How Does User’s Learning Style Impact the Effectiveness of Online Customer Service?

National culture determines the shared learning style of its people. In a particular culture, people may learn best when content is made of videos, graphs, pictures, charts. In another culture they learn better by talking, discussing and chatting. In another culture, by reading and writing, and in other cultures by experimenting and practicing. At the same time, transactional web sites assume a static customer learning style. The design of the site usually reflects the designer’s learning style and cognitive style which in turn reflects the learning style type of people in particular culture. However, the sharp increase number of transactional web sites draw the attention and the focus of management to the quality and the effectiveness of customer service web pages. We argue that the fit between the design of the content of customer service pages with the customer’s learning style may increase online customer service effectiveness

The Impact of Mobile Technology on Consumers’ Charitable Behaviors: a Research Protocol

Mobile sales have increased over the past decade. In today's online retail environment, the mobile channel has the added potential to bring greater value to the retail value chain. While researchers have examined a number of factors contributing to the success of mobile technology in the context of for-profit businesses, the benefits of the mobile channel remain largely untapped by organizations in the third sector – those outside the public and private sectors. Such organizations known as non-profits include voluntary and community organizations, cooperatives, and registered charities. Focusing specifically on charities, this article explores the impact of mobile technology on individuals’ charitable intentions. Because the design of mobile apps influences both usability and functionality, we believe that their successful implementation can help charities not only increase their visibility but also attract more donations. This research proposes the use of the color green in a mobile app as a way to improve user browsing time on the charity’s application. It is also proposed that the best time to target donors (existing and potential) is when they go to bed, otherwise known as “bedtime”. Accordingly, the use of the color green in the conceptualization of a charity’s mobile app significantly improves the user’s attention when navigating the app and ultimately positively affects their intention to donate. To illustrate this research protocol, we developed a conceptual framework for improving donation behavior; this framework will be tested through online studies. This research proposal has the potential to add much to the existing literature on multi-channel marketing and, in particular, on the impact of the mobile channel on consumers’ donation behaviors towards charitable organizations

Les obstacles au développement de la finance islamique au Maroc

La crise des Subprimes a montré la fragilité de la finance conventionnelle, contraignant ainsi les pays à trouver un alternatif capable de résister face à une éventuelle crise. De ce fait, plusieurs pays ont trouvé dans la finance islamique une solution à certaines limites de son homologue dit conventionnel. Pour cette raison le Maroc, comme tous les autres pays, a multiplié ses efforts pour préparer un terrain propice au développement de cette industrie. Cependant, les obstacles entravant ce développement sont multiples neutralisant parfois même les efforts déployés par l’Etat. Ainsi, ce papier se veut d’étudier les obstacles politiques notamment ceux liés à l’image véhiculée sur la finance islamique comme étant un financement dédié au terrorisme, les obstacles liés au manque de qualifications capables de statuer sur la conformité des produits islamiques à la Charia, les obstacles juridiques illustrés à travers le cas de la Mourabaha et enfin les obstacles économiques liés notamment à la cherté des produits islamiques par rapports à ceux de la finance conventionnelle

