schools. Adviser: Kevin B. Smith
... That is, finding out the extent to which what has been observed in a particular situation at a particular time applies more generally. Walliman (2005) defines a sample as a selected number of cases in a population. He goes on to say that if researchers wish to assess the opinions of members of a large union or organisation, they will have to devise some way of selecting a sample (i.e., a kind of subset of the members of the organisation) made up of participants that they are able to question and who form a fair representation of all the members of the organisation, particularly if the researcher wishes to generalise from it (p. ...
... 276). Walliman's (2005) description emphasises the point that a good sample should be of the right type and size that reflects an accurate profile of the population it represents. Nevertheless, in consideration of the purpose of the PhD study this article reports on, the notion of sampling was revised and taken to mean a " reflection " of broad characteristics of the population (i.e., the meso-level implementers within the Ghanaian education system) rather than being " representative, " which implies or connotes the ability to use certain statistical techniques. ...
... That is, selecting respondents who (by virtue of their position) have experience and knowledge of the case under investigation (Berg, 2004, p. 36; Neuman, 2004, p. 138). Walliman (2005) refers to this method of sampling as " theoretical sampling. " He defines it as " a method of getting information from a sample of a population that the researcher thinks knows much or has a considerable amount of knowledge about the subject in question " (p. ...
Article
Full-text available
A review of the research methodology literature suggests that owing to the difficulty of gaining access to and obtaining commitments from elites, social scientists less frequently use them as research respondents, opting instead to investigate those over whom power is exercised. This article provides insights into some intricacies of elite interviewing. It recounts the experience of a novice researcher in his quest to gain access to and interview elite individuals within the Ghanaian educational system for his PhD thesis. In the process, the article sheds light on strategies and techniques (related to interviewee identification, scheduling, and researcher preparation for the interview, as well as rapport establishment with potential interviewees) that are helpful as toolkits in ensuring that elite interview processes are not unduly derailed. The article argues that the strategies discussed are useful for circumventing formalised and "public relations" responses, which elites tend to communicate with the press and public.
... To lessen confusion, in many research studies, an operational definition (or in some cases known as a working definition) is used instead of a conceptual definition which yields more tangible or explicit indicators where numerical values can be applied to quantify the concept (Babbie, 2004). The quantification of the concepts is generally related to quantitative research (Walliman, 2005). For instance, Watson Todd (2012) was interested in exploring the relationship between class size and learning in the context of foundation English language courses at a Thai university. ...
... Therefore, we must be cautious of our judgment of a definition since it is taken out of its context and therefore we cannot say whether it is appropriate or not, especially because " all definitions are essentially ad hoc " (Ogden & Richards, 1927, p.111), and " there is no universal agreement about how accurate one is entitled to expect a definition to be " (Goddard, 2011, p. 37). Nevertheless, we can generally evaluate a definition by gauging its appropriateness as a measurement procedure and assessing its relation to a theoretical concept (Walliman, 2005). ...
... Indeed, the definition in the thesis consists of at least two vague terms – frequently and naturally. If we assess a definition with its appropriateness as a measurement indicator suggested by Walliman (2005) mentioned earlier, we can probably say that the definition given in the thesis is not really useful in terms of research which can be similar to Jorgensen and Phillips's (2002) assertion. One may argue whether the difference may be derived from the different nature of research (that is, operationalization in quantitative research). ...
Article
Full-text available
The definition of a term used in research can be considered a critical element that can guide research processes, shape research findings, or even impact research interpretations. Interestingly, in spite of the importance of definitions and their functions in research, from my preliminary survey of research method books and published research articles, little has been written about them. This study seeks to explore the functions of definitions in applied linguistics research in previous literature and to compare functions of definitions used in 10 research articles and 10 master's theses in the field. Literature suggests definitions have three functions: for clarifying a term; for an argument in research; and for a methodological purpose. The findings from my 'intratextual reading' (that is, to identify a functional relationship between a term defined and another part of research within the same research) suggest that there are differences in functions of definitions between the articles and the theses, with the greatest differences found in the third function: for a methodological purpose.
... The latter were used to triangulate methodology and also to confirm classroom observations and to allow for clarification of questions coming up in the process of observation. The use of observation is aligned with the views of experts that classroom observations provide a more comprehensive and accurate view of classroom practices (in the case of this study – related to the use of languages in contact sessions) (Maree 2008; Walliman 2005 ) rather than interviews with participants. It is noted by methodologists that interviewees could provide inaccurate information about their practices, if they feel obliged to impress the interviewer (Kanazawa 2005). ...
... It is noted by methodologists that interviewees could provide inaccurate information about their practices, if they feel obliged to impress the interviewer (Kanazawa 2005). Experts further indicate that observations are ideal in situations where full and accurate information cannot be obtained through questioning (Walliman 2005). For this study, data were collected in the second (May to July) and third (September to November) school terms of grade three in 2015 at the participating schools. ...
Article
Full-text available
Bilingualism characterizes people in linguistically heterogeneous settlements like Nairobi among other urban centres in Kenya. But the country is also predominantly rural (where you find people of a common language settled in one geographical rural region) in which mother tongues are primary means of communication. Children in lower primary in rural areas should be taught in their mother tongues. The purpose of this study was to find out the use of mother tongues and official languages in elementary linguistically homogeneous classrooms in Kenya and the possible effect of this use. Data were obtained through classroom observations and interviews with classroom teachers and head teachers. The findings indicate that instead of using mother tongues to teach, teachers use Kiswahili (a national and co-official language) and English (an official language) in various ways to teach content subjects; mathematics, science, social/religious studies, hence making the classrooms bilingual. The article presents evidence and discusses how this use of language affects learning and what it implies on language in education policy, on second language learning, and on early literacy development. Negative effects of the practice include poor learning outcomes and poor teacher morale. The study recommends corrective steps to avert learning and literacy development losses.
