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The study offers an analysis of the process of Communication 2.0 in the social accounts of the health authorities belonging to the Andean Community during the worldwide public health campaigns. Qualitative and quantitative methods were brought together in order to measure content analysis and user involvement. Interviews with experts supplement the findings. Results: None of the health organizations generated an optimal Communication 2.0 index, on FaceBook, corporate messages predominated, but they were not interactive. On Twitter, the messages were educational but not corporate. The health bodies which were evaluated are essential organs of formal communication, so their communication strategies should be focused on the needs of their audience. A weak Communication 2.0 and a weak level of interest have been noted in the mandated campaign of these essential bodies that encompass, in considerable measure, institutional management. Nevertheless, users show a greater engagement with educational programs, principally computer graphics and videos, on Facebook. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the perspective of newcomers to Canada, using English as an additional language (EAL), this study explores how newcomers' interlocutors might impede workplace communication. Six participants speaking EAL and with a variety of language backgrounds shared their workplace experiences. Qualitative data were collected through semi-structured interviews, with anecdotes compiled, coded, and analyzed for emergent themes. CELPIP-General LS test scores were also obtained to provide a measure of the participants' general English language proficiency. Based on the anecdotes shared by the participants, affective tension, interlocutor language use, interlocutor understanding, time pressure, and their own perceptions played a role in inhibiting workplace communication. It appeared that their capacity to deploy the full range of their communicative competence in English often depended on their interlocutors. These findings point to how the attitudes and actions (real or imagined) of interlocutors may affect workplace language skills. Based on these findings, the potential of intercultural skills development for newcomers, their interlocutors, and the wider community is examined with the goal of facilitating workplace communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper makes an incursion into the new and complex models of communication that can be found in literature, trying to identify their graphic decoding and their applicability in an industrial enterprise. The authors identified real examples for each model under investigation, so the purpose of the paper is to emphasize the importance of communication and the applicability of the new methods of communication in engineering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of collaborative applications in which several individuals interact to solve a problem is an important strategy both in educational settings as well as professional environments. Virtual Reality (VR) technology, in particular, has acquired a predominant role in many industries. However, as the level of immersion and realism of the VR experience increases, so does the demand for computational resources, as rendering processes become increasingly intensive and can negatively affect other communication processes that are critical in collaborative environments. In this paper, we present a software framework based on multi-agent systems that enables the separation of rendering processes from internal data management tasks and communication processes between users, which are prevalent in collaborative virtual reality applications. The results of our validation studies show that, compared to other techniques based on protocol or network enhancements, the proposed architecture can significantly improve collaborative processes in general, and virtual reality-based applications in particular. • A multi-agent paradigm is proposed for the development of collaborative VR-based applications. • The multi-agent architecture enables separating data management and communication tasks from rendering tasks. • The proposed paradigm demonstrates significant improvements in terms of computational cost in collaborative applications. • The use of an agent-based architecture enables the scalability of the platform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study aims to identify the prevailing leadership patterns within the companies under study, and the most important areas of organizational change applied within them, in addition to monitoring the role of communications in each stage of organizational change management, and the study also aimed to identify the means and communication strategies used in spreading change projects among employees, and to monitor the most important obstacles to achieve the organizational change, and to identify the impact of leadership styles in managing the stages of the organizational change process. •Concerning the leadership patterns, this study relies on the leadership and control model, which includes 5 basic patterns: the ideal persuasive pattern, the authoritarian-compulsive pattern, the democratic affiliative pattern, the bureaucratic delegate pattern, the opportunistic adaptive pattern, based on two basic dimensions: Task / People orientation, leader / Employee control. And concerning the organizational change management, this study relies on the work field model or the analysis of the force field, which suggests three stages to implement the change process, namely: the unfreezing stage, the change stage, and the re-freezing stage. •The study belongs to descriptive and analytical studies. The study also depends on the survey method, The study population is represented in the Mobile companies operating in Egypt, depending on a sample that consists of 200 employees whose management levels varied between lower management, middle management, and upper management •Concerning the method of Data Collection, the study applied one questionnaire that was directed to employees at the three lower, middle, and upper management levels. The main results of the field study: •The democratic affiliative leadership style came at the forefront of the leadership styles used within the telecommunications companies operating in Egypt with a percentage of 61.5% from the point of view of its