Developing Key Performance Indicators to measure efficiency at construction site

Stadig flere bedrifteri byggebransjen implementerer Lean-filosofien i deres driftsstrategi. Ved fokus på kontinuerlig forbedring, bedre flyt og mindre sløsing i produksjonskjeden, benyttes Last Planner System(LPS) som planleggingsmetodikk. I Lean-filosofien fremheves arbeidsflyt som nøkkelen til en effektiv byggeprosess. At arbeid utføres i riktig rekkefølge, med god planlegging, uten vesentlig venting og sløsing er sentralt for filosofien. For å sikre kontinuerlig forbedring og effektivitet i byggeprosessen, er det viktig at de involverte vet hva som kan forbedres og effekten av tiltakene som iverksettes. Dette kan belyses ved å utvikle Key Performance Indicators(KPI). Key Performance Indicators kan sees på som viktige nøkkeltall forevaluering av måloppnåelse, og forenkler på mange måter det totale bildet av bedriftens prestasjonsevne. I produksjonsfasen øker fokuset på kvalitetsstyring, der håndtering og forebygging av avvik står sentral.God planlegging og dokumentering underveis i produksjonsfasen gjør det mulig å vurdere effektiviteten i arbeidet på byggeplassen gjennom bruk av KPI-er.Hensikten med denne masteroppgaven er derfor å belyse hvilke KPI-er som kan utvikles for å sikre effektiv bygging, samt bidra til kontinuerlig forbedring i produksjonsfasen.More and more companies in the construction industry implement the Lean-philosophy in their operational strategy. Focusing on continuousimprovement, better flow and less waste in the production chain, the Last Planner System (LPS) as a planning methodology is used. In the Leanphilosophy, workflow is put forward as the key for an efficient construction process. Construction being done in the right order, with good planning, without any significant delay or waste is central for this philosophy. To ensure continuousimprovement and efficiency in the construction process, it is essential to know what can be improved and the effect of any changes made. In order to find this out is to develop Key Performance Indicators (KPI). Key Performance Indicators can be seen on as important numbers for the evaluation of reaching goals, in many ways it simplifies the view on the performance of a company. In the phase of production, focus is on quality control where prevention of any deviation from the standard is central. Adequate planning and documentation throughout the production phase enables the evaluation of the efficiency of the construction through use of KPI’s. This Masterthesis intends to illuminate which KPI’s that can be developed to ensure efficient construction and contribute to continuousimprovement in the production phase.publishedVersionM-B

Influence of neonate's body position with and without a plastic blanket on body heat loss assessed from a thermal mannequin

International audienceThe present study aimed at assessing the net gain of body heat storage induced by a transparent plastic blanket draped over small premature neonates in the prone and the supine positions. Thermal stress is particularly important in premature and small-for-gestational-age infants characterized by high values of the ratio between skin surface area and body mass, the greater this ratio, the greater the body heat exchanges. The large skin permeability enhances body water loss. The risk of hypothermia is particularly increased at birth and during operations on naked neonates implying opening of the canopy (surgical operation, blood sampling and gastric aspiration). In the first day of life, the rate of evaporation can reach 100 g.h-1.m-2 in very preterm infants. To prevent the large amount of water loss it is sometimes recommended to cover the neonate with a plastic blanket. In closed incubator Fanaroff et al.(3) pointed out that a transparent plastic heat shield reduces the insensible water loss of 44 % in low birth weight neonates lower than 1250 g and postnatal age less than 10 days. For postnatal age greater than 10 days, the magnitude of this reduction was only 19 %. Bell et al.(2) also reported that the addition of a heat shield in an incubator decreased the water loss by 10 % in infants with mean birth weight of 1570 g. However the efficiency of this solution which depends on the physical environment but also on the inter individual difference in the ability to exchange heat with the environment remains questionable and the use of a plastic blanket is still a controversial topic. The total heat loss of premature infants depends on various factors such as gestational age, nutritional state, mean skin temperature, body hydromineral balance, vigilance state, metabolic rate and of the postnatal age which modifies the skin keratinisation. Thus, it is difficult to obtain homogeneous data base that takes into account all these factors and there are conflicting data on the effectiveness of plastic blanket. To rule out these confounding factors we use a sweating mannequin the advantage of which is that it measures directly the total heat loss with the environment without interference with these factors

The Impact of Culture on the Perception of Information System Success

Research has showed that social and socio-technical concepts are influenced by culture. The objective of this chapter is to explore how the socio-technical concept of information system success is defined and perceived by a group of French managers. The results show that culture does influence IS success perception. The study has many implications for both academic and practice communities. The results are especially important to multinational organizations that standardize IS in different cultures including France. The research case is a multibillion dollar Canadian multinational organization which decided to standardize an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system in all its worldwide subsidiaries. </jats:p