27 10 3494 https://omeka.ibu.edu.ba/files/original/557a01d95dfab9ce26616e0e07c7014a.pdf e304bdfe06c06eb41b2549572016f466 PDF Text Text An Empirical On Knowledge Sharing In Learning Organizations In Kutahya, Turkey Kemal Demirci1, Nuray Mercan1, Yaşar Aksanyar1, Bayram Alamur2, Vasfi Kahya3 1Dumlupınar University Instıtute of Social Sciences, Kütahya, Turkey, 2Balikesir University Havran Vocational School Of Higher Education, 3Dumlupinar University Instıtute of Social Sciences, Kütahya, Turkey E –mails: mkdemirci26@hotmail.com, snmmercan@yahoo.com, ayyasari@gmail.com, alamur_bayram@hotmail.com, vasfikahya@hotmail.com Abstract Comunities today and in the future have to process, evaluate and internalize the information more than past. Comunities and enterprises, which don't understand the environment, and are unconscious about changes, and which don't read the world, are obliged to deteriorate, even to die. Fiber speed and continious changes of present world, makes compulsory to learn continiously and to educe information. Enterprises have to be open to continiously learning to carry on their growth and development and they have to gain capability to share knowledge.This paper undertakes to contribute to this search by addressing some fundamental questions about the nature, domain, conceptual foundations, and practical challenges of knowledge management and organizational learning. A positive relationship has been found between continiously learning which are learner dimensions of organization, dialog and research, team learning, sharing systems, empowered workers, connection between the systems, sharing information of supportive leadership and openness of in-house cognitive canals through the correlation and multiple regression analysis done in the result of the research. Keywords: Knowledge Management, Knowledge Share, learning organization. 1.INTRODUCTION The term organizational learning may refer to individual learning within the organization, the entire organization learning as a collective body, oranywhere in between these extremes. However, most organizational learning refers to team ororganizational level learning. Of 404 �course, individual learning, or learning in small or large groupsor as an entire organization may be needed for the firm to possess the requisite knowledge totake effective action. From a knowledge management perspective, all levels of learning areimportant and all must be nurtured and made a natural part of culture. To date, most of the knowledge management emphasis has been put on locating, creating and sharing knowledge. For this reason, we consider or ganizational learning to refer to the capacity of the organization to acquire the knowledge necessary to survive and compete in its environment. (Bennet and Bennet, 2006: 1-3). Knowledge sharing in an organization is an important issue. Because knowledge is considered as being the source of organizational competitive and a kind of strategic capital in an information economy, the more the knowledge is expanded in an organization, the more the capacity of competition is (Yaghi Et Al, 2011:20). Knowledge sharing can be defined as transferring knowledge from one place or one person to another (Sharrat and Usoro, 2003:4-5). It is possible to define knowledge sharing basically as making knowledge useable for the individuals in an organization. In other words, knowledge sharing is a process of bartering knowledge with other individuals so that they can understand, claim and use it (Ipe, 2003:341); knowledge sharing is that employees share their knowledge, thoughts, suggestions and experience in their organization with others (Bartol and Srivastava, 2002:65). The first section of the paper considers conseptual analysis of knowledge sharing.In the second section, we will try to explain conceptual analysis of learning organization. In the third section, the results and the findings of the study will be evaluate, in the conclusion section, the importance of knowledge sharing in learning organizations will be evaluate by using the findings. 2.Conseptual analysis of knowledge sharing Knowledge sharing is a social mutual interactive culture and involves knowledge, skill and experience exchange of employees in an organization. For an organization, knowledge sharing is capturing knowledge based on experience, organizing it, making it reusable and transferring it; it depends on making knowledge available for others in an organization or a business. Many studies have shown that knowledge sharing is compulsory because it allows organizations to increase their innovation performance and to decrease unnecessary learning efforts (Lin, 2007:315-316). 405 �Knowledge is about knowledge exchange between two individuals. It can also be expressed as “willingness of individuals in an organization to share their knowledge with others” (Mc Neish and Mann, 2010:19-20). Sharing knowledge also allows administrators and employees keep what they know and to practice it (Yang, 2007:84). The aim of sharing knowledge is either to create new knowledge out of existing knowledge or to improve it (Christensen, 2007:37). Knowledge sharing is thought as a social behaviour and many physical, technological, psychological, cultural and personal factors have effective roles in not only supporting but also limiting knowledge sharing. Despite many advantages of knowledge sharing, researchers and implementers often argue that in many cases, in fact, individuals abstain from sharing their knowledge with others (Davenport, 2007); moreover, they say that act of sharing knowledge is unnatural and there are many reasons for people to abstain from sharing their knowledge with others. Some of what obstruct sharing knowledge between colleagues are the following factors: the relations between the source of knowledge and the receiver of the knowledge aren’t extensive, according to Smith and McKeen (2003) rewards and motivation aren’t enough for sharing, according to Ikhsan and Ronald (2004) time is insufficient, and knowledge sharing culture is lacking. Furthermore, inadequacy in understanding what to share with whom, limited appreciation of sharing knowledge and fear of acquiring false knowledge may also hinder knowledge sharing acts (Cited in Majid and Wey, 2009:22). 2.1. Conseptual analysis of learning organizations Organizational learning can be said to occur when there is a change in the content,conditionality, or degree of belief of the beliefs shared by individuals who jointly act on those beliefs within an organization knowledge can be articulated and codifiedto create organizational knowledge assets. Knowledge can be disseminated (using information technologies)in the formof documents, drawings, best practicemodels, etc.Learning processes can be designed toremedy knowledge deficienciesthrough structured, managed, scientific processes (Sanchez, 2005: 3). Organizational learning requires a sharing of language, meaning, objectives and standards that are significantly different from individual learning. When the organization learns, it generates a social synergy that creates knowledge, adding value to the firm’s knowledge workersand to its overall performance. When such a capability becomes embedded within theorganization’s culture, the organization may have what is called a core competency. These areusually unique to each organization and can rarely be replicated by other firms. The 406 �knowledge behind a core competency is built up over time through experiences and successes and rests morein the relationships and spirit among the knowledge workers that is the sum of each workers knowledge (Bennet and Bennet, 2006: 1-3). 3.Research Method and Sample The “Questionnaire of Learning Organizations’ Dimensions” which we referred to was devbeloped by Watkins and Marsick (1997). The reliability and the validity of the questionnare, learning continuum, dialog and research, learning as a team, sharing system, connections between systems, empowered employees, supporting leadership. The data were collected through a questionnaire based on literature. Surveys of Chow, Deng and Ho (2000) were utilized in evaluating the employees' knowledge sharing. There were 24 questions by Chow, Deng and Ho (2000) in the questionnaire: 5 about the perspectives of the employees about knowledge, 5 about the cases requiring knowledge sharing, 9 about the cases obstructing knowledge sharing and 5 about the elements of knowledge sharing that is the basic variable of intellectual capital. This research was conducted by questionnaire method to totally 124 people who work in different segments of Altintas District Governorship. 3.1. Demographical Characteristics of the Subjects Shows demographic features of the subjects: Age Distribution: 20-25 Yaş %14,5; 25-30 age %36,5 ;30-35 age %16,5; 35-40 age %14,5 ; 40-45 age %8,9 ; Over 45 %13,7 Marital Status Distribution Married 92 - % 74,2 ; Single 32 - %25,8 Distribution According To Position Officer 47 - %37,9 , Office Boy 2 - %1,6 ;Teacher 50 - %40,3;Policeman 2 - %1,6; Sağlıkçı 5 - % 4 ;Health Worker 18 - %14,5. Distribution Accoding To Departments Land Registry 5 %4; Education 67 - %54; Governorship 15 - %14,1 ; Health 1 - %13,7; Forestry 13 %10,5; Treasury 7 - %5,6. Working Time Distribution 1-5 Years 77 %62,1 ; 5-10 Years 25 %20,2 ; 10-15 Years 10 %8,1 ; 15-20 Years 1 %8 ; Over 20 Years 11 %8,9 Distribution Of Education Level High School 24 - %19,4 ; University 99 - %79,8 ; Masters Degree 1 %0,8 4.Research Hyphothesis The hypothesis can be said like this; H1:There is a statistically significant correlation between the participants’ (officers’) viewpoints about sub-dimension of learning organization; knowledge management, dialog 407 �and research, learning as a team, sharing systems,empowered employees, connections between systems and supporter leadership. H2:There is a statistically significant correlation between the participants’ (officers’) viewpoints about openness of the internal channel and learning organizations, dialog and research, learning as a team, sharing systems, empowered employees, connections between systems and supporter leadership. 4.1.Findings and analysis 4.1.1. Reliability of the Questionnaire In order to testthe reliability of questionnaire after analyzing the findings the Likert type data of the questionnaire, Cronbach’s Alpha value was found as 0,95. Some 28 questions which take part in the questionnaire were analysed to test reliability and Cronbach’s Alpha value of Likert type questionnaire findings was found as 0,80. 1. Analysis of correlations between sub-dimensions of sharing information and learning organizations SITUATIONS Pearson Correlatio n DIALOG TEAM SHARING ,536** ,424** ,387** ,000 ,000 ,459** ,000 EMPOWERING SYSTEM SUPPORT ,388** ,405** ,360** 000 000 000 000 ,442** ,374** ,407** ,428** ,349** ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 REQUIRING THE SHARING INFO OPENNESS of IN-HOUSE COGNITIVE CANALS Sig. (2tailed) Pearson Correlatio n Sig. (2tailed **İlişki 0,01 düzeyinde anlamlıdır (çift yönlü) Relationship is significant at the 0,01 level. (two ways) 408 �In the result of correlation analysis, at the 0,01 significance level situations requaring the sharing info and relationship in a positive way have been observed between dialog and research team learning, sharing systems, empowered workers, connection between the systems, sharing information of supportive leadership and openness of in-house cognitive canals which are dimensions of sharing information. 2. Multiple regression analysis between learner dimensions of organization and sharing information 2 R = 30,1 ADJUSTED 2 R =25,9 F=7,150 INDEPENDENT VARIABLES P VALUE =,000  P VALUE t VALUE PARAMETER -,038 -,377 ,707 DIALOG ,458 3,523 ,001 TEAM ,044 ,333 ,739 -,030 -,244 ,808 EMPOWERING ,018 ,144 ,886 SYSTEM ,087 ,589 ,557 SUPPORT ,049 ,400 ,690 CONTINUOUSNESS SHARING . Continiously learning which are learner dimensions of organization, dialog and research, team learning, sharing systems, empowered workers, connection between the systems and sharing information of supportive leadership explains 25,9 % part of total variance of sharing info perceptions. 3. Multiple regression analysis between learner dimensions of organization and openness of inhouse cognitive canals 2 R = 27,1 ADJUSTED INDEPENDENT VARIABLES 2 R =22,1 F=6,167  P VALUE =,000 t VALUE P VALUE PARAMETER -,127 -1,233 ,220 TEAM ,284 2,140 ,034 SHARING ,211 1,564 ,120 -,043 -,342 ,733 SYSTEM ,049 ,386 ,700 SUPPORT ,176 1,165 ,246 DIALOG EMPOWERING 409 �Dialog and research which are learner dimensions of organization, team learning, sharing systems, empowered workers, connection between the systems and sharing information of supportive leadership explains 22,1 % part of total variance of openness of in-house cognitive canals of perceptions. 5. CONCLUSION Named as a knowledge era and since 1990 and onwards which are the beginning of the new era it has been observed that many academic studies on knowledge management and knowledge sharing and also it is thought that this interest will become more dense in the following years. At the end of the study, a positive relationship has been found in the correlation analysis and regression analysis between learner organization and sharing information. Knowledge management has been influential both reaching the individual aims and organizational aims and targets by catalyzing.Today, knowledge society has become an economical system with new occupational structures, new production relationships and social structures in which knowledge is produced densely. In the knowledge society, the main motivation factor which leads the individuals and entrepreneurs to produce knowledge is to desire self realization. The race to success, as a success competition, it makes feel not only in local level but also in global level. Knowledge management- in learner organizations- is to provide a common language which will reflect the organization’s own identity for reaching the aims of organizations, adopting sharing vision which is desired to be composed, and abolishing the resistance against wanting to apply to administrative approaches. (Karahan and Yılmaz,2010). REFERENCES Bennet A. and Bennet D. (2003) The partnership between organizational learning and knowledge management. In Handbook on Knowledge Management (HOSAPPLE CW, Ed), Vol. 1, pp 439–455, Springer, New York. Ipe M. (2003). ‘Knowledge Sharing On Organizations: A Conceptual Framework’, Human Resource Development Review. Thousand Oaks: Dec. Vol:2, Iss.4. Bartol M. K. And Srıvastava A. (2002) “Motivation and Barriers to Participation in Virtual Knowledge-Sharing Comminities of Practice”, Journal of Leadership and Organization Studies, Vol.9, No.1, pp.64-75. 410 �Chow C.W. Deng F. J. Ho J.L. (2000) “The Openness of Knowledge Sharing Within Organizations: A Comparative Study in The United States And The People's Republic Of China”, Journal of Management Accounting Research; Vol.12, pp.65-95. Chrıstensen H. P. (2007) “Knowledge Sharing: moving away from the obsession with best practices”, Journal of Management, Vol.11, No.1. pp.36-47. Karahan A.and Yılmaz H. (2010) “Learning Organizations and Knowledge Management” Osmangazi University Instıtute of Social Sciences Review, Nisan 2010, 5(1), s.147-174 Lin H.F. (2007) Knowledge Sharing and Firm Innovation Capability: An Emprical Study, International Journal of Manpower, Vol.28, No:3/4, pp. 315-332. Majid S. and Wey S. M. (2009) Perceptions And Knowledge Sharing Practices Of Graduate Students In Singapore, International Journal of Knowledge Management, 5(2),pp. 21-32. Mc Neısh J. and Inder J. S. M. (2010) “Knowledge Sharing and Trust in Organizations”, The 20 IUP Journal of Knowledge Management, Vol. VIII, Nos. 1 & 2, pp.18-38. Sanchez R. (2005) “ Knowledge Management and Organizational Learning: Fundamental Concepts for Theory and Practice” Lund Institute of Economic Research Working Paper Series Sharrat M. and Usoro A. (2003), ‘Understanding Knowledge-Sharing in Online Communities of Practice’, Journal of Knowledge Management, Vol: 1, Issue: 2, Dec., pp. 4-5. Yaghi B. And Alfawaer S. N. (2011) Knowledge-sharing degree among the undergraduate students: A case study at applied science private university - Middle East University for graduate studies, Amman (JORDAN) Yang J.T. (2007) The Impact of Knowledge Sharing on Organizational learning and Effectiveness, Journal of Knowledge Management, Vol.11, No:2, pp.83-90. 411 �Watkıns K. And Marsick V. (1997) Dimensions of The Learning Organization Questionnaire [survey] (Warwick, RI: Partners for the Learning Organization) Civil Law Notaries in Bosnia and Herzegovina: Actors in Preventive Justice Bakšić Šukrija1, Oruč Esad2 1University of Zenica, Faculty of Law, Zenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 2International Burch University, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina E –mails: sukrijabaksic@gmail.com,eoruc@ibu.edu.ba Abstract Civil law notaries are professional lawyers and public officials appointed by the State to confer authenticity on legal deeds and contracts contained in documents drafted by them and to advise persons who call upon their services. Institution of the notary was introduced for the first time in the legal system of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2007. Introduction of the office of notary was one of the steps taken to ensure independent and impartial judiciary and to adapt legal system with European Union law. Before its introducing there was no institution or legal profession which acted impartially on behalf of all parties to a contract or transaction. Notarial services are very wide and complex. It encompasses all judicial activities in noncontentious matters, ensure legal certainty to clients, thus averting disputes and litigation. As a guarantor of legal certainty, notary is one of the most important actors of preventive justice which include all means of reducing resort to the courts for the settlement of controversies. In this study we analyzed contribution of notary office to preventive justice in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Keywords: civil law notary, preventive justice, legal certainty, realising justice, avoiding disputes 412 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Extent The size or duration of the resource. 1196 Title A name given to the resource An Empirical On Knowledge Sharing In Learning Organizations In Kutahya, Turkey Author Author Kemal, Demirci Abstract A summary of the resource. Comunities today and in the future have to process, evaluate and internalize the information more than past. Comunities and enterprises, which don't understand the environment, and are unconscious about changes, and which don't read the world, are obliged to deteriorate, even to die. Fiber speed and continious changes of present world, makes compulsory to learn continiously and to educe information. Enterprises have to be open to continiously learning to carry on their growth and development and they have to gain capability to share knowledge.This paper undertakes to contribute to this search by addressing some fundamental questions about the nature, domain, conceptual foundations, and practical challenges of knowledge management and organizational learning. A positive relationship has been found between continiously learning which are learner dimensions of organization, dialog and research, team learning, sharing systems, empowered workers, connection between the systems, sharing information of supportive leadership and openness of in-house cognitive canals through the correlation and multiple regression analysis done in the result of the research. Keywords: Knowledge Management, Knowledge Share, learning organization. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012-05-31 Keywords Keywords. Conference or Workshop Item PeerReviewed H Social Sciences (General),T Technology (General) https://omeka.ibu.edu.ba/files/original/8f6acb07f42253e9d92cdf547d2e78d4.pdf 20319426275d286f511ae95d59bac5ff PDF Text Text 3rd International Symposium on Sustainable Development, May 31 - June 01 2012, Sarajevo Burdur’un Sesi Newspaper, 27 February 1960, S.1459, p.1 ANOTHER REFERENCE 1.Keleş, R.(1992), Yerinden Yönetim ve Siyaset, İstanbul: Cem Yayınları, 2.Koçak, C(2007), “Siyasi Tarih 1923-1950”, Türkiye Tarihi 4, Çağdaş Türkiye 19081980,Yayın Yönetmeni Sina Akşin, İstanbul: Cem Yayınları. 3.http://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/1957_T%C3%BCrkiye_genel_se%C3%A7im leri 4.http://www.msxlabs.org/forum/soru-cevap/319505-yetki-merkezi-yonetim-yerel-yonetimnedir.html#ixzz1pf2hRDvL. . An Empirical Research On Relation Between Learning Organization And Visionary Leadership In Kutahya, Turkey Kemal Demirci1, Nuray Mercan1, Yaşar Aksanyar1, Bayram Alamur2, Ayşenur Altinay3 1Dumlupinar University Institute of Social Sciences, Kutahya, Turkey 2Balikesir University Havran Vocational School Of Higher Education, 3Usak University Vocational School Of Higher Education, Kutahya, Turkey E-mails: mkdemirci26@hotmail.com, snmmercan@yahoo.com, ayyasari@gmail.com, alamur_bayram@hotmail.com, aysenuraltinay@hotmail.com Abstract EINSTEIN, has seen the future dream and information power, then performed his genius by dreaming. To dream the aimed future and to focus on, to endeavour on targets, to build a ''vision'' are the powers which a leader has to have. Visionary leadership is persuading the communities and formuizing the targets. Enterprises today, can not brand , grown and carry on without having a vision. In the organizations which aim continious development and continious learning, it will be easier to carry the enterprise to the future and to show visionary leadership qualifications if they achieve to become open to changes and should be in interaction with the others and if they should be a living organization. At the end of the study, by making a multiple regression analysis, a positive relationship has been found between learning organisation dimensions; (continious learning, dialog and research, learning as a team, sharing systems, empowered employees,connection between systems and supporting 192 �3rd International Symposium on Sustainable Development, May 31 - June 01 2012, Sarajevo leadership) and visionary leadership dimensions(planning, visionary organizational leadership, visionary creative leadership) Keywords: Learning organizations, Vision, Visionary Leadership, Living Organism, Future. 1.INTRODUCTION Peter Senge argues that learning organizations require a new view of leadership. He sees the traditional view of leaders (as special people who set the direction, make key decisions and energize the troops as deriving from a deeply individualistic and non-systemic worldview (1990: 340). At its centre the traditional view of leadership, ‘is based on assumptions of people’s powerlessness, their lack of personal vision and inability to master the forces of change, deficits which can be remedied only by a few great leaders’ (op. cit.). Against this traditional view he sets a ‘new’ view of leadership that centres on ‘subtler and more important tasks’. In a learning organization, leaders are designers, stewards and teachers. They are responsible for building organizations were people continually expand their capabilities to understand complexity, clarify vision, and improve shared mental models – that is they are responsible for learning…. Learning organizations will remain a ‘good idea’… until people take a stand for building such organizations. Taking this stand is the first leadership act, the start of inspiring (literally ‘to breathe life into’) the vision of the learning organization. “Leader as teacher” is not about “teaching” people how to achieve their vision. It is about fostering learning, for everyone. Such leaders help people throughout the organization develop systemic understandings. Accepting this responsibility is the antidote to one of the most common downfalls of otherwise gifted teachers – losing their commitment to the truth. Learning organizations demand a new view of leadership, leader as designer (Senge 1990: 356). Culture begins with leadership, but because culture is the result of a group’s accumulated learning the culture itself will later define the wanted leadership (Schein,2004). To be a LO has no value in itself, it must always serve the broader aims of the organization (Jensen,2005). A Learning Organization has a design and a culture which takes into account the needs of the individuals in the organization (Kline and Saunders,1993) and in a LO members know why. In other organizations they know how (Jensen,2005). 