employees, while the opportunistic adaptive leadership style was among the least followed leadership styles by 25% . •The level of application of change projects within the companies under study was high, with a rate of 84.5%, Orange and Vodafone companies were at the forefront of the mobile companies operating in Egypt that applied the most change projects, with a rate of 94% and 92%, respectively, and WE was the least companies in implementation of the change projects within it, by 74% . •The extent of employees’ support for the change projects that take place within the companies under study was high, with a rate of 82%, and Orange and Vodafone were at the forefront of the mobile companies operating in Egypt whose employees supported the change projects, with a percentage of 90%. •The responsibility for spreading change projects among employees within the companies under study fell primarily on the members of the senior management represented by the chairman of the board of directors himself at 62.5%, or a member assigned to do so from among the members of the board of directors at the rate of 47.5% . •Increasing the company’s ability to survive and continuity among competitors came at the forefront of the reasons and justifications provided to workers in order to be convinced of the importance of change within companies. failure in some functional areas within the company, rationalization of expenditures in order to control expenses, low morale of workers and low productivity were the least reasons given to convince workers of change projects. •The official meetings of the Chairman, group discussions with department heads, and training courses came at the forefront of the confrontational communication means that are used to spread change projects within the companies under study, at a rate of 59.5%, 56.5%, and 46.5%, respectively. •The role of communication during the unfreezing phase within the companies under study increased by 55.5%, while the re-freezing phase decreased the role of communication by 51.5%. •The negotiation strategy came at the forefront of the strategies used to spread change projects within the companies under study from the point of view of its employees with a percentage of 63.5%, while the authoritarian strategy was one of the least used strategies within companies with a percentage of 48.5%. • Comparing the costs - in terms of money, effort and time - with the benefits that will return after the change is made, and the loss of some specializations and powers are at the forefront of the reasons for resistance to change projects within the companies under study from the point of view of employees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Embrace of variety is a feature of lifestyle of professional and managerial classes. • Class distinction is expressed through tastes for different culinary styles. • The taste for 'ethnic' cuisine is symbolically significant and socially unevenly distributed. • Some culinary omnivores display exceptional enthusiasm for food. • Britain's 'foodies' have a distinctive profile. Abstract This paper examines social differentiation of tastes for meals out of the home in contemporary Britain. It reports results from a study of eating out based on a survey and interviews in London, Preston and Bristol in 2015. It focuses on the breadth of exposure to variety of restaurant cuisine styles in order to address debates about distinction, cultural omnivorousness and cosmopolitanism. The paper uses regression analysis of survey results to reveal social differentiation, with special reference to the effects of gender, age, ethnicity and class on culinary taste. The data reveal the social and symbolic significance of variety of experience in visits to commercial venues for meals and degrees of familiarity with diverse cuisines. The data show a consistent relationship between higher socio-economic position, frequency of eating out, and the experiencing of a wide variety of cuisines. Culinary preferences cluster into three bundles: popular, uncommon and exclusive. Significant social characteristics of their bearers include age, class trajectory, education and ethnic identification. Tendencies associated with cultural omnivorousness can be observed among the professional and managerial middle class. While it is important not to conflate internal goods deriving from enthusiastic engagement in this particular cultural field with achievement of social advantage, culinary tastes are a mark of social distinction. Diverse culinary experience of variety is a prerequisite for full membership of the professional and managerial class. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The problem of training physical culture specialists towards acquiring adequate communication skills to exercise their profession in the best possible conditions, as evidenced by the results of the specialized literature study has concerned many scholars. Currently educational process is in a strong evolution stage of material and informational resources and there is the risk - from our point of view - to neglect human resource. Hence there is the need to firstly revalorize the teachers and students human pedagogical resource. In this context, the professional training of students for the purpose of forming knowledge, skills and competences specific to managerial communication, is reflected in the basic study subjects, materialized in courses, course notes, methodological and theoretical elaborations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cyclically competition models have been successful to gain an insight of biodiversity mechanism in ecosystems. There are, however, still limitations to elucidate complex phenomena arising in real competition. In this paper, we report that a multistability occurs in a simple rock-paper-scissor cyclically competition model by assuming that intraspecific competition depends on the logistic growth of each species density. This complex stability is absent in any cyclically competition model, and we investigate how the proposed intraspecific competition affects biodiversity in the existing society of three species through macroscopic and microscopic approaches. When the system is multistable, we show basins of the asymptotically stable heteroclinic cycle and stable attractors to demonstrate how the survival state is determined by initial densities of three species. Also, we find that the multistability is