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This paper examines data protection related ex ante transaction costs borne by the private sector in the context of smart city service (SCS) public tendering in the European Union after the introduction of the General Data Protection Regulation. This study aims to establish the determinants of ex ante transaction costs related to data protection as well as to determine their relevance toward (tender) competition.

A statistical analysis of a survey sample of 72 SCS tender bids.

The potential of relationship management to foster more private sector investment in data protection for SCSs is established, i.e. stronger ties between parties lead to higher private sector investment. Furthermore, it is found that investing more in data protection can further boost both internal capabilities and the organizational reputation of tendering organizations. Finally, the analysis exposes a potential problem concerning the market for data protection originating from the dominant approach concerning SCS tender bid evaluation.

SCS tender bid evaluation is not perceived by the evaluated companies as having data protection as a (core) component. As a consequence, there is no strong competition in that specific area. To induce the private sector to structurally develop SCSs that can be expected to safeguard the fundamental rights of citizens, a more thorough evaluation of data protection aspects of bids imposes itself. Such an overhaul is likely to demand additional public sector resources and expertise.

This paper constitutes an early investigation into data protection related ex ante transaction costs borne by private sector actors. Incentives for data protection investment in the context of public procurement procedures are discussed.

The current study immerses in the realm of bank mergers among prominent PSBs in India, focusing on the financial performance of six recently merged PSBs entities. Amidst the global impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on economies, the study aims to uncover the efficiency of these PSBs in navigating this unprecedented crisis.

The evaluation encompasses panel data on an annual basis spanning from 2020 to 2023. To assess the overall efficiency of merged PSBs, the advanced statistical technique like one-step system generalized method of moments has been applied to estimate its efficiency.

The study findings affirm that PSB mergers have bolstered financial metrics and efficiency. Enhanced return on equity (ROA) and net profit margin (NPM) signify improved profitability and efficiency. The consolidation also facilitates better asset management and utilization. Moreover, merged entities benefit from economies of scale, cost efficiencies, risk diversification, technological investments, and overall performance improvements.

The study's policy suggestions stress ongoing consolidation efforts to boost banking sector resilience, advocating for improved efficiency, governance, and asset quality management. These steps are crucial for successful bank mergers and fostering a robust, competitive banking landscape in India.

This study is a novel attempt to analyze Indian bank profitability and efficiency post PSB mergers amid COVID-19 pandemic. In a developing country like India, especially in PSBs has experienced significant structural changes over the previous 7 years just before pandemic, such a study necessitates a prompt empirical investigation.

This study examines herding behaviour in commodity markets amid two major global upheavals: the Russo–Ukraine conflict and the COVID-19 pandemic.

By analysing 18 commodity futures worldwide, the study examines herding trends in metals, livestock, energy and grains sectors. The applied methodology combines static and dynamic approaches by incorporating cross-sectional absolute deviations (CSAD) and a time-varying parameter (TVP) regression model extended by Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) sampling to adequately reflect the complexity of herding behaviour in different market scenarios.

Our results show clear differences in herd behaviour during these crises. The Russia–Ukraine war led to relatively subdued herding behaviour in commodities, suggesting a limited impact of geopolitical turmoil on collective market behaviour. In stark contrast, the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic significantly amplified herding behaviour, particularly in the energy and livestock sectors.

This discrepancy emphasises the different impact of a health crisis versus a geopolitical conflict on market dynamics. This study makes an important contribution to the existing literature as it is one of the first studies to contrast herding behaviour in commodity markets during these two crises. Our results show that not all crises produce comparable market reactions, which underlines the importance of the crisis context when analysing financial market behaviour.

The purpose of this study is to scrutinize the connection between creativity and innovation in the context of public healthcare. This is achieved by applying the theoretical concept of employee-driven innovation (EDI) to explore employees’ perceptions of their creative engagement in innovation processes, as well as to capture the managerial implications of setting up such processes in the sector.

A critical discourse analysis (CDA) is applied as a methodological lens to capture the interaction between the macro-level production and meso-level distribution of innovation discourse (top-down), and the micro-level perception of, and response to, the same (bottom-up). This study is based on a qualitative approach and is set in the public healthcare system of the Autonomous Province of Trento, Northeast Italy. In total, 26 semi-structured interviews were conducted with 22 healthcare professionals. For triangulation purposes, observation and document analysis were also performed.