2. Conceptual Analysis Of Learning Organizations According to Peter Senge (1990: 3) learning organizations are: …organizations where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning to see the whole together. Organizations learn. Just like individual people, organizations sense circumstances within their environment and they respond. They observe the results of their responses and 193 �3rd International Symposium on Sustainable Development, May 31 - June 01 2012, Sarajevo remember the results, along with information gathered from other sources, for reference in designing future responses. This process of sensing, responding, and observing/remembering goes largely unnoticed by the individuals working within the organization due to the complexity of the "anatomy" of organizations. But consciously or not, effectively or not, all organizations are doing these activities over and over. In studying the concept of learning organizations we seek the tools and methodologies that will help an organization learn consciously and proactively in pursuit of its goals. In a learning organization, our purpose for dialogue is to let the meaning of our words permeate through the group, or, to develop fully shared, even synergistic understanding of important information, experiences, goals, etc. among all the people involved (Agarval, 1999). 3. Conceptual Analysis Of Visionary Leadership Visionary leadership refers to the capacity to create and communicate a view of a desired state of affairs that clarifies the current situation and induces commitment to an even better future. A visionary leader as one who “established goals and objectives for individual and group action, which define not what we are but rather what we seek to be or do” (Colton:1985). The visionary leader inspires, challenges, guides, and empowers. This articulated link between dreams and action, between vision and leadership, is well documented in the literature. Bennis and Nanus (1985) claimed that a compelling vision is key to effective leadership in excellent organizations. The visionary leader is not a mystical person somehow connected to intelligences or powers beyond what others know. The visionary leader is one who can clearly articulate what is and what ought to be. But the person who can only articulate a set of descriptors of what ought to be is like the person who accurately predicts rain but cannot envision the need to build an ark. The visionary leader in action has the necessary skills and knowledge to build a new reality (Brown, Anfara, 2003). 4.Method And Sampling The data were collected through a questionnaire based on literature. It was conducted totally 124 officers who work in different departments of Altıntaş District Governership. Learning Organisation Dimensions' Questionnaire was developed by AnketiWatkins ve Marsick (1997) and the reliability of the questionnaire was tested. Seven dimensions of the Learning Organisation Dimensions Questionnaire are continious learning, dialog and research, learning as a team, sharing systems, empowered employees,connection between systems and supporting leadership. (Basım ve Şeşen, 2007; Basım vd., 2007). In Visionary Leadership Questionnaire, the phd thesis of Garry Forrest (2001), named “Investigation of the Relationship Among Leaders’ Responses on Four Leadership Inventories” was used by adapting into Turkish. (Öztürk, 2009). Dimensions, planning, motive of succeeding, 194 �3rd International Symposium on Sustainable Development, May 31 - June 01 2012, Sarajevo leadership of organizational, risk management, utilizing the opportunities, creative leadership and motivation. 4.1. Hypotheses Of The Research 4.1.1.The hypotheses of the research are as the following; H1: There is a statistically significant relationship between the participants’ (officers) viewpoints about ''planning in visionary leadership'' and some learning organisation's dimensions; ''dialog and research'', ''learning as a team'', ''sharing systems'', ''empowered employees'','' connections between systems'' and ''supporting leadership'' . H2: There is a statistically significant relationship between the participants’ (officers) viewpoints about visionary organizational leadership'' and some learning organization’s dimensions; ''dialog and research'', ''learning as a team'', ''sharing systems'', ''empowered employees'','' connections between systems'' and ''supporting leadership'' H3: There is a statistically significant relationship between the participants’ (officers) viewpoints about visionary creative leadership'' and some learning organisation's dimensions; ''dialog and research'', ''learning as a team'', ''sharing systems'', ''empowered employees'','' connections between systems'' and ''supporting leadership'' 5. Sampling & Data Collection Tools The sampling was composed of 124 officers(sivil servants) employed at different departments of Altıntaş District Governership. 5.1. Reliability of the Questionnaire In order to test reliability of the questionnaire, a pre-study was conducted. As a result of the analysis conducted to test consistency and reliability of 43 questions about Learning oarganisation, (N of items= 43), the Likert type questionnaire data was found to have Cronbach Alpha value of 0,95, which is very close to 1.00. This showed that the questions about Learning Organisation were reliable and could be used in the research. As a result of the analysis conducted to test consistency and reliability of 28 questions about Visionary Leadership (N of items= 28), the Likert type questionnaire data was found to have Cronbach 195 �3rd International Symposium on Sustainable Development, May 31 - June 01 2012, Sarajevo Alpha value of 0,80, which is very close to 1.00. This showed that the questions about Visionary Leadership were reliable and could be used in the research. 5.2. Demographical Characteristics of the Subjects Shows demographic features of the subjects: Age Distribution: 20-25 Yaş %14,5; 25-30 age %36,5 ;30-35 age %16,5; 35-40 age %14,5 ; 40-45 age %8,9 ; Over 45 %13,7 Marital Status Distribution Married 92 - % 74,2 ; Single 32 - %25,8 Distribution According To Position Officer 47 - %37,9 , Office Boy 2 - %1,6 ;Teacher 50 - %40,3;Policeman 2 - %1,6; Sağlıkçı 5 - % 4 ;Health Worker 18 - %14,5. Distribution Accoding To Departments Land Registry 5 %4; Education 67 - %54; Governorship 15 - %14,1 ; Health 1 - %13,7; Forestry 13 %10,5; Treasury 7 - %5,6. Working Time Distribution 1-5 Years 77 %62,1 ; 5-10 Years 25 %20,2 ; 10-15 Years 10 %8,1 ; 15-20 Years 1 %8 ; Over 20 Years 11 %8,9 Distribution Of Education Level High School 24 - %19,4 ; University 99 - %79,8 ; Masters Degree 1 %0,8 1. Multiple Regression Analysis between ''Planning In Visionary Leadership'' and ''Learning Organisation's Dimensions'' 2 R = 41 2 Adjusted R =38 F=13,558 P Value=,000 INDEPENDENT VARIABLES  Parameter t Value P Value DIALOG AND RESEARCH ,026 ,234 ,815 LEARNING AS A TEAM 1,128 1,104 ,272 SHARING SYSTEMS ,-200 -1,770 1,079 EMPOWERED EMPLOYEES ,-087 ,759 1,450 CONNECTIONS BETWEEN SYSTEMS ,500 3,713 ,000 SUPPORTING LEADERSHIP ,274 2,446 ,016 The sub-dimensions of Learning Organisation; dialog and research, learning as a team, sharing systems, empowered employees, connection between systems and supporting leadership , can explain %38 of the total variance of the viewpoints about ''Planning in Visionary Leadership''. 2. Multiple Regression Analysis between Visionary Organisational Leadership'' and ''Learning Organisation's Dimensions'' 2 R = 79,3 Adjusted F=33,037 P Value =,000  Parameter t DIALOG AND RESEARCH ,-033 ,-371 ,711 LEARNING AS A TEAM ,072 ,778 ,438 SHARING SYSTEMS ,014 ,154 ,878 INDEPENDENT VARIABLES 196 2 R =61 t Value P Value �3rd International Symposium on Sustainable Development, May 31 - June 01 2012, Sarajevo EMPOWERED EMPLOYEES ,058 ,637 ,526 CONNECTIONS BETWEEN SYSTEMS ,373 3,496 ,001 SUPPORTING LEADERSHIP ,388 4,359 ,000 The sub-dimensions of Learning Organisation; dialog and research, learning as a team, sharing systems, empowered employees, connection between systems and supporting leadership , can explain %61 of the total variance of the viewpoints about '' Visionary Organisational Leadership'' 3. Multiple Regression Analysis between ''Visionary Creative Leadership'' and ''Learning Organisation's Dimensions'' 2 R = 48,6 2 Adjusted R =46 F=18,459 P Value=,000  Parameter t Value P Value DIALOG AND RESEARCH ,-010 ,-093 ,926 LEARNING AS A TEAM ,-117 1,079 ,283 SHARING SYSTEMS ,010 ,099 ,922 EMPOWERED EMPLOYEES ,019 ,177 ,860 CONNECTIONS BETWEEN SYSTEMS ,207 1,645 ,103 SUPPORTING LEADERSHIP ,433 4,135 ,000 INDEPENDENT VARIABLES The sub-dimensions of Learning Organisation; dialog and research, learning as a team, sharing systems, empowered employees, connection between systems and supporting leadership , can explain 46 % of the total variance of the viewpoints about '' Visionary Creative Leadership'' 6.CONCLUSION After making a multiple regression analysis, there is a statisticallay significant relationship between visionary leadership and learning organisation's dimensions. In the future, the most successful people and the institutions will be the one, which learn easily and fast learn. Today, they have knowledge and experience, but it wll not be enough in the future. Information and technology are developing and the only way to gain speed is to identify the learning needs and then, try to achieve effective learning. (Braham, 1998: 13-14). Developing learning structure and capacity, and to keep up with fast imrovements and innovations will be the main qualifications of the successful organisations. An executive, who has visionary and innovative approach must have a qualification in reading different developments and cases different from the others. In learning organisations which have this 197 �3rd International Symposium on Sustainable Development, May 31 - June 01 2012, Sarajevo qualifications, it will be easier to show vision development and visionary leadership qualifications. REFERENCES Agarwal A. (1999) “Learning Organization” www.hrfolks.com Bennis, W. And Nanus, B. (1985). Leaders: The strategies for taking charge. New York: Harper & Row. Braham, Barbara J. (1998), A Learning Organizations Creative, Rota Press, İstanbul. Brown K. M. and Anfara V. A. (2003) “Paving the Way for Change: Visionary Leadership in Action at the Middle Level” Jr. NASSP Bulletin ,Vol. 87 No. 635 June ,p. 16-34. Colton, D. L. (1985) “Vision” National Forum, 65(2), 33–35. Davenport T.H. and Prusak L. (1998) Working Knowledge. Harvard Business School Press Boston. Jensen P.E.(2005) “A Contextual Theory of Learning and the Learning Organization” Knowledge and Process Management”, Vol.12, No.1, 53-64. Kline P. And Saunders B. (1993) Ten steps to a learning organization. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data 1993, ISBN: 0-915556-24-3. Oztürk E. (2009) “Visionary Leadership Characteristics Of School Administrators” Academic dissertation, Çanakkale. Senge P.M. (1990) The Fifth Discipline The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization. Currence Doubleday, 1990, ISBN: 0-385-26095-4 Schein E.H. (2004) Organizational culture and Leadership. (3rd edition) John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2004, ISBN: 0-7879-6845-5. Schultz, J. R. (1999) “Peter Senge: Master of Change” Executive Update Online, http://www.gwsae.org/ExecutiveUpdate/1999/June_July/CoverStory2.htm 198 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Extent The size or duration of the resource. 1112 Title A name given to the resource An Empirical Research On Relation Between Learning Organization And Visionary Leadership In Kutahya, Turkey Author Author Kemal, Demirci Abstract A summary of the resource. EINSTEIN, has seen the future dream and information power, then performed his genius by dreaming. To dream the aimed future and to focus on, to endeavour on targets, to build a ''vision'' are the powers which a leader has to have. Visionary leadership is persuading the communities and formuizing the targets. Enterprises today, can not brand , grown and carry on without having a vision. In the organizations which aim continious development and continious learning, it will be easier to carry the enterprise to the future and to show visionary leadership qualifications if they achieve to become open to changes and should be in interaction with the others and if they should be a living organization. At the end of the study, by making a multiple regression analysis, a positive relationship has been found between learning organisation dimensions; (continious learning, dialog and research, learning as a team, sharing systems, empowered employees,connection between systems and supporting leadership) and visionary leadership dimensions(planning, visionary organizational leadership, visionary creative leadership) Keywords: Learning organizations, Vision, Visionary Leadership, Living Organism, Future. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012-05-31 Keywords Keywords. Conference or Workshop Item PeerReviewed H Social Sciences (General) https://omeka.ibu.edu.ba/files/original/f6e505e5beb4a13ac3442096d097a249.pdf fe82d2f44db186a7877ebf9daf4e4156 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Extent The size or duration of the resource. 3650 Title A name given to the resource An Empirical Study of the Relationship between Financial Literacy and Tolerance towards Financial Risk among Entrepreneurs in Bosnia and Herzegovina (doi: 10.14706/icesos1713) Author Author OKIČIĆ, Jasmina Selimovic, Damir Abstract A summary of the resource. Abstract: The purpose of this study is to explain difference in tolerance towards financial risk among entrepreneurs with different levels of financial literacy. Financial risk tolerance is the maximum amount of uncertainty an entrepreneur is willing to accept when making a financial decision. On the other hand, and according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), financial literacy can be defined as a combination of awareness, knowledge, skill, attitude and behaviour necessary to make sound financial decisions and ultimately achieve individual financial wellbeing. Therefore, the aim of the study is to explain relationship between measured level of entrepreneurs’ financial literacy and their assessed tolerance towards financial risk. This is a quantitative study, where we use a questionnaire to asses tolerance towards financial risk and to measure the level of financial literacy. Also, we use non-probability sampling methods where participants are recruited by e-mail. To gain better understanding of relationship between entrepreneurs’ financial literacy and their assessed tolerance towards financial risk we use descriptive statistics, chi-square, correlation analysis and multiple regression analysis. The results of this study are expected to shed more light on understanding of relationship between entrepreneurs’ overall financial literacy and their tolerance towards financial risk. Implications of this study suggest that entrepreneurs’ tolerance towards financial risk may be driven more by their financial attitude and behaviour rather than their financial knowledge. Key words: measurement of financial literacy, measuring tolerance towards financial risk, entrepreneurs Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017 Keywords Keywords. Conference or Workshop Item PeerReviewed H Social Sciences (General) https://omeka.ibu.edu.ba/files/original/b3f29632c2e2cc3be76a638633a891e7.pdf e0f8eabdf2f3b49019d1b3e5b9f2dee1 PDF Text Text Journal of Economic and Social Studies An Empirical Study on Organizational Infusion of Green Practices in Chinese Logistics Companies Yi-Hui Ho Department of International Business Chang Jung Christian University Tainan, Taiwan vicky@mail.cjcu.edu.tw Chieh-Yu Lin Department of International Business Chang Jung Christian University Tainan, Taiwan jylin@mail.cjcu.edu.tw Jung-Shun Tsai Yuh-Ing Junior College of Health Care & Management Kaohsiung, Taiwan jstsai@ms.yuhing.edu.tw Abstract: As environmental considerations have become a fundamental part of business strategies, there is a challenge for managers and academicians to explore the integration of environmental concepts and business operations. Although a number of studies on green practice adoption can be found in the literature, few of them analyzed the infusion of green practices in organizations. Furthermore, most prior research of green management focused on manufacturing sectors; scarce attention was paid on research in service sectors. This paper focuses on the green practice infusion in logistics companies because many logistics operations often lead to several environmental impacts. The main purpose of this paper is to explore the factors that affect organizational infusion of green practices in Chinese logistics companies. Drawing on the innovation diffusion theory, this paper groups the determinant factors into technological, organizational and environmental dimensions. We explored the influences of determinant factors on green practice infusion by conducting a questionnaire survey on logistics companies in China. The regression analysis is used to test proposed research hypotheses in the study Research findings reveal that complexity, compatibility and relative advantage of green practices, quality of human resources, organizational support, governmental support and regulatory pressure exhibit significantly influences on green practice infusion for the logistics companies in China. The influences of adoption cost, company size, environmental uncertainty and customer pressure on logistics companies’ green behavior are not significant. This paper can extend the scope of research on green management in service industries and green practice infusion. Keywords: Green practice infusion, Logistics companies, Determinant factors, China JEL Classification: M140 Article History Submitted: 26 January 2014 Resubmitted: 22 March 2014 Accepted: 27 March 2014 http://dx.doi.org/10.147 06/JECOSS11427 159 �Yi-Hui Ho, Chieh-Yu Lin, Jung-Shun Tsai Introduction To pursue sustainable development, many companies are attentive to enhancing their competitiveness through improvements in the environmental performance and mitigating the environmental impact of their production and service activities. As implementing green practices can be regarded as an important means of solving firms’ environmental problems, it is particularly important to learn more about the factors influencing green practice implementation. Green management also becomes critical concerns of business research. Many researchers have surveyed firms’ implementation of environmental management practices, and proposed various explanations as to what factors influence firms’ adoption of green practices. However, scarce attention has been paid on analyzing the infusion behaviors associated with green practices. Companies may be able to achieve considerable environmental performance by successfully implementation green practices into their work systems. Green practice implementation is a multiphase process consisting of adoption and infusion phases (Winn and Angell, 2000). Infusion refers to the extent to which an innovation's features are in widespread usage in a complete and sophisticated way (Fichmen 2001; Yan and Fiorito, 2007). Green practice infusion is the incorporation of green practices into work structures. Successful implementation of green practices requires significant involvement in developing operational responses to environmental issues. It is important to understand the infusion of green practices within organizations. Some researchers have analyzed the infusion of green practices within organizations, concerning with the extent to which these practices have been implemented (Fussel and Georg, 2000; Stead et al., 1998; Winn and Angell, 2000). However, these studies focused on exploring the infusion process of green practices within an organization. Much remains to be learned empirically about the factors influencing organizational infusion of green practices. To fill the research gap, this paper studies the infusion of green practices in Chinese logistics service providers. This study focuses on the logistics industry because many logistics operations often lead to several negative environmental impacts. Although there is a burgeoning body of literature concerning with environmental issues in a variety of business disciplines such as manufacturing and marketing, the corresponding literature involving logistics has been still small but expanding (Gunasekaran and Cheng, 2008; Murphy and Poist, 2000). Furthermore, while China continues to develop into a global manufacturing base and a huge consumer 160 Journal of Economic and Social Studies �An Empirical Study on Organizational Infusion of Green Practices in Chinese Logistics Companies market, it suffers from various serious environmental problems such as air pollution, energy waste, and water pollution. Several researchers have investigated the implementation of environmental management in Chinese manufacturing companies. Scant attention has been paid to the environmental issues in Chinese service sectors. The main purpose of this paper is to study the factors that affect organizational infusion of green practices in Chinese logistics service providers. An understanding of the determinant factors of green practice infusion is essential for researchers to best understand the issues that need to be addressed as well as for practitioners to best implement green practices. Due to the lack of research on determinants of organizational infusion of green practices, this paper can broaden the scope of research on environmental management by providing some explanations as to what factors influencing green practice infusion. Furthermore, as the implementation of green practices not only relates to the logistics industry, but also needs the attention of the government, manufacturers and consumers, verifying possible factors influencing the organizational infusion of green practices can give the government some valuable suggestions in designing environmental policies for the logistics industry, and help manufacturers, consumers, and logistics service providers themselves appreciate the drivers and barriers to implementing green management practices. Literature Review Organizational infusion of green practices To achieve environmental performance, many companies attempt to implement several green practices. Applying environmental criteria into corporate operations requires exploring new resource combinations and deploying existing resources in new ways (Hart, 1995). Green practice implementation involves using new or modified processes and techniques to reduce environmental harms. As innovation is the use of new technical and administrative knowledge (Kimberly and Evanisko, 1981; Damanpour, 1991), the implementation of green practices can be regarded as an innovation process. Several researchers (e.g., Hansen et al., 2002; Henriques and Sadorsky, 2007; Lin and Ho, 2011; Rothenberg and Zyglidopoulos, 2007; Ziegler, and Seijas Nogareda, 2009) have analyzed environmental issues from the perspective of innovation. 