associated with a subcritical Hopf bifurcation. This surprising finding will give an opportunity to interpret rich dynamical phenomena in ecosystems which may occur in cyclic competition systems with different types of interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to present the advances in the implementation of the Smart Grids (SGs) in the whole world span and the prospectus of Colombia towards the implementation of new solutions. Mainly considering those technological developments and advances made in the electrical networks, related with the use of software for their analysis and management in different scenarios, to optimize the electrical system management and operation upon the new challenges that we have currently. For this matter, first is presented the theoretical framework which the SGs are focused and the advances in recent years, analyzing the metering, communication, security and control systems in comparison with future projected solutions. Subsequently, it is collected the general information about the actual projects that use solutions, as ETAP Real Time, which involves SGs implementation. At the same time, pointing out the advantages and disadvantages that the diverse implemented solutions possess, highlighting the technical and technological gaps regarding the consulted theory and the current state-of-the-art. Finally, the ETAP Real Time solution is presented as an integral alternative to help resolve the worldwide and Colombia implementation challenge of SGs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Guided by the practical question, ‘What is a fair wage?’, this paper takes a culture-centered approach to the discursive construction of a fair wage in the context of industrialized labor. Specifically, this study juxtaposes discursive constructions within (a) corporate social responsibility (CSR) communications concerning wage policies and practices and (b) industrial workers’ narratives about their experiences with wages. Thus, I demonstrate a mutually constitutive process in which the meaning of ‘fair wage’ results from and reifies the structures of supply chain labor. Specifically, I explore how wage fairness is understood in the context of legal and government mandates, international organizations’ recommendations, and the issue of labor sustainability. The culture-centered emphasis of the study explores the possibility of bringing alternative voices to mainstream articulations of labor rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Proper leadership in a public service department begins with effective and meaningful communication. Oftentimes the most important piece of information communicated in a library stems from the daily scheduling of events within a department. The Lending Services department at William Paterson University's David and Lorraine Cheng Library piloted a new method of tracking staff scheduling and daily events at a service point location to enhance internal staff communication. The department shifted away from a paper-based monthly calendar and weekly email, and moved towards using a free cloud-based online platform called Teamup. The new calendar compiles daily staff shifts, changes, such as modified library hours, staff vacation and sick days. This facilitates service desk coverage, meetings, and more. The user-friendly calendar offers searchable and color-coded calendars, provides multiple views by day, week, and month, and is embeddable as a stable URL. Other advantages include having an historical record, being able to visually identify gaps in coverage, and above all, enabling communication or events within the department and library in one simple calendar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This manuscript examines whether the effect of anchoring bias is greater when citizens evaluate the quality of a public service after receiving negative initial information about service performance than after receiving positive information. It also tests whether there are differences in this anchoring bias by comparing formal (report) vs. informal (rumor) communication. Two field experiments were conducted with the participation of passengers of a commuter public train transportation organization (Experiment 1, N= 105) and users of a public university administrative service (Experiment 2, N= 172). The first experiment confirmed the bias produced by the negative initial information, whereas this bias does not exist for the positive information. The second experiment showed that the bias produced by the initial information has the same magnitude for both formal and informal communication. This paper concludes with a discussion of theoretical and practical implications for managing reputation in public services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To innovate at work is risky as every new endeavour is also error‐prone. Therefore, the way errors are managed in organisations may be related to organisations' innovativeness. We studied error management culture as one important and often overlooked organisational culture factor hypothesised to be related to organisational and individual innovativeness. Error management culture implies that a firm accepts that people make errors and uses “organizational practices related to communicating about errors, to sharing error knowledge, to helping in error situations, and to quickly detecting and handling errors” to deal with errors (Van Dyck, Frese, Baer, & Sonnentag, , p. 1229). Our sample consists of 30 companies with N = 227 employees. To decrease the problem of common method variance, we split the samples within each company into two subsamples: one subsample was used for the measurement of error management culture and the other one for the measure of organisational innovativeness. A multilevel structural equation modelling (MSEM) analysis showed error management culture to be related to organisational and individual innovativeness. Organisational innovativeness was a mediator for the relationship between error management culture and individual innovativeness. A potential implication is that organisations wanting to increase their innovativeness may need to examine their error management culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to determine the role of relational coordination among employees in improving the performance efficiency in relation to unit-level performance in the banking sector of Pakistan. Underpinning on