... To begin with, focus group discussions were recorded and transcribed to electronic format. The verbatim transcripts were then sorted into broad categories that were derived from the objectives of the study and relevant literature (Walliman, 2005). Coding is an important part of qualitative research and provides tags or labels used to allocate meaning to the collected data (Walliman, 2005). ...
... The verbatim transcripts were then sorted into broad categories that were derived from the objectives of the study and relevant literature (Walliman, 2005). Coding is an important part of qualitative research and provides tags or labels used to allocate meaning to the collected data (Walliman, 2005). Through the coding process, the initial data were refined into more specific categories. ...
Article
Full-text available
Increasing consumption in the South African emerging economy necessitates stringent effort toward developing environmental information campaigns that stimulate preferences for eco-friendly alternatives. This qualitative study explores the role of exposure to information about the environmental impact of the apparel supply chain in female students’ evaluation and selection of apparel. Based on the outcome of garment selection exercises and focus group discussions, participants were not swayed by exposure to hang tags, audio-visual or printed information sources to prioritize ecofriendly features in their choice of product, nor were they willing to compromise on attributes such as price for the sake of the environment. Participants’ recommendations include standardized ecolabels to facilitate identification of eco-friendly alternatives and message content that is short, precise and factual. Interpersonal communication could represent an influential source of information and merits further investigation into the relevance of normative social influence on proenvironmental apparel behavior in the South African emerging economy.
... This cross-sectional quantitative study followed a deductohypothetico approach (Walliman 2005), which implies that the hypotheses were deduced from existing literature. The hypotheses aimed to confirm relationships among independent and dependent variables (Aaker et al. 2011;Hopkins 2000). ...
Article
Full-text available
Orientation: Experiential settings are becoming more popular to differentiate conventional brick-and-mortar retailing which now faces fierce competition from multiple other retail platforms. Research purpose: The study aims to identify and explain the internal driving forces that positively predict consumers’ impulsive behaviour in experiential retail settings. Research design, approach and method: This quantitative investigation entailed a retrospective assessment of consumers’ experiences at diverse experiential retailers. An electronic survey approach enabled the collection of 402 usable questionnaires based on a purposive sampling technique whereby a heterogeneous sample of consumers 18 years and above who have visited one of the identified experiential retailers were recruited. Stepwise regression analyses were conducted to test the hypothesised relationships between the independent and dependent variables. Main findings: Results suggest that consumers’ mood and emotions, adventure, gratification and social shopping motives as well as their desire for recreation are conducive to certain impulsive behavioural outcomes, namely irresistible desire creation, impulsive purchases and impulsive participation. A significant finding is that impulsive actions are not necessarily preceded by an irresistible urge. However, the urge to act on impulse is regarded a separate impulsive behavioural outcome. Practical/managerial implications: Impulsive behaviour should be regarded as a valuable outcome in terms of an understanding of consumers’ behaviour in experiential retail contexts. Not only does it offer retailers competitive advantage possibilities but it also constitutes more satisfying experiences for consumers. Contribution/value-add: A theoretical contribution is made in terms of an integration of literature on experiential retail and impulsive behaviour.
... We needed to make sense of what we needed to know or, in other terms, develop a level of contextual meaningfulness. With this in mind, a case study approach was adopted, which allowed us to consider questions related to: ''How do students construct their own meaning of the concept student engagement?'', ''How are they engaged or involved in university life''?Walliman (2011)considers case study approaches to be a useful tool for collecting quantitative data; however, owing to the nature of this study, qualitative data was also needed, especially with regard to definitions of student engagement. We did not want to prompt participant answers by offering choice; we wished rather to oblige them to formulate their own definitions, using personal language and terminology. ...
Article
Full-text available
As part of the REACT research team, students from Newman University embarked on a two-year research project which set out to explore and compare how the concept of student engagement was perceived by students who were involved in a range of undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. The rationale for undertaking the study was with a view to developing a shared understanding of student engagement across the institution, making student engagement more visible across the institution and ensuring that strategies implemented to encourage student engagement were fit for purpose, particularly for the ‘non-traditional’ student at Newman. Questionnaires were designed by students and staff to facilitate both quantitative and qualitative responses around the comparing and contrasting definitions of engagement from students. Student perspectives considered engagement usually at an academic level, with little knowledge and understanding of the wider opportunities for engagement. Data collected also identified that working with others was a key aspect of student engagement, but barriers were identified as to why students did not perceive social engagement as important.
... A qualitative methodology enables one to uncover subjective meanings that complete our understanding of the social world, which is defined out of personal and cultural experiences, not just through statistics (Bryman, 2012;Walliman, 2011;Jennings, 2011). I do not presume to speak for the indigenous residents of the French Pacific nor to have become a well-integrated insider but I bear witness on issues that concern them. ...
Article
History, authenticity, local culture and leisure offerings are now considered assets in local tourism development. Using a qualitative methodology, I will examine whether cultural tourism can transform the French Pacific into a sought-out tourist destination that benefits the local economy. Re-identifying the French Pacific as a cultural destination might galvanise all its stakeholders (including government agencies) to cooperate so the destination responds better to visitor expectations of the expression of indigenous culture in its localities. It would require hybrid strategies in the sense that customary practices would be commoditised. Commodification of culture raises a number of problems as it caters to fabricated needs (to fit with visitors' habitus) in order to provide the ultimate desirable experience - given that tropical island destinations are ultimately totally substitutable for tourists from developed countries. French Pacific societies have already woven multiple global links and networks, proving their resilience; can they now offer optimal and enriching encounters for both visitors and residents?.
