Search results

The paper examines whether, along with the financial performance, the disclosure of research and development (R&D) expenses, patent portfolios, patent citations and innovation activities affect the market capitalization of Russian companies.

The paper opted for a set of techniques including bag-of-words (BoW) to retrieve additional innovation-related data from companies' annual reports, self-organizing maps (SOM) to perform visual exploratory analysis and panel data regression (PDR) to conduct confirmatory analysis using data on 74 Russian publicly traded companies for the period 2013–2019.

The paper observes that the disclosure of nonfinancial data on R&D, patents and primarily product and marketing innovations positively affects the market capitalization of the largest Russian companies, which are mainly focused on energy, raw materials and utilities and are operating on international markets. The study suggests that these companies are financially well-resourced to innovate at risk and thus to provide positive signals to stakeholders and external agents.

Our findings are important to management, investors, financial analysts, regulators and various agencies providing guidance on corporate governance and sustainability reporting. However, the authors acknowledge that the research results may lack generalizability due to the sample covering a single national context. Researchers are encouraged to test the proposed approach further on other countries' data by using the compiled lexicons.

The study aims to expand the domains of signaling theory and market valuation by providing new insights into the impact that companies' reporting on R&D, patents and innovation activities has on market capitalization. New nonfinancial factors that previous research does not investigate – innovation disclosure indicators (IDI) – are tested.

This study aims to blockchain facilitate information sharing among different players in the food industry, such as farmers, food suppliers and investors, enabling an effective decision-making process where the information about goods is traceable without any inherent risk. Although blockchain technology is emerging, its use in the food industry needs to be explored from different angles, such as organizations’ policy, adoption strategies and potential technology innovations which could positively impact business processes.

For this purpose, the authors survey 84 organizations in the food industry. Further, the authors conducted in-depth- interviews with three organizations that applied blockchain technology in the production phase to address the pros and cons of this adaption and discuss how the technology could be improved based on the challenges they faced. Moreover, an overview of current and potential digital transformation uses cases of blockchain technology in the food industry has been provided.

The results suggested that perceived efficiency, transparency, standardization and platform development and traceability factors positively influenced intention to use (ITU).

The adoption of the blockchain cloud solution is neither time-consuming nor expensive; organizations may attempt to predict how regulations or standards will be developed to create a blockchain solution compatible with them.

This study is among the primary studies investigating the role of blockchain technology in the food sector from the organizations’ viewpoint, highlighting the factors influencing the ITU.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the problem of achieving “organizational justice” for children within integrated children's services. Justice is understood, following Byers and Rhodes discussion of Levinas as respecting the “unique and indivisible” character of a given child.

The empirical material reported here is drawn from a large study of interagency working in children's services in the UK. Data are taken from Developmental Work Research sessions. Methodological details are outlined in Daniels et al. and Leadbetter et al.

The key finding discussed here is that in order to balance the outcome measures used in children's services, participants use a further abstraction “the outcome of improved outcomes”. The logical and practical consequences of this abstraction are analysed.

The paper offers an empirically grounded contribution to conceptual debates about otherness and ethics in organization. In particular, it argues that a concern for the other need not preclude a high level of concrete categorization and minute target setting. The philosophical debate is seen to be “resolved” in practice.

To guide students' thinking about joining professional associations.

A few representative professional organizations are explored. Aspects such as organizational structure, history, culture, professional focus, and size are discussed.

Many more professional associations exist and encourage student participation than most students are aware of when they enter the profession.

Students can compare professional associations to find those most suited to their professional interests. These may not be the most local or well known national organizations.

This is an attempt to help students recognize that professional organizations exist regardless of their niche interest, and despite the larger and more general associations that may be given local emphasis.

Although libraries provide quiet and well‐equipped places for students to seek and use information, the trend librarians are seeing is a decline in the number of people coming to the library. In contrast, they are seeing a dramatic increase in the use of remotely accessed research databases. From these two trends emerges the concept of disintermediation, where library users seek and retrieve information without the assistance of the librarian, and the realization that librarians are no longer present when users need help in developing successful search strategies and evaluating the information they find. Librarians are not present at that teachable moment. To overcome the effects of disintermediation, librarians need to evaluate their services and recreate their instructional strategies in innovative ways so that they are available to the users of information wherever those users are.

The history of Bulgarian librarianship comprises a history of survival under change imposed by foreign rule. This chapter traces the historical development of Bulgarian libraries and LIS education through the lens of Bulgarian history. Part I presents an overview of Bulgarian history, focusing on four dramatic epochs. During Ottoman rule (1393–1878), Bulgarian libraries survived by hiding. The second epoch, European intervention, Russian, occurred under the Austro-Hungarian, and German rule (1878–1944). Bulgarian LIS survived by adopting European practices and the German academic model of library education. The third epoch, Soviet rule (1944–1989), saw a massive suppression of information, Bulgarian libraries survived by maintaining an undercurrent of dissent. The fourth epoch began in 1989 with the onset of democratic reforms. Bulgarian librarianship survived the financial crisis and anarchy of that epoch by adopting foreign practices and establishing partnerships with foreign library institutions. Part II describes agents of change acting within the Bulgarian LIS field during the radical change from Soviet to democratic rule. The change agents included the formation of a union, cooperation among Bulgarian libraries, and international cooperation with Western institutions.

Research for this chapter incorporated literature reviews, surveys of accredited Bulgarian LIS programs, interviews with Bulgarian and American LIS professionals, and bibliometric analysis of Bulgarian publications.

The ongoing “digitalization of work” is one of the major phenomena shaping contemporary organizations. The aim of this study is to explore linguistic constructs of white-collar workers (WCWs) related to their use of digital tools.

The framework of ideological dilemmas (Billig et al., 1988) is mobilized to investigate the conflicting demands WCW interviewees construct when describing the ongoing digitalization of their office work.

This study shows how “digitalization of work” is enforcing an organizational ideological dilemma of structure and flexibility for WCWs. In the digital workplace, this dilemma is linguistically expressed as the individual should be, or should want to be, both flexible and structured in her work.

The use of language exposes conflicting ideals in the use of digital tools that might increase work–life stress. Implications for managers include acknowledging the dilemmas WCWs face in digitalized organizations and supporting them before they embark upon a digitalization journey.

The study shows that the negotiation between competing organizational discourses is constructed irrespective of hierarchical positions; the organizations digital maturity; private or public sector; or country. The study confirms contradictory ideological claims as “natural” and unquestionable in digitalized officework.