Search results

This study aims to address customer focus as an important component of total quality management (TQM) and explore the key drivers of member satisfaction in tennis clubs via a novel theory-based member satisfaction index (MSI) model with high explanatory and predictive power. Furthermore, the study aims to investigate the relationship between satisfaction and behavioral intentions (willingness to stay; WTS) with consideration of the mediating effect of identification with the club.

This study uses variance-based partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to estimate the MSI model, which was tested in a leading tennis club in Germany (n = 185).

The results reveal that club atmosphere, club facilities and the price/quality ratio of the membership fee are the most important drivers of member satisfaction in tennis clubs. Member satisfaction has a large influence on the WTS of tennis club members. Identification with the club, when included as a mediator in the model, increases the variance explained in WTS considerably.

The small sample limits the generalizability of findings, and further research is recommended.

The MSI model is a useful benchmark tool for club managers who want to quantify the satisfaction and WTS of their club members. In addition, because of the integrated formative measurement models, the PLS-SEM results show which indicators can be used to positively impact satisfaction with each of the service quality dimensions, overall member satisfaction and WTS. The most important of these results are discussed in an importance-performance map analysis.

The MSI model is a multi-attribute index model through which members' evaluations of various dimensions of service and value are derived through multivariable linear function with each dimension weighted according to its importance in one holistic model. The model shows the strong impact of satisfaction on WTS of sports club members and reveals that findings of previous research on the relationship between fan and spectator identification and loyalty are transferable to sports club members. The MSI represents a new contribution to the literature; it was applied here to tennis clubs but is also suitable for application to other sports clubs.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the appropriateness of equal weights estimation (sumscores) and the application of the composite equivalence index (CEI) vis-à-vis differentiated indicator weights produced by partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).

The authors rely on prior literature as well as empirical illustrations and a simulation study to assess the efficacy of equal weights estimation and the CEI.

The results show that the CEI lacks discriminatory power, and its use can lead to major differences in structural model estimates, conceals measurement model issues and almost always leads to inferior out-of-sample predictive accuracy compared to differentiated weights produced by PLS-SEM.

In light of its manifold conceptual and empirical limitations, the authors advise against the use of the CEI. Its adoption and the routine use of equal weights estimation could adversely affect the validity of measurement and structural model results and understate structural model predictive accuracy. Although this study shows that the CEI is an unsuitable metric to decide between equal weights and differentiated weights, it does not propose another means for such a comparison.

The results suggest that researchers and practitioners should prefer differentiated indicator weights such as those produced by PLS-SEM over equal weights.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to provide a comprehensive assessment of the CEI’s usefulness. The results provide guidance for researchers considering using equal indicator weights instead of PLS-SEM-based weighted indicators.

Creativity plays a crucial role in interpersonal conflict within organizations, yet little research has explored its antecedents in this context. This study aims to investigate power and gender as the main determinants of creativity in interpersonal conflict within organizational contexts.

Two studies were conducted. The first study involved 226 employees from various organizations (M_age = 39.39, SD = 10.39), whereas the second study used a conflict simulation with 160 participants (M_age = 36.90, SD = 10.45) forming dyads. Both studies investigated the impact of relative power (i.e. having more power than the other person) on creativity in conflict, with a focus on the moderating role of gender. Study 2 also manipulated contextual creativity, which served as an additional moderator in this relationship.

Results largely supported our hypotheses, indicating a positive relationship between relative power and creativity in conflict. Importantly, this relationship was stronger among women. Study 2 further focused on the distinct dimensions of creativity, highlighting differences between idea originality and effectiveness.

The findings hold practical significance for organizational leaders and conflict resolution practitioners, and they further underscore the importance of considering gender dynamics in conflict resolution processes within organizations.

This research contributes novel insights into the understanding of creativity within organizational conflicts, emphasizing the interplay between relative power, gender and creativity. Additionally, the exploration of different dimensions of creativity (i.e. originality and effectiveness) adds depth to existing literature in this area.

This article aims to explore the potential of feminist phenomenology as a conceptual framework for advancing women’s entrepreneurship research and the suitability of interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) to the proposed framework.

The article critically examines the current state of women’s entrepreneurship research regarding the institutional context and highlights the benefits of a shift towards feminist phenomenology.

