Search results

This paper’s objective is to provide a systematic literature review of the contextual factors affecting downward communication from supervisors to subordinates in the audit environment. In addition, this review identifies emerging research themes and directions for future research.

I accomplish this review’s objectives by leveraging communication literature to establish a framework to identify and synthesize contextual factors affecting downward communication in the audit environment. The review identifies 50 published articles in the last 20 years from leading accounting and auditing journals.

This study consolidates research findings on downward communication under two primary contextual factors: (1) message and (2) channel. Findings indicate that empirical research examining communication in audit is fragmented and limited. Studies examining the message focus heavily on its content and treatment in the areas of feedback, nonverbal cues, and fraud brainstorming, and a handful of additional studies examine the effectiveness of the channel in these areas. Additional research is needed to understand a broader set of supervisor–subordinate communication practices, including those that are computer-mediated, and their effect on subordinate auditors’ judgments and behaviors in the contemporary audit environment.

Much of the audit literature examining communication to date is topic-versus construct-based, making it difficult to see how the research findings relate to one another. This review is the first to synthesize the literature to provide academics recommendations for a way forward, and inform practitioners of communication practices whereby supervisors can be trained to improve audit quality.

Drawing on the moral foundations theory (MFT), we examine what nonprofit organizations (NPOs) discuss and how NPOs engage in gun-related issues on Twitter. Specifically, we explore latent topics and embedded moral values (i.e. care, fairness, loyalty, authority, and sanctity) in NPOs’ tweets and investigate the effects of the latent topics and moral values on invoking public engagement.

Data were retrieved by the Twint Python and the rtweet R packages. Finally, 5,041 tweets posted by 679 NPOs were analyzed via unsupervised topic modeling and the extended moral foundations dictionary (eMFD). Negative binomial regression analysis was employed for statistical analysis.

NPOs’ engagement in gun-related issues mainly focuses on laws and policies, calling for action and collaborations, and school safety. All five moral foundations are more salient in the cluster of laws and policies. When NPOs discuss the above-mentioned three topics, the public is less likely to like or retweet NPOs’ messages. In contrast, NPOs’ messages with the sanctity foundation are most likely to receive likes and retweets from the public. The fairness foundation interacts with Cluster 3 of school safety on the number of likes.

This study enhances the understanding of gun-related social media discussions by identifying the crucial involvement of NPOs as major stakeholders. In addition, our study enriches the existing literature on NPOs’ social media communication by including moral values and their moral-emotional effects on public engagement. Finally, our study validates the eMFD dictionary and broadens its applicability to gun-related topics.

This study aims to review the results of relevant studies to shed light on social trust-building in different contexts and the factors that affect it in disaster risk management.

This systematic review was conducted using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses model. The study keywords were searched for in PubMed, Scopus and Web of Science databases on August 2021. The inclusion criteria were English-written articles published in social trust and disaster relief efforts. Exclusion criteria were lack of access to the full text and article types such as nonoriginal articles.

Out of 1,359 articles found, 17 articles were included in the final analysis using four general categories: six articles on the role of local government in trust-building (local governments), five articles on the role of social media in trust-building (social media), four articles on the role of social capital in trust-building (social capital) and two articles on the importance of community participation in trust-building (community participation).

Understanding the role of social trust and the factors which influence it will help the development of community-based disaster risk management. Therefore, disaster management organizations and other relief agencies should take the findings of this study into account, as they can help guide policymaking and the adoption of strategies to improve public trust and participation in comprehensive disaster risk management. Further studies recommended understanding people’s experiences and perceptions of social trust, relief and disaster preparedness.

This study aims to holistically explore the intersection of sustainable supply chain management, carbon accounting and life cycle assessment (LCA). The purpose of this study is to derive state-of-the-art knowledge of this landscape and use it to build a structured research agenda that can help to further develop this field.

Seventy-eight distinct contributions, identified through a rigorous, transparent and replicable search protocol, are analyzed through a systematic literature review. Additionally, bibliometric information on the studies is extracted from the Scopus database and visualized through the use of VOSViewer and RStudio.

This study outlines the current state-of-the-art knowledge across three spheres of supply chain management, synthesizing the extant literature into several nascent themes – namely, the significance of Scope 3 emissions; how LCA can be integrated into carbon accounting and sustainability disclosures, the differences between countries and industries in terms of carbon emissions and policies for a concerted effort toward carbon reduction.