relational coordination theory, this paper examines the relationships between various Human Resources (HRM) practices in predicting relational coordination that affects unit-level performance in highly interdependent work settings. This research has been conducted in the banking sector of Pakistan. Employees' perceptions about the extent of seven identical HRM practices and relational coordination are obtained through a personally administered survey in 218 sample branches. Utilizing hierarchical regression, empirical evidence indicate that various HRM practices have different effects in predicting relational coordination in terms of communication and relationship ties among bank branches. Results show that both communication and relationship ties of relational coordination are significantly related to branch level deposits, advances and overall profitability. These findings provide novel contributions to HRM and performance literature, suggesting what needs to be done in terms of HRM practices that can result in improving the potential of enhancing communication and relational ties of relational coordination among employees. This study concludes that a coordinated approach to HRM practices and relational coordination on the part of bank's HRM department to liaison with branch management and develop better levels of communication and relational ties that would ultimately lead to higher performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Strategic communication, an intentional and purpose-driven communication aimed at achieving specific goals, is gaining traction in Nigeria. This paper examines the growth and development of strategic communication in Nigeria across three historical epochs. While previous studies on communication management in the country have been limited to the colonial era, this study traces the origin of strategic communication in Nigeria from the precolonial era to the present day. Despite the Western-centric view of strategic communication, this study highlights the various communication strategies, such as rhetoric, symbolography, town-criers, Roko, Ewi, proverbs, idiophones, and music, that were utilized in precolonial times. The arrival of colonialists only modernized the process and introduced new mediums of communication. Modern factors such as WWII, nationalism, regional politics, civil war, Boko Haram Insurgency, and politics have also influenced the development of strategic communication. The paper recommends more research and courses on strategic communication in Nigeria to continue building a better understanding of its role in national security and conflict management. • There is evidence of the deployment of strategic communication in Nigeria even before the amalgamation of the northern and southern protectorates of the country. • The empires before colonialism had devised strategies to communicate amongst themselves and with other nations using traditional modes of communication such as town criers, drums, Akewi, Roko, and symbolography as well as Ajami writing as the case necessitated. • Although colonialism brought about the modernisation of communication media, the communication strategies remained largely the same. • The government's heavy deployment of strategic communication in the fight against insurgency in Nigeria was required. The Nigerian security apparatus invested heavily in non-kinetic approaches to win the war. • Digital communication and engagement, public information, psychological information warfare, the establishment of military radio stations, and indigenous communication are some of the communication strategies used by the security apparatus to combat the insurgency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to identify the role of user's massive data on online shopping sites' privacy violations, the study is descriptive research, and it depends on the sample survey method. The study used the questionnaire as a tool to gather required data. In addition, the study used both the unified theory of technology acceptance and the communication privacy management theory . The study concluded that the respondents provide "Real Information" about themselves on the online shopping sites, to "facilitate communication with the site and the advertising companies," and that the research sample has a great awareness of the concept of privacy and that leaving their data on the shopping sites causes a breach of their privacy. They are aware of the sensitivity and privacy of their information, but they provide their information to many electronic marketing sites, with their inability to protect their privacy on these sites. The research sample also confirmed that the images of the violations they were subjected to are (sending advertisements for goods and services). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many publications describe problems in businesses and project management that are caused by communication. Team communication is a very complicated process full of soft aspects. One of basic problems represents a choice of an appropriate communication route kind useful for messages transmission between the team members as sources and recipients. It is a complex issue because of necessity to evaluate individual communication routes from many different perspectives. Therefore the suitable communication route of team members can be selected by a multicriterial mathematical model. Since communication can be understood as a distribution of messages, the appropriate model form can be based on the distribution model. The proposed model is derived from the three-dimensional transportation problem. The article discusses the possibility of this approach on the case study of communication modelling in the field of agriculture. Specifically, it is constructed and solved a model of communication problem for small team of agriculture equipment dealers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vertical and horizontal alignment within organizations are seen as prerequisites for meeting strategic objectives and indications of effective management. In the area of safety management, the concept of vertical alignment has been followed through the introduction of hierarchical structures and bidirectional communication, but horizontal alignment has been given little attention. The principal goal of this study was the assessment of horizontal alignment within an aviation organization with the use of data from safety