... This study adopted the qualitative research approach since the targeted data was in form of words, ideas, and explanations. Walliman[9]explains that qualitative research is to do with people and their activities, and is concerned with variables that cannot be quantified. More often, the data are in a form of words rather than numbers. ...
Article
Full-text available
The purpose of this work is to enhance the life insurance underwriting process by building a knowledge-based system for life insurance underwriting. The knowledge-based system would be useful for organizations, which want to serve their clients better, promote expertise capture, retention, and reuse in the organization. The paper identifies the main input factors and output decisions that life insurance practitioners considered and made on a daily basis. Life underwriting knowledge was extracted through interviews in a leading insurance company in Kenya. The knowledge is incorporated into a knowledge-based system prototype designed and implemented, built to demonstrate the potential of this technology in life insurance industry. Unified modelling language and visual prolog language was used in the design and development of the prototype respectively. The system's knowledge base was populated with sample knowledge obtained from the life insurance company and results were generated to illustrate how the system is expected to function.
... Confidentiality was maintained through anonymity as no names were used in the data collection. At all stages of the research honesty is vital (Walliman 2005). 'Silently rejecting or ignoring evidence which happens to be contrary to one's beliefs constitutes a breach of integrity' (Walliman 2005, 337 ). ...
Article
This study aims to consider children’s perspectives about free time activity choices. Through the use of drawings, favourite free time activities of third culture kids in Albania are compared with those of children in the UK. The sample comprises four boys and three girls from four to eight years from each country. Further conversations reveal that children mainly initiated the activities themselves and yet often chose activities involving their parents. This study adds to the debate about hearing and responding to children’s voices to support them effectively through activity choices. Implications for parents and carers are highlighted.
... To this end, first all indicators proposed by the models indicated inTable 2 are extracted. Then, content analysis, a quantitative approach taken by counting the frequency of phenomena within a case in order to gauge its importance comparing to other cases (Walliman, 2001), is used; indicators that have been presented at least in two models (at least with the frequency two) were selected as common indicators for assessing SME e-readiness/ digital divide. It is noteworthy that the frequency of indicators in the models was identified based on their definitions, that is, two indicators with different titles but the same definition were assumed as one indicator. ...
Chapter
With the advent and evolution of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in general, the Internet, in particular, throughout the world, new terms such as “information society,” “digital divide,” and “e-readiness” were added to terminologies. Due to the rapid diffusion of the Internet in different aspects of human life, these concepts have attracted many scholars, practitioners, and policy-makers. In addition to much academic research done in these fields, nearly all countries have assessed their e-readiness and compared their digital divide with that of other countries, at least once. Consequently, there have been numerous e-readiness and digital divide models oriented towards certain objectives in recent years. The findings show (1) tremendous importance of the digital divide and e-readiness and (2) their complex and multi-faceted natures. Thus, effective examination and development of digital divide and e-readiness research requires a foundation in several rich literatures. Examining the e-readiness and digital divide literature in terms of their definitions and methodologies, in the current chapter, their strengths and weaknesses were recognized. Moreover, after an extensive literature survey, an integrated model was proposed for assessing e-readiness of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that can be used as the basis and standard for developing comprehensive models and frameworks in these enterprises. Finally, this chapter contributes to scarce literature on e-readiness/digital divide at micro level and creates additional pool of resources that practitioners and theorists could use to further enrich and extend their analysis of this construct.
... The reason for this is that through emails, participants could be informed that the questionnaire was available online. Through the use of a website, the collection of data and monitoring of the progress of the respondents in completing the survey could then be simplified (Burns 2000; Williman 2005). This was important given the project time constraints and the need to speedily reach groups of respondents in different locations. ...
... Since the core CSFs are those that have been identified by the majority of previous papers, the frequency of CSFs (the number of times that a CSF appears in the selected articles) is an appropriate criterion for extracting them. Thus, content analysis, a quantitative approach─ counting the frequency of phenomena within a case in order to gauge its importance compared with other cases (Walliman, 2001), was employed. The Entropy method which quantifies the frequency of CSFs to the values that can be used for determining their degree of importance was utilized in the next step. ...
Chapter
The Implementation of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems require huge investments while ineffective implementations of such projects are commonly observed. A considerable number of these projects have been reported to fail or take longer than it was initially planned, while previous studies show that the aim of rapid implementation of such projects has not been successful and the failure of the fundamental goals in these projects have imposed huge amounts of costs on investors. Some of the major consequences are the reduction in demand for such products and the introduction of further skepticism to the managers and investors of ERP systems. In this regard, it is important to understand the factors determining success or failure of ERP implementation. The aim of this paper is to study the critical success factors (CSFs) in implementing ERP systems and to develop a conceptual model which can serve as a basis for ERP project managers. These critical success factors that are called “core critical success factors” are extracted from 62 published papers using the content analysis and the entropy method. The proposed conceptual model has been verified in the context of five multinational companies.
... The target population for this study was defined as follows: all CAAs in the Western Cape Province of South Africa who experienced a relapse after in-patient treatment. A sample of the population to enhance the validity of the study (Walliman 2001:232) was selected based on the following criteria for inclusion: CCAs who had previously undergone in-patient treatment and had contact with an social worker following treatment, who relapsed thereafter and who subsequently re-entered in-patient treatment programmes in the Western Cape. ...
Article
Full-text available
Treatment of chemical addiction includes preparation for treatment, formal treatment and aftercare. The latter appears to be a neglected area in service delivery to chemically addicted adolescents, contributing to the high relapse potential following treatment. The current qualitative study aimed at both exploring and describing the aftercare needs of chemically addicted adolescents. The chemically addicted adolescents included in this study received in-patient treatment as well as aftercare, but nonetheless experienced a relapse; necessitating further in-patient treatment. Purposive sampling was implemented to recruit 31 participants between the ages of 14 and 20 years. The sample size was determined by data saturation. Data for this exploratory, descriptive and contextual study were collected by means of narrative inquiry. Tesch's framework for qualitative data analysis was employed and data verification was conducted through Guba's model. The endings illustrated a need to attend to adolescents intrapersonal and interpersonal as well as environmental needs following treatment. The results can provide service providers with focus areas to be included in aftercare services to these adolescents.
