Academic literature on the topic 'Continual-adoption'

New technology is referred as any set of productive techniques which offers a significant improvement. What is seen as new’ is obviously subject to continual redefinition, as successive changes in technology are undertaken. The social and political impact of new technologies is complex being subject to variations in managerial strategies, worker resistance, and a host of other cultural and political circumstances. User adoption of new technologies and the models explaining their behaviors is an ongoing research problem. Identifying the factors that affect the adoption of new technologies is understood by developing technology adoption models and theories with different theoretical insights, variables and measurements. To recognize the needs and acceptance of individuals is to realize the factors that drive user acceptance or rejection of technologies. Researchers can conceptualize underlying technology models and theories that may affect the previous, current and future application of technology adoption. As a case study, 50 users of new technology in Croatia were questioned regarding pros and cons and was determined majority will benefit from the use.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to show how continual enhancement of knowledge management systems (KMSs) enhances knowledge sharing intention. Design/methodology/approach This study integrates information system (IS) success with social cognitive theory (SCT) to explain knowledge sharing intention. Based on a survey of 276 KMS users in Taiwan’s information technology industry, the structural equation model has been applied to examine the influence process from a user satisfactory context to personal cognitive beliefs, and thus knowledge sharing intention. Findings The results indicate that the user satisfactory context stimulated by continual KMS enhancement increases knowledge sharing intention through the mediation of personal cognition of self-efficacy and outcome expectancy. Practical implications The results have empirical implications for learning how to motivate developers’ patience and passion for follow-up improvements to meet user expectations empathically, which has been emphasized for service provision. Originality/value The originality of this research is its explanation of system adoption behavior, which combines the core of IS success with SCT, links user satisfaction to intention to use, and concerns behavior within a specific context.

Urban water utilities face growing challenges in compliance with increasingly demanding legislation, tightening budgets, ageing personnel, decreasing infrastructure reliability, increasing operational costs, regulatory pressure, and climate change. Within this context, tracking the alignment of the performance with the mission and strategic objectives of the organization, based on reliable and up-to-date data, is of utmost importance to enable effective and continual improvement management. Organizational performance assessment in the water sector has been a topic of growing attention since the 1990s due to the increase in the role of regulators and tighter legislation. Proactive utilities are incorporating sustainability, resource efficiency, resilience, and continual improvement principles in their practices. Strategic planning provides the road map for management and interconnecting the different areas of the organization. An essential component of strategic management planning is the adoption of a tailored performance assessment system (PAS), allowing a better response to these challenges from the water utility management perspective. This paper presents a novel PAS at the strategic level, which was tested and validated with wastewater utilities, in a co-creation process. The proposed PAS fully adopts the objectives recommended in international standards, with a corresponding set of criteria and metrics, and a validated proposal of reference values for the metrics.

This interpretive case study describes five norms of the school culture that facilitated a teacher’s (the second author) adoption and learning of a constructivist approach to physical education. The second author used a movement approach initially based on Every Child a Winner. The first author conducted field observations at the elementary school across 3 years and formal interviews and numerous informal interviews each day of field work with teachers, principals, staff, and children. The five norms or set of norms were (a) the set of norms defining the school philosophy, (b) teacher learning, (c) teacher participatory power and responsibility, (d) continual school improvement, and (e) the tendency “to feel that we can do anything.” The paper describes how the norms influenced the physical educator and the physical educators’ role in creating and maintaining the norms.

Preanalytical errors have previously been shown to contribute a significant proportion of errors in laboratory processes and contribute to a number of patient safety risks. Accreditation against ISO 15189:2012 requires that laboratory Quality Management Systems consider the impact of preanalytical processes in areas such as the identification and control of non-conformances, continual improvement, internal audit and quality indicators. Previous studies have shown that there is a wide variation in the definition, repertoire and collection methods for preanalytical quality indicators. The International Federation of Clinical Chemistry Working Group on Laboratory Errors and Patient Safety has defined a number of quality indicators for the preanalytical stage, and the adoption of harmonized definitions will support interlaboratory comparisons and continual improvement. There are a variety of data collection methods, including audit, manual recording processes, incident reporting mechanisms and laboratory information systems. Quality management processes such as benchmarking, statistical process control, Pareto analysis and failure mode and effect analysis can be used to review data and should be incorporated into clinical governance mechanisms. In this paper, The Association for Clinical Biochemistry and Laboratory Medicine PreAnalytical Specialist Interest Group review the various data collection methods available. Our recommendation is the use of the laboratory information management systems as a recording mechanism for preanalytical errors as this provides the easiest and most standardized mechanism of data capture.