investigations, audits and meetings in order to explore the extent to which (1) causal factors recorded in safety investigation reports comprised topics discussed by safety committees and focus areas of internal safety auditors, and (2) the agendas of safety committees include weak points revealed during safety audits. The study employed qualitative and quantitative analysis of data collected over a 6 years’ period at three organizational levels. The results suggested a low horizontal alignment across the three pairs of the corresponding safety management activities within each organizational level. The findings were attributed to the inadequacy of procedures and lack of a safety information database for consistently sharing safety information, cultural factors and lack of planning for the coordination of safety management activities. The current research comprises a contribution to the literature and practice and introduces a technique to assess the intra-alignment of safety management initiatives within various organizational levels. Future research is needed in order to investigate the association between horizontal alignment of safety management practices and safety performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is gaining importance for international construction contractors and corporate reports are an effective tool in communicating their CSR efforts. However, CSR communication is a rare topic of discussion within the construction research field. This study establishes a systematic content analysis approach to compare CSR communication among contractors in different regions. It selected a sample of 310 international contractors from the Engineering News-Record list from 2009 to 2014 and collected data from their CSR-related reports. Significant disparities were found in CSR communication among the contractors in the four regions. European contractors showed the highest levels of CSR communication in both dimension- and issue-levels, while Chinese contractors ranked the lowest in CSR communication. Another interesting finding is that all four regions gave the highest priority to one CSR dimension, i.e. community involvement and development. This study serves as a starting point for research on CSR communication by construction contractors, including comparisons with companies in other industries. In addition, this study provides a useful tool for companies or scientific researchers to assess the status of CSR communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction The work of transport and handling of goods at the port is collectively executed and so it requires good communication among workers to deal with the usual and unexpected situations of daily work. Objective The aim of this study was to analyze the form and functions used in the communication between port workers and determine their importance for the preservation of workers' health and safety. Methodology This research is the result of a case study conducted in a port located in the north of Portugal. It involved general and systematic observations of work activity on the pier and boats, completed with semi-structured interviews and individual and collective refunds. Individual and collective refunds served to deepen some aspects identified during observations, fundamental to the knowledge of subjective experiences of these workers. Results and discussion During the investigation each port worker was observed not as an isolated individual but inserted into working relations with other port workers, who perform other functions, such as boarding, stevedores, inspectors, crane operators, among others. These interactions among workers take place through various forms of communication: gestures, movements, looks, facial expressions, verbal or printed information, operative codes. Conclusions The impact of these forms of communication is visible at several levels: the possibility of meeting deadlines; the quality of their work; and also for the safety of all those involved in work situations. There are variations in communication not only according to the type of load to be carried, but also according to the function of each team member. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sixth generation (6G) wireless communication network is expected to provide wide-ranging coverage, short latency, cost effectiveness, lower power consumption, and a high level of security. The Quality of Service (QoS) can be improved with the help of proper resource management by utilizing Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning procedures. The proposed Hybrid Quantum Deep Learning (HQDL) model which comprises of Convolution Neural Network (CNN) and Recurrent Neural Network (RNN). The CNN achieves network reconfiguration, resource distribution and slice collection while RNN is utilized for error proportion, load balancing etc. The future model QoS performance is evaluated by utilizing numerous indefinite devices, slice features and congestion environments. The proposed model achieved an overall accuracy of 97.16% that replicates its pertinence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction A safety-conscious work environment allows high-reliability organizations to be proactive regarding safety and enables employees to feel free to report any concern without fear of retaliation. Currently, research on the antecedents to safety-conscious work environments is scarce. Method Structural equation modeling was applied to test the mediating role of employee communication satisfaction in the relationship between constructive culture and a safety-conscious work environment in several nuclear power plants. Results Employee communication satisfaction partially mediated the positive relationships between a constructive culture and a safety-conscious work environment. Conclusions Constructive cultures in which cooperation, supportive relationships, individual growth and high performance are encouraged facilitate the establishment of a safety-conscious work environment. This influence is partially explained by increased employee communication satisfaction. Practical application Constructive cultures should be encouraged within organizations. In addition, managers should promote communication policies and practices that support a safety-conscious work environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In terms of marketing communication, this is a relatively new concept which