The prevailing disembodied and gender-neutral portrayal of entrepreneurship has resulted in an equivocal understanding of women’s entrepreneurship and perpetuated a male-biased discourse within research and practice. By adopting a feminist phenomenological approach, this article argues for the importance of considering the ontological dimensions of lived experiences of situatedness, intersubjectivity, intentionality and temporality in analysing women entrepreneurs’ agency within gendered institutional contexts. It also demonstrates that feminist phenomenology could broaden the current scope of IPA regarding the embodied dimension of language.

The adoption of feminist phenomenology and IPA presents new avenues for research that go beyond the traditional cognitive approach in entrepreneurship, contributing to theory and practice. The proposed conceptual framework also has some limitations that provide opportunities for future research, such as a phenomenological intersectional approach and arts-based methods.

The article contributes to a new research agenda in women’s entrepreneurship research by offering a feminist phenomenological framework that focuses on the embodied dimension of entrepreneurship through the integration of IPA and conceptual metaphor theory (CMT).

The shift toward a circular economy (CE) represents a collaborative endeavor necessitating the presence of efficient frameworks, conducive contexts and a common comprehension. This research serves as a pivotal stride towards this goal, presenting an exclusive prospect for the investigation and fusion of these frameworks, with particular emphasis on the Quintuple Helix Model (5HM), into a unified theoretical framework that underscores the core principles of the CE. This study is centered on three pivotal questions aimed at decoding the CE transition in specific regional settings.

Adopting an abductive approach firmly anchored in a two-stage qualitative process, this study specifically merges the foundational principles from institutional theory, entrepreneurship literature and CE frameworks to provide insights into the dynamics of circular ecosystems, with a specific focus on the Huelva region in Spain.

The findings demonstrate significant potential in the CE, ranging from the integration of product and service systems to innovations in eco-industrial practices. Yet, a notable deficiency exists: the absence of institutional entrepreneurs, highlighting the essential role that universities can play. As recognized centers of innovation, universities are suggested to be key contributors to the transformation toward a CE, aligning with their societal and economic responsibilities.

This study highlights the importance of managing relationships with entities like SMEs and policymakers or academia for effective CE adoption. Policymakers can refine strategies based on the research’s insights, while the impact of university-driven circular ecosystems on sustainable societies is another crucial area for research.

The sustainability models cited in CE literature may not be comprehensive enough to prevent problem shifting, and it can be argued that they lack a sound theoretical and conceptual basis. Furthermore, the connections between sustainability objectives and the three levels of the CE operating system remain vague. Additionally, there is insufficient information on how regions foster the involvement of the environment in fivefold helix cooperation and how this impacts the CE.

Higher education institutions and their lecturers are strategic agents and main drivers that contribute to circular economy transition. This requires them to understand the key circular economy competencies and how to integrate circular economy holistically into their curricula with the suitable teaching and learning approaches. This study aims to support them by providing an overview on the characteristics of education for the circular economy (ECE) and suggestions to lecturers to further develop their curricula.

The data consisted of scientific articles (n = 22) describing circular economy courses in higher education. Qualitative content analysis with quantitative features was performed on the selected articles to answer the research question.

The findings confirm that the system’s focus is the key issue in ECE. However, to integrate circular economy holistically into the curricula, ECE should be implemented more widely in the context of different industries and market contexts to find innovative teaching and learning approaches. The demand side needs to be incorporated in the courses, as systemic transformation is also about transforming consumption. All levels of implementation and circular economy objectives should be included in courses to promote systems thinking. In addition, innovative forms of real workplace interaction should be increased.

As ECE has started to emerge as a new field of study, this article provides the first integrated overview of the topic.

The purpose of this study was to develop a scale that can be used to assess inequality at work based on gender, age and ethnicity that is grounded in Acker’s (2006) inequality regimes.

The authors used three representative samples (total N = 1,806) of Swedish teachers, nurses and social workers to develop and validate the scale. The validation process included the assessment of content validity, confirmatory factor analysis for factorial validity, internal consistency and associations with theoretically warranted outcomes and related constructs to assess criterion-related validity and convergent validity.

The authors found evidence supporting the content, factorial, criterion-related and convergent validity of the InEquality in organisations Scale (InE-S). Furthermore, the scale demonstrated high internal consistency.