161 �Yi-Hui Ho, Chieh-Yu Lin, Jung-Shun Tsai From the innovation diffusion perspective, implementing innovations is a multiphase process and has been divided into a variety of phases (Damanpour and Schneider, 2006; Rogers, 2003). Innovation diffusion is a stage-based process of spreading a new technology within a universe of potential adopters. The adoption of an innovation does not guarantee that there is a widespread usage of the innovation within the organization to fulfill the full potentials of the innovation. A new technology may be introduced with a great enthusiasm and widespread initial acquisition; nevertheless it may fail to be thoroughly deployed among many firms (Fichman and Kemerer 1999). Cooper and Zmud (1990) suggest a six-stage model of innovation diffusion, consisting of (1) initiation: scanning organizational problems, collecting and evaluating the information for innovation solutions, and finding the “right” innovation application for the organization, (2) adoption: getting organizational support and resource commitment for innovation implementation by negotiation, (3) adaptation: installing the innovation application, adjusting both the innovation and organizational procedures to achieve a good fit, and preparing employees to use the innovation, (4) acceptance: encouraging employees to commit to using the innovation application in their work, (5) routinization: using the innovation application to become a part of the working procedures and employees’ habit, and (6) infusion: using the innovation application in a more integrated manner to obtain its full potential in supporting the organization’s work. Rogers (2003) summarizes that the adoption process of innovations can be grouped into three more general phases of pre-adoption, adoption decision, and post-adoption. Zhu, Kraemer and Xu (2006) simplified above six stages into three stages of initiation, adoption, and infusion. Damanpour and Schneider (2006) suggest a three-stage model of diffusion process consisting of initiation, adoption decision, and infusion. Like the implementation of other kinds of innovation, green practice implementation is also a process consisting of multiple stages, i.e. initiation activities, the managerial decision to adopt the green practices, and infusion activities. Companies may be able to achieve considerable environmental performance by successfully diffusing green practices into their work systems in all diffusion stages (Fussel and Georg, 2000). Winn and Angell (2000) address that corporate greening starts with top management awareness of the need for corporate responses to environmental issues, leads to policy commitment, and ideally, ends with implementation at the operational level. The infusion stage is the conclusion of technology implementation and is a post-adoption behavior. It means that 162 Journal of Economic and Social Studies �An Empirical Study on Organizational Infusion of Green Practices in Chinese Logistics Companies technology has been embedded and routinized in organization (Chang and Lung, 2002). Green practice infusion is the incorporation of green practices into work structures. Infusion refers to the extent to which an innovation's features are in widespread usage in a complete and sophisticated way (Fichmen 2001; Yan and Fiorito, 2007). The extent to which innovation infusion is reached is positively related to the performance of the work that the innovation supports (Yu et al., 2009; Taylor and McAdam, 2004). Successful implementation of green practices requires significant involvement in developing operational responses to environmental issues (Stead et al., 1998). It is important and necessary to understand the infusion of green practices within organizations. Prior literature has focused more on the issues of green management adoption decision For example, Del Brio and Junquera (2003) summarized some factors influencing green innovation in small and medium-sized enterprises, including financial resources, management style, human resources, manufacturing activity, technological approach, innovative capacity, and external cooperation. Rothenberg and Zyglidopoulos (2007), in a study of the printing industry, found that the adoption of green innovations was positively associated with the dynamism of the company’s task environment. Henriques and Sadorsky (2007) found that total quality management and external stakeholder pressure would increase the likelihood that Canadian manufacturing companies implement cleaner technical innovations. Liu et al. (2010) argue that Chinese firms’ adoption of green practices is influenced by the coercive pressure from the organizations holding mandatory power, normative pressure from the industrial association and the public, and mimetic pressure from the competitors. Stakeholder pressure, environmental regulation, company size, managers’ characteristics, human resources and industry sector are relevant variables frequently appeared in studies on green practice adoption decision (Etzion, 2007; Gonzalez-Benito and Gonzalez-Benito, 2006). Little attention has been paid on analyzing the infusion behavior associated with green practices. Some researchers have analyzed the infusion of green practices within organizations, concerning with the extent to which these practices have diffused (Fussel and Georg, 2000; Stead et al., 1998; Winn and Angell, 2000). However, these studies focused on exploring the infusion process of green practices within an organization. Fussel and Georg (2000) explore how an environmental management tool becomes embedded in a Danish public university hospital, 163 �Yi-Hui Ho, Chieh-Yu Lin, Jung-Shun Tsai including how a green idea travels from one setting to another and becomes an object, how the green idea is translated and mobilized into action by the hospital managers and made to perform in different contexts, and how hospital managers develop a new sense of identity. Stead et al. (1998) suggest that infusion (institutionalization) is a pivotal organizational process which determines whether a firm's environmental performance results in improved operating efficiency and market opportunities or in increased legal and regulatory hassles. In a study of the implementation of the 1991 German Packaging Ordinance, Winn and Angell (2000) propose an internal process model of corporate greening that integrates policy commitment and implementation dimensions. Corporate greening process starts with awareness of the need for corporate responses to environmental issues, leads to policy commitment and, ideally, ends with infusion (implementation) at the operational level. Although Christmann and Taylor (2006) and Darnall (2006) have analyzed the factors influencing a firm’s decision to totally or partially mandate its operational units to certify to ISO 14001, they did not explore the degree of infusion of environmental management practices within the organizations. In a study of Chinese companies, Christmann and Taylor (2006) conclude that ISO-certified companies in China select their level of compliance depending on customer preferences, customer monitoring, and expected sanctions by customers. Drawing on institutional theory and the resource-based view of the firm, Darnall (2006) analyzes the influences of regulatory pressures, market pressures, complementary resources, experiences with quality management systems, and experiences with pollution prevention on U.S. firm’s decision in mandating ISO 14001 totally or partially. These two studies focused on the adoption decision regarding to whether a firm implements ISO 14001 substantively. A review on current research on environmental management reveals that, up to date, there is no literature give an analysis on the factors influencing infusion of green management practices in organizations. Factors influencing organizational infusion of green practices To fill the research gap, this paper attempts to study the factors affecting the infusion of green practices in Chinese logistics service providers. Although a body of research has proposed several factors influencing green practice adoption, factors affecting adoption decision may actually have the opposite effects upon infusion behavior (Cooper and Zmud, 1990; Damanpour and Schneider, 2006; Tornatzky and 164 Journal of Economic and Social Studies �An Empirical Study on Organizational Infusion of Green Practices in Chinese Logistics Companies Fleischer, 1990; Zhu et al., 2006). For example, in a study of the diffusion of Internet-based e-business innovations, Zhu et al. (2006b) address that firm size are positively related to e-business adoption, but negatively related to infusion. The costs in implementing innovations have been a barrier for the adoption of innovations, but the higher adoption costs could motivated the infusion of innovations in organizations (Cooper and Zmud, 1990). In general, the infusion of green practices could be influenced by a variety of factors. Because implementing green practices can be seen as an innovation process, studies on explanations as to what factors influence innovation infusion will be helpful for modeling green practice infusion in this paper. Several studies have proposed a variety of factors influencing innovation infusion. Meyer and Goes (1988) address that organizational assimilation of innovations in hospitals is influenced by environmental, organizational, and innovation variables. According to meta-analysis results, Damanpour (1991) conclude that organizational innovation is significantly associated with a firm’s specialization, functional differentiation, professionalism, centralization, managerial attitude toward change, technical knowledge resources, administrative intensity, slack resources, and external and internal communication. Fichman and Kemerer (1997) explore the influence of organizational learning capability on the infusion of software process innovations. Eder and Igbaria (2000) explore the influences of earliness of adoption, top management support, organizational structure, organizational size, information technology (IT) infrastructure, and IT structure on organizational infusion of intranets. Frambach and Schillewaert (2002) suggest that the determinants influencing organizational implementation of innovations include perceived innovation characteristics, adopter’s organizational characteristics, and environmental influences. The availability and quality of internal resources and external knowledge, the knowledge transfer activities, and the political and legal environment are relevant for the adoption of technical innovations. Ranganathan et al. (2004) argue that managerial IT knowledge, unit structure, supplier interdependence, competitive intensity, and IT activity intensity would affect internal infusion of Web technologies in supply chain management. In a study of public organizations in the U.S., Damanpour and Schneider (2006) analyze the influences of environmental, organizational and top managers’ characteristics on the adoption and infusion of innovations in organizations. Zhu et al. (2006) suggest that technology readiness, technology integration, firm size, global scope, managerial obstacles, competition intensity and regulatory environment would influence e165 �Yi-Hui Ho, Chieh-Yu Lin, Jung-Shun Tsai business infusion. Yan and Fiorito (2007) analyze the influences of external pressures, internal pressures, and firm size on the infusion of computer aided design/computer aided manufacturing in the U.S. textile and apparel industries. Yu et al. (2009) address that procurement process readiness, business knowledge of IT managers, organizational integration, organizational slack resources would influence the infusion of e-procurement applications. While a variety of determinants of innovation infusion have been proposed in the previous studies, these factors can be grouped into technological, organizational and environmental context. According to the innovation diffusion theory (Rogers, 2003; Tornatzkey and Fleischer 1990), a model for any innovation diffusion needs to consider different factors that can influence the inclination to use the innovation in its specific technological, organizational, and environmental contexts of an organization. The technological, organizational, and environmental (TOE) framework (Tornatzkey and Fleischer, 1990) is widely used in studying innovation adoption and infusion from contextual perspectives. Lin and Ho (2011) have also utilized the TOE framework in analyzing green practice adoption decision for Chinese logistics companies; however, their study did not investigate the infusion of green practices in the firms. The TOE framework identifies three aspects of a firm’s context that have influences on innovation infusion. Technological dimension includes technology issues associated with the firms. Organizational dimension refers to descriptive measures such as company size, the quality of human resources, top management strategic behavior, and the availability of slack resources. Environmental dimension is the arena in which a firm conducts its business, including competitors, access to resources, industrial environment, and government regulations (Tornatzky and Fleischer, 1990). Therefore, based on the TOE framework (Lin and Ho, 2011), this paper attempts to study the influences of technological, organizational, and environmental factors on the infusion of green practices in Chinese logistics service providers. Figure 1 illustrates the research framework of the study. The technological factors include the adoption cost, complexity, compatibility and relative advantage of green practices; the organizational factors include quality of human resources, organizational support, and company size; and environmental factors include environmental uncertainty, governmental support, regulatory pressure, and customer pressure. 166 Journal of Economic and Social Studies �An Empirical Study on Organizational Infusion of Green Practices in Chinese Logistics Companies Figure 1. Research framework Technological factors Adoption cost Complexity Compatibility Relative advantage Organizational factors Quality of human resources Organizational support Company size Organizational infusion of green practices Environmental factors Environmental uncertainty Governmental support Regulatory pressure Customer pressure 167 �Yi-Hui Ho, Chieh-Yu Lin, Jung-Shun Tsai Technological factors Characteristics of an innovation such as compatibility, complexity, and relative advantage may affect innovation diffusion (Jeyaraj et al., 2006; Rogers, 2003; Tornatzky and Klein, 1982). Frambach and Schillewaert (2002) place the perceived characteristics of the innovation at the heart of their organizational innovation diffusion model. Boiral (2002) argues that characteristics of environmental knowledge are relevant in environmental management. Therefore, technological characteristics should be taken into account when analyzing the infusion of green practices. The perceived technological characteristics of an innovation can be considered as cognitive beliefs reflected in an attitude towards the innovation. Several technological characteristics of an innovation can affect its diffusion, including complexity, compatibility, relative advantage, triability, observability, ease of use, perceived usefulness, information intensity, uncertainty, and so on (Frambach and Schillewaert, 2002; Jeyaraj et al., 2006; Taylor and McAdam, 2004; Tornatzky and Klein, 1982; Zhu et al., 2006). The present study only considers adoption costs, complexity, compatibility and relative advantage because these characteristics have consistently been found to be more important in influencing innovation adoption behavior than the other characteristics (Rogers, 2003; Sia et al., 2004; Tornatzky and Klein, 1982). Adoption costs include the required financial and human resources in implementing and using green practices. Costs have been long posited as a barrier for the adoption of innovations (Rogers, 2003; Iacovou et al., 1995; Torantzky and Klein, 1982). However, some researchers argue that high adoption costs may motivate innovation adopters to treat the innovation more seriously and implement it more actively in order to make the innovation more cost-effective (Cooper and Zmud, 1990; Rogers, 2003). Unfortunately, there is still lack of empirical evidence for this argument because previous studies on innovation infusion have not yet taken adoption costs into account. The present study argues that high adoption cost will make a firm treat the green practice more seriously and reinforce the infusion of the green practice within the firm. Therefore, the following hypothesis is proposed: H1: Adoption cost of green practices has a positive influence on green practice infusion in Chinese logistics companies. Complexity is the degree to which an innovation is perceived to be relatively difficult to understand and use. It will increase the difficulty in knowledge transfer and 168 Journal of Economic and Social Studies �An Empirical Study on Organizational Infusion of Green Practices in Chinese Logistics Companies innovation diffusion (Rogers, 2003), and is usually hypothesized to be negatively related to innovation diffusion (Tornatzky and Klein, 1982). Green practices incorporate both tacit and explicit knowledge. The tacit knowledge may be inherent in identifying sources of pollution, reacting quickly to accidental spills, and proposing preventive solutions (Boiral, 2002). It leads to the ambiguity of the practices. Ambiguity is a major barrier to the transfer of best practice within a firm (Szulanski, 1996). A firm is apt to implement innovation when knowledge is shared easily within the organization. Efficient knowledge sharing can lead to better innovative capabilities in terms of higher order learning, and consequently can improve organizational performance including environmental management effectiveness (Etzion, 2007). A green practice with high complexity contains a lot of tacit knowledge that requires laborious efforts to learn and diffuse. The difficulty in learning and sharing tacit knowledge makes it relatively difficult to infuse a green practice. Therefore, the following hypothesis is proposed: H2: Complexity of green practices has a negative influence on green practice infusion in Chinese logistics companies. Compatibility is the degree to which an innovation is perceived as being consistent with the existing values, experiences, and needs of the firms (Rogers, 2003). Compatibility is relevant to green practice diffusion. Because several green practices are additions to companies’ current technologies and processes, diffusion of green practices is not a single event but can be described as a process of knowledge accumulation and integration. Green practices that are more compatible to a company’s current technologies and processes will be more easily to be diffused within the organization. Dupuy (1997), in a study of Ontario organic chemical industry, found support for the notion that innovations that are additions to existing technology, such as abatement equipment, are most likely to adopt earlier than technologies that are more difficult to incorporate into the production process. Fit between previous experiences and environmental actions may generate a greater environmental effectiveness (Etzion, 2007). To lessen possible objection against the infusion of green practices, a company will be more likely to implement a green practice that is more compatible with the company’s current operational knowledge. Therefore, the following hypothesis is proposed: H3: Compatibility of green practices has a positive influence on green practice infusion in Chinese logistics companies. 169 �Yi-Hui Ho, Chieh-Yu Lin, Jung-Shun Tsai Relative advantage is the perception that an innovation is more advantageous than its substitute idea. The perceived benefits may be measured in economic and social terms like convenience and satisfaction. Companies are more likely to implement a technology which is able to provide better performance and higher economic gains than the other technologies. Relative advantage is positively related to the diffusion of innovation (Rogers, 2003; Tornatzky and Klein, 1982). Potential organizational benefits of green practices include reduced energy and natural resource consumption, reduced waste and pollutant emission, improved environmental and financial performance, and greater responsiveness to social environmental expectation (Etzion, 2007; Hart, 1995). In a study of the Spanish pulp and paper industry, Del Rio Gonzalez (2005) suggests that economic and financial advantages are important technological characteristics that influence the adoption of clean technologies. The perceived net benefits that the green practice offers will serve as motivations for companies to implement the green practice. Therefore, the following hypothesis is proposed: H4: Relative of green practices has a positive influence on green practice infusion in Chinese logistics companies. Organizational factors The organizational context implies the processes and attributes that constrain or facilitate innovation. Several studies have discussed the influences of a variety of organizational characteristics such as quality of human resources, top management’s leadership, organizational support, organizational culture and organizational size on innovation diffusion (Damanpour and Schneider, 2006; Taylor and McAdam, 2004), and environmental strategy (Etzion, 2007; Gonzalez-Benito and GonzalezBenito, 2006). Sufficient organizational resources and qualified organizational capabilities are two relevant organizational characteristics advancing innovation (Damanpour, 1991; Jeyaraj et al., 2006) and environmental performance (Hart, 1995; Russo and Fouts, 1997). The availability of resources, management support, organizational learning capabilities, and human resources will influence the adoption of green practices (Alvarez-Gil et al., 2007; Lee, 2008). The followings only introduce the quality of human resources, organizational support, and company size because they are organizational resource-related variables widely analyzed in the literature. 