The increasing use of the Internet over recent years has forced governments and individuals to utilise Information & Communication Technology (ICT) in the form of electronic government (e-government). However, the success of e-government delivery is dependent on usage generally but also on growing concerns about perceived social influence and prior experience of e-government service usage; this is in order to ensure better utilisation of ICT investments by retaining current users. Few studies have investigated the influences of perceived social influence and prior experience on personal factors, such as self-efficacy, personal outcome expectation and satisfaction, towards intention to the continual use of e-government systems. To fill this gap, the present research develops a conceptual framework by associating it with citizens' prior experience. A conceptual framework of six constructs is developed by integrating Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) and Expectation Confirmation Theory (ECT). Theoretically, the present study extends the roles of pre-adoption and post-adoption by offering a self-regulating process through self-efficacy as a physical ability. Further, the study reveals the importance of social influence and prior experience as well as personal outcome expectation and satisfaction as cognitive factors that represent personal goal assessments.

Green building (GB) constructions seeks to address housing demands of the growing populace with better qualities, energy efficiency, using recycled and recyclable materials, improve building lifespan and health of occupants. But GB adoption lags in developing countries. This study focused on driving the adoption of GB constructions in developing countries through capacity building strategy: survey of Enugu State, Nigeria. Structured questionnaire was used to collect data from 135 building workers in educational and industrial sectors across the registered construction companies and higher institutions in Enugu State. Mean and rank were used to answer the research questions, while t-test was used to test five null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. Results revealed that there is need for capacity building in: GB design, GB site, GB construction, GB operation and maintenance, and GB construction and demolition waste management. Cluster t-test analysis showed discrepancies in the agreement of educational and industrial sector workers on GB design and GB construction needs. The implications for not adopting GB are continual conventional constructions with maximal exploitations and resource depletion. Thus, there is a gap in knowledge where sustainable development advocates, government and pioneers of green construction practices could channel efforts toward assisting the developing countries.

Abstract Older adults (55+) represent one of the fastest growing groups adopting wearable devices (e.g. smartwatches). However, questions remain as to how older adults, healthcare providers and researchers can maximize the ability of these devices to maintain and improve health. The objective of this study was to understand the needs and preferences of older adults in wearable devices, as part of a Florida High Tech Corridor Matching Grant between The Villages Health, Aviv/Xtend Scientific, and The University of South Florida. Six focus groups were conducted with older adults (n=36) living in The Villages, Florida, and were stratified by gender. Topics such as adoption, benefits/concerns, usability, and potential gender differences were explored. Heart rate monitoring, calories burned, and step counting features were most often utilized by current wearable users (43%). Participants reported that the most important benefits of wearables were atrial fibrillation identification, fitness tracking and fall detection. Concerns included privacy, the “learning curve” and too frequent of notifications by the device. Across both genders, choice resonated strongly as a theme. Male and female participants desired personalized, easy to understand outcomes and control over data sharing preferences. Men were interested in continual access to wearable health data, whereas females were interested in daily or weekly summaries. Further, men reported higher on-going use and comfort with smartwatches as compared to females. Participants suggested “low, medium, and high-tech savvy” user profiles and supporting resources (e.g. 1-1 training, paper manuals) to enhance adoption. Recommendations for policy and practice are shared, in light of the findings.