... Several methods are available by which original research contributions can be made, including establishing causal relationships, evaluating the efficacy of a particular approach to a problem, looking at the problem longitudinally, exploring an approach to address a problem through a descriptive study, establishing a method to create a solution to a problem, developing constructs regarding the causes or characteristics of a problem, or developing a predictive model (Ellis & Levy, 2008). The importance lies in demonstrating there is a contribution to knowledge that creates a step forward in the particular branch of the researcher ( Walliman, 2005). Kuhn (1962) suggests that there are three types of theory development opportunities that can be used to guide researchers. ...
Article
Full-text available
This article provides an explanation of the process for selecting a research topic. The article uses Kuhn’s classic work on scientific revolutions to delineate the steps in developing theoretical research within an area. The paper provides methods for preparing to develop a research topic, steps for approaching a research problem, as well as methods for problem theoretical development. We end the article with pitfalls that can occur when selecting a research topic as well as bright spots with regard to doctoral students beginning research in an area. Our hope is that this research will help beginning doctoral students start the process of developing a research topic by providing assistance with the overall process.
... Considering mentioned-above criteria, the 19 countries were selected for studying: India (Department of Information Technology (DIT), 2004), Belarus (National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, 2003), Egypt (Salem, 2002; El-Gabaly and Majidi, 2003), Malaysia (Rasool, 2003), Australia (ACS, 2002), Poland (Piątkowski, 2004), Argentina (Finquelievichy and Jara, 2000), Trinidad and Tobago (Macintyre and Ramnarine, 2003), Costa Rica (Monge and Chacón, 2002), Srilanka (UNCTAD, 2000), Uzbekistan (State Committee for Science and Technology, 2001), United Arab Emirates (Shalhoub and Al Qasimi, 2003), Finland (Aho et al., 2004Walliman and Baiche, 2001); then, the recommendations that have been implemented at least in two countries (at least with the frequency two) were selected as proposed recommendations to experts. The reason for selecting the frequency two is that the selected recommendations have been implemented and tested at least in two countries with different conditions. ...
Article
To be able to compete effectively in the emerging global economy, it is necessary that all nations continue to nurture e-business development. But, successful implementation of e- business needs operational policies and programs that fit with the internal situations of countries. In this paper, benchmarking 19 countries and 4 regions, 339 recommendations for e-business development are extracted. Using content analysis, 36 recommendations are selected and categorized into four groups of Human Resource, Security, E-Infrastructure, and Policies and Plans. A national survey is conducted and then using statistical test, the recommendations that fit with Iran internal situations are proposed. These recommendations are prioritized and categorized in three groups. These groups are: necessary and urgent, necessary and not urgent, and specific for Iran. The categorization is based on three criteria of importance in pundits' opinions, country's experience, and whether or not the recommendations have been implemented. The proposed recommendations are also ranked based on pundits' opinions. The proposed methodology is applicable for other developing countries by considering their pundits opinions.
... Traditionally, there has been a distinction drawn between positivism and constructivist/phenomenological approaches which tend to align themselves along this same continuum. Others have described this type of data from either end as either hard or soft (Walliman, 2005). ...
Article
Full-text available
Abstract An investigation into customer loyalty to food retailers posed a methodological problem – namely how to delve beneath the surface and access consumers' unspoken feelings, perceptions, attitudes and values. This paper explains how four different projective techniques were used to access the thoughts and feelings of 160 interviewees in order to obtain a thorough understanding of the interviewees' satisfaction with their ‘main’ food retailer and to characterize the relationship between the customer and retailer. A brief description of the use, analysis and examples of cartoon friends, word association, personification and mini case studies was provided in order to describe their role in the data collection process.
... Considering mentioned-above criteria, the 19 countries were selected for studying: India (Department of Information Technology (DIT), 2004), Belarus (National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, 2003), Egypt (Salem, 2002; El-Gabaly and Majidi, 2003), Malaysia (Rasool, 2003), Australia (ACS, 2002), Poland (Piątkowski, 2004), Argentina (Finquelievichy and Jara, 2000), Trinidad and Tobago (Macintyre and Ramnarine, 2003), Costa Rica (Monge and Chacón, 2002), Srilanka (UNCTAD, 2000), Uzbekistan (State Committee for Science and Technology, 2001), United Arab Emirates (Shalhoub and Al Qasimi, 2003), Finland (Aho et al., 2004Walliman and Baiche, 2001); then, the recommendations that have been implemented at least in two countries (at least with the frequency two) were selected as proposed recommendations to experts. The reason for selecting the frequency two is that the selected recommendations have been implemented and tested at least in two countries with different conditions. ...
Article
he present study is the first attempt to make recommendations that enhance e-business deployment in Iran. In this paper, studying 19 countries and four regions, 339 recommendations for e-business development are extracted. Then, using content analysis, 32 recommendations are selected and categorised into four groups of ‘e-infrastructure’, ‘human resource’, ‘security’ and ‘policies and plans’. Countries selected for extracting their recommendations are those whose circumstances resemble Iran’s. Therefore, these recommendations seem to be able to be exploited by developing countries, in particular, by Middle East countries. Finally, a survey is conducted and using statistical tests, the recommendations that are compatible with Iran’s internal circumstances are proposed. These recommendations are prioritised and categorised in three groups based on the criteria of the degree of importance in experts’ opinions, 50 P. Hanafizadeh et al. country’s experience and whether or not the recommendations have been implemented in Iran. The proposed recommendations are also ranked according to experts’ opinions.