The findings of this study reveal that tensions are present between the macro-level discourses and the meso-level strategies around innovation, and the micro-level perceptions of employees’ creative engagement in innovation processes. Healthcare professionals’ creative efforts are not easily recognized and supported by top management, which in turn does not receive a framework of reference in policies acknowledging the importance of human skills and creativity in innovation processes.

That this is a single case study implies a limitation on the generalizability of its results, but the results may nevertheless be transferable to similar empirical contexts. Therefore, a multiple case study design would be preferable in future studies in order to study EDI strategies and policies across various types of organizations in the public sector. Moreover, apart from CDA, other theoretical and methodological lenses can be applied to investigate the interaction between top-down organizing and bottom-up responses to innovation.

This study contributes to the EDI literature by providing a more integrative understanding of EDI in the public sector, demonstrating the importance of scrutinizing the interactions between employees and top-level management.

This study aims to analyze the factors that drive or prevent interorganizational data sharing in the context of digital transformation (DT). Data sharing appears as a precondition for companies to capture emerging opportunities in supply chain management and for product-related servitization; however, there are ongoing concerns, and data are often perceived as the “new oil.” It is thus important to gain a better understanding of the determinants of firms’ decisions.

The authors develop an embedded case study analysis involving 16 firms within an extended supply network in the automotive industry. The authors focus on the peculiarities of the new context, as opposed to elements highlighted by research prior to the advent of the latest technologies. Abductive reasoning is applied to the theoretical foundations of the resource-based view, resource dependence theory and the complex adaptive systems perspective.

Data sharing is largely underpinned by factors identified prior to DT, such as data specificity, dependence dynamics and protection mechanisms and the dynamism of the business context. DT, however, can influence the extent of data sharing. New factors concern complementarities whenever data are pooled from different sources and digital platforms, as well as different forms of data ownership protection.

This study stresses that data sharing in the context of DT can be explained through established theoretical lenses, providing the integration of elements accounting for new technological opportunities.

Wasta, the prevailing form of informal networks in the Arab region, exerts a significant controversial influence on organisations in this region. Despite the pervasive negative perceptions and alleged detrimental effects of Wasta, it remains a frequently employed practice. This research aims to comprehensively explore the influence of Wasta on organisational justice across organisations in the Arab world, with Jordanian organisations taken as an illustrative case.

Employing a qualitative approach, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 20 employees from various industries in Jordan.

The study reveals that Wasta significantly affects distributive, procedural and interactional justice within organisations, eliciting feelings of unfairness and hopelessness among employees.

This study recommends that HR departments focus on implementing ethical policies and standards to enhance transparency in organisational decision-making processes. By understanding and addressing the implications of Wasta, organisations can foster a more just and equitable workplace environment.

This study advances our understanding of informal network theories in the Arab world by highlighting the interconnectedness between Wasta and organisational justice, and its profound impact on the work environment and employees. This study also explains how Wasta directly influences decision-making processes, at high managerial levels.

With around 40% of global waste attributed to the built environment sector, architects play a significant role in how resources are consumed, produced and wasted. UK architectural educators have made good progress to embed climate emergency issues in design curricula but the challenges of resource use and waste, and the opportunities afforded by circular economy design principles are less well-considered. The purpose of this paper is to provide new insights on how to introduce circular design principles to early-stage architectural design students within university curricula.

The study described took an experimental approach to designing design project briefs across several interlinked studio design projects for 1st-year Architecture students. Structured as a case study, each section describes the project, learning objectives, teaching methods and project reflections informed by a qualitative assessment of student development, outputs and feedback gathered through a questionnaire and focus group.

Introducing circular design early is highly beneficial to the development of knowledge on sustainability issues, critical design thinking and creative solution generation. Examples of beneficial teaching approaches include building systems thinking, facilitating collaboration, supporting learning-through-making, using simple analogies and referencing best-practice examples.

This research builds on limited existing circular design literature for built environment fields and through practical insights fills a significant knowledge gap on ways to introduce a complex and dynamic topic such as the circular economy to early-stage architectural design students as they develop fundamental discipline-specific knowledge, skills and competences.