Several analysts argue that, despite anomalies, the realist paradigm is dominant because it is more fertile than its rivals. While the ability of the realist paradigm to reformulate its theories in light of criticism accounts for its persistence, it is argued that the proliferation of emendations exposes a degenerating tendency in the paradigm's research program. This article applies Lakatos's criterion that a series of related theories must produce problemshifts that are progressive rather than degenerating to appraise the adequacy of realist-based theories on the balancing of power advanced by neotraditionalists. This research program is seen as degenerating because of (1) the protean character of its theoretical development, (2) an unwillingness to specify what constitutes the true theory, which if falsified would lead to a rejection of the paradigm, (3) a continual adoption of auxiliary propositions to explain away flaws, and (4) a dearth of strong research findings.

Banks and financial institutions in Hong Kong are increasingly finding themselves facing rapid increases in turbulence and complexity, leading to greater uncertainty and increased competition. Customers are also becoming more demanding. Apart from the traditional type of banking services, customers today require more personalized products and services, and access to such services at any time, and at any place. Although there is no panacea for banks to stay competitive, Internet Banking is one of the advanced information technologies they can employ to achieve a high level of customer services. Internet Banking is an emerging technology that permits conduct of banking transactions through the Internet. From the banks’ point of view, it requires the lowest transaction cost among various channels, just one percent of branch-based banking. It also can improve the efficiency and effectiveness of corporate business processes through elimination of paper work. One of the many benefits of Internet Banking is that customers can use bank services 24 hours a day from anywhere in the world. This study investigates university students' adoption/continual usage behaviour within the context of Hong Kong Internet Banking services. A research framework based on the extension of Technology Acceptance Model and Social Cognitive Theory was developed to identify factors that would influence the adoption/continual usage of Internet Banking. The framework includes subjective norm, image, result demonstrability, perceived risk, computer self-efficacy, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use and intention constructs. A diverse sample of undergraduate and postgraduate students of seven universities in Hong Kong was used to test the models. Structural Equation Modeling was used to examine the entire pattern of intercorrelations among the eight proposed constructs and to test related propositions empirically. The results reveal that both subjective norm and computer self-efficacy play significant roles in influencing the intention to adopt Internet Banking indirectly. Perceived usefulness has significant positive effect on intention to adopt, this result supports the extension of the Technology Acceptance Model. Perceived ease of use has significant indirect effect on intention to adopt/continual usage through perceived usefulness, while its direct effect on intention to adopt is not significant in this empirical study. Theoretical contributions and practical implications of the findings are discussed and suggestions for future research are presented.