... The final question in the survey was an invitation to participants to add any further comments or information they considered relevant. This was to prevent respondents becoming frustrated that the questionnaire had not allowed them to express all their views on the survey topic (Walliman 2005). The different response rates from the two groups in my survey reinforces the importance of motivation. ...
Article
To review the advantages and disadvantages of e-questionnaires, and question whether or not reported disadvantages remain valid or can be limited or circumvented. The internet is likely to become the dominant medium for survey distribution, yet nurses and midwives have been slow to use online technology for research involving questionnaires. Relatively little is known about optimal methods of harnessing the internet's potential in health studies. A small e-questionnaire of health workers. The Medline and Maternity and Infant Care databases were searched for articles containing the words 'web', 'online', or 'internet' and 'survey' or 'questionnaire'. The search was restricted to articles in English published since 2000. The reference lists of retrieved articles were also searched. Reported disadvantages of online data collection, such as sample bias, psychometric distortions, 'technophobia' and lower response rates are discussed and challenged. The author reports her experience of conducting a survey with an e-questionnaire to contribute to the limited body of knowledge in this area, and suggests how to maximise the quantity and quality of responses to e-questionnaires. E-questionnaires offer the researcher an inexpensive, quick and convenient way to collect data. Many of the reported disadvantages of the medium are no longer valid. The science of conducting the perfect e-survey is emerging. However, the lessons learned in the author's study, together with other research, seem to suggest that satisfactory response rates and data quality can be achieved in a relatively short time if certain tactics are used. IMPLICATIONS FOR RESEARCH/PRACTICE: To get the best results from e-questionnaires, it is suggested that the questionnaire recipients should be targeted carefully and that the value of their potential contribution to the project should be emphasised. E-questionnaires should be convenient, quick and easy to access, and be set out in a way that encourages full and complete responses.
... This section does not intend to survey the literature on supervisor and student relationships and/or conflict. There are a number of general guides which discuss this area (Bench, Graber, Staben & Sohn, 2002;Cryer, 2000;Dunleavy, 2003;Fitzpatrick, Secrist & Wright, 1998;Holbrook & Johnston, 1999;Leonard, 2001;Lucas & Lidstone, 2000;Walliman, 2001) as well as more specific issues of misconduct or unethical behaviour (Hackett, 1994;Parker & Szymanski, 1996;Payne, 2000;Potter, 2002). This section will focus exclusively on those issues that are specific to cross cultural research. ...
Article
It is not unusual that researchers are active in cultures and languages other that English. Many computer assisted qualitative data analysis tools have been restricted to English, and frequently the academic supervisor may not be conversant in the language of the research domain. NVivo offers some practical and theoretical advantages to the researcher working in a language other than English, and these advantages pertain to the analytic rigour of the research. NVivo ver.7 (N7) has the capacity to display fonts other than English. This paper describes how this capacity is utilised to assist the researcher working in Mandarin. A number of processes need to be employed to assist the academic supervisor not versed in the language of participants, and these mechanisms of quality assurance are discussed. The major part of this paper discusses the advantages towards validity and rigor that N7 can offer by facilitating the main research analytic processes in the original language. This paper will employ the example of a research project conducted in Mandarin Chinese. The mentoring supervisor worked with the Chinese student. N7 is employed to save time, and develop an analysis which is accurate, holistic and nuanced in the intonations of Mandarin.
... Quantitative analysis uses the syntax of mathematical operations to investigate the properties of data ( Walliman, 2005). Quantitative data is analysed statistically. ...
Article
Full-text available
This study focuses on investigation of the critical success factors required for successful deepwater development in offshore Nigeria. Thirteen critical success factors were established along with project delivery schedule, project budget and portfolio management strategy as impacting on project success. A sample of 200 participants were identified and issued with a set of self developed items web based questionnaire, with the variable items drawn from the literature review. 85% of the target sample responded to the electronic mail web based questionnaire. The findings of this research show that, thirteen critical success factors are of high importance within the deepwater oil and gas project portfolio management. It also identified that some critical success factors in mega construction projects can be applied to deepwater oil and gas projects.
Thesis
‘The role of Private Military Companies (PMCs) / Private Security Companies (PSCs) in a Counter-Insurgency Strategy’. The aim of this research was to review the roles of PMCs/PSCs in post war / conflict counter-insurgency environments to determine whether they have a future in the Twenty First century as legitimate government / organisational contractors. The research commenced with a detailed literature review to determine the history and origins of the PMC (PSC) market and provide an understanding of the context under which PMCs (PSCs) are contracted. It examined where such organisations have been employed since the Cold War and their key characteristics. Definition of the terms Mercenary, PMC, Insurgency and Counter-Insurgency were established. Primary data collection was conducted to determine the perception of users and members of PMCs working in hostile areas such as Afghanistan and Iraq. A questionnaire was sent out to 75 PMC/PSC security professionals, military personnel and ‘Other’ individuals who worked in international organisations and for companies who contract PMCs/PSCs for their various services. All respondents were currently working in, or had recently returned from, developing and high risk / high threat areas and all volunteered to provide their perception of the role and utility of PMCs / PSCs. The 46% response rate evenly spread across all three target populations was considered statistically valid. Subsequent analysis identified that PMCs/PSCs have a clear and valued role to play in C21st conflict areas particularly in security, logistics and language support and that there are opportunities for expansion of provision. The advantages and disadvantages of using such organisations were identified together with their management and oversight both now and in the future. PMCs/PSCs were clearly considered a more cost-effective means to provide support services and enabled skilled personnel to focus on their specialist / combat tasks. There was little support for the proposal that PMCs/PSCs could provide more direct combat support and concern was evident regarding the distinction between legitimate national armed forces and contracted mercenary support. Co-ordination between military and PMCs/PSCs has notably increased, although all parties would further benefit from awareness training prior to deployment. There is a requirement for further improvement in international accountability and regulation of PMC/PSC activity. Six recommendations were presented for further study in this area.