Several practical implications can be drawn from the research for both practitioners and policymakers. The research provides a comprehensive, bird’s eye view on the discrepancies between different industries and countries in terms of carbon emissions, along with how carbon accounting should move toward strategic and predictive adoption.

The results show that adopting life cycle thinking can contribute to more transparent monitoring of carbon emissions in supply chains; however, its use in sustainability reporting needs to become more widespread, encompassing not only the carbon footprints of products and services but also the organization as a whole.

Using bibliographic and critical qualitative analyses, this study reviews the literature on LCA in sustainable supply chain management and carbon accounting. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this review is the first attempt to synthesize this relevant and rapidly growing nexus between the three literature streams mentioned above.

The purpose of this viewpoint is to spotlight the role of reviewers within the collaborative triad of academic publishing. It argues that the significance of reviewers is often disregarded, leading to a gap in our understanding of the peer review process. This perspective emphasizes reviewers as unsung heroes in the publishing ecosystem, providing intentional and thought-provoking insights into the less-discussed yet impactful developments in the evolving peer review landscape.

Leveraging the author’s distinguished background as a recipient of the Journal of Service Marketing Outstanding Reviewer Award, this paper offers a personal reflection and synthesised viewpoints on the peer review process. Serving as a representative voice for reviewers, it provides insightful perspectives from the vantage point of a peer reviewer, diverging from conventional editorials and commentaries authored by editors.

Acknowledging the shrinking reviewer pool, this viewpoint suggests a mandatory “review for review” system alongside incentives like editorial positions, while considering financial rewards for reviewers. The rise of generative artificial intelligence (AI) in review prompts ethical concerns but offers solutions for handling diverse submissions and dealing with “Reviewer 2.” While embracing open review for its transparency, potential pitfalls surrounding article confidence and copyright require attention. Ultimately, this viewpoint advocates for a collaborative approach, valuing reviewers, exploring innovative solutions, navigating ethical dilemmas in the technological age and implementing transparent practices responsibly for the betterment of scholarly discourse.

This viewpoint highlights the invaluable contributions of reviewers, enriching the scholarly community and promoting intellectual growth.

Despite increasing focus among scholars and practitioners on the design of product-service systems (PSS), there exists no compilation of current knowledge on the role played by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in designing such systems. Thus, this paper sets out to identify and organise the existing research and suggest questions for future research.

A systematic literature review was performed to identify and provide in-depth details on key themes in the literature addressing the design of PSS in SMEs.

This paper identifies five themes in the literature on the design of PSS in SMEs: motives, challenges, SME characteristics, methods and digitalisation. The themes are interrelated, and SME characteristics seem to be at the core as they are related to all the other themes. Gaps in the current knowledge are identified, and questions for future research are suggested.

The suggestions for future research provide a starting point for expanding the research on PSS design and devising practical support for SMEs.

Managing project completion within the stipulated time is significant to all firms' sustainability. Especially for software start-up firms, it is of utmost importance. For any schedule variation, these firms must spend 25 to 40 percent of the development cost reworking quality defects. Significantly, the existing literature does not support defect rework opportunities under quality aspects among Indian IT start-ups. The present study aims to fill this niche by proposing a unique mathematical model of the defect rework aligned with the Six Sigma quality approach.

An optimization model was formulated, comprising the two objectives: rework “time” and rework “cost.” A case study was developed in relevance, and for the model solution, we used MATLAB and an elitist, Nondominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm (NSGA-II).

The output of the proposed approach reduced the “time” by 31 percent at a minimum “cost”. The derived “Pareto Optimal” front can be used to estimate the “cost” for a pre-determined rework “time” and vice versa, thus adding value to the existing literature.

This work has deployed a decision tree for defect prediction, but it is often criticized for overfitting. This is one of the limitations of this paper. Apart from this, comparing the predicted defect count with other prediction models hasn’t been attempted. NSGA-II has been applied to solve the optimization problem; however, the optimal results obtained have yet to be compared with other algorithms. Further study is envisaged.

The Pareto front provides an effective visual aid for managers to compare multiple strategies to decide the best possible rework “cost” and “time” for their projects. It is beneficial for cost-sensitive start-ups to estimate the rework “cost” and “time” to negotiate with their customers effectively.