170 Journal of Economic and Social Studies �An Empirical Study on Organizational Infusion of Green Practices in Chinese Logistics Companies The quality of human resources is an essential factor influencing innovation diffusion (Fichman and Kemerer, 1997; Tornatzky and Fleischer, 1990). Qualified human resources are helpful to diffuse innovations because of their competent learning capabilities. Implementing green practices is a complex process requiring cross-disciplinary coordination and significant changes in the existing operation process (Russo and Fouts, 1997). It is intensive in human resources and depends on the development and training of tacit skills through the employees’ involvement (Hart, 1995; Del Brio and Junquera, 2003). A company with higher innovative capacity will be more likely to successfully implement an advanced environmental strategy (Christmann, 2000; Judge and Elenkov, 2005). The recipient’s lack of absorptive capacity is one of the major barriers to the transfer of technical knowledge within a firm (Szulanski, 1996). To overcome knowledge barriers to green practice infusion, employees need extensive, specialized training to learn the principles underlying the innovation. Employees with competent learning capabilities will be apt to increase their absorptive capacity through training programs that can advance green practice infusion. Therefore, the following hypothesis is proposed: H5: Quality of human resources has a positive influence on green practice infusion in Chinese logistics companies. Organizational support is the extent to which a company helps employees use green practices. Providing incentive for innovation diffusion and ensuring the availability of financial and technical resources for innovation have positive effects on the implementation of innovation (Damanpour and Schneider, 2006; Jeyaraj et al., 2006; Lee et al., 2005). For the development of environmental management, organizational support is essential because the employees will be motivated to implement green behavior and the resources required for adopting green practices will be more easily available. Also, the top management plays an essential role in organizational support. Many green practices require the collaboration and coordination of different departments and divisions during diffusion process. To ensure successful diffusion, green initiatives are usually endorsed and encouraged from the top management (Gonzalez-Benito and Gonzalez-Benito, 2006). The central task of top management is to obtain resources and assemble them into organizational capabilities so that the company is able to implement green practices to achieve environmental competitive advantage (Judge and Elenkov, 2005). Therefore, the following hypothesis is proposed: 171 �Yi-Hui Ho, Chieh-Yu Lin, Jung-Shun Tsai H6: Organizational support has a positive influence on green practice infusion in Chinese logistics companies. Company size has been repeatedly taken as a relevant organizational characteristic influencing companies’ innovation diffusion (Frambach and Schillewaert, 2002; Rogers, 2003) as well as environmental activities (Del Brio and Junquera, 2003; Etzion, 2007; Gonzalez-Benito and Gonzalez-Benito, 2006). In general, large companies tend to adopt innovations and green practices more easily than small ones because they have sufficient resources and strong infrastructures. Small companies, in contrast, may suffer from the lack of financial resources and professionals, which results in difficulties in adopting green practices. However, some researchers argue that, due to less flexible structure, lower ability to adapt and more difficulty in assimilating change, larger companies may be more difficult than smaller companies in the infusion of innovations (Dampour and Schneider, 2006; Zhu et al., 2006). Therefore, the following hypothesis is proposed: H7: Company size has a negative influence on green practice infusion in Chinese logistics companies. Environmental factors The environmental factors in this study refer to the standard conceptualization of external environment in the organizational behavior literature. The external environment in which a company conducts its business is an important factor affecting innovation adoption and environmental strategy. Certain environmental variables such as environmental uncertainty, environmental munificence, governmental support, industry type, competition, and network relations are often discussed in the literature of innovation diffusion (Frambach and Schillewaert, 2002; Damanpour and Schneider, 2006; Jeyaraj et al., 2006; Tornatzky and Fleischer, 1990; Zhu et al., 2006) and environmental management (Etzion, 2007; GonzalezBenito and Gonzalez-Benito, 2006a). Environmental uncertainty and external resource availability are consistently regarded as two primary environmental factors influencing innovation diffusion and environmental strategy (Aragon-Correa and Sharma, 2003; Jeyaraj et al., 2006; Rothenberg and Zyglidopoulos, 2007; Tornatsky and Fleischer, 1990). The government plays an important role in supporting resources for innovation adoption (Lee, 2008; Li and Atuahene-Gima, 2002; Scupola, 2003). Stakeholder pressure is another relevant environmental factor influencing organizational environmental behaviors, and is widely involved in 172 Journal of Economic and Social Studies �An Empirical Study on Organizational Infusion of Green Practices in Chinese Logistics Companies research on environmental issues (Buysse and Verbeke, 2003; Sharma and Henriques, 2005). The present study analyzes possible influences of environmental uncertainty, governmental support, and stakeholder pressure on green practice infusion. Environmental uncertainty refers to frequent and unpredictable changes in customer preferences, technological development, and competitive behavior perceived by the managers. It has been viewed as the most relevant environmental characteristic that affects a firm’s decision making (Li and Atuahene-Gima, 2002). Managers facing uncertain business environments tend to be more proactive and use more innovative strategies than managers in less turbulent environments. Under high environmental uncertainty, companies will attempt to gather and process information frequently and rapidly to address environmental changes (Gupta and Govindrajan, 1991), and also tend to pay more efforts on innovation and increase the rate of innovation to maintain a competitive advantage (Damanpour, 1991; Kimberly and Evanisko, 1981; Zhu and Weyant, 2003). Implementing green practices can be regarded as a technical innovation process that can improve a company’s environmental performance. Companies are more likely to invest in resources to implement green practices to generate the capacity to improve environmental performance in uncertain environments (Aragon-Correa and Sharma, 2003; Rothenberg and Zyglidopoulos, 2007). The infusion of green practices is expected to be positively associated with the perceived environmental uncertainty. Therefore, the following hypothesis is proposed: H8: Environmental uncertainty has a positive influence on green practice infusion in Chinese logistics companies. Governmental support is a relevant environmental factor influencing technical innovation. The governments can advance technical innovation through several encouraging policies such as providing financial incentive, technical resources, pilot projects, and tax breaks (Tornatzky and Fleischer, 1990; Scupola, 2003). Implementing green practices relies to some extent on the availability of external resources. Munificence of resources in the business environment increases the degree to which a company engages in environmental management (Aragon-Correa and Sharma, 2003; Rothenberg and Zyglidopoulos, 2007). The government can raise the munificence by providing governmental subsidies or tax incentives for alternative energy technologies, bank financing at lower rates for environmentally friendly technologies, and lower insurance premiums for lower environmental risks (Aragon173 �Yi-Hui Ho, Chieh-Yu Lin, Jung-Shun Tsai Correa and Sharma, 2003). Lee (2008), in a study of Korean small and mediumsized enterprises, also suggests that governmental support in green initiatives has a positive influence on the company’s willingness to participate in the green supply chain. A positive association between green practice infusion and governmental support is expected. Therefore, the following hypothesis is proposed: H9: Governmental support has a positive influence on green practice infusion in Chinese logistics companies. Stakeholders are individuals or groups who affect a company’s activities and are also affected by the company’s activities. Stakeholder pressure is regarded as the most prominent factor influencing a company’s environmental strategy (Buysse and Verbeke, 2003; Gonzalez-Benito and Gonzalez-Benito, 2006a; Sharma and Henriques, 2005). According to the stakeholder theory, organizations carry out activities to satisfy their main stakeholders. Among various groups of stakeholders, customers and regulators are arguably viewed as a company’s most important stakeholders (Christmann, 2004; Etzion, 2007). A body of research reveals the positive relationships between firms’ environmental activities and customer and regulatory pressure (e.g., Christmann, 2004; Lee, 2008; Wong and Fryxell, 2004). The infusion of green practices will be positively associated with customer and regulatory pressure. Therefore, the following hypotheses are proposed: H10: Regulator pressure has a positive influence on green practice infusion in Chinese logistics companies H11: Customer pressure has a positive influence on green practice infusion in Chinese logistics companies. Methodology To examine the influences of determinant factors on green practice infusion, this paper collected data by means of mailing questionnaires to logistics service providers in China. The logistics industry plays an important role in the Chinese economy. Logistics companies provide logistics services for their customers, which include warehousing, transportation, inventory management, order processing, and packaging. With the fast growth in economy, the demand for logistics services has been growing significantly in China. Also, the environmental impact of the logistics practices has been an important issue in China. Many logistics operations often leads 174 Journal of Economic and Social Studies �An Empirical Study on Organizational Infusion of Green Practices in Chinese Logistics Companies to several negative environmental impacts, including air pollutants, waste disposal, and fuel consumption. Logistics companies need to address much effort on environmental issues. Samples were randomly drawn from a list of logistics companies provided by the logistics associations in China. Logistics companies carry out logistics activities for their customers, including warehousing, transportation, inventory management, order processing, and packaging. The sampled companies were contacted via telephone and e-mail to confirm the names of respondents and their mailing addresses. One thousand samples were randomly drawn from a list of logistics companies in Shanghai. Questionnaires were mailed to these sampled companies’ owners or senior managers who are familiar with the company’s environmental activities. Two weeks after the questionnaires were mailed, a follow-up to the sampled companies was conducted to remind them of the importance of their responses and thank them for their assistance. In total, 314 completed questionnaires were returned. Of these respondents, 21 unusable questionnaires were excluded. The overall response rate is 29.3 percent. Among the respondents, approximately 82 percent of them have less than 300 employees. Most logistics companies in China belong to small and medium-size enterprises. To evaluate the non-response bias, the wave analysis was used which assumes that late respondents tend to be more similar to non-respondents than early respondents in mail surveys (Armstrong and Overton, 1977). The non-response bias was tested by comparing respondents who responded readily to the survey with those who responded after the follow-up step is taken. Because comparisons of survey results reveal no significant differences between the two groups in the level of variables, the non-response bias is not significant in the study. The questionnaire was developed in a two-stage process. First, an initial questionnaire was designed based on a review of related literature and a discussion with some experts in environmental management. Second, the initial questionnaire was modified by accommodating some logistics managers’ suggestions to ensure that each item adapts to the logistics industry and is interpreted as expected. Afterward the final version of the questionnaire was administered to sampled logistics companies with business models conforming to the logistics services. The major constructs outlined in the present research framework include green practice infusion, and determinant factors. The green practices commonly used in 175 �Yi-Hui Ho, Chieh-Yu Lin, Jung-Shun Tsai the logistics industry include consolidating shipments, disposing waste responsibly, purchasing ecological products, reducing energy consumption, reducing solid/water waste and emissions, using cleaner transportation methods, and using recyclable packaging (Gonzalez-Benito and Gonzalez-Benito, 2006; Lin and Ho, 2011; Murphy and Poist, 2003). Infusion refers to the extent to which an innovation's features are in widespread usage in a complete and sophisticated way (Fichmen 2001). According to innovation infusion literature (Cooper and Zmud, 1990; Yan and Fiorito, 2007; Yu et al., 2009; Zhu et al. 2006; Zmud and Apple, 1992), we conceptualized infusion as the extent to which major logistics operations have integrated with green practices. Each sampled company was asked to score the degree of infusion of green practices according to a seven-point scale anchored by “not at all” and “to a great extent”. The measurement of determinant factors was developed according to innovation diffusion literature (Rogers, 2003; Tornatzkey and Fleischer 1990) and green practice adoption model proposed by Lin and Ho (2011). Adoption cost was measured according to the financial resources required to evaluate the green practices and start to utilize the green practices. Complexity was measured by whether the green practices would be learned and used easily. Compatibility was measured based on the degrees of perceived fitness between the green practice and the company’s existing technologies and processes. Relative advantage was measured by whether the green practice could increase environmental and economic performance. The quality of human resources was measured according to employees’ learning capabilities. Organizational support was measured according to the degrees of the company’s resource supports and leaders’ attitudes toward environment issues. The company size was measured by the number of employees. The environmental uncertainty was measured according to the degrees of changes in competitors’ innovative abilities, customers’ requirement, and the development of new technologies. Governmental support was measured by whether the government provides financial and technical supports for adopting green practices. Customer pressure and regulatory pressure was measured by asking the respondents to score the environmental pressure exerted by customers and regulators. The determinant factors were measured using seven-point Likert scales anchored by “strongly disagree” and “strongly agree”. The measurement items of determinant factors were submitted to factor analysis with varimax rotation. Factors with eigenvalues greater than 1.0 are summarized in Table 1. The result of factor analysis confirms the construct validity of this study. According to the reliability coefficients, 176 Journal of Economic and Social Studies �An Empirical Study on Organizational Infusion of Green Practices in Chinese Logistics Companies the smallest value of Cronbach’s alpha for this study is 0.7743, which implies that the sampling results are reliable (Nunnally, 1978). Table 2 shows the means, standard deviations and correlations for the variables. The determinant factors are not highly correlated, which implies that multicollinearity may not be significant in the following regression analysis. Furthermore, the high correlations between green practice infusion and most of the determinant factors give initial evidence of the hypotheses: technological, organizational, and environmental factors are associated with the organizational infusion of green practices. Table 1: Measurement Items for the Determinant Factors Determinant Factors Factor Loading Cronbach’s α Technological Factors (Total explained variance = 72.63% ; Cronbach’s α = 0.8598) Adoption cost We spend a lot of money to evaluate the green practices. The cost in starting using the green practices is expensive. We spend a lot of time to evaluate the green practices. Complexity Using the green practices needs many experiences. Learning the green practices is difficult. Sharing the knowledge of the green practices is difficult. Compatibility The green practices are compatible with our existing logistics operations. The green practices are consistent with our company’s values. Integrating the green practices with company’s existing system is easy. Relative advantage The green practices can provide better environmental performance. The green practices can provide higher economic benefits. The green practices can enhance our company’s reputation. 0.788 0.762 0.705 0.8179 0.804 0.759 0.698 0.8663 0.826 0.767 0.701 0.8802 0.793 0.775 0.689 0.8395 Organizational Factors (Total explained variance = 75.87% ; Cronbach’s α = 0.8906) Quality of human resources Employees are capable of using new technologies to solve problems easily. Employees are capable of providing new ideas for our company. Employees are capable of learning new technologies easily. Employees are capable of sharing knowledge with each others. Organizational support Top management encourages employees to learn green knowledge. Our company provides rewards for employees’ green behavior. Top management can help employees dealing with environmental issues. Our company provides resources for employees to learn green knowledge. 0.841 0.812 0.739 0.694 0.8847 0.850 0.809 0.758 0.706 0.8951 Environmental Factors (Total explained variance = 71.89% ; Cronbach’s α = 0.8297) Environmental uncertainty Predicting competitors’ behavior is difficult. Customers’ preferences vary frequently. 0.738 0.667 177 �Yi-Hui Ho, Chieh-Yu Lin, Jung-Shun Tsai The advance in new logistics service modes is quickly. Governmental support Government provides financial support for adopting green practices. Government helps training manpower with green logistics skills. Government provides technical assistance for adopting green practices. Regulatory pressure Government sets environmental regulations for logistics operations. Industrial associations require us to conform to environmental regulations. Customer pressure Our customers require us to improve environmental performance. Caring for the environment is an important consideration for our customers. 0.605 0.7743 0.842 0.834 0.725 0.8035 0.793 0.718 0.8674 0.813 0.745 0.8317 Total Cronbach’s α = 0.8693 Table 2: Result of correlation analysis Variables 1. Adoption cost 2. Complexity 3. Compatibili ty 4. Relative advantage 5. Quality of human resources 6. Organizatio nal support 7. Company size a 8. Environmen tal uncertainty 9. Governmen tal support 10. Regulatory pressure 11. Customer pressure 12. Green practice infusion a Mea ns 4.52 Std 1 2 3 4 5 1.7 9 1.9 0 2.0 6 1.0 0 0.1 1 0.1 2 1.0 0 0.0 3 1.0 0 1.2 8 1.3 4 0.0 9 0.0 6 0.0 6 0.0 8 0.1 1 0.0 7 1.0 0 0.0 4 1.0 0 4.97 1.1 5 0.1 2 0.0 5 0.0 8 0.1 0 0.1 9 1.0 0 4.81 1.4 7 2.0 5 0.0 4 0.0 2 0.0 2 0.0 6 0.0 4 0.0 2 0.0 9 0.0 1 0.1 3 0.0 9 4.86 1.7 2 0.0 6 0.0 9 0.0 6 0.0 8 5.17 1.5 8 0.0 3 0.0 3 5.03 1.8 4 0.0 2 0.0 5 0.0 7 4.79 1.6 3 0.2 1 0.3 6 4.41 4.25 4.92 4.73 4.08 6 7 8 9 10 0.1 8 0.1 2 1.0 0 0.0 5 1.0 0 0.1 1 0.1 5 0.0 6 0.0 2 1.0 0 0.0 6 0.0 7 0.1 6 0.1 2 0.0 7 1.0 0 0.0 3 0.0 4 0.0 9 0.1 0 0.1 1 0.5 4 0.5 9 0.5 1 0.6 4 0.1 4 0.0 3 0.1 6 0.0 6 0.0 2 0.5 6 0.4 6 0.0 9 11 12 1.0 0 0.2 9 1.0 0 Natural logarithm of the number of employees 178 Journal of Economic and Social Studies �An Empirical Study on Organizational Infusion of Green Practices in Chinese Logistics Companies Because a single informant technique was used in data collection, the study may be subjected to the potential for common method bias by artificially inflating observed relationships between variables. We used Harman’s single factor test (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Lee and Podsakoff, 2003) to check the potential common method bias. If common method bias exists, a single factor will emerge from a factor analysis of all survey items, or one general factor that accounts for most of the variance in an unrotated factor structure will result. The analysis revealed more than one factors with eigenvalues greater than 1.0, and the first factor accounted for only about 32 percent of the variance. The results indicated that common method bias was not a problem in the study. Research Findings and Discussions To test proposed research hypotheses, the regression analysis is used in the study, which takes the eleven determinant factors as independent variables and the infusion of green practices as the dependent variable. The regression analysis is a statistical process for estimating the relationship between a dependent variable and several independent variables. Before conducting the regression analysis, the regression assumptions of homoescedasticity, linearity, normality, independence of residuals, and the absence of multicollinearity are tested, and these assumptions are all satisfied. Table 3 shows the standardized results of the regression analysis. The regression results reveal that complexity, compatibility and relative advantage of green practices, quality of human resources, organizational support, governmental support and regulatory pressure exhibit significantly influences on green practice infusion for the logistics companies in China. The influences of adoption cost, company size, environmental uncertainty and customer pressure on logistics companies’ green behavior are not significant. Except the hypotheses H1, H7, H8 and H11, all the other hypotheses are supported. 