Article
As software is large and sophisticate, in order to increase the productivity and efficiency of programs in programming development environments, it is necessary to support the integrated system that offers user interface integrated editing, compiling, debugging, and running steps. The key tool in such environments is an incremental translation. In this paper, in order to increase the productivity and reusability of software, the goal is to construct the integrated incremental interpretation system that supports friendly user interface with editor, debugger, and incremental interpreter. We define the new object-oriented language, IMPLO(IMPerative Language with Object) using EBNF notation, and construct the integrated incremental interpretation system using incremental interpreter of the language. To do so, we extend attribute grammars for specifying static semantics and present new action equations to describe the dynamic semantics. We executed the incremental interpretation by using analyzing the dynamic semantics and then implemented integrated incremental interpretation system with editor and debugger in C, Lex and Yacc using X windows on SUN. We obtain about 50? speedups in case of incremental execution time for example programs.
Chapter
Qualitative research is a form of inquiry leading to theory building as a result of empirical insights.
Article
Full-text available
The purpose of this paper is to examine human resource factors on implementation of performance management framework in Kenya and, specifically, at Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital (MTRH). The theory of planned behaviour and the Balanced Score Card Model were used to show how people are linked to the success of the organization. This study adopted an explanatory design that used an in depth investigation of an Institution in form of case study which was undertaken at MTRH Eldoret. The target population was all the staff of MTRH, who numbered 2,040, but a sample of each department was selected, totalling 510 respondents through simple random and stratified sampling techniques out of which 505(99%) subjects responded. The study utilized questionnaires for data collection. Data collected was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistical tools. Specifically Manova analysis, Correlation analysis, Factor analysis and SEMPATH model, with the help of SPSS /Amos model programme, were used to validate and test the hypotheses. Results of hypothesis testing indicate that employee attitude and leadership style have a significant relationship with implementation of performance management. The first model showed that leadership style was found not to likely affect implementation with other variable at the standardized regression measured .01 and was not significant at p>.05. This was supported by a strong correlation between leadership and attitude at .85 as compared with .37 with implementation of performance management. A second model was therefore tested whereby leadership style were conceptualized to influence attitude and in retrospect attitude affect implementation of performance management. The standardized regression between attitude and performance management directly was .41. The study established that leadership style influence attitude which, in turn, determine employee relationship with the implementation of performance management framework. It was therefore recommended that, to effectively manage the implementation of performance framework, an organization should put in place: the right strategies which can position the organization well and allow all the concerned parties execute their duties to great heights.
Article
This paper describes an approach to incremental compilation that allows a complete incremental compiler to be generated from a simple language description. This description is in two parts. The first consists of an abstract syntax annotated with a powerful language for specifying the local semantics. The second consists of separate specifications detailing the uses of symbols, data types and expressions in the language. The approach operates in two stages. The first stage builds a local model of the semantics. The second propagates local changes into a global semantics. This approach has been used as part of the PECAN system for generating program development environments at Brown University.
Article
Editor Allan Poe (Pascal Oriented Editor) is a full-screen language-based editor (LBE) that knows the syntactic and semantic rules of Pascal. It is the first step in development of a comprehensive Pascal program development environment. Poe's design began in 1979; version 1 is currently operational on Vax 11s under Berkeley Unix and on HP 9800-series personal workstations. Poe is written in Pascal, and is designed to be readily transportable to new machines. An editor-generating system called Poegen is operational, and much of the language-specific character of Poe is table-driven and retargetable.
Thesis
Full-text available
The following thesis aims to assess the conduct of the November 2014 Presidential elections for Romania and their organisation in the UK-based diaspora under the theoretical scope of state crimes against democracy. The research employed a case study examination of the voting administration by firstly assessing Romania’s compliance with the international guidelines and recommendations regulating electoral processes. The conduct of the voting was then explored through an online questionnaire aimed at Romanian citizens aged 18 and above, and who lived in the UK at the time of the elections, regardless of their participation in the polling. The study revealed historical failures of the elected to uphold the political rights of Romanian citizens, where the balance between the officeholder’s pursuit of individual achievement and democratic notions of collective wellbeing habitually comes to be tipped in favour of the former. As experienced by the eighty-six respondents, the November 2014 elections were yet another attempt of an incumbent Prime Minister to undermine popular sovereignty for gains of power. Despite Romania’s self-proclaimed democracy and inclusive provisions for diaspora voting, the history of documented governmental efforts to manipulate the electorate, the lack of political determination to improve or introduce new voting procedures for geographically dispersed populations, and the combined media and citizen narratives of the 2014 Presidential elections, make a clear case that state crimes against democracy have been committed.
Chapter
This chapter raises some key issues relating to doctoral completions in Australia and the complex process of thesis examination. More specifically it reports on a set of data that was collected from over 40 thesis examinations from 2009 through to 2012 where examiners reports were deconstructed using a particular lens.
Article
Full-text available
Preliminary analysis suggests the philanthropy of high net worth individual (HNWI) ¹ 1 The term HNWI is generally used to describe an individual with investable assets in excess of US$1 million (excluding primary residence, collectibles and consumer durables). The wealth of participants in this study has not been investigated. Indeed, such data would be difficult to obtain or corroborate. Instead the project is examining the philanthropy of the elite of India. However, prima facie those interviewed would either fit into that category or be a member of a family whose collective wealth would ensure membership of that category. Indians has significant commonalities with that described by researchers in Western countries. It is proposed that the most important fact is that Indian philanthropists, as are their counterparts in the West, are ‘producers’ of philanthropy and ‘hyperagents’. This has great significance for fundraisers and NGOs because fundraisers and NGOs are not in a position to demand support for their causes. They must make considerable effort to understand the personal philanthropic practices and behaviours of HNWIs. In addition, fundraisers must determine whether they have the possibility of entering into the ‘communities of participation’ to which potential philanthropic supporters belong. The article compares existing studies on the philanthropy of the wealthy in the USA, UK and Australia to preliminary data from the author’s ongoing investigation into the characteristics of HNWI philanthropy in India.