The increasing transformation of horticultural consumption in South East Asia raises issues concerning changing horticultural production. Quantity and quality improvements are required to meet the demand for horticultural products. The use of hybrid seeds is one of the agricultural improvement strategies to address demand because hybrid seeds offer more stable and higher yields. In rural areas, this transformation not only changes the horticultural products market but also inputs markets, including labour markets, which may bring advantages for certain groups of smallholder farmers in rural areas, including women. The roles of women in this transformation have been studied but the findings are controversial. Evidence shows the importance of women’s roles in agricultural and rural development; however, extensive research also indicates that women’ contributions in agriculture are still lower compared to men. The underestimated contributions of women could contribute to a bias in the design of development policies and strategies. To examine the contributions of women in agriculture in-depth, this thesis explores the roles of women in agriculture in three analytical chapters. This thesis employs data which was collected from two surveys. The surveys were conducted in 2010 and 2016. The first survey involved 597 chilli farmers. The second survey included 574 chilli farmers, but only 251 out of 597 farmers grew chilli in the last one year when the second survey was conducted. The first and second analytical chapters utilise the second-round survey data, while the third chapter employs data from the first and the second- round surveys. The first analytical chapter presented in Chapter 4 examines the impacts of hybrid chilli seed adoption on demand for male and female labour by gender. Adopting new technology, including hybrid seeds, may change the demand for labour. However, there is relatively little understanding of the impacts of hybrid chilli seed adoption on the demand for family labour, particularly female family members. Since hybrid seed adoption often requires more labour, it may affect female members in the households to work on-farm that contributes to extra work demands on women’s time in rural areas, including in Indonesia, who are mostly responsible for domestic chores and child-rearing. This study extends previous research on household labour demands through an assessment of the impacts on both family and hired labour on a gender-specific basis. An instrumental variables 2SLS approach is employed to address the endogeneity issues that may occur related to hybrid seeds choices. Results show that adopting hybrid seeds is not associated with demand for female labour within the family. However, it is found that hybrid chilli seeds are more likely to increase demand for hiring both male and female labour. Consequently, hybrid seed adoption could generate rural employment opportunities and empower women who generally have fewer employment opportunities compared to men. The second analytical chapter explored in Chapter 5 evaluates the roles of women associated with chilli productivity and revenue. The existing literature on gender in agricultural productivity comes mainly from African countries and uses a binary gender indicator to compare productivity with and without female roles using production functions estimations. These approaches may fail to reflect the full female contribution to production since, in Asian countries, male and female farmers often jointly manage land plots. This study employs Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) to outline a range of indices which indicate women’s leadership and also disagreement between household heads (husband and wife pairs) about their roles in farming activities. These indices were included in interaction revenue function analysis of chilli production. The results show that woman’s leadership in specific farming activities is more likely to increase chilli revenue. Moreover, household disagreement between males and females about their respective responsibilities seems to reduce revenue. The results suggest the more complex considerations of female’s roles in production that are needed for examining communities in which activities and farm management are shared between male and female household. This study provides evidence that women’s empowerment, through the leadership of agronomic activities, can improve both productivity and positive outcomes for households. Chapter 6 explores the third analytical chapter discussing the roles of women in farmers’ decisions about the adoption of hybrid chilli seeds. While there is an extensive literature that focuses on hybrid seed adoption in developing countries, less is understood regarding the continuity of the adoption behaviours over time. This study examines adoption behaviour using four categories — non-adoption, late-adoption, continual-adoption, and disadoption— to extend previous studies that mainly focus only on adoption and non-adoption. A multinomial logit model is estimated where dynamic adoption behaviours are specified for a two-period panel data set of chilli farmers. Results show that variables associated with continual-adopters are different from variables related to late-adopters, which suggests that each category of farmers has different characteristics. Results reveal that females identifying farming as their main occupation and farmer group membership are positively associated with being a continual-adopter of hybrid chilli seeds and they reduce the possibility of being a non-adopter. However, these variables are not relevant to late-adopters. These results indicate that the adoption stages are complex and may assist adoption policies to pay more attention to targeting differences among adoption categories. Also, integrating women in hybrid chilli seed dissemination programs may encourage more farmers to become continual- adopters.
Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, Centre for Global Food and Resources, 2020

The development of the modern private prison industry since the 1980s has been a continual source of controversy and debate, as Americans struggle to reconcile the principles of profit and justice. While there are many explanations proffered for the adoption of this policy—including partisanship, economic stress, unionization, and lobbying efforts by private prison firms—none fully explain why states privatize their prisons. Captive Market proposes a novel explanation for why states adopt this policy: to limit legal and political accountability for inmate lawsuits, an unintended consequence of the legal rights revolution for prisoners. Evidence from an original data set and interviews with private prison companies, government officials, and advocacy groups suggest that growing prisoner lawsuits are a significant driver of prison privatization in the United States. With over 160,000 inmates currently held in private facilities across the country, it is vital to understand the causes of its rise and the nuances of private prison policy, with significant consequences for the American criminal legal system.

While family structure continues to diversify in Korean society, society’s rejection of unmarried mothers continues to be a strong obstacle. However, Korean teenage mothers increasingly are deciding to raise their own children and live their daily lives in communities that hold biases and express rejection towards them. At present, the Single-Parent Family Support Act is central to the development of support policies for unmarried mothers, but as pointed out in this study, it is important to implement detailed, individualized, comprehensive, and continual assistance, not limited to those who opt for childrearing but also towards all unmarried mothers who opt for adoption. While raising one’s own child, it is important to provide long-term and continual support and support that helps the recipient foresee how she can step her way up to independence, rather than short-term and sporadic handouts.