179 �Yi-Hui Ho, Chieh-Yu Lin, Jung-Shun Tsai Table 3: Standardized Regression Results for the Infusion of Green Practices Dependent variables: Infusion of Green Practices Predictors Technological factors Adoption cost Complexity of technology Compatibility of technology Relative advantage of technology Organizational factors Quality of human resources Organizational support Company size Environmental factors Environmental uncertainty Governmental support Regulatory pressure Customer pressure R2 adj R2 F * p<0.05 ** p<0.01 Standardized Coefficient β t 0.089 -0.124 0.184 0.187 1.135 -2.109* 3.274** 3.986** 0.179 0.201 -0.061 2.979** 4.211** -1.004 -0.074 0.183 0.175 0.098 0.617 0.592 24.33** -1.084 3.315** 2.843** 1.241 To advance green practice infusion, companies can attempt to improve their organizational learning capabilities, and make organizational resources easily available for their employees. In addition to being a regulator, the government should provide sufficient financial, technical and educational resources for green practice infusion within the company. Adoption costs include the required financial and human resources in implementing green practices. Costs have been long posited as a barrier for the adoption of innovations. However, some researchers argue that high adoption costs may motivate innovation adopters to treat the innovation more seriously and implement it more actively in order to make the innovation more cost-effective (Rogers, 2003). The present study found that adoption cost did not have significantly influences on green practice infusion. Complexity is the degree to which an innovation is perceived to be relatively difficult to understand and use. It will increase the difficulty in knowledge transfer. Green practices incorporate both tacit and explicit knowledge. The tacit knowledge may be inherent in identifying sources of pollution, reacting quickly to accidental spills, and proposing preventive solutions (Boiral, 2002). A green practice with high complexity contains a lot of tacit knowledge that requires laborious efforts to learn and diffuse. The difficulty in learning and sharing tacit knowledge makes it difficult to infuse a green practice. Compatibility is the degree to which an innovation is perceived as being consistent with the existing values, experiences, and 180 Journal of Economic and Social Studies �An Empirical Study on Organizational Infusion of Green Practices in Chinese Logistics Companies needs of the firms. Because several green practices are additions to companies’ current technologies and processes, diffusion of green practices is not a single event but can be described as a process of knowledge accumulation and integration. Green practices that are more compatible to a company’s current technologies and processes will be more easily to be diffused within the organization. Relative advantage is the perception that an innovation is more advantageous than its substitute idea. The perceived net benefits that the green practice offers will serve as motivations for companies to implement the green practice. The quality of human resources is an essential factor influencing innovation diffusion. Qualified human resources are helpful to diffuse innovations because of their competent learning capabilities. Implementing green practices is a complex process requiring cross-disciplinary coordination and significant changes in the existing operation process. To overcome knowledge barriers to green practice infusion, employees need extensive, specialized training to learn the principles underlying the innovation. Organizational support is the extent to which a company helps employees use innovations. Providing incentive for innovation diffusion and ensuring the availability of financial and technical resources for innovation have positive effects on the implementation of innovation. For the development of environmental management, organizational support is essential because the employees will be motivated to implement green behavior and the resources required for adopting green practices will be more easily available. Company size has been repeatedly taken as a relevant organizational characteristic influencing companies’ innovation diffusion as well as environmental activities. In general, large companies tend to adopt innovations and green practices more easily than small ones because they have sufficient resources and strong infrastructures. Small companies, in contrast, may suffer from the lack of financial resources and professionals, which results in difficulties in adopting green practices. However, some researchers argue that, due to less flexible structure, lower ability to adapt and more difficulty in assimilating change, larger companies may be more difficult than smaller companies in the infusion of innovations (Dampour and Schneider, 2006). The present study found that company size did not have significantly influences on green practice infusion. Environmental uncertainty refers to frequent and unpredictable changes in customer preferences, technological development, and competitive behavior perceived by the managers. It has been viewed as the most relevant environmental characteristic that affects a firm’s decision making. The present study found that environmental 181 �Yi-Hui Ho, Chieh-Yu Lin, Jung-Shun Tsai uncertainty did not have significantly influences on green practice infusion. Governmental support is a relevant environmental factor influencing technical innovation. Implementing green practices relies to some extent on the availability of external resources. The government can raise the munificence by providing governmental subsidies or tax incentives for alternative energy technologies, bank financing at lower rates for environmentally friendly technologies, and lower insurance premiums for lower environmental risks (Aragon-Correa and Sharma, 2003). Stakeholder pressure is regarded as the most prominent factor influencing a company’s environmental strategy. According to the stakeholder theory, organizations carry out activities to satisfy their main stakeholders. The infusion of green practices was positively associated with regulatory pressure. Conclusions More than two decades of economic reforms have brought China unprecedented economic growth. While China continues to develop into a global manufacturing base and a huge consumer market, it suffers from various serious environmental problems such as air pollution, energy waste, and water pollution. The environmental crisis has led to some moral doldrums in China. To mitigate the environmental degradation in China, the Chinese government has stipulated several environmental policies, and many companies operating in China have begun to adopt a variety of environmental management practices. To help organizations implementing green practices successfully, it is necessary to give an analysis on the factors influencing green practice infusion in organizations. An understanding of the determinant factors is essential for practitioners to best implement green practices. Although a body of research has proposed several factors influencing green practice adoption, none of them analyzed the factors influencing green practice infusion. This study conducts a questionnaire survey on the factors affecting green practice adoption for logistics companies in China. The determinant factors are classified into environmental, organizational and technological factors. The research findings reveal that regulatory pressure, governmental support, organizational support, quality of human resources, and relative advantage and compatibility of green practices have significantly positive influences on organizational infusion of green practices in Chinese logistics companies. Therefore, green practice providers should pay more efforts to increase the explicitness and benefits of green practices while providing green technologies, equipments and services for their clients. Logistics companies themselves need to sustain more organizational support for employees’ 182 Journal of Economic and Social Studies �An Empirical Study on Organizational Infusion of Green Practices in Chinese Logistics Companies green behavior, and improve their quality of human resources. In addition to being a regulator, the government can provide sufficient resources for logistics companies to implement green practices The contributions of this paper include providing logistics service providers guidelines for increasing their green competitiveness, providing the government suggestions in designing environmental policies for the logistics industry, contributing to an insight into the infusion of green practices in the logistics industry, and broadening the scope of research both on environmental management and logistics issues. One limitation to this study is that the results may suffer from the respondent bias because the questionnaire survey was used in the study. 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Acknowledgements We are grateful to the National Science Council of the Republic of China for the financial support of this work under the grant NSC 100-2410-H-309-013. 189 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Extent The size or duration of the resource. 2410 Title A name given to the resource An Empirical Study on Organizational Infusion of Green An Empirical Study on Organizational Infusion of Green Practices in Chinese Logistics Companies Author Author Ho, Yi-Hui Lin, Chieh-Yu Tsai, Jung-Shun Abstract A summary of the resource. As environmental considerations have become a fundamental part of business strategies, there is a challenge for managers and academicians to explore the integration of environmental concepts and business operations. Although a number of studies on green practice adoption can be found in the literature, few of them analyzed the infusion of green practices in organizations. Furthermore, most prior research of green management focused on manufacturing sectors; scarce attention was paid on research in service sectors. This paper focuses on the green practice infusion in logistics companies because many logistics operations often lead to several environmental impacts. The main purpose of this paper is to explore the factors that affect organizational infusion of green practices in Chinese logistics companies. Drawing on the innovation diffusion theory, this paper groups the determinant factors into technological, organizational and environmental dimensions. We explored the influences of determinant factors on green practice infusion by conducting a questionnaire survey on logistics companies in China. The regression analysis is used to test proposed research hypotheses in the study Research findings reveal that complexity, compatibility and relative advantage of green practices, quality of human resources, organizational support, governmental support and regulatory pressure exhibit significantly influences on green practice infusion for the logistics companies in China. The influences of adoption cost, company size, environmental uncertainty and customer pressure on logistics companies’ green behavior are not significant. This paper can extend the scope of research on green management in service industries and green practice infusion. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available International Burch University Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014-07-15 Keywords Keywords. Article PeerReviewed H Social Sciences (General) Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Extent The size or duration of the resource. 3519 Title A name given to the resource AN EMPIRICAL STUDY ON VOCABULARY LEARNING STRATEGIES EMPLOYED BY TURKISH LEARNERS OF ENGLISH Author Author Şivetoğlu, Özlem Abstract A summary of the resource. This study aimed at examining the preferred vocabulary learning strategies of Turkish EFL learners and their beliefs about vocabulary learning. For this purpose, a descriptive study was carried out among 45 preparatory school students at Kastamonu University. The data were gathered with the administration of a Vocabulary Learning Strategies Questionnaire. The results of the descriptive statistics demonstrated that participants tend to use a variety of vocabulary learning strategies, and they reported to employ dictionary strategies the most frequently and guessing strategies the least frequently. Findings also showed that participants believe that words should be practiced, studied, and learned in context. Keywords: Vocabulary Learning Strategy (VLS); language learning strategy; beliefs; preparatory school students Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014 Keywords Keywords. Conference or Workshop Item PeerReviewed PE English https://omeka.ibu.edu.ba/files/original/0cb9e85be1544ae6730ab9185022f1c1.pdf a125270ff19a7466f230bfe71df3731d PDF Text Text An Evaluation of Biological Treatment Methods Used in Olive Mill Wastewaters Yakup Cuci Kahramanmaras Sutcu Imam University, Engineering and Architecture Faculty, Dept. of Environmental Engineering, Kahramanmaras, Turkey cuci@ksu.edu.tr Yağmur Uysal Kahramanmaras Sutcu Imam University, Engineering and Architecture Faculty, Dept. of Environmental Engineering, Kahramanmaras, Turkey yuysal@ksu.edu.tr Ece Ü Deveci Kahramanmaras Sutcu Imam University, Engineering and Architecture Faculty, Dept. of Environmental Engineering, Kahramanmaras, Turkey ecedeveci@gmail.com Özer Çınar Kahramanmaras Sutcu Imam University, Engineering and Architecture Faculty, Dept. of Environmental Engineering, Kahramanmaras, Turkey ocinar@ksu.edu.tr Abstract: Olive mill wastewater (OMW) is produced seasonally by a large number of small olive mills scattered in Mediterranean countries. It has a high environmental impact because of the concentration of its pollutant content and the quantity of waste water produced. OMW contains high amounts of organic, inorganic and polyphenols. It affects the water and soil quality, is toxic to plant life, and create odor nuisance when disposed into the environment. The main problem regarding the disposal of OMW is to find an environmentally friendly and economically viable solution. Among the various techniques proposed, biological treatment appears to be convenient from the economic point of view. The biological treatment of OMW is quite difficult since it contains many complex substances, mostly when more easily degradable carbon source is present in the medium. Several biological treatment systems have been examined for the treatment of OMW, resulting in considerable organic load and toxicity abatement. The present work aims to provide an updated review of the current biological methods used in OMW treatment. Keywords: Olive mill wastewater, OMW, biological treatment, aerobik systems, anaerobic systems Introduction Mediterranean countries produce more than 98% of the world’s olive oil, which is estimated at over 2.5 million metric tons per year. About 75% is produced in the European Union (EU) (McNamara et al., 2008). Olive oil mills are small agro-industrial units located mainly around the Mediterranean, Aegean and Marmara seas that account for approximately 95% of the worldwide olive oil production (Ergüder et al., 2000). In the olive growing countries of the Mediterranean area (Greece, Italy, Lebanon, Portugal, Spain, Syria, Tunisia and Turkey) olive oil mill effluent production is more than 30 million m3 per year (Beccari et al., 1996). Olive mill wastes are a significant source of potential or existing environmental pollution in these countries (Bejarano et al., 1992). The difficulties of treatment of olive mill effluents are mainly related to high organic loading, seasonal operation, high territorial scattering, and the presence of organic compounds which are hard to biodegrade such as long-chain fatty acids and phenolic compounds. 525 �Olive oil mill wastewater (OMW) is formed from the water content of the fruit and water used in washing and processes of olive oil extraction. The composition of OMW widely depends on the type of process involved in obtaining the oil. OMW are dark-colored wastes and contain high amounts of many complex substances that are not easily degradable (Borja et al., 1993; Sorlini et al. 1986). Generally, OMW can be treated by conventional biological treatment methods or can be utilized as fermentation raw material for the production of value added microbial products. However, this OMW also contains high concentrations of phenolic compounds which inhibit microbial activity. This makes biological treatment or microbial fermentation difficult (Massadeh and Modallal, 2008). The uncontrolled disposal of OMW is becoming a serious environmental problem, due to its high organic COD concentration, and because of its high content of microbial growth-inhibiting compounds, such as phenolic compounds and tannins. The improper disposal of OMW to the environment or to domestic wastewater treatment plants is prohibited due to its toxicity to microorganisms, and also because of its potential threat to surface and groundwater (Ramos-Comenzana et al., 1996, Shaheen and Karim, 2007). When OMW are disposed into the environment, they create odor, color and increased oxygen demand in water bodies. They also affect the soil quality and plant life. Therefore, discharge of OMW into receiving media is not permissible unless treatment. Olive oil production and wastewater generation The basic steps in production of olive oil are always the same. Batch and continuous processes are the main methods used in the system. The first step in the oil production process is cleaning the olives and removing the stems, leaves, twigs, and other debris left with the olives. The second step is produced olive oil by crushing olives and extracting the oil by stone mills, metal tooth grinders, or various kinds of hammer mills or chemical means (Dalis et al. 1996). The olive paste generally stays under the stones for 30 to 40 minutes. The purpose of crushing is to tear the flesh cells to facilitate the release of the oil from the vacuoles. Mixing the paste for 20 to 45 minutes allows small oil droplets to combine into bigger ones. The paste can be heated or water added during this process to increase the yield, although this generally results in lowering the quality of the oil. The next step consists in separating the oil from the rest of the olive components (Azbar et al. 2004). This used to be done with presses and centrifugation except in old facilities. The oil is then left in tanks or barrels where a final separation. Sometimes the produced oil will be filtered to eliminate remaining solid particles that may reduce the shelf life of the product. Finally, possible additional processing steps include refining the oil to reduce its acidity and improve flavor by alkali or steam processing; bleaching the oil to reduce chlorophyll, carotenoids, residual fatty acids, and pesticides using kieselguhr, activated carbon, or synthetic silica treatment, and deodorization to reduce odors with the use of activated carbon. The olive oil production processes are summarized in Figure 1. Figure 1. Olive oil production processes (Azbar et al., 2004). The remaining paste still contains a small quantity (about 2-6%) of oil that cannot be extracted by further pressing, but only with chemical solvents. This is done in specialised chemical plants, not in the oil mills. Olive oil production processes mainly differ in the process water requirements. A two-phase plant involves two phases and much less additional water is used than in the three-phase process. Generally, one tone of olives 526 �yields one/two tones of OMW, according to the oil extraction process used. The continuous process uses about 2 L of water for kg of olives while the discontinuous one requires much less. Although the composition is dependent on the process used, the olive mill wastewater is a stable emulsion constituted by ‘‘vegetation waters’’ of the olives, water from the processing, olive pulp and oil. Parameter Conventional press process Three-phase process 4.5–5.0 12 10.5 1.5 0.1 120–130 90–100 2–8 5–2 1.0–1.5 1 1.0–2.4 0.03–10 4.7–5.2 3 2.6 0.4 0.9 40 33 1.0 0.28 1.0 0.37 0.5 0.5–2.3 pH Total solids, % Volatile suspended solids, % Mineral suspended solids, % Suspended solids, % Chemical oxygen demand, g/L Biochemical oxygen demand, g/L Sugars, % Total nitrogen, % Polyalcohols, % Pectin, tannin, % Polyphenols, % Oil and grease, % Table 1. Characteristics of Wastewaters (Azbar et al., 2004) An estimated 10–30 million m3 of OMW is generated every year from the production of olive oil. The organic fraction of OMW includes sugar, tannins, polyphenols, polyalcohols, pectins and lipids (Capasso et al., 1995). Most of the problems associated with OMW pollution can be attributed to the phenolic fraction. More than 30 different phenolic compounds have been identified in OMW and the types and concentrations of phenolics reported in OMW vary tremendously. In fact, phenolic compounds are responsible for several biological effects, including antibiosis and phytotoxicity (Dalis et al. 1996). The antimicrobial activity is principally due to phenolic compounds such as tyrosol and hydrotyrosol. Another negative property of OMW is its extremely high organic content. Generally OMW has BOD values ranging between 12,000 and 63,000 mg/L and COD values between 80,000 and 200,000 mg/L. These concentrations are approximately 400 times higher than municipal sewage (Al-Malah et al., 2000). As microorganisms present in the environment consume these materials, oxygen will be depleted from the water with adverse effects on the aquatic media. Common disposal practices for OMW include direct discharge into soils or streams and use of evaporation ponds or lagoons. (AlMalah et al., 2000; Galli et al., 1997). Biological treatment processes Treatment processes must be efficient, allow for easy and economical operation in small-scale farm settings, and consider the seasonality and the distribution of olive oil production. Therefore, a variety of biological methods (e.g., aerobic or anaerobic bioreactors, composting) and microorganisms for treatment of OMW have been tested, and reviewed by many researchers to remove the dark coloration, reduce the organic load and remove phytotoxic compounds (Capasso et al. 1995). Aerobic processes Aerobic biological processes are commonly used in the treatment of organic wastewaters for achieving high degree of treatment efficiency, while in anaerobic treatment, considerable progress has been achieved in anaerobic biotechnology for waste treatment based on the concept of resource recovery and utilization while still achieving the objective of pollution control (Chan et al. 2009). Using a simple aerobic treatment for OMW is not effective because of the its characteristics. However, biological treatment is possible when a combination of aerobic and anaerobic methods is applied, especially when it is diluted with municipal wastewater. A number of different aerobic microorganisms have been tested in aerobic processes to treat OMW, including Bacillus pumilus, Arthrobacter sp., Azotobacter vinelandii, Pseudomonas putida and Ralstonia sp. and various bacterial consortia (McNamar and et al., 2008). Several studies of aerobic degradation of OMW have focused on A. vinelandii. For example, Papadelli et al. (1996) isolated a strain of A. vinelandii from soil treated with OMW. Eventually, 490% removal of phytotoxic compounds from OMW was achieved using this strain (Ehaliotis et al., 1999; Piperidou et al. 2000). 