Article
This chapter sets out different approaches that could be used to examine and determine levels of causal relationships between specific variables, or aspects of variables that might have an impact on the value of residential property. It explains the basic principles of hedonic modelling and then goes into a more detailed examination of some specific spatial variations to give some insight into the usefulness of such tools in the determination of value impacts.
Article
Full-text available
Sustained shared thinking (SST) has been identified in the Teachers Standards (Early Years) (2013) as contributing to good progress and outcomes by children. In this paper, I define SST and discuss the outcomes of a study of practitioners' understandings of SST, its challenges and benefits. Writing frames, questionnaires and focus group interviews were used with 19 practitioners. SST was considered a child-initiated interaction with links to co-construction. The interaction occasioned deep-level learning in children, who were often totally absorbed and showed learning which was ‘sustained’ over time. Implications are highlighted, especially the need for additional training in using SST.
Article
Full-text available
This paper examines the challenges of Operational Risk Management (ORM) by microfinance institution (MFIs) in Zimbabwe with insights from Masvingo urban. The provision of financial resources to the poor is widely believed to increase the incomes and productivity of the poor. This strategy follows from the assertion that economically active poor people fail to access financial resources from the traditional financial institutions. MFIs are the suppliers of financial resources to the poor. About 90 percent of people in developing countries lack access to financial resources from formal institutions. These risks are life threatening to the existence and sustainability of microfinance institutions. Risk management is one of the crucial issues necessary for the growth and development of any entity. The ability to manage operational risk will put the organizations at competitive positions hence enabling them to survive in the business environment. A number of MFIs face collapse or near-collapse because they are not capacitated to detect operational risks beforehand. The paper adopts qualitative research methodology, following a case study research design. The Zimbabwean case was explored to gather information about the problem. Secondary data were collected from MFIs’ reports, publications, journals and text books on operational risk management. The results show that ORM is scantly understood and poorly conceptualized and operationalized among MFIs. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2013.v4n3p159
Article
As the power of hardware has improved, there have been numerous researches in processing concurrently using multitasking method. The incremental evaluation is the evaluation method of reevaluating only affected parts instead of reevaluating overall program when the program has been changed. It is necessary to do more studies that improve the efficiency of concurrent incremental evaluation to do multitasking using multi-threading of Java not to do in parallel using multiprocessor. In this paper, the dependency in the dependency chart is based on the attribute that describes the real value of the variable that directly affects the semantics, thereby doing efficient evaluation. So using the dependency, this paper presents the concurrent incremental evaluation algorithm for Java Languages and proves its correctness, analyzing the efficiency of concurrent incremental evaluation by the simulation.
Article
The purpose of the research study was to find out if the use of Information Communication Technology (ICT) could improve the planning, performing and evaluating process within a sequence of six gymnastics lessons, and whether this would then improve the children's technique. The research consisted of a questionnaire given to the 30 children in the class at the end of the six consecutive lessons, an interview with the class teacher prior to the implementation of ICT and again afterwards, and observations. The findings showed that ICT improved the plan, perform and evaluate stages, within gymnastics, and consequently, the children's technique improved.
Article
Program Synthesizers are becoming increasingly useful for program creation. However, a majority of these synthesizers are apparently not truly language sensitive. This is indicated by the fact that most of them use error-correcting parsers. We consider the Program Synthesizer as a formal predictive sentence generator with control given to the programmer. For the purpose of generating a (syntactically) correct sentence (or program), our method relies heavily on the underlying LL(k) parse-table for the corresponding programming language. The method demonstrates our 'Prevention is Better than Correction' notion and correspondingly the need for an error-correcting parser can be eliminated. Our method also eliminates the need for 'fetch-template' commands, thus accelerating the program entry. Finally an example session is shown with a non-trivial subset of Modula-2.
Article
Purpose – Part II of the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996 introduced major changes to the way in which construction contracts are administered. The payment and adjudication provisions, in particular, have been well received by the United Kingdom construction industry and can be viewed as a success. However, avoidance tactics aimed at reducing liability for payment and discouraging payees away from adjudication became commonplace. The response from Parliament is contained in the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009, which came into force on 1 October 2011. The purpose of this paper is to analyse stakeholders’ first impressions of the new Act and disseminate the insights gained to the industry and policymakers. Design/methodology/approach – Following a review of the current and proposed legislation, industry views were collected by an electronically administered survey. The views of construction industry stakeholders on how the new Act will operate and its prospects of delivering the intended outcomes were ascertained and are presented. Findings – The survey findings indicate there is broad support for the original Act and for the amendments made in the new Act, tempered with pessimism about the likely inability of the new measures to address issues around entrenched industry practice. Avoidance and evasion of key terms is contemplated, for instance in relation to extending payment terms and drafting contracts in favour of the paying party. Originality/value – The conclusions reached call into question the extent to which improvement of this aspect of the construction industry can be achieved by statutory intervention alone, particularly in testing economic circumstances.