The nature of the traditional approaches to collaborative group projects can often be characterized by hierarchy, clarity of roles, and assignment of tasks to participants. Digital-age collaborative projects are often characterized by impromptu and ill-defined organization, spontaneity, democratic decision-making, and continual morphing of roles. These two approaches are grounded in fundamentally different cultural frameworks. This chapter describes and analyzes an innovative collaborative process of role description, negotiation, adoption, and ongoing evolution through routine metacognitive processes which provides a structure by which to integrate positive aspects of traditional hierarchical approaches to collaborative projects and positive aspects of digital-age communication culture. This role negotiation process can clarify responsibilities and processes while nurturing the sense of personal agency and self-determination crucial to intrinsic motivation and engagement.

The increasing use of the Internet over recent years has forced governments and individuals to utilise Information & Communication Technology (ICT) in the form of electronic government (e-government). However, the success of e-government delivery is dependent on usage generally but also on growing concerns about perceived social influence and prior experience of e-government service usage; this is in order to ensure better utilisation of ICT investments by retaining current users. Few studies have investigated the influences of perceived social influence and prior experience on personal factors, such as self-efficacy, personal outcome expectation and satisfaction, towards intention to the continual use of e-government systems. To fill this gap, the present research develops a conceptual framework by associating it with citizens' prior experience. A conceptual framework of six constructs is developed by integrating Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) and Expectation Confirmation Theory (ECT). Theoretically, the present study extends the roles of pre-adoption and post-adoption by offering a self-regulating process through self-efficacy as a physical ability. Further, the study reveals the importance of social influence and prior experience as well as personal outcome expectation and satisfaction as cognitive factors that represent personal goal assessments.

With the apparent demise of globalization, many states are turning to regional solutions to achieve trade and development goals while institutional structure is fundamental to the strategic and managerial operations of such associations. This study seeks to understand the strategic costs and benefits, as well as the management opportunities and challenges, of a regional institution that maintains an informal structure while specifically examining the relationship between informal regional structure and member (national) resilience. This investigation develops a resilience framework and tests it against a unique structural form, the Pacific Alliance (Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru), which operates without incorporation as a legal entity, without a centralized budget, and without a secretariat. This study reasons that an informal regional institution supports national resilience through an adaptation strategy but not an adaptability strategy and concludes that an informal regional model appears to support continual national development through the adoption of member ‘best practice'.

Fashion is an odd jumble of contradictions, of sympathies and antipathies. It exists only by its being participated among a certain number of persons, and its essence is destroyed by being communicated to a greater number. It is a continual struggle between ‘the great vulgar and small,’* to get the start of or keep up with each other in the race of appearances, by an adoption on the part of the one of such external and fantastic symbols as strike the attention and excite the envy or admiration of the beholder, which are no sooner made known and exposed to public view for this purpose, than they are successfully copied by the multitude, the slavish herd of imitators, who do not wish to be behind-hand with their betters in outward show and pretensions, and which then sink, without any farther notice, into disrepute and contempt. Thus fashion lives only in a perpetual round of giddy innovation and restless vanity. To be old fashioned is the greatest crime a coat or a hat can be guilty of.

Software design is enmeshed in the social world of organizations. Software embodies characteristics of the organizations within which and for which it is created. This book has dealt with both of these dimensions; first, the social dimensions of the software design process and, second, the nature of work organizations that the user inhabits and the implications for software design. In this final chapter we develop some general propositions about social dimensions of software design and the implications of software adoption for organizational change. First we draw some concluding observations about two processes. Our research, coupled with related work of others, suggests that crucial to understanding software design (and technology design in general) are the role of history in the long life cycle of software design, especially the redesign of technology by its users, and the politics of software design. Technology design is a process with a life cycle of its own. During this process, design changes occur from the initial stage of determining user requirements through the design and development of the software and then continues during its implementation and use. In retrospect, it is possible to show how different aspects of any particular technology were established at various stages. However, it is not possible to deduce all the attributes of the technology without following the design process through implementation and ultimate use. Understanding the constraints that a technology will impose on the users’ (and the organization’s) “action space” thus requires an examination of the social as well as the technical history of its development. Organizational politics are crucial in the early phases of technology development and provide opportunities for those in positions of power in the user organization to exercise the most explicit influence. Furthermore, past technology and organizational choices form patterns that are institutionalized and form the structure shaping current technology choices (cf. Kling, 1987,1993; Thomas, 1993). Thus, the initial stages of technology definition provide partial constraints on the action of users when the technology is implemented. The late life cycle stages of design are the result of a continual process of actors interpreting and negotiating the technology design and use within structural bounds of hierarchical power, resources, authority and autonomy.