527 �A number of studies have also utilized bacterial consortia coming from activated sludge, commercial communities, soil, and wastewater. Bioremediation of OMW using aerobic consortia has been quite successful in these studies, achieving significant reductions in COD (up to 80%) and the concentration of phytotoxic compounds, and complete removal of some simple phenolics. Aerobic treatment has been also carried out in the presence of various strains of fungi such as white rot fungi (including the edible mushrooms Lentinula and Pleurotus), Basidiomycetes sp. and Aspergillus niger and several different yeasts. In addition to reduction of COD and removal of simple phenolics, fungi are also effective at reducing coloration of OMW. The different biological treatments lead to very variable reductions in COD and polyphenol levels depending on the performance of the strains selected for use. Anaerobic processes The anaerobic digestion is a biological process in which a complex community of microorganisms work in a stable, self-regulating steady state converting waste organic matter into a mixture of carbon dioxide and methane gases (Kaspar and Wuhrmann, 1978; Zeikus, 1980; Gujer and Zehnder, 1983; Speece, 1983; Sterling et al., 2001). Anaerobic treatment is considered as a cost-effective alternative, if compared to aerobic treatment especially for high organic industrial wastewater. Anaerobic digestion has a great number of advantages: low nutrient requirements, energy savings, generation of low quantities of sludge, excellent waste stabilization, production of biogas (methane) without the requirement of pre-treatments of the residues (Kang and Weiland, 1992; Weiland, 1993; Yadvika et al., 2004). OMW is an effluent of the olive oil extraction process. The large volumes involved, along with the high phenolic content and chemical oxygen demand, cause major environmental problems. However, the seasonal production and high organic loading of OMWs make anaerobic treatment a very attractive option for these wastes. Furthermore, production of much less biosolids (sludge) and biogas as a valuable end product, which may offset the associated treatment costs, further add to the positive aspects of anaerobic treatment (Ergüder et al., 2000). Anaerobic digestion processes produces useful energy and result in a net reduction in CO2 emissions. Another advantage of anaerobic digestion is that a digester can be started up after more than eight months under non-feeding conditions (Tsonis and Grigoropoulos, 1993), and is thus suitable for the treatment of seasonal wastes such as OMW. The low rate anaerobic sludge blanket type reactor is considered as the most efficient anaerobic reactor for the treatment of OMW. Anaerobic digestion is usually the basic biological process for OMW treatment since it has many advantages compared to aerobic treatment. These include no aeration requirements, lower sludge production, lower nutrient requirements, the production of methane gas, and the quick recovery of anaerobic systems that have been dormant for a long time (Droste, 1997). The last point is particularly important, as the treatment unit will be without wastewater for about 8-9 months. In the last decade, most of the research conducted on OMW treatment has been focused on the use and development of anaerobic methods and bioreactors that can remove efficiently the high organic load (Boari et al., 1984; Borja et al., 1992; Hamdi, 1995; Andreozzi et al., 1998) as well as reduce the toxicity of microorganismsinhibiting materials present in OMW (Paredes et al., 2001). It has been reported that anaerobic bacteria decompose organic materials in a three-stage process emman et al., 1997). In the first stage, anaerobic bacteria degrade complex organic materials into simpler compounds; namely, polysaccharides and polyphenols are converted to their monomers (monosaccharides and phenols, respectively). During the second stage, acetogenic bacteria convert the phenols and the monosaccharide into organic acids, such as acetic, lactic and formic acids and alcohol. Finally, in the third stage, methanogenic bacteria, which are characterized by their sensitivity to pH, convert the organic acids into biogas (a mixture of 60–80% methane and other gases, mainly carbon dioxide). The presence of compounds toxic to methanogens in OMW appears to be a significant problem for anaerobic digestion of OMW. The presence of phenolics limits the effectiveness of aerobic or anaerobic treatment of this wastewater. Minimising the effects caused by high concentration of phenolics, OMW must be diluted prior to either aerobic or anaerobic processes. Although dilution decreases the concentration of the toxic compounds present in wastewater, making it easier to reach the required standards for the final effluent, it also causes an increase in waste volume, which is not desired (El-Gohary et al., 2009). A lot of researches were made for the anaerobic treatment of OMW in the literature. Some of them was summarized in here: For example, Boari and Mancini (1990) studied the biological treatment of olive mill effluent wastewater. They studied the effect of sedimentation, coagulation, followed by aeration. They also studied BOD, COD, and suspended solids as main parameters and found that the removal percentage of organics was higher than 90%. Their results using anaerobic digesters showed 70% removal of COD, and more economical operation. Hayek et al. (1996) reduced the COD by 75% using upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactor. Ergüder et al. (2000) reported that OMWW could be treated anaerobically with high efficiencies (85.4– 93.4%) and treatment of 1 L OMWW by anaerobic methods resulted in production of 57.1±1.5 L of methane gas 528 �(i.e. 413 mL of methane gas was produced from degradation of 1 g of COD found in olive mill waste water). Authors concluded that olive mill wastes can be treated under anaerobic conditions leading to production of biogas in significant amounts. Reductions in COD from 70% to 89% have been reported for anaerobic processes (Borja et al., 1996; Marques et al., 1997; Marques, 2001). In addition to a substantial reduction of COD, Dalis et al. (1996) reported large reductions (475%) in the concentrations of both toxic phenols and volatile fatty acids using a two stage anaerobic reactor with an inoculant obtained from a domestic wastewater facility. In contrast, other studies have reported that the build up of recalcitrant phenolics (e.g., condensed tannins, Zouari and Ellouz, 1996) as well as the presence of long-chain fatty acids (Hwu and Lettinga, 1997) in anaerobic reactors inhibited microbial activity. Subuh (1999) has conducted anaerobic digestion of OMW using laboratory scale Up-flow Anaerobic Sludge Blanket (UASB) reactor. He proved that removal efficiency of the soluble fraction of COD reached 76% using the UASB. Sabbah et al (2001) have evaluated different techniques for the treatment of OMW including aerobic and anaerobic combined with physical treatment methods. Different types of reactors were checked such as stirred-tank reactor, fluidized-bed reactor, and UASB reactor. UASB has showed a promising technique for anaerobic treatment of OMW. The anaerobic wastewater treatment processes have been tested for the treatment of olive mill effluents in pilot scales. They have been tested in large scales as well, but only in combination with aerobic processing. A multistage system with first an anaerobic stage and a sequential aerobic treatment stage has been investigated by Steegmans (Steegmans, 1987). Sabbah et al. (2001) found that removal of the phenolic compound and possibly other toxic materials that inhibit the growth of microorganisms using in the primary treatment step contributes significantly on increasing the efficiency of anaerobic digestion. Anaerobic digestion of unmodified OMW have been concerned with problems such as high toxicity and low biodegradability and acidification of the reactor (Boari et al. 1984; Borja et al. 1992). However, the efficiency of anaerobic digestion was increased when preceded by a pretreatment step. Several treatment methods can be used as pretreatment of OMW such as physical (flotation, membrane seperation, gravitty settling, ultrafiltration, centrifugation, coagulation etc.) and chemical (such as fenton oxidation processes) and biological (aerobic, composting). For example, pretreatment of OMW by previously aerobic fermentation with Aspergillus niger (Martin et al., 1991) and Geotrichum candidum (Beccari et al., 1999) could reduce residence time required for anaerobic process. Selective preremoval of inhibitors such as lipids and poly phenols through lime or lime/bentonite addition followed by phase separation before anaerobic digestion as a chemophysical treatment has been studied (Box, 1983). Similarly, Azbar et al. (2008) compared the methane production in an anaerobic digester fed with either raw or chemically pretreated OMW. They found over 80% increase in biogas production when digesting OMW after chemical pretreatment. Accordingly, it has been concluded that, the anaerobic biodegradability of OMW could be significantly enhanced by chemical pretreatment. El-Gohary et al. (2009) reported that an integrated system consisting of catalytic oxidation using Fenton’s in combination with a two stage anaerobic post-treatment (classical UASB followed by hybrid UASB) is recommended for treatment of olive mill wastewater. The use of Fenton’s reaction as a primary treatment of OMW enhances the efficiency of anaerobic digestion. Conclusion Generation of OMW in the Mediterranean region has a significant environmental impact and the high organic polluted OMW affects the soil, groundwater and watercourses. Besides, the seasonal nature of olive oil production, the geographic dispersion of mills and economic limitations for cost effective treatment all present significant challenges in designing treatment options for OMW. 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Abw sser aus der Oliven lgewinnung –Anfall, Problematik und Entsorgung – Gew sserschutz, Wasser, Abwasser, Festschrift zur Emeritierung von Prof. Dr.-Ing., Dr. h.c. Botho B hnke. Gesellschaft zur Frderung der Siedlungswasser- Wirtschaft. Bearbeitung Dr. rer. Nat. R. Schulze-Rettmer, Heft 95, Aachen. Sterling Jr., M.C., Lacey, R.E., Engler, C.R. & Ricke, S.C. (2001). Effects of ammonia nitrogen on H2 and CH4 production during anaerobic digestion of dairy cattle manure, Bioresour. Technol., 77, 9–18. Subuh, Y. (1999). Anaerobic treatment of olive mills wastewater using Up-flow Anaerobic Sludge Blanket (UASB) reactor, M.Sc. Thesis, An-Najah N. University, Nablus, Palestine. Tsonis, S. & Grigoropoulos, S. (1993). Anaerobic treatability of olive mill wastewater, Water Science and Technology, 28 (2), 35–44. Weiland, P. (1993). One- and two-step anaerobic digestion of solid agroindustrial residues, Water Sci. Technol., 27, 145–151. Yadvika, S., Sreekrishnan, T.R., Kohli, S. & Rana, V. (2004). Enhacement of biogas production from solids substrates using different techniques-a review, Bioresour. Technol., 95, 1–10. Zeikus, J.G. (1980). Microbial population in anaerobic digestors. In: Stafford, D.A. (Ed.), First International Symposium on Anaerobic Digestion, Scientific Press, Cardif, pp. 75–103. 531 �Zouari, N. & Ellouz, R. (1996). Toxic effect of coloured olive compounds on the anaerobic digestion of olive oil mill effluent in UASB-like reactors, Journal of Chemical Technology and Biotechnology, 66, 414–420. 532 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Extent The size or duration of the resource. 585 Title A name given to the resource An Evaluation of Biological Treatment Methods Used in Olive Mill Wastewaters Author Author Cuci, Yakup Uysal, Yağmur Deveci, Ece Ü Çınar, Özer Abstract A summary of the resource. Olive mill wastewater (OMW) is produced seasonally by a large number of small olive mills scattered in Mediterranean countries. It has a high environmental impact because of the concentration of its pollutant content and the quantity of waste water produced. OMW contains high amounts of organic, inorganic and polyphenols. It affects the water and soil quality, is toxic to plant life, and create odor nuisance when disposed into the environment. The main problem regarding the disposal of OMW is to find an environmentally friendly and economically viable solution. Among the various techniques proposed, biological treatment appears to be convenient from the economic point of view. The biological treatment of OMW is quite difficult since it contains many complex substances, mostly when more easily degradable carbon source is present in the medium. Several biological treatment systems have been examined for the treatment of OMW, resulting in considerable organic load and toxicity abatement. The present work aims to provide an updated review of the current biological methods used in OMW treatment. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2010-06 Keywords Keywords. Conference or Workshop Item PeerReviewed https://omeka.ibu.edu.ba/files/original/61506d5c3204bc0856d99cc56b393767.docx 7722cc7a15ef2d9ad45af9a3a14bd0c2 https://omeka.ibu.edu.ba/files/original/84db7eced88457bf1d97f1f10882cc10.pdf 5c3281536f81b85d1129ea2738bf12e3 PDF Text Text An Evaluation of Municipality Services in Sivas, Turkey through the lens of CSS scope Hasan Tağraf Cumhuriyet University Turkey hasan157@hotmail.com Ahmet Murat Özkan Cumhuriyet University Turkey ahmetmozkan@hotmail.com Görkem Nemutlu Cumhuriyet University Turkey gorkemnemutlu@gmail.com Abstract: For quite a long time, municipalities in Turkey are offering a wide array of exceptional services such as art courses, dining & drinking, health & elderly care, cultural services etc. In this paper, through public administration and Turkish law, we take a look at basic missions of municipalities and then, move on for an evaluation of these exceptional services through corporate social responsibility perspective. Our work tries to answer the question whether these municipality actions can be considered as socially responsible management or not. Authors argue that, due to increased competition among political parties, municipalities are expanding their services beyond their mission stated in Turkish law. We also visit the concept of corporate social responsibility in this paper and provide brief descriptions from existing literature. In the last section of the paper, we conduct a quantitative survey with the residents of Sivas city. By using this survey, we aim to understand how residents of Sivas evaluate –beyond mission- services of their municipality. Our survey includes questions and/or factors from European Union CSR initiative. We hope that results of this paper can open directions for further CSR and public administration research. With an emphasis on mission, responsibility and evaluation concepts, municipalities can review their stance and researchers can expand these empiric results for further knowledge creation. Keywords: public, administration, municipality, corporate, social, responsibility. 172 �172 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Extent The size or duration of the resource. 2652 Title A name given to the resource An Evaluation of Municipality Services in Sivas, Turkey through the lens of CSS scope Author Author TAGRAF, Hasan OZKAN, Ahmet Murat NEMUTLU, Gorkem Abstract A summary of the resource. For quite a long time, municipalities in Turkey are offering a wide array of exceptional services such as art courses, dining & drinking, health & elderly care, cultural services etc. In this paper, through public administration and Turkish law, we take a look at basic missions of municipalities and then, move on for an evaluation of these exceptional services through corporate social responsibility perspective. Our work tries to answer the question whether these municipality actions can be considered as socially responsible management or not. Authors argue that, due to increased competition among political parties, municipalities are expanding their services beyond their mission stated in Turkish law. We also visit the concept of corporate social responsibility in this paper and provide brief descriptions from existing literature. In the last section of the paper, we conduct a quantitative survey with the residents of Sivas city. By using this survey, we aim to understand how residents of Sivas evaluate –beyond mission- services of their municipality. Our survey includes questions and/or factors from European Union CSR initiative. We hope that results of this paper can open directions for further CSR and public administration research. With an emphasis on mission, responsibility and evaluation concepts, municipalities can review their stance and researchers can expand these empiric results for further knowledge creation. Keywords: public, administration, municipality, corporate, social, responsibility. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available International Burch University Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014-04 Keywords Keywords. Article PeerReviewed Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context ISSN 2303-4564 H Social Sciences (General) https://omeka.ibu.edu.ba/files/original/5568abb3ad1a146bc3c723f47134f4ba.pdf a75833d633ecec0f59551d1643490c6f PDF Text Text 3rd International Symposium on Sustainable Development, May 31 - June 01 2012, Sarajevo An Evaluation Of Regional Development Agencies’ Roles In Regard To Social Sustainability: A Disscussion Of Turkish Development Agencies’ Experience Mustafa Ökmen1, Buğra Özer1, Vedat Bal2 1Celal Bayar University, Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Department of 2Celal Bayar University, School of Applied Sciences, Department of International Trade, , Manisa, Turkey Abstract This study focuses on the nexus between social sustainability and regional and local development. In handling the issue in question, the work proposes to focus on the role played by regional development agencies in facilitating social sustainability. The study will facilitate the discussion by reviewing the Turkish experience in regional development by reviewing Turkish regional development agencies’ legacy that came on the Turkish regional development discussions in the mid of the very first decade of 2000s. The attempt will be to demonstrate that Turkish RDAs cannot handle mechanisms to deal with problems that appear at social and environmental levels of the notion of social sustainable development. 1. INTRODUCTION This study shall dwell on the nexus between social sustainability and regional and local development. In dealing with the issue in question, the work proposes to focus on the role played by regional development agencies in facilitating social sustainability. The study will facilitate the discussion by reviewing the Turkish experience in regional development by reviewing Turkish regional development agencies’ legacy that came on the Turkish regional development discussions in the mid of the very first decade of 2000s. Given the prospect of full membership of Turkey to the European Union and related never ending accession talks and negotiations with the Union(Öniş, 2000, Öniş 2003), regional development agencies assumed to bring a wide array of remedies to the ongoing important problems in regard to the regional economic and social disparities embedded in the Turkish politico-economic setting (Reeves,2005). In such respect, the scale of regional disparities between the different parts of Turkey has posed itself as a significant problematization in a wider dimension than that of the scale of regional disparities in the EU (Sungar,2005). Given the challenge, regional development agencies have been primary actors to deal with the disparities mostly emerging in economic dimension while Turkey in terms of geographical size encompasses an area bigger than that of Germany, Italy and Portugal combined, with an approximating population of seventy-five million (LoewendahlErtugal,2005). Despite the fact that most regional development related institutions and programs came to be inextricably linked to the economic development disparities first and foremost, not adequate attention has been paid to the social sustainability dimension of problems (Gibbs,2010). In this respect, the proposed study will problematize respectively: 111 �3rd International Symposium on Sustainable Development, May 31 - June 01 2012, Sarajevo On theoretical terms the link between regional development and the notion of social sustainability how the economic, social and economic dimensions of economic development may be integrated in a single approach of regional development. What the Turkish regional development agencies’ experiences have been on the way to create a national regional development policy while maintaining ties to the EU accession talks, thereby setting linkages to the Union’s regional development policies. How the Turkish Regional development agencies have devised mechanisms to integrate social sustainability schemes to the regional development policies. Following the juxtaposition of research problematizations, the intended study aims to fill in some gaps. Although there exists a bulk of literature on regional and local development in the context of the EU; the lack of research on the link of regional development agencies to social sustainability schemes in the case of Turkey is striking. In such regard, one other effort of the paper is to contribute towards filling the gap in research literature on regional development in relation to social sustainability in Turkey. 2. REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT AGENCIES (RDAs) AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT NOTIONS IN GENERAL PESPECTIVE 2.1.Rationales for RDAs and Regional Policies In an era of major restructuring and retrenchment of government internationally, RDAs assume to play essentially important roles in facilitating and promoting economic development (Halkier and Danson, 1997). As understood from the dimension, the economic role of RDAs has been the pillar characteristic of the raison d’être of the organizations (Danson et al., 2005, Pike et al., 2006). A standard academic definition shall also interlink the role of RDAs to the notion of public policy by stating that RDA is “a regionally based, publicly financed institution outside the mainstream of central and local government administration designed to promote indigenous economic development through an integrated use of predominantly ‘soft’ policy instruments.” (Halkier and Danson, 1997). Then the basic components of such definition will emphasize the semiautonomous characteristic of RDAs functioning in a multifunctional and integrated manner. (Halkier, 2011, Halkier etal 1998) Accordingly, RDAs are given the task of supporting economic development through soft policy means. The soft policy means may stand on a wide array of alternatives ranging from the provision of advice to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to inducing networking and learning(Halkier et al., 1998) Lagendijk etal emphasize that such a softpolicy-means perspective implies a strategic point view that RDAs shall “bridge the gap between regional economic policy and other fields of policy that impact upon regional development, building on their capacity to collectivize local interests” (Lagendijk,2009). The importance of RDAs comes from three factors. First and foremost, RDAs develop a platform for public policy that will have proximate links to the private enterprise along with a sound distance that will avoid the abuse that might possibly come from the individual enterprises and local political interests (Benneworth,2001). Secondly, RDAs are alternative bureaucratic bodies more closely related to private enterprises in terms of facilitation of 112 �3rd International Symposium on Sustainable Development, May 31 - June 01 2012, Sarajevo regional development, offering a shelter from day to day political pressures and providing a more strategic approach to the issue of regional development in the long run. These two factors bring forth a third repercussion that RDAs become more suitable actors involved in regional policy under the EU Jurisdiction, namely, European Structural Funds. As Halkier notes, “and as the importance of the European level in regional development has increased significantly since the late 1980s, the growing role of RDAs in and beyond the current borders of the EU undoubtedly owes a lot to the adoption of a long-term programming approach within the Structural Funds.” (Halkier, 2011) In terms of regional policy paradigms, the pre-1990s regional policies were designed in a topdown style, that is to say , the basic rationale of regional policy was to “to promote equality between regions by redistributing economic activity to problem areas by means of a system of ‘carrots’ and ‘sticks’, primarily relying on ‘hard’ policy instruments such as infrastructure and financial subsidies in order to boost economic hardware in the designated regions through increased investment” (Halkier, 2011). In terms of organization, the developmental era emphasized the need to nationally designate programs via different bureaucratic departments (Danson et al, 2005). The top-down design of regional policy signified the redistribution of growth, thereby increasing economic hardware through ‘hard’ resources by policy instruments which were non-selective and reactive in terms of their nature (Halkier,2011). In the post-1990s setting, the making of regional policies has significantly changed. First and foremost, RDAs were designates as semi-autonomous bodies which contributed to the juxtaposition of regional based targets (Halkier,2011). Individual regions became the basic unit of analyses rather than nationally-designated units. The rationale behind top-bottom regional policy has not changed in its essential sense and rather remained economic as the approach principally aimed to deal with competitiveness of individual firms of localities. The basic means for public policy became ‘soft’ policy instruments such as advice, networks. In such regard, RDAs became training units which added up to improving economically relevant knowledge (software) and knowledge exchange (orgware).Moreover, within the bottom-up approach responsibility became selective and proactive (Halkier,2011). 