Article
Full-text available
Community forestry is a well established management form in Nepal. The success of community forestry in improving the forest condition encouraged the government to initiate some developmental works beyond the fulfillment of only basic forestry needs. This paper seeks to explore the investment made by CFUGs in community infrastructures and their priorities as well. Primary data from three mid-hill districts of Nepal were collected from questionnaire survey of 100 CFUGs. The results suggested that community infrastructure was the largest category of expenditures of CFUG funds wherein the majority of the CFUG accorded investment priority to schools. This paper concludes that higher CFUG income has led to a proportionately higher investment in community infrastructures and suggests that it was necessary to increase CFUG income to promote investment in community infrastructures. Investing CFUG funds on schools is a good harbinger of local development that contributes to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goal of universal primary education. Key words: CFUG; CFUG funds; community forestry; community infrastructures DOI: 10.3126/banko.v20i1.3508 Banko Janakari , Vol. 20, No. 1 pp.44-50
Article
Derivation and refinement in IDL currently provide kinds of views in the sense that two IDL structures can describe the same data in different ways. But derivation and refinement are limited in that (a) they do not support concurrent access to shared information and (b) the range of differences between derived views is quite restricted. In this paper we outline an architecture in which IDL is extended to correct these problems. This design allows a collection of IDL-based tools to access a common object base concurrently through views defined as (extended) IDL structures. Mappings between views are provided automatically by the IDL translator and database support mechanisms.
Article
The number of pupils who have English as an Additional Language (EAL) in English schools is increasing, with an influx of migrants from Europe. This paper investigates how schools are addressing the needs of these children. Using survey and interviews with teachers and paraprofessionals the identification of personal assumptions and challenges of EAL provision are explored. Early indications suggest huge differential practice for EAL provision, support and training. Many staff suggested that they are culturally unaware and have little experience of supporting EAL children. Furthermore, the key challenge for leaders is how best to cater for all EAL children using a diverse workforce creatively and within tight financial constraints and competing school priorities.
Article
Evidence that consumers in emerging economies are more tolerant of ineffective customer service (CS), instigated an investigation into controllable elements of the service offering in a specific context in South Africa, namely, appliances sales departments in retail stores. The research aimed to identify possible shortcomings in CS amidst evidence that consumers are exposed to sophisticated merchandise that they have limited experience and understanding of. The intention was to suggest initiatives to augment the service offering so that it becomes more conducive for informed, responsible buying decisions. Household appliances represent a category of complex, durable and expensive merchandise that require more extensive information search before concluding buying decisions. A survey was done in 2007 through a pre‐tested structured questionnaire. Several branches of five prominent department stores were involved through liaison with industry. A store intercept method was used to recruit respondents: 296 questionnaires were filled in on the spot under supervision. Three sections of the questionnaire are relevant for this report: (1) consumers' satisfaction with CS; (2) a product knowledge test; and (3) demographic information. Factor analysis revealed a reduction of the original five elements of CS in the scale to three distinct elements that were labelled Personnel, Processes and Value for Money , and Product Presentation . The simpler scale suggests a less intricate judgment of CS in the context of this research. Means indicated that consumers were generally satisfied with all elements of CS, i.e. the service offering coincided with their expectations. Analysis of variance indicated no significant differences in the interpretation of any of the elements of CS by gender. A significant inverse relationship between satisfaction with CS and years of experience occurred for respondents with more than 25 years of experience in terms of Personnel (Element 1) and Processes and Value for Money (Element 2). Findings of the product knowledge tests were meant to verify consumers' CS judgments. However, scores were disappointingly low for all appliances across all respondent categories. Consumers' product knowledge could therefore not have supported informed buying decisions, despite prior experience and the opportunity to acquire additional product information during the in‐store encounter. Consumers' positive CS judgments suggest that they not necessarily realize their lack of crucial product knowledge. In the interest of informed and responsible buying decisions that have consequences for proper use and maintenance of appliances in the long term, retail stores that serve a broad customer base are encouraged to attend to in‐store customer assistance during the pre‐purchase phase, notwithstanding positive CS judgments. Non‐formal consumer education by competent, well‐trained salespeople is recommended to encourage evaluative rational product judgments. It is also suggested that store displays are designed to encourage consumers to be more inquisitive during store visits.
Conference Paper
VICO (Version, Interface and Configuration control system) ist eine Programmierumgebung für die Entwicklung modularer Programmsysteme. VICO verwaltet alle Dokumente (Spezifikationen, Quelltexte, Bindemodule,…), die im Laufe des Entwicklungsprozesses anfallen und ermöglicht eine rechnergestützte Schnittstellen-, Versions- und Konfigurationskontrolle.
Conference Paper
We develop a formal model describing the basic objects and operations of the software development process. This model allows us to characterize functions performed by support environments and to formally define the semantics of environment tools. Representing information about available tools, administrative procedures, and constraints in a knowledge base allows automated support for many software development and life-cycle activities. Constraint maintenance within a knowledge base takes over many routine administrative tasks; program synthesis techniques can be used to generate complex plans.
Conference Paper
Full-text available
This paper describes the user's view of the PECAN family of program development systems. PECAN is a program development system generator for algebraic programming languages. The program development systems it produces support multiple views of the user's program, its semantics, and its execution. The program views include a syntax-directed editor, a declaration editor, and a structured flow graph editor. The semantic views include expression trees, data type diagrams, flow graphs, and the symbol table. Execution views show the program in action and the stack contents as the program executes. PECAN is designed to make effective use of powerful personal machines with high-resolution graphics displays and is currently implemented on APOLLO workstations.
Conference Paper
The asynchronous execution behavior of several concurrent processes, which may use randomization, is studied. Viewing each process as a discrete Markov chain over the set of common execution states, we give necessary and sufficient conditions for the ...
Conference Paper
We show how a programming language designer may embed the type structure of a programming language in the more robust type structure of the typed lambda calculus. This is done by translating programs of the language into terms of the typed lambda calculus. ...
ResearchGate has not been able to resolve any references for this publication.