A Three-Axis Model for Conceptualizing the Relevant Elements Involved in Cross-Cultural Training

Up to one-third of Americans who take foreign assignments are unsuccessful, largely because of either the lack of experience in, or training for, intercultural living or working. This lack of success is indeed problematic at a time when American businesses must seek global markets. The poor success rate has precipitated increased interest in cross-cultural training. Much of the reported cross-cultural training is experiential, however, and is therefore limited in transferability to other situations. The experiential base often provides no analytical structure for developing training programs for other situations. This article reviews both research and experiential literature and presents a three-axis matrix as an analytical base for developing cross-cultural training. The axes systematically focus attention on differences in culture, function (task roles), and situations.     

Corner-fed microstrip antenna analysis for dual polarization

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Arguing in Portugal: A cross-cultural analysis

We report data on Portuguese understandings of interpersonal arguing, based on a survey conducted in Portugal (N?=?252). Employing concepts and methods developed for studying interpersonal arguing, we report on the levels of argumentativeness, verbal aggressiveness, personalization of conflict, and argument frames. After comparing Portuguese men and women, we compare Portuguese respondents with two groups of US respondents. In contrast to US respondents, Portuguese report to argue more prosocially, cooperatively and civilly, and are more sophisticated in their reflections about arguing. We discuss these results in the context of the Portuguese notion of argumentation (argumentação) and Portuguese culture more broadly.     

Fuzzy swarm diversity hybrid model for text summarization

High quality summary is the target and challenge for any automatic text summarization. In this paper, we introduce a different hybrid model for automatic text summarization problem. We exploit strengths of different techniques in building our model: we use diversity-based method to filter similar sentences and select the most diverse ones, differentiate between the more important and less important features using the swarm-based method and use fuzzy logic to make the risks, uncertainty, ambiguity and imprecise values of the text features weights flexibly tolerated. The diversity-based method focuses to reduce redundancy problems and the other two techniques concentrate on the scoring mechanism of the sentences. We presented the proposed model in two forms. In the first form of the model, diversity measures dominate the behavior of the model. In the second form, the diversity constraint is no longer imposed on the model behavior. That means the diversity-based method works same as fuzzy swarm-based method. The results showed that the proposed model in the second form performs better than the first form, the swarm model, the fuzzy swarm method and the benchmark methods. Over results show that combination of diversity measures, swarm techniques and fuzzy logic can generate good summary containing the most important parts in the document.     

Online Distance Education at the Universiti Sains Malaysia,Malaysia: Preliminary Perceptions

Availability of technology is no longer an issue, but in view of the promise of distance education and the development of electronic communication and network, the distance learning programme at the Universiti Sains Malaysia is directing its virtual multimedia course delivery via online education. The instructional design aspects of a multimedia course topic are presented. The results of a preliminary perceptions towards online education in distance learning conducted at the recent launching of online education in USM revealed that students perception is still focused on accessibility and presentation rather than pedagogical techniques and interactivity.

L'éducation à distance en ligne à l'Universiti Sains Malaysia :Perceptions preliminairs

La disponibilité de la technologie n'est plus un problème mais devant les promesses de l'éducation à distance et le développement des réseaux électroniques de communications, le programme d'enseignement à distance de l'Université Sains Malaysia oriente ses cours virtuels multimédia via l'éducation en ligne. Cet article présente les aspects de l'élaboration éducative d'un sujet du cours multi-media. Les résultats des perceptions préliminaires vers l'éducation en ligne dans l'enseignement à distance conduit lors du lancement du « on-line education » dans l'USM a révelé que la perception des étudiants est toujours concentrée sur l'accessibilité et la présentation plutôt que sur les techniques pédagogiques et l'interactivité.

Online Fernstudien an der Universität Sains Malaysia, Malaysia: Vorläufige Auffassungen

Verfügbarkeit von Technik ist heute kein Thema mehr. Im Hinblick auf die Aussichten von Fernstudien und der Entwicklung elektronischer Kommunikation und Netzwerken führt die Universität Sains Malaysia die Zulieferung ihrer Fernstudienprogramme mit virtuellem Multimediamaterial online durch. Die Gesichtspunkte für ein Multimediakurs-Thema werden dargestellt. Die Ergebnisse einer vorläufigen Meinungsbildung in Richtung Online-Unterweisung im Rahmen der kürzlich erfolgten Einrichtung von Online Education in USM offenbarte, dass im Zentrum der Wahrnehmung der Studenten immer noch mehr der Zugang und die Darstellung denn die pädagogischen Techniken und möglichen Interaktivitäten stehen.     

An investigation into the factors affecting knowledge management adoption and practice in the life insurance business

Knowledge management (KM) is crucial for organizations to enhance competitive advantage. While the issues of KM have been widely discussed by numerous researchers, there is a paucity of studies pertaining to KM adoption and practice for the life insurance industry. Therefore, this paper aims to investigate the main factors affecting the life insurance business in adopting and applying KM. An exploratory field study utilizing an inductive methodology involving a multiple-case study approach was undertaken by conducting interviews with 10 key knowledge workers from life insurance enterprises in various stages of KM development and use. We utilized content analysis techniques to identify the factors with their associated variables and further developed a research model. This study offers a comprehensive model for future KM research and provides managerial implications for organizations, particularly life insurance enterprises, to better realize the worth of KM and the possible impediments involved in the processes of adopting and implementing KM.     

The year’s work in international librarianship: 1969

The paper sets out to determine the social origins and professional status of librarians in Ghana with a view to understanding them as a professional group of working individuals. It examines the personal characteristics such as age, sex and marital status of the librarians. Parental influences on the choice of profession, as well as the status of individual librarians in their organizations and institutions are investigated. The results of this study indicate that most librarians in Ghana come from working class homes and that librarians in Ghana are satisfied with their status in their organizations and institutions.     

Teachers and Consultation: Applying research and development in organisations (RADIO)

In this article we describe how the RADIO process enabled EPiTs to negotiate research with an EPS around its desire to evaluate and develop its consultation work with schools. Findings of the evaluation and their implications for the Service are described and the potential of RADIO as a tool for providing external research support from HEIs for EPS or LA development, is discussed. Further discussion identifies the benefits of the application of RADIO in the research training of EPiTs in HEIs.