2.2.Sustainable Development and RDAs Despite the economic-centric definition of RDAs and regional policy, there is an increasing awareness of sustainable development notion at the policy level. By 2000s, sustainable development notions have been more and more incorporated into the concerns of spatial scales in terms of mediation of objectives and economic development and other concerns of sustainable development (Shearlock etal,2000). A bulk of literature exists on sustainable development, defining the term as development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.” (Shearlock etal,2000)Therefore the term has a long-term vision for society along with the short term horizons which add up to long-term objectives. Sustainable development as a term integrates various dimensions of human action starting from the local level to the global level. In such regard sustainable development has a different set of objectives inclusive of the improvement of the quality of life of both current and future generations, while safeguarding the earth’s capacity to support life in all its diversity; promotion of high levels of employment in an economy whose strength is based on 113 �3rd International Symposium on Sustainable Development, May 31 - June 01 2012, Sarajevo education, innovation, social and territorial cohesion and the protection of human health and the environment and Notion of its grounds and emphasis on democracy, the rule of law and respect for fundamental rights including freedom, equal opportunities and cultural diversity (Gibson,2010). Economic, social and environmental dimensions are the basic pillars of sustainable development. It is rather a process that facilitates “improvement of the range of opportunities facilitating individual human beings and communities to meet their needs, as well as to achieve their aspirations and full potential over a sustained period of time, while maintaining the resilience of economic, social and environmental systems ” (Shearlock etal,2000). There exist distinct driving forces and objectives for each domain As the economy domain strives to improve human welfare, primarily through increases in the consumption of goods and services, the main focus of the environmental domain is on protection of the integrity and resilience of ecological systems (Gibson,2010). The social domains underline the need for the enrichment of human relationships and achievement of individual and group aspirations. Sustainable development becomes the basic object of programs with continuous improvements in the present quality of life at a lower intensity of resource use, thereby leaving behind for future generations an undiminished stock of productive assets (i.e., manufactured, natural and social capital) that will enhance opportunities for improving their quality of life (Gibson,2010; Shearlock,2000). Given the basic perspective drawn above, regional policy schemes have not been able to take general approaches that shall integrate the social and environmental domains of sustainable development. Most regional policies devised RDAs in a novel way that would embrace bottom to up approaches; however RDAs lacked means to integrate social and environmental domains. Most environmental policies devised by RDAs globally suffered from the same set of problems. In spite of European and global recognition of Sustainable Development throughout the 1980s, many concrete projects were far away from dealing with the problem that emerged at social and environmental levels. As Straaten et al (1999)observe in his discussion of environmental policies throughout the EU, “the principle of sustainable development does not alter this situation. On the contrary, all polluting industries accept the principle of sustainable development as a starting point for the national economy. However, as soon as the pollution in their sector is discussed, they use strong arguments based on traditional economic theories. The government is then always in the difficult position of having to demonstrate that the implementation of strict environmental standards will benefit the economy. In many cases they are not able to do this. The situation is also complicated in the case of transboundary pollution. The traditional interests of the polluting industries in some countries may be contrasted with the interests of countries suffering from pollution” (Straaten et al,1999). Indeed, the RDAs as alternative bodies that could spread the word of sustainable development could not penetrate through mechanisms that would supposedly produce solutions at environmental level and social levels. Here one should note that problems of social domain of sustainable devlopment can not become substantial concerns fror RDAs. In particular, cultural integration and social participation, as two important problems in the EU integration region did not constitute as significant problems that required immediate remedies. 114 �3rd International Symposium on Sustainable Development, May 31 - June 01 2012, Sarajevo 3. Turkish RDAs in Perspective By mid 2000s Turkey entered a new phase in which the country witnessed the making of a great of number of RDAs thanks to the Europeanization of regional governance policies. In such respect Turkish RDAs nurtured in a setting of European Union and central government funding (Kayasü etal 2003, Sungar,2005, Loewendahl-Ertugal2005). By 2012, Turkey established 26 ‘statistical regions’ at the NUTS-II level, which group together Turkey’s 81 provinces. In this context RDAs are supposed to play a critical role in mobilizing support and funding for regional development projects. As Lagendjik (2011) observes, RDAs are potentially apt to become strategically important organizations strengthening regional forms of governance and regional socio-economic development. In the Turkish case, RDAs become centers for consultancies for the European funding. In such regard Turkish RDAs become highly absorbed in a tension of, as Lagendjik observes at the European level, “ ‘high politics’ and the necessity to embed themselves in a particular local institutional and business setting” (Lagendjik, 2009). While facing ‘top-down’ political-strategic and bureaucratic obligations, Turkish RDAs are obliged to respond to local demands in terms of governance (partnering, strategy development), economic intelligence, and business needs in a state of institutionally and politically conditioned and circumscribed priorities (Reeves,2005). In terms of integrating the social sustainability dimension, Turkish RDAs have a long way to cover. The main objectives of RDAs still stay at a level of economic domain of sustainable development notion. It should also be noted that given the short life spans of Turkish RDAs, it may be too early to carry out an assessment. However, given the path of development of Turkish RDAs, these institutions should find ways to integrate social sustainable development notions into their developmental projects. The economic-centered emphasis in Turkish RDAs , thus, remains an important concern to which more attention should be paid. 4. CONCLUDING REMARKS In light of short life span of Turkish RDAs, social and environmental concerns are not important references for regional governance policies. It can definitely be argued that the sustainable development can be used as a policy-making principle for the Turkish RDAs. Until now, the notion of sustainable development has not been well operationally defined due to the difficulties arising in RDAs’ insistence in shortcomings of economic-centered definition of regional governance policies. Although Turkish RDAs mention about the term ‘sustainable development’, there is not much materialized in terms of concrete policies pursued by these institutions. Therefore sustainable development should be the basic reference point in particular for the social and environmental concerns. Most of these concerns ‘objectives are to be realized in the long-run. In such regard, it is required that Turkish RDAs become more and more absorbed in the formation of a coherent environmental and social policy with the European regional policies. 115 �3rd International Symposium on Sustainable Development, May 31 - June 01 2012, Sarajevo REFERENCES Benneworth, P. (2001) ‘Regional Development Agencies. The Early Years’. Regional Studies Association: Seaford. Bilen, G. (2005) Novel Regional Policy of Turkey in Line with EU Standards. Development Bank of Turkey: Ankara. Danson, M.W. and Whittam, G. (1999) RegionalGovernance, Institutions and Development,’ inS. Loveridge (ed.) The Web Book of Regional Science. Morgantown: Regional Research Institute, West Virginia University. De Bruijn, P. and Lagendijk, A. (2005) ‘Regional Innovation Systems in the Lisbon Strategy’, European Planning Studies 13: 1153–72. Gibbs, D. (2010) “ Regional development agencies andsustainable development” Regional Studies, Vol. 32.4, pp. 365-381 Danson, M., Helinska-Hughes, E. & Hughes, M. (2005) 'RDAs and Benchmarking: Learning from Good Practice when the Model has Broken', Public Policy and Administration, 20, 4-22 Halkier, Henrik, (2011) Regional Development Agencies: European Trends and Experiences. /.In: The proceedings of 1st international conference on regional development. ed. / Coskun Can Aktan. Malatya, Turkey : Firat Development Agency, 2011. p. 1-10. Halkier, H. & Danson, M. (1997) 'Regional Development Agencies in Europe: A Survey of Key Characteristics and Trends', European Urban and Regional Studies, 4, 243-56. Halkier, H., Danson, M. & Damborg, C. (Eds.) (1998) Regional Development Agencies in Europe, London, Jessica Kingsley Publishers. Kayasü, S., Pınarcıoğlu, M., Yaşar, S. S. and Dere, S. (2003) “Local/Regional Economic Development and Competitive Capacity: Regional Development Agencies”, İstanbulChamber of Commerce, Publication No: 2003-8. Keating, M., (1998) “The New Regionalism in Western Europe”, Northampton,MA:Edward Elgar. Köhn, J. Gowdy, J. Hinterberger, F. van der Straaten, J. 1999. Sustainability in Question Northampton,MA:Edward Elgar. Lagendijk, A. (2005) ‘Regionalisation in Europe. Stories, Institutions and Boundaries’, in H. VanHoutum,O. Kramsch and W. Zierhofer (eds), Bordering Space, pp. 77–92. London: Routledge. Lagendijk, A. Etal (2009) “The Role of Regional Development Agencies in Turkey from Implementing EU Directives to Supporting Bussiness Communities” European Urban and Regional Studies, 16(4): 383–396 Loewendahl-Ertugal, Ebru, (2005) “Europeanisation of Regional Policyand Regional Governance:The Case of Turkey” European Political Economy Review Vol. 3, No. 1 (Spring 2005), pp. 18-53 116 �3rd International Symposium on Sustainable Development, May 31 - June 01 2012, Sarajevo Öniş, Z. (2000), “Luxembourg. Helsinki and Beyond: Towards an Interpretation of RecentTurkey-EU Relations”, Government and Opposition, 35 (4), pp. 463-483. Öniş, Z.. (2003), “Domestic Politics, International Norms and Challenges to theState: Turkey-EU Relations in the post-Helsinki era”, Turkish Studies, 4 (1), pp.9-35. Pike, A., Rodriguez-Pose, A. & Tomaney, J. (2006) Local and Regional Development, Abingdon, Routledge. Reeves, T., (2005) “Turkey’s Regional Policy on the Road to the EU”, Turkish PolicyQuarterly, Vol. 4, No. 3 (Fall 2005). Shearlock, James, Phillip James and Jo Phillips (2000) Regional Sustainable Development: Are the new Regional Devlopment Agencies arned with the Information that they require? Sustainable Development8, 79–88 (2000) Sungar, M., (2005) “Turkish-EU Negotiations:Prospective Effects on Public Administration and Regional Development”, Turkish Policy Quarterly, Vol. 4, No. 3 (Fall2005). Comparison Study of Approaches to Measuring Poverty Implementing Fuzzy Set and Classic Set Using The Household Data of Turkey Alparslan Abdurrahman Basaran1, Murat Alper Basaran2 1Hacettepe University, Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Department of Public Finance, 06800, Ankara, Turkey 2Akdeniz University, Faculty of Engineering, Management Engineering Department, 07425,Alanya, Turkey E-mails: aab@hacettepe.edu.tr, muratalper@yahoo.com Abstract Poverty is one of the issues several industrialized and developing countries encounter in the world. No country is exempt from this problem and its consequences. The top list item of the agendas of both countries and international agencies is related to diminishing poverty. Before taking action against it, countries and agencies need to measure poverty based on collected data. It is a sophisticated issue having several dimensions. So far measuring it with available data has resulted with indicators which show some deficiencies. When poverty is considered, it is a linguistic term and has a vague concept as mentioned in the theory of fuzzy set. Therefore, a new approach is proposed in the literature to examine it in order to overcome those deficiencies mentioned when classic tools are employed. On the other hand, fuzzy set 117 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Extent The size or duration of the resource. 1159 Title A name given to the resource An Evaluation Of Regional Development Agencies’ Roles In Regard To Social Sustainability: A Disscussion Of Turkish Development Agencies’ Experience Author Author Mustafa , Ökmen Abstract A summary of the resource. This study focuses on the nexus between social sustainability and regional and local development. In handling the issue in question, the work proposes to focus on the role played by regional development agencies in facilitating social sustainability. The study will facilitate the discussion by reviewing the Turkish experience in regional development by reviewing Turkish regional development agencies’ legacy that came on the Turkish regional development discussions in the mid of the very first decade of 2000s. The attempt will be to demonstrate that Turkish RDAs cannot handle mechanisms to deal with problems that appear at social and environmental levels of the notion of social sustainable development. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012-05-31 Keywords Keywords. Conference or Workshop Item PeerReviewed H Social Sciences (General) https://omeka.ibu.edu.ba/files/original/c1cc6c9c9b5d885982c47b534ca1c8d9.pdf 2d2e5a7a8b03fa72be664d22d4ff7720 PDF Text Text International Conference on Economic and Social Studies, 10-11 May, 2013, Sarajevo An Evaluation of Turkey’s Role in the “War on Terror”: ISAF Case İsa Eraslan Fatih University, İstanbul, Turkey isaeraslan@gmail.com After 9/11 World Trade Center terror attacks a large scale operation was conducted by US and its allies against Afghanistan. After the battle was won some thought the main aim was achieved but as the time passed by it was seen that destroying an authority and replacing nothing was not an effective solution. The ISAF operation has become an impasse for the NATO forces. The aim of this study is to discuss the role of Turkey in ISAF as a peacekeeping force. Among the many participants of ISAF mission Turkey has a significant role as the only NATO member with a Muslim majority. Thanks to her shared values and past with Afghan people and the effective strategy of Turkish armed forces Turkey has proved to be the most successful peacekeeping force in Afghanistan. Keywords: NATO, ISAF, Turkey, Peacekeeping, War on Terror. 174 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Extent The size or duration of the resource. 1584 Title A name given to the resource An Evaluation of Turkey’s Role in the “War on Terror”: ISAF Case Author Author ERASLAN, Isa Abstract A summary of the resource. After 9/11 World Trade Center terror attacks a large scale operation was conducted by US and its allies against Afghanistan. After the battle was won some thought the main aim was achieved but as the time passed by it was seen that destroying an authority and replacing nothing was not an effective solution. The ISAF operation has become an impasse for the NATO forces. The aim of this study is to discuss the role of Turkey in ISAF as a peacekeeping force. Among the many participants of ISAF mission Turkey has a significant role as the only NATO member with a Muslim majority. Thanks to her shared values and past with Afghan people and the effective strategy of Turkish armed forces Turkey has proved to be the most successful peacekeeping force in Afghanistan. Keywords: NATO, ISAF, Turkey, Peacekeeping, War on Terror. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available International Burch University Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2013-05-10 Keywords Keywords. Article PeerReviewed Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context ISSN 2303-4564 https://omeka.ibu.edu.ba/files/original/434a7bb04547c857aa6c0be275bcad5a.pdf 4e4e9402a2c228693e40db829be77dcc PDF Text Text 2nd International Symposium on Sustainable Development, June 8-9, 2010 Sarajevo An Evaluation on English Language Education Process in Turkey from the Viewpoints of University Preparatory School Students Ali Dinçer Res. Assist., Erzincan University, Faculty of Education, English Language Teaching Department, Erzincan, Turkey adincer@erzincan.edu.tr Mehmet Takkaç Prof. Dr., Atatürk University, Kazım Karabekir Education Faculty, English Language Teaching Department, Erzurum, Turkey mtakkac@atauni.edu.tr Suna Akalın Assist. Prof. Dr., Atatürk University, Kazım Karabekir Education Faculty, English Language Teaching Department, Erzurum, Turkey sakalin@atauni.edu.tr Abstract: Many studies on effective language teaching process draw attention to the importance of teacher roles in this process, and give advice teachers to have prior knowledge about what their students know before beginning the instruction. This study is intended to draw an effective English language teacher profile by taking into consideration first year students’ readiness levels and their experiences during their former education periods. In order to fulfill this aim, 38 preparatory class students from Tourism Vocational College Preparatory Programs, Erzincan University, were chosen at the beginning of 20092010 academic year. Participants were asked to write a composition on the evaluation of their prior language education experiences during their primary and high school years giving examples from English teachers who they admired most or they were not satisfied with. The analyses of the student compositions showed that some frequently experienced problems negatively affect foreign language education process. The most common of the problems were related to English teachers and English courses at schools as well as those stemming from teaching environments and teacher characteristics in Turkey. Key Words: Effective Language Teacher, Experience, Foreign Language Education, English Teacher Introduction English language teaching has become important especially after 1980s in Turkey and from the beginning of those years its importance in national primary and secondary schools in our country has increased day by day. To reach the needs of the time and meet the aims of national educational administration, English language which is most spoken language and referred as lingua franca of modern world, has become compulsory in every step of educational curricula. During the last three decades, primary schools, high schools and university language teaching departments have also encountered many changes about English language position in their curricula. The current situation in Turkey is as follow: English language as a foreign language is included in every curriculum of educational centres. Officially, Turkish national schools start teaching English as a foreign language in fourth and fifth grades of primary schools. In addition, some private preschool teaching institutions aim at teaching English as a foreign language to children. In spite of its being mostly taught language and its being widespread in Turkey, using the language as a communication tool by the learners is unfortunately inadequate. 235 �2nd International Symposium on Sustainable Development, June 8-9, 2010 Sarajevo In our country, it is widely asked why a foreign language has not been taught and the answer of this question has not been replied in spite of the applications and precautions done by the ministry of education yet. After the analyses of the studies on this issue (Demircan, 1988; Demirel, 1990; Gülmez, 1982; Gömleksiz, 1993; Harman, 1999; Demirel, 2003; Aydemir, 2007; Soner, 2007; Işık, 2009) foreign language teaching and learning exist as an important problem of Turkey today. One of these specialists, Soner (2007) summarizes main problems in foreign language education process in Turkey in her article and explains the reasons why ELT education is not successful in Turkey. According to her, main difficulties in ELT education stem mostly from limited number of teachers, teachers’ having lack of adequate foreign language knowledge and methods, teachers’ using old fashioned language approaches, students’ not giving importance because of the other courses’ heavy burden in school, insufficient language equipments in schools, students' lack of motivation and interest about foreign language, and students' not having chance of using the language outside the class. Before mentioning about effective language teacher and education process, it should be better to define the concepts “success, successful learner and successful teacher” in education. What is success, what makes a language learner successful and how can a language teacher become successful in the class? As a general meaning, success is to reach the aims and changes according to authority that puts the aims (Şahin, 2009). When the individual put some rules for the aims, the possibility of individuals' becoming successful becomes higher. Then the learner becomes intrinsically motivated. However, in educational settings, aims are determined before the educational process. Therefore, it can be said that learners are motivated generally in education extrinsically and students should replace extrinsic motivation with intrinsic motivation for achievement. This can be supported with proper arranged educational settings. Nikolov (2001) replies the second question by making a study including questions about the features of successful language learners. In her study, participants listed what they thought to be necessary for a learner to be good at foreign language. According to results of this study, majority considered that one should have persistence, strong will, hard work, patience, good aptitude and memory, a good teacher, great enthusiasm and motivation towards language. Also Brown (1978) draws an effective language learner profile by looking at mostly affective factors and says that a good learner should be field independent in communication, use feedback, and have proper distance with regard to native and target cultures and self-esteem. Successful teacher or in other words effective teacher is identified in many studies (Brown, 1978; Sanderson, 1983; Moon and Shelton, 1994; Vadillo, 1999; Çetin, 2001; Güven, 2004; Şeker et al., 2004; Malikov, 2006; Genç, 2007; Mohidin et al., 2009). All these studies used different criterion features changing situation to situation. Because there are a number of features about teacher evaluation which holds the effective teacher from different perspectives and the term “effective” is perceived and interpreted differently by the people. To make an evaluation of the teachers easier, Miller (1987) (cited in Vadillo, 1999, p.354) defines the qualities of effective teacher by separating in four areas: “1) affective characteristics: enthusiasm, encouragement, humour, interest in the student, availability, mental health; 