CEPA Integrity First® (Integrity First), led by the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association (CEPA) and a condition of membership, acts as a foundation for continual improvement, bringing our members together to share and implement leading practices in the areas of safety, environment and socio-economics. Integrity First includes three principles and ten priority areas (such as emergency management, pipeline integrity and water protection) where members collaborate, share leading practices and hold each other accountable. Integrity First is a management systems approach designed by CEPA members for industry to achieve collaborative continual improvement. It supports the collective setting of priorities, plans, assessments and improvements. While spreadsheets enabled the first rounds of assessments, CEPA required a solution that engaged multiple stakeholders over a complex timeline, coordinated activities clearly and precisely, while keeping the process transparent and efficient. The information generated is sensitive, so it must be kept secure while still being available for aggregation, reporting and reference. It needed to house communication tools so members could easily pull information and lastly, it needed to be easy to use. In August of 2015, CEPA established a partnership with SPAN Consulting (SPAN) to address these challenges through its software as a service (SaaS) offering called Octane™. This paper will review how CEPA designed and implemented a technical, web-based solution to enable an efficient, effective and transparent Integrity First with transformative impact. Specifically, through the use of this technology, there are now stronger communities of practice across industry with increased focus and effort on the opportunities to improve through real-time self-serve access to industry’s overall benchmarked performance, leadership and leading practices. CEPA’s commitment to enabling Integrity First is resulting in better adoption and improved performance.

The maritime industry is flooded with new regulations on a continual basis. These Regulations, in general, improve the safety and environmental sustainability of the industry. A reasonable argument can be made that the maritime industry leads the world in the adoption of international regulations and quite possibly is the international leader in environmental sustainability. The execution of these regulations falls squarely on the shoulders of the ship designers, the shipbuilders, the ship owners, the ship operators, the auditors (classification societies and consultants), and the enforcement of these regulations is the responsibility of the Flag States and the Port States. The last 30 or so years have shown quite a number of success stories in this execution/enforcement, but there continue to be some areas and even specific regulatory efforts that are problematic. Experience is starting to point towards specific systematic approaches that, once adopted, allow the execution and enforcement of international regulations to achieve faster convergence and, subsequently, faster stable adoption in the industry. This paper analyzes the system dynamic, provides specific examples, and provides a systematic approach and specific recommendations to all stake holders in achieving rapid and stable adoption of emerging international regulations. In particular this paper discusses overall environmental and associated system design and improvement, which is referred to as QESTH, and explores the use of Technical Memos in advancing the general state of the art. The concept of Tech Memos is explained by actual application in OWS issues and the advances in the state of the art in OWS and MARPOL compliance resulting from these tech memos are provided in this paper.

Abstract The adoption of green credentials requires cultural change within our organisations and the need to attract, train, develop and retain a new breed of talent demanding a net zero future. This is fine in theory but one of the first objectives our industry must solve is the Engagement Enigma, otherwise none of these aspects will be achieved. This paper now provides a solution to solving the Engagement Enigma as it may be clearly demonstrated by the 4C's which show that the key process to ensure Engagement, is the underlying synergy created by starting a Career, acquiring Competence, demonstrating Care and a transparent feedback Culture created throughout an organisation by encouraging Continual Professional Development or CPD. We are therefore in the unique position to ensure that the oil & gas industry can also synergistically implement the IPIECA SDG's as an integral component of CPD to provide genuine engagement. The solution to the Engagement Enigma is a new paradigm which now clearly shows that to those skilled in the art it is self-evident that all the above UN SDG topics may be synergistically combined to provide us with a unique and novel solution to the Engagement Enigma.