Psychological traits and loyalty intentions towards e-Government services

Purpose

Having been rated the world's leader in e-Government Readiness in 2002, 2004, and 2005, Taiwan sought to capitalize on its experience in e-Government implementation by launching, in 2007, a new Government-to-Citizen service entitled “e-Housekeeper”. The success of this service has since then become an important focus for practitioners.

Methodology

The reported research utilizes a psychological approach that is different from the classical models that dominate the existing literature, by examining how citizens’ adaptive–innovative cognitive styles and involvement jointly influence their loyalty intentions towards e-Housekeeper. The style/involvement model is tested by means of information from a sample of 206 Taiwan citizens.

Findings

While innovators initiated e-Housekeeper significantly earlier than others, their usage did not last for long. In contrast, more-involved citizens have shown higher loyalty intentions. More specifically, a combination of decision-making style and involvement significantly influences both when citizens try the service and whether they continue to use it: more-involved adaptors reported the strongest loyalty intentions.

Originality/value

Practical implications of the findings for the style/involvement model are suggested in the context of enhancing the strategic performance of e-Government services. The value of the style/involvement model is enhanced as a social scientific approach to the analysis of consumer innovation.     

The 2006 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Life Science presented to Fernando Nottebohm, Ph.D. for demonstration of Central Neurogenesis in Adult Avians, with Concomitant Implications for the Theory of Memory and for the Future of Neurological Repair in Injury and Disease

Nottebohm is noted for his demonstration of Central Neurogenesis in Adult Avians, with Concomitant Implications for the Theory of Memory and for the Future of Neurological Repair in Injury and Disease.     

A season-long team-building intervention: examining the effect of team goal setting on cohesion

The purpose of the current study was to determine whether the implementation of a season-long team-building intervention program using team goal setting increased perceptions of cohesion. The participants were 86 female high school basketball players from 8 teams. The teams were randomly assigned to either an experimental team goal-setting or control condition. Each participant completed the Group Environment Questionnaire (GEQ; Carron, Brawley, & Widmeyer, 2002; Carron, Widmeyer, & Brawley, 1985), which assessed cohesion at both the beginning and end of the season. Overall, the results revealed a significant multivariate effect, Pillai's trace F(12, 438) = 2.68, p = .002. Post hoc analyses showed that at the beginning of the season, athletes from both conditions did not differ in their perceptions of cohesion. However, at the end of the season, athletes in the team goal-setting condition held higher perceptions of cohesion than athletes in the control condition. Overall, the results indicated that team goal setting was an effective team-building tool for influencing cohesiveness in sport teams.     

相关概念和影响因素

为在普通教育和职业教育问建立创新性的关系,欧盟采取了包括从课程开发到教育体系改革等多种方法.作为西方工业界的一部分,欧洲国家在提升职业教育与培训的吸引力和质量方面面临一些相似的挑战.     

Beyond the Rhetoric: A framework for evaluating improvements to the student experience

Tertiary Education and Management - A framework is described to assist institutions in evaluating the extent to which activities described as “quality improvements” or “quality...     

Learning to talk: community support and views of parents from socially disadvantaged families

Part of a multimethod ethnographic study that aimed to explore the knowledge of local parents concerning children learning to talk is described. The study was carried out with parents from several different ethnic and language groups in a socially disadvantaged part of Sheffield, a large city in the northeast of England.
In the phase of the study reported here, parents (either English, Urdu/Punjabi and Arabic speakers) took part in interviews, as well as contributing to the validation of the project. This study found that parents from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds living in this socially disadvantaged area, believed learning to talk to be very important and that family, community, including faith community, and professionals, have roles in promoting learning to talk. They indicated that local community groups, including faith communities, could play a positive role in supporting and developing their knowledge.
This paper will be of interest to those seeking innovative ways to support parents in socially excluded communities, particularly parents of children learning to talk, and so contribute to better outcomes for children, families and communities. It also contributes to our understanding of the development of parental knowledge about learning to talk in socially disadvantaged communities.     

Prior degree and student assessment performance: how can evidence guide decisions on assessment policy?

This study aimed to provide evidence to guide decisions on the type and timing of assessments in a graduate medical programme, by identifying whether students from particular degree backgrounds face greater difficulty in satisfying the current assessment requirements. We examined the performance rank of students in three types of assessments and also calculated the relative risk of failure in the summative assessments for four cohorts over all four years of a four‐year graduate medical programme. Our findings suggest that early summative assessment may disadvantage the very students who create the diversity that the faculty values, particularly if methods such as Single Best Answer questions are used, unless students are provided with additional support in bridging their knowledge gap. Use of assessment methods such as Modified Essay Questions and Objective Structured Clinical Examinations appears to be more justifiable on educational grounds.     

Governing indigenous recreation at a distance: a critical analysis of an after school active health intervention

Within the Canadian context, the physical activity levels of children and youth in the after school time period has become a source of public health concern. We argue that this concern is informed by broader public health crises, in particular the ‘global obesity epidemic’ and the closely related ‘global pandemic of physical inactivity', and that these so-called ‘crises’ operate as part of a discursive regime that serves to justify after school interventions aimed at increasing the physical activity practices of children and youth. Although the objectives of such interventions are seemingly well intentioned, we suggest that such interventions nonetheless harbor difficult to discern, but potentially pernicious consequences, for the communities in which they are implemented. We focus our attention on the place-specific effects of one Public Health Agency of Canada-funded after school physical activity intervention – After the School Bell Rings (ASBR) – that was implemented in the mostly Indigenous, northern community of Placid, Manitoba. Based on a critical analysis of the ASBR program itself, along with interviews and focus groups with children, parents and recreation providers (n?=?10) from the community of Placid, we contend that the ASBR serves to govern Indigenous recreation at a distance. We argue that when implemented in the place-specific context of Placid, the ASBR functions as part of a broader governmental assemblage composed of loosely connected discourses, institutions, socio-structural conditions and individuals that, when assembled, ultimately serve to govern geographically and culturally distinct communities. We conclude by suggesting that the objectives of broad-based health interventions, such as the goal of increasing after school physical activity levels, should not be universally implemented across diverse locales, but need to account for the diverse, place-specific priorities and needs of the communities into which they are implemented.