evolved mostly in the last two decades of the twentieth century. The changes that have occurred lately in the world, both economically and socially, politically or culturally, made the need for communication to be very important for a modern organization. In this way, the basic component of marketing, communication, has a greater importance within organizations through its relationship being built with employees, customers, suppliers, distributors or other audiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between job engagement and two key components of employee-organization relationships (EOR). Findings from a survey of members of the Millennial Generation (N = 539) in the United States indicate that job engagement mediates the relationship between employee communication and organizational commitment. It is concluded that when employees are engaged in their work, their commitment to the organization is strengthened and the likelihood of them leaving the organization decreases. Furthermore, an argument is made in light of the study’s findings that engagement and commitment work in concert to strengthen EORs overall. To foster engagement, organizations should remove obstacles to internal information flow and provide ongoing feedback to employees about individual and organizational issues. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This qualitative study examined relationship cultivation and public relations practices in start-up companies in Mainland China. Findings from 28 in-depth interviews with entrepreneurs in China1 suggest that employees and customers are the most important strategic publics for start-ups, followed by investors, the media, and the government. Symmetrical relationship cultivation strategies suggested in previous literature apply to the start-up context in China with specific variations. New strategies such as vision and value communication, empowerment, authentic communication, and proactive reporting were identified for start-ups to build quality relationships with various strategic publics. Compared with large established corporations, start-ups have unique public relations purposes, needs, and scope of practice. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wireless technologies combined with advanced computing are changing industrial communications. Industrial wireless networks can improve the monitoring and the control of the entire system by jointly exploiting massively interacting communication and distributed computing paradigms. In this paper, we develop a wireless cloud platform for supporting critical data publishing and distributed sensing of the surrounding environment. The cloud system is designed as a self-contained network that interacts with devices exploiting the time synchronized channel hopping protocol (TSCH), supported by WirelessHART (IEC 62591). The cloud platform augments industry-standard networking functions as it handles the delivery (or publishing) of latency and throughput-critical data by implementing a cooperative-multihop forwarding scheme. In addition, it supports distributed sensing functions through consensus-based algorithms. Experimental activities are presented to show the feasibility of the approach in two real industrial plant sites representative of typical indoor and outdoor environments. Validation of cooperative forwarding schemes shows substantial improvements compared with standard industrial solutions. Distributed sensing functions are developed to enable the autonomous identification of recurring cochannel interference patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To perform requirements elicitation and analysis, effective communication and collaboration between stakeholders are necessary. Global Software Development (GSD), where software teams are located in different parts of the world, has become increasingly popular. However, geographical distance, cultural diversity, differences in time zones, and language barriers create difficulties for GSD stakeholders in engaging in effective communication. Taking into consideration the factors involved in GSD, previous research showed that the ways by which requirements are gathered and analyzed for collocated software development cannot be used effectively for GSD. Thus, in this paper, we present a method of requirements elicitation and analysis for GSD. The method consists of 4 stages: (1) data collection; (2) educating stakeholders about GSD issues; (3) post-education assessment; and (4) requirements elicitation and analysis. Past researchers used student groups in a university environment to play the roles of stakeholders in experiments in GSD studies. Likewise, we preliminarily validate our method by applying it to a case study of an online shopping system, where the roles of client, requirements engineer, project analyst, and designers were played by a group of students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Research has indicated technical and professional communicators (TPCs) continue to struggle with establishing value in the workplace. Studies advocate for more effective communication with management, but scholarship has yet to adequately address the relationship between establishing and explaining value and management philosophy. This article takes up the two issues of workplace value and "speaking the language of business" as they relate to management efficiency philosophy, specifically Lean and Six Sigma. I argue that management philosophy, particularly efficiency philosophies, is an integral, yet often overlooked, aspect of organizational context that affects both organizational structures and cultures. Method: I share the results of an ethnographic study of a series of trainings that were part of a Lean initiative. I buttress these observations with two documents, one internal and one customer-facing, from Lean Six Sigma initiatives. Results: The trainings illustrate the work of creating an organizational culture and the importance of communication in developing a sustainable Lean culture. The two documents are examples of how processes and workflow (e.g., organizational structures) are written in efficiency environments. Conclusion: Practitioners and researchers should see efficiency management philosophies as important components of organizational contexts not to be glossed over. Communication is acknowledged as important to maintaining culture, but TPC knowledge and expertise are not necessarily