The importance of sustainable public procurement is growing in many countries and industries, including higher education institutions (HEIs) in China. However, in China, the practice of sustainable public procurement is currently limited due to various reasons. This study aims to identify the main challenges faced by Chinese HEIs when it comes to sustainable public procurement. The identification of the challenges encountered by HEIs in sustainable public procurement practices not only has practical significance in terms of improving efficiency, sustainability, competitiveness and guiding policymaking but also has theoretical significance in terms of enriching the knowledge body, facilitating the dissemination of sustainability and supporting international comparative research. To identify these challenges, the study gathered data from a small sample of procurement supervisors, experts and commissioners in HEIs using the Delphi method. The study concludes that Chinese HEIs can address the challenges of sustainable public procurement through measures such as fundraising, technology and equipment upgrading, supply chain optimization, regulatory compliance and raising awareness and providing training.

To pinpoint the challenges of sustainable public procurement faced by HEIs in China, this study began by obtaining data from a small sample of procurement supervisors, experts and commissioners in HEIs who are knowledgeable about the issue through the Delphi method. Secondly, the collected challenge factors were also subjected to a literature review to identify the most common challenges in recent papers published around the world. Thus, it was possible to assess the relationship between the challenges mentioned by researchers in China and other countries.

The main challenges faced by HEIs in China in implementing sustainable public procurement are the focus on economic efficiency, the experience and awareness of procurement staff, policy ambiguity as well as culture, management mechanisms and leadership attitudes in the organizations. The study concludes that Chinese HEIs can effectively overcome the challenges of implementing sustainable public procurement through a variety of measures, including fundraising, technology and equipment upgrading, supply chain optimization, regulatory compliance and awareness raising and training.

Some limitations should be considered in this study. Judging by the sample size, it is clear that the results of the study are limited. Although the number of experts involved in the study is required, caution should be exercised when generalizing the results, as this may not be representative of the entire population. In future studies, the use of a larger sample size could be considered to overcome this problem. Related to this limitation is the uneven geographical distribution of the sample, and this study only considered the situation of HEIs in Jiangsu Province, China, which is not representative of the national region.

The practical significance can be seen in two aspects. First, accurately identifying challenges can help HEIs optimize the implementation of their sustainable purchasing policies, leading to more efficient resource allocation and reduced unnecessary resource consumption. Second, by addressing these challenges, HEIs can better fulfill their social role in sustainable development, contributing to the triple bottom line of the economy, environment and society. Implementing sustainable procurement strategies not only enhances the social image of HEIs but also attracts a broader student base and financial support, ultimately improving their competitive position in the education market. A deeper understanding of these challenges provides policymakers with a basis to develop a more operational and targeted policy framework to support sustainable procurement in HEIs.

This study succeeded in answering two research questions that provide practical implications for public procurement practitioners, researchers and policymakers. Although HEIs in China do not practice sustainable public procurement at a high rate, however, with the spread of sustainability and environmental awareness, more and more HEIs are beginning to realize the importance of sustainability and are gradually taking it into account in their procurement.

The findings of the study not only significantly enrich the existing body of knowledge on sustainable public procurement, but also support the selection of challenge variables that must be addressed first to facilitate the application of sustainable procurement in China’s HEIs.

High-stakes decision-makers, including human resource (HR) professionals, often exhibit accent biases against second language speakers in professional evaluations. We extend this work by investigating how HR students evaluate simulated job interview performances in English by first and second language speakers of English.

Eighty HR students from Calgary and Montreal evaluated the employability of first language (L1) Arabic, English, and Tagalog candidates applying for two positions (nurse, teacher) at four points in the interview (after reading the applicant’s resume, hearing their self-introduction, and listening to each of two responses to interview questions). Candidates’ responses additionally varied in the extent to which they meaningfully answered the interview questions.

Students from both cities provided similar evaluations, employability ratings were similar for both advertised positions, and high-quality responses elicited consistently high ratings while evaluations for low-quality responses declined over time. All speakers were evaluated similarly based on their resumes and self-introductions, regardless of their language background. However, evaluations diverged for interview responses, where L1 Arabic and Tagalog speakers were considered more employable than L1 English speakers. Importantly, students’ preference for L1 Arabic and Tagalog candidates over L1 English candidates was magnified when those candidates provided low-quality interview responses.

Results suggest that even in the absence of dedicated equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) training focusing on language and accent bias, HR students may be aware of second language speakers’ potential disadvantages in the workplace, rewarding them in the current evaluations. Findings also highlight the potential influence of contextual factors on HR students’ decision-making.