Inconvenience cost of mobile communication failure: The case of South Korea

Mobile communication failure can occur when mobile traffic exceeds the manageable level. This depends on frequency bandwidth. Mobile communication failure causes inconveniences in a user's daily life that lead to social and economic damage. To address this issue, mobile telecommunications companies deploy additional bandwidths and develop new technologies, but these are costly strategies. This study applies a spike model based on a contingent valuation method (CVM) to measure the inconvenience cost resulting from mobile communication failure. The mean monthly willingness-to-pay (WTP) to avoid communication failure per user is estimated to be KRW 898.14 (USD 0.80) over a period of five years in our study. The inconvenience cost borne by the population is estimated to be KRW 2.97 trillion (USD 2.61 billion). Users experiencing greater frequency of communication failure are found to be willing to pay more to avoid the inconvenience. When excluding respondents citing zero-WTP, the mean WTP per user was calculated to be KRW 3426.41 (USD 3.01). Data traffic usage and frequency at which communication failure is experienced are variables that exhibit statistically significant effects on WTP to avoid mobile communication failure. Overall, estimation results show that a price discrimination based on data traffic usage or quality can be considered by mobile telecommunications companies and regulators to address the issue of data traffic inducing mobile communication failure.     

Values as determinants of motivation: Tourism and other career choices

Neuman, Yoram, Abraham Pizam and Arie Reichel, Values as Determinants of Motivation: Tourism and Other Career Choices. Annals of Tourism Research 1980, VII (3): 428–442. This study examined the predictive validity of work values in explaining motivational patterns of three groups of career preparation differing in their occupational specificity: Tourism/Hospitality, Management, and Liberal Arts. It was found that the higher the occupational specificity of a career preparation the higher is the predictive validity of work values in explaining work motivations. As predicted, the best relationships between values and motivation was found in the maximally specified occupation, namely: tourism/hospitality students, followed by management students with the liberal arts students — the most flexible occupational group — having the lowest relationship between values and motivation. The implications of the findings for employee selection and motivation prediction in the tourism/hospitality industry are discussed.     

‘I didn't feel like I was alone anymore’: evaluating self‐organised employee coping practices conducted via Facebook

The long‐term fracturing of the labour movement has led to increased attention to employee coping practices under new management practices and labour processes. However, the literature caters little for the recent rise of employees taking to social networking sites (SNSs), such as Facebook, to find ways to cope with the pressures of contemporary employment. To explore the self‐organised coping qualities of SNSs, interviews were conducted with front line workers, employed by a large anti‐trade union US retailer, who contribute to a self‐organised Facebook group set up as a place for fellow employees to deal with collective employment‐related problems. The main findings suggest employee self‐organised Facebook groups represent an important development and extension to the coping practices available to individual and groups of employees. The main implication of the findings is that Facebook groups appear to strengthen and widen the options for employee resilience in an age of continuing trade union retreat.     

Crowdsourcing and work: individual factors and circumstances influencing employability

The development of a fast and reliable Internet, new technologies online payment systems, and changes in work structure that enable and demand flexible working patterns have driven a move to a new form of Internet‐enabled labour exchange called crowdsourcing. Evidence from an in‐depth qualitative study is presented, focusing on selected users' interactions and experiences of working on two UK‐based crowdsourcing platforms. The paper shows that workers engaged in this form of labour exchange need to deploy existing employability skills and networks to effectively meet the challenges, and take advantage of the opportunities, that crowdsourcing presents. Individual factors and circumstances emerge as paramount for workers' continued engagement in this form of employment. Using selected components from an employability framework, the findings suggest that crowdsourcing can offer new pathways to practising skills and enhancing employability for some workers.     

Knowledge management through the development of knowledge repositories: towards work degradation

This paper questions the consequences of the use of electronic knowledge repositories for work and employment. Drawing on critical research suggesting that knowledge management associated with such tools presents similarities to scientific management principles, it proposes to examine the following key research question: how do employees experience the transformation of the employment relationship when a knowledge repository is introduced to the workplace? The inquiry is grounded in an exploratory qualitative case study of a knowledge management system designed to foster knowledge‐sharing in a Belgian public administration. The findings illustrate two complementary outcomes: this system resulted in employees experiencing deskilling and work degradation, and was met with resistance. Significantly, this paper considers work degradation as a reflexive phenomenon in the context studied, where knowledge‐sharing systems produced deskilling and resistance as part of a specific re‐regulation process.     

煤炭企业通信专网安全管理现状及对策

分析了通信专网企业在安全管理方面存在的主要问题,结合企业自身安全管理的重要举措及所取得的成效,探讨了服务于煤炭企业的通信专网企业安全管理的发展之路。     

The societal relevance of management accounting innovations: economic value added and institutional work in the fields of Chinese and Thai state-owned enterprises

This paper contributes to the ongoing debate about the relevance of management accounting. In doing so, we widen the definition of ‘relevance’ from the largely managerialist focus dominating this debate to examine how management accounting innovations get imbued with a broader range of societal interests and how actors representing vested interests go about entrenching and resisting such innovations. We explore these issues with reference to the institutionalisation of Economic Value Added (EVA?) as a governance mechanism for Chinese and Thai state-owned enterprises. Adopting a comparative, institutional field perspective, we theorise our observations through the conceptual lens of institutional work, or the human agency involved in creating, maintaining and disrupting institutions. We extend extant research on institutional work by exploring how the evolution of such work was conditioned by differences in field cohesiveness, defined in terms of how consistent and tightly coordinated key interests clustered around EVA? are. Our analysis also draws attention to how different types of institutional work support and detract from each other in the process of upholding such cohesiveness. We discuss the implications for future research on the societal relevance of management accounting innovations and institutional work.     

The Communication Skills of Accountants: What we Know and the Gaps in our Knowledge

Abstract

This paper critically reviews 19 studies published between 1972 and 2012 that investigated the written and/or oral communication skills of practicing accountants. The core aim of the review was to identify skills considered important and highlight gaps regarding what is known about existing and desired communication skills in the accounting profession. Key findings include that most studies did not detail the basis used to select the skills examined, used very broad skill-set categories and/or did not sufficiently incorporate information already established in the literature. Differing views on the importance of communication skills were found between educators and accountants. Knowledge gaps identified relate to the communication skills considered most important at varying career stages and different career paths, the specific types of oral and written communication skills needed and the role and importance of oral versus written and informal versus formal communication skills. A fundamental concern is that much of the existing communication skills research is crucially out of date. Of the 19 studies reviewed, only three have been published in the past decade. This suggests that further research is needed in the area.     

Corporate smart phones: professionals' conscious engagement in escalating work connectivity

This article explores how the adoption of company sponsored smart phones inflicts upon the lives of professionals. Drawing upon qualitative interviews at a law firm in Brazil, the experiences of new smart phone users are reported upon in detail. Increased accessibility, accuracy and speed in exchanges gave the users a sense of autonomy and flexibility. However, the technology also helped to intensify the organisation's hold on employees outside of regular working hours, reaching into new settings, time slots and social contexts. Employees expressed concerns regarding demands from superiors that negatively affected their private spheres, yet many of them paradoxically requested more efficient smart phone connectivity. The article focuses on the justifications, the different narrative strategies, employed by professionals for their conscious engagement in escalating work connectivity. It is suggested that these justifications display users' attempt to ‘dis‐identify’ with the role and practice they perform.