recognized. The two documents show opportunities in these kinds of cultures to make work visible and establish value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The allocation of limited yet costly police resources is a daily dilemma for police commanders. More than 50% of police department costs go into patrolling operations, which include responding to emergencies and maintaining police presence in patrolling areas. This research aims to address the managerial challenges and tradeoffs that police commanders face when designing patrolling strategies: lessening the economic burden of crime prevention and maintaining high levels of public safety. The proposed framework is implemented through a mathematical framework and simulation to obtain the best patrolling strategies for the Seattle Police Department, and the simulation results show that patrol performance can be improved using the proposed framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High turnover among volunteers means organizations spend significant resources recruiting and retaining them. Research on employees indicates the importance of role development in increasing employee identification and satisfaction while reducing turnover, but limited research has addressed these issues for volunteers. This study explored zoo volunteers’ role development in two phases. In phase one, interviews explored how volunteers learned and understood their roles. Results indicated volunteers learned their roles through communication with supervisors and peers and were generally satisfied with them despite limited opportunity to be innovative. In addition, some volunteers became concerned when their roles were changed with limited input from them. In phase two, questionnaires explored relationships between volunteers’ communication experiences and outcomes. Results indicated volunteers responded negatively to role-remaking, but communication with management, education staff, day captains, and family was associated with positive outcomes. By contrast, communication with peer volunteers had a negative impact on some outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The hypothesis of the study was that psychosocial risk factors are more common in industries involving intellectual work, such as education and public administration (Group 1), rather than in industries like construction, agriculture, and forestry where physical work is more common (Group 2). This hypothesis was confirmed and the important findings were that the most common psychosocial risk factors in Group 1 were staff conflicts, conflicts with managers and clients, also lack of time and having to communicate with clients during the working day. Violence, especially physical and psychological violence was a common risk factor in Group 1; mostly the client caused the violence. In Group 2 the most common psychosocial risk factors were overtime work, conflicts with managers, lack of time and having to communicate with clients during the working day. Overtime work was the most common risk factor in construction, agriculture, and forestry industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In tactical missions, seamless and effective communication is crucial for mission success. For future deployed networks, the user experience can be improved with proper resource allocation mechanisms, taking into consideration quality of service characteristics of the traffic. Such a resource allocation method requires knowledge of the key performance indicators of the communication path. In this article, we present a framework for the key performance indicator estimation service for deployed heterogeneous networks. Our proposal utilizes several different approaches for measuring key performance indicators. Several mechanisms are used to improve the accuracy and reliability of the service. We also discuss the lessons learned during the key performance indicator estimation service implementation and the validation process. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the modern business online marketing communication has become an extremely important phenomenon through its scale and implications on life and society in general. This way the development of the Internet has known a significant worldwide increase in the recent years. Its importance is recognized even by the most approved personalities in literature (Kotler and Keller, 2008), the Internet offering organizations and consumers greater opportunities for interaction and individualization. This article is trying to outline the importance and role of the Internet in communication efforts undertaken by bricolage companies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study a neuro-inspired model that mimics a discussion (or information dissemination) process in a network of agents. During their interaction, agents redistribute activity and network weights, resulting in emergence of leader(s). The model is able to reproduce the basic scenarios of leadership known in nature and society: laissez-faire (irregular activity, weak leadership, sizable inter-follower interaction, autonomous sub-leaders); participative or democratic (strong leadership, but with feedback from followers); and autocratic (no feedback, one-way influence). Several pertinent aspects of these scenarios are found as well—e.g., hidden leadership (a hidden clique of agents driving the official autocratic leader), and successive leadership (two leaders influence followers by turns). We study how these scenarios emerge from inter-agent dynamics and how they depend on behavior rules of agents—in particular, on their inertia against state changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is to investigate and empirically test cross-cultural differences in preferences for employer communication. Using context orientation as a cultural dimension with respect to recruitment messages from employers, data were collected and analyzed from 350 college students as potential job seekers, from the United States and Taiwan. The findings suggest that individuals with a low-context orientation pay more attention to explicitly coded messages, while high-context orientated individuals are more aware of information that is internalized in the person or in the physical context. Implications and recommendations for hospitality recruitment message strategy and practice are outlined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]