2) skills: creativity, challenge; 3)classroom management: pace, pairness; 4) academic knowledge: grammar”. In addition, Çetin (2001) and Kücükahmet (2006, pp: 145-150) categorized the ideal teacher features in different parts focusing on the mostly cited Self-Evaluation Checklist for Teachers in literature. While Çetin says that there are three divisions each of which has also subdivisions, and these are about teachers’ individual characteristics, professional academic capabilities, and their attitudes towards teaching professions, Kücükahmet calling the effective teacher as democratic teacher explains the issue in four divisions by adding one more feature to Çetin’s division. That feature is about teachers’ knowledge on general culture. In the light of this complexity, it is interpreted that this complex situation in the definitions is the same for the concept effective language teacher. For example, while Brown (1978) defines effective language teacher in terms of affective factors, Sanderson (1983) explains effective language teacher phenomenon mostly by approaching from the perspective of classroom activities. Brown says that a good language teacher should “be able deal with field indepence, respond to the student with empathy, insure the presence of meaningful communicative contexts in classroom, provide optimal feedback, be sensitive to sociocultural alienation and encourage self-esteem in the student.” Sanderson’s study reveals that a good language teacher should use the target language predominantly, have clear and good pronunciation, stress and intonation, make students involve in activities, be flexible with regard to objectives, explain the classroom task clearly etc. Therefore, it is not easy 236 �2nd International Symposium on Sustainable Development, June 8-9, 2010 Sarajevo to make an exact definition of the phenomenon because of the wide variety of definitions and characteristics in literature. To make a general definition and understand the concept, Arıkan and his colleagues (2008) made a study on effective English teacher by looking at Turkish preparatory class school students’ perspectives. In that study, effective teacher qualities chiefly quoted by the students are respectively “possessing good knowledge of the English language, being open to innovations, behaving friendly, motivating, being aware of student needs, being good at classroom management, witty, and lastly limiting the use of mother tongue.” In addition to all these concepts and definitions, it can be claimed that it is not quite easy to define language learning process accurately and all knowledge. Because education is a complex experience, which has many components and each of them is very crucial for the success of education. Fundamental components of education are summarized as teacher, student, education programme and environment. These components were described in the many works (Novak and Gowin, 1984; Gömleksiz, 2002; McDonough and Shaw, 2003) and they can not be thought as separate parts. Each component is a part of a whole and affects one another. According to Fidan and Erden (1994), teacher is the person who supports and arranges learning process. In this process, the functions of teacher are to arrange learning experiences by utilizing different educational methods and techniques, and to evaluate whether desired behaviours are learned by the learners. Students are individuals who need learning and go to formal education institutions in order to meet this need. Education programme is a curriculum which shows all activities conducted for the aim of meeting the need of learner. It “comprises the knowledge, skills, and values of educative experience that meet criteria of excellence that make them worthy of study.” Environment, or in other words milieu is “the context in which the learning experience takes place, and it influences how teacher and student come to share the meaning of curriculum.”(Novak and Gowin, 1984). These four components should work in harmony and significant importance should be given to each one in order to reach desired level in education. In this study, it is aimed to analyse language-learning experiences in Turkey in retrospect through students’ own eyes by getting knowledge about their readiness towards English education according to main components of educational setting. By this study, questions why students enrolled to preparatory classes have not been able to live an ideal language learning process in their formal education period, and why they have not become successful language learners are answered from the viewpoints of them. Methods and Research Design The data in this study were obtained from 38 preparatory class students enrolled to Erzincan University Tourism Vocational College Preparatory Programs. At the beginning of the academic year 2009-2010, at students' first English course at the vocational school, participants were asked to write a composition on the evaluation of their prior English language experiences during their primary and high school years by giving examples from their English language teachers. The first course was specially chosen in order to get the correct knowledge from students not affecting their thoughts about the readiness towards English. Before this activity any English language education and course have not been taught to students in the department. To access the realist data, the compositions were written in Turkish and also two other activities were carried out for this study. For two other studies, first of all students were asked to write at least 50 English vocabularies which they could write correctly on a sheet and as a second activity they were asked to write a composition about themselves in English. During these entire activities participants’ names were anonymous, only the knowledge about their age and school type from which they graduated were asked. These two activities have not been included in the study; they were applied only to see students' writing skills and have an idea about their readiness for language. The written composition is a kind of interview method which aims at getting deep information on a specific issue. Each student composition’s descriptive analyses were made and these analyses were categorized according to main components of education. These are teacher, student, education programme and environment. 237 �2nd International Symposium on Sustainable Development, June 8-9, 2010 Sarajevo Results The results of this study have two dimensions. First is about participants’ school types and the second is about components of education. By looking at the findings, it is aimed to make relation between school types and students’ thoughts about components of the education. In order to determine their average age, 38 participants’ ages were added and then their arithmetic mean score was calculated. Students’ arithmetic mean score of age was found 20,4. Then knowledge about the participants’ school types was written in table. School types' frequencies and percentages are shown in Table- 1. School Type University General High School Vocational High School Anatolian High School Private High School Frequency (N=38) 1 25 9 2 1 Percentage 2,6 65,8 23,7 5,3 2,6 Table- 1: Frequencies and Percentages related to Graduated School types Table 1 illustrates that many of the participants graduated from General High Schools which had only English courses only in their first grade in previous years. Some of the students graduated from Vocational High Schools. Vocational High Schools mainly deal with courses about a specific kind of profession and teaching English always seems at second importance. These schools include Anatolian Vocational Schools, Vocational Schools for Hotel Management and Tourism, Vocational Schools for Girls and Vocational Schools for Commerce. Two participants graduated from Anatolian High Schools. In the past, these schools had a preparatory class aiming at teaching extensive English to students. One of the students graduated from four-year faculty and the other student graduated from private high school. In order to get knowledge about the components of education, students' compositions were categorized in four types. According to the compositions’ analyses, all of the students think that they were not thoroughly taught language at their education period and they failed to learn English because of some reasons. In their compositions, some students mentioned about problems more than one so that frequency number is not equal to the number of participants. Frequencies related to components of education are shown in Table- 2. Educational Problems Stemming from Teacher 30 participants Education Programme 15 participants Student Environment 13 participants 10 participants Table- 2: Frequencies related to the components of education Table 2 related to the content analyses of the student compositions illustrates that most of the participants think that main reason of their failure in English education stems from their English teachers. The percentage of them is 78,9. Because of the drawbacks in ministry of national education and teacher characteristics, students consider the teacher as the main factor of their failures. The second important and significant problem in terms of frequencies is Educational Programme. The percentage of students who report that Educational Programme is the source of failure is 39,5. According to student quotations, problems related to educational programme stem from educational curricula, selected materials and course hours. The problem in the third order is Student factor. 34,2% of participants think that they have failed because of themselves. Students think that they have failed because of inefficient studies, inadequate practice and negligence on English courses. Lastly, 26,3% of the participants believe that teaching environment affected their language learning process negatively. These problems are related to educational setting, teaching environment and peer factor. 238 �2nd International Symposium on Sustainable Development, June 8-9, 2010 Sarajevo Discussion A big majority of the students in this study have graduated from General High Schools. In previous years, English language as a course was taught only in first year of high schools as four hours per week and an old-fashioned book titled as “Modern English Course for Turks” which does not pay attention to four skills in language learning was used as a main coursebook of the lesson. In the following years after first grade, there was no English course in curriculum except foreign language sections. In spite of the advances in educational curricula of these schools such as English courses’ becoming compulsory in second grade, third and fourth grades, English teaching is developed properly and students graduating from these schools stated negative thoughts while evaluating their prior language experiences. These schools have still common problems such as having crowded classes, being lack of sufficient number of teachers and language materials. An average student graduates from high schools between 17 and 18 ages in Turkish education system. By regarding students’ average age (20,3), it can be interpreted that these students’ average is two points more than the overall Turkish average. Therefore, it can be concluded that most of them enrolled to university at their second attempt in the university entrance exam. This knowledge identifies these students have not been taught formally in educational institutions for at least four years. In addition, the status of English course in vocational high schools is almost the same with general high schools. English courses become so-called lessons that appear as four hours a week apart from Anatolian vocational high schools de facto in educational curricula; but in reality, these courses are not so much effective because of the problems that general high school students have to cope with. In terms of course hours, Anatolian and private high schools give more importance English courses than other types of schools (look M.E.B, 2005). These can be viewed from their curricula, their language environments, English teachers’ quantity etc. In previous years, some high schools like Anatolian, Science and Teacher Training schools which had preparatory classes for extensive English evidenced fundamental changes about English courses in their curricula. As a result, their preparatory classes were abolished from their curricula, and they became four-year high schools like other types of high schools. One student had graduated from faculty apart from foreign language departments. English courses at universities except from a few universities, which have compulsory or intentional preparatory classes, are three or four credits or a non- credit lesson. By taking into consideration of course credits, it is concluded that ineffectiveness of the courses are clear (Gömleksiz, 1993). In order to get success in education, each of four components of education should study in coordination. As its’ being difficult to distinguish one from another in definite lines (Güven, 2004), any problem related to one of these components certainly affect the others negatively in this process. When looked at the analyses of the student compositions, it seems that main reason of the failure in education is teacher factor in foreign language instruction. In addition, other three factors have affected this process with having different frequencies. Many participants mentioned about problems with their English teachers. On supposing the role of teachers in education, it is clearly understood that problems stemming from this source would affect the whole education and the whole learners negatively. Mostly mentioned issue about the teacher factor is different branch teachers. Because of the insufficient number of trained language teachers, teachers from other branches have the permission of teaching these courses (M.E.B., 2006). Some of the participants stated this issue as follows: “As we did not have an English teacher in primary and secondary schools, teachers from different branches tried to teach English us.” Another student expressed that “Our Turkish teacher taught our English lessons in primary school.” The other one says, “In my high school years, we had a number of teachers from different branches such as Religion and Physical Teacher.” In addition, students mentioned that those teachers coming from different branches were inefficient in language teaching, so that they thought that English courses are easy courses to pass or free courses which they spent time inactively. Moreover, some students think that having an English language teacher is a luxury in high school. Student opinions are as follows: “I met with English course firstly in my high school years and my teacher was originally French language teacher, then he was not skillful in teaching.”; “ In my high school years our physical training teacher taught our course so that we were talking about sports during the course.”; “ There was no Mathematics teacher, let alone English.” 239 �2nd International Symposium on Sustainable Development, June 8-9, 2010 Sarajevo In addition to these factors, foreign language teachers’ teaching capabilities, physical and individual characteristics affected students negatively. Teachers who are unaware of the current methods in language education and insist on teaching with old-fashioned methods such as GTM, and their reluctance and disregard towards the course make students distract from learning the language. Also, teachers who regard language learning as being good at grammar and memorizing all rules and make activities entirely different from real life reduce students’ motivation for learning the language. Participant opinions about these issues are as follows: “In my high school education, our teachers used to give papers about the course before the examination, so we memorized those sheets and became successful in examinations with high marks.” Another one says, “As our teacher had problems with classroom management and disciplining us, he always shouted and punished us. He did not get well with students, so he was totally useless in education.” The second problem causing the failure in language education results from Educational programme in this study. Curriculum and course materials have an important place in educational programme. Many students were not taught English or did not take inadequate courses in their primary school years. Participants many of whom are students graduating from general high schools state that they took English courses only in their first year of high school, and have not taken any special course or tutor then. In spite of some students’ sentences about having English courses at their second, third and fourth grades, their sentences were followed with negative explanations. When considered the new formations related to course hours in high schools’ curricula, it can be said that actually curriculum in itself is one of the main sources of the failure. One student mentions about the curriculum and says that he could not understand the lessons because of the fact that his teacher was curious about following the curriculum and he performed the lesson so quickly in order to reach the program. In addition to that, students were unpleased with course books and same topics in books. One participant writes, “I was taught same grammar topics again and again, this was very boring.” Third component is student factor. While addressing the reasons of failures, thirteen students confessed that they did not become successful because of their negative behaviors such as pseudo-listening, not attending courses and cheating. Some of the student sentences are as follows: “I did not listen effectively what the teacher was teaching during the course and I refused to join the courses consciously.”; “In spite of taking English course, I did not revise what I had learnt, and then I forgot everything.”; “My great fault was to ignore the importance of English.” The last and the least mentioned component is environment. Foreign language environment consists physical conditions of the school, classroom atmosphere, students, social environment and family. The use of existing school facilities or vice versa, and atmosphere in which language instruction is carried out become effective in determining the success or failure. Participants mentioning about problems about environment mostly stated that their friends in the class affected them negatively and decreased their motivation to participate in the activities. Furthermore, they are not pleased with not using the language itself as a communication tool outside classes. These situations are cited in student texts as follows: “Our teacher did not teach anything because he made us watch films and movies during the whole course.”; “Our classes were very crowded, and then I did not get much opportunity to join the lessons.”; “I did not have a chance of using what I had learnt in my daily life, so I forgot all.” To sum up, the general problems discussed in the study are about the numbers of teachers, their coming from different branches, teachers’ individual characteristics, their field knowledge and teaching capabilities, students’ not giving importance to courses and their low motivation levels, poor curricula, insufficient course hours and materials in schools, artificial language environments and lastly negative peer factor. These problems are also mentioned a number of studies and the results are parallel with some studies (Gömleksiz, 2002; Kuzeci, 2002; Gökdemir, 2005; Soner,2007; Günday, 2007; Bağçeci & Yaşar, 2007; Işık, 2008). When overviewed all problems especially related to teachers, students’ chance of being successful will certainly become higher. Because teachers have heavy responsibilities on coping with the failure in foreign language education and teacher is the most significant component in education process when each element has significantly tied up one within the other. Therefore, it is clear that in order to understand language teaching and learning process, one needs to understand teachers (Varghese et al., 2005). Because unique power in educational setting is the teacher applying education programme, affecting students’ learning and decreasing the negative effects of the environment. 240 �2nd International Symposium on Sustainable Development, June 8-9, 2010 Sarajevo This study was carried out with the help of only university’s one type of preparatory classes, which have students mostly getting negative thoughts about their former education, and written interview method, a qualitative research method, was used in gathering data process. Additionally, participants’ compositions were analyzed according to main components of education. Therefore, there are some limitations concerned with participants, method and analyses. With a larger group including other departments’ preparatory classes, mixed type method supported with questionnaires and interviews, and different kinds of evaluation criterions, more detailed results dealing with student failures in foreign language process can be gathered and then results can be generalized. By this study, the importance of teachers’ having knowledge on students’ readiness for language is emphasized by the perspective of them. Because in order to determine what to teach, initially a teacher should begin to determine what their students know (Güven, 2004). In a word, to reach success in foreign language process, one should try to decrease the problems related to teacher, educational programme and environment by a consideration of students’ prior language learning experiences. References Arıkan, A., Taşer, D. & Saraç-Süzer, H. S. (2008). The effective English language teacher from the perspectives of Turkish preparatory school students. 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Theorizing language teacher identity: three perspectives and beyond. Journal of Language Identity, and Education, 4 (1), 21-44. 242 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Extent The size or duration of the resource. 703 Title A name given to the resource An Evaluation on English Language Education Process in Turkey from the Viewpoints of University Preparatory School Students Author Author Dinçer, Ali Takkaç, Mehmet Akalın, Suna Abstract A summary of the resource. Many studies on effective language teaching process draw attention to the importance of teacher roles in this process, and give advice teachers to have prior knowledge about what their students know before beginning the instruction. This study is intended to draw an effective English language teacher profile by taking into consideration first year students’ readiness levels and their experiences during their former education periods. In order to fulfill this aim, 38 preparatory class students from Tourism Vocational College Preparatory Programs, Erzincan University, were chosen at the beginning of 2009- 2010 academic year. Participants were asked to write a composition on the evaluation of their prior language education experiences during their primary and high school years giving examples from English teachers who they admired most or they were not satisfied with. The analyses of the student compositions showed that some frequently experienced problems negatively affect foreign language education process. The most common of the problems were related to English teachers and English courses at schools as well as those stemming from teaching environments and teacher characteristics in Turkey. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2010-06 Keywords Keywords. Conference or Workshop Item PeerReviewed H Social Sciences (General)