This paper proposes a novel quality management framework under the Six Sigma approach, which integrates optimization of critical metrics. As part of this study, a unique mathematical model of the software defect rework process was developed (combined with the proposed framework) to obtain the optimal solution for the perennial problem of schedule slippage in the rework process of software development.

Given resource constraints such as time and staffing, hotels cannot respond to all negative online reviews (NORs). Therefore, this study investigates (1) what types of NORs hotels should prioritize responding; and (2) what response strategies are more effective in handling different types of NORs to minimize the negative ramifications.

Four experiments in the context of hospitability were used to test the hypotheses.

Our findings show that NORs with implicit conclusions (e.g. “I do not believe that is a good choice, you know what I mean.”) are more dissuasive than NORs with explicit ones (e.g. “Do not buy it.”) because the former NORs are perceived as more objective than the latter NORs. More importantly, our results show that firms do not need to respond to explicit NORs. When responding to implicit NORs, firms should prioritize those related to service failures caused by external (e.g. weather, technological misfunction) rather than internal (e.g. poor management, employee skills) factors.

Our studies focus on the language styles of Chinese NORs, and future research should investigate how language styles influence dissuasion in other languages.

Our results show that NORs with implicit conclusions negatively impact consumer attitude and thus hurt performance more significantly than those with explicit conclusions. Therefore, firms should allocate limited staffing and resources to NORs with implicit conclusions. When responding to implicit NORs, firms should select NORs that can be attributed to external factors.

Our findings shed light on the importance of the language styles of NORs and provide marketers with insights into how to handle NORs. Our results reveal that consumers perceive higher objectivity of NORs when these reviews are implicit than when they are explicit. Furthermore, this study contributes to the online review literature by suggesting that firms should tailor their response strategies for NORs based on the reviewers’ language styles.

Given the growing interest in the topic of knowledge management (KM) in family firms (FFs) and the subsequent increasing number of papers published, this study aims to review the field to identify and analyze the main themes and trends.

This study applies bibliometric techniques to a sample of 146 papers published from 2007 to 2023 and their 8,126 unique cited references. Bibliometric coupling is performed on the sample papers to explore the current intellectual structure of the field of KM in FFs, whereas cocitations analysis is performed to investigate the different literature streams that served as roots for the development of such a field.

Bibliographic coupling reveals that sample papers can be grouped into four clusters, and, through papers content analysis, the author identifies their core themes as knowledge sharing, innovation, knowledge-based dynamic capabilities and intellectual capital. Cocitation analysis of the cited references revealed four main clusters that can be considered the literature streams that served as roots for the development of the field, i.e. knowledge-based view, socioemotional wealth, strategic management and social capital (as a theory and as a resource).

This study contributes to the literature on KM in FFs by extending prior systematic review efforts with bibliometric analyses and combining these results to highlight connections between the main research themes around which scholars have debated (i.e. the clusters identified through bibliometric coupling) and their theoretical foundations (i.e. the clusters identified through cocitation analysis). This study also has practical implications by synthesizing and informing managers about FFs’ advantages and weaknesses in the KM process.

Given the popularity of online health communities (OHCs) and medical question-and-answer (Q&A) services, it is increasingly important to understand what constitutes useful answers and user-adopted standards in healthcare domain. However, few studies provide insights into how health information characteristics, provider characteristics and recipient characteristics jointly influence user information adoption decisions. To fill this research gap, this study examines the combined effects of physicians' certainty tone as information characteristics, seniority as provider characteristics and disease severity as recipient characteristics on patients' health information adoption.

Drawing on dual-process theory and information adoption model, an extended information adoption model is established in this study to examine the effect of attitude certainty on patients' health information adoption, and the moderating effects of online seniority and offline seniority, as well as patient motivation level—disease severity. Utilizing logit regression models, the authors empirically tested the hypotheses based on 4,224 Q&A records from a popular Chinese OHC.

The results show that (1) attitude certainty has a significant positive impact on patients' health information adoption, (2) the relationship between attitude certainty and information adoption is negatively moderated by physicians' online seniority, but is positively moderated by offline seniority; (3) there is a negative three-way interaction effect of attitude certainty, online seniority and disease severity on patients' health information adoption.

This study extends the information adoption model to examine the two-way interaction between argument quality and source reliability, as well as the three-way interaction with user motivation level, especially for health information adoption in the healthcare field. These findings also provide direct practical applications for knowledge contributors and OHCs.