The newly developed scale InE-S may be used to further the understanding of how inequality at work influences employees. This study makes a contribution to the current literature by providing a scale that, for the first time, can test Acker’s hypotheses using quantitative methods to demonstrate the consequences of inequality at work.

This study aims to explore how multinational lead buyers can play an active role in ensuring worker voices in garment supplier factories where workers have limited space to raise their voices, and how buyers’ involvement increases the possibilities of worker voices mitigating barriers to social dialogues and enhancing mutual interests of buyers and workers in garment factories.

Using a qualitative research approach and multiple embedded case study method, this study considered buyer−supplier dyads as the unit of analysis, i.e. two multinational lead buyers and their four corresponding suppliers in the garment industry of Bangladesh. Focus group discussion and key informant in-depth interviews were techniques applied to collect factory-level data, and within and cross-case analysis techniques were applied to develop an overall understanding.

The results of this study reveal that the opportunities for workers to voice their concerns through social dialogue in garment supplier factories are limited due to various obstacles. Similarly, the role of multinational lead buyers in addressing these issues is found to be less than ideal. This study also shows that buyers can take short-term and long-term initiatives to ensure social dialogues. Moreover, this study presents how social dialogues can meet the expectations of multinational buyers and their garment suppliers.

While this study focuses exclusively on the garment industry, similar scenarios also exist across a multitude of other industries. Thus, future research could extend this study’s scope to various sectors, providing a more comprehensive understanding of the general state of worker voices in Bangladesh. This study stands to make significant contributions to literature in the fields of global value chains, human relations and international business. It will pose critical perspectives on how upstream value chain suppliers can fortify worker rights through social dialogue, and elucidate the means and motives for lead buyers to play a more active role in this endeavour.

This study is distinct in its approach, integrating buyer−supplier roles to pave the way for enhanced worker voice opportunities through social dialogue in garment supplier factories.

This study builds on the panarchy theory by viewing the supply chain as a socio-ecological system and further expands it by considering the within-level linkages internal to the supply chain level. Three types of linkages are considered: the two cross-level linkages with the planetary and the political-economic levels and the supply chain within-level linkages. The research questions are addressed using the data gathered by the Carbon Disclosure Project within its Supply Chain Programme.

This work aims to study, applying the lens of panarchy theory, how the planetary and the political-economic levels affect the supply chain within-level linkages for sustainability. Furthermore, the difference in how these cross-level linkages influence focal firms and first-tier suppliers is explored.

The results show that considering the planetary-supply chain linkage, climate change risk exposure is likelier to foster within-level linkages with buyers than with suppliers. Further, climate change mitigation investments have different roles in the different tiers: focal firms are pushed to strengthen the linkages with their suppliers when they lose efficacy in improving their carbon performance, whereas first-tier suppliers exploit investments to gain legitimacy. Discussing the political-economic level effect, perceptions from first-tier suppliers could be two-fold: they could perceive a mandating power mechanism or exploit policymakers’ knowledge to advance their capabilities.

The results contribute to the sustainable supply chain management literature by providing empirical evidence of the cross-level linkages theorised by the panarchy theory. Moreover, the concept of within-level linkages is proposed to apply the theory in this field.

The primary objective of this paper is to show a systematic and methodological approach for the digitalization of critical clinical pathways (CPs) within the healthcare domain.

The methodology entails the integration of service design (SD) and action research (AR) methodologies, characterized by iterative phases that systematically alternate between action and reflective processes, fostering cycles of change and learning. Within this framework, stakeholders are engaged through semi-structured interviews, while the existing and envisioned processes are delineated and represented using BPMN 2.0. These methodological steps emphasize the development of an autonomous, patient-centric web application alongside the implementation of an adaptable and patient-oriented scheduling system. Also, business processes simulation is employed to measure key performance indicators of processes and test for potential improvements. This method is implemented in the context of the CP addressing transient loss of consciousness (TLOC), within a publicly funded hospital setting.

The methodology integrating SD and AR enables the detection of pivotal bottlenecks within diagnostic CPs and proposes optimal corrective measures to ensure uninterrupted patient care, all the while advancing the digitalization of diagnostic CP management. This study contributes to theoretical discussions by emphasizing the criticality of process optimization, the transformative potential of digitalization in healthcare and the paramount importance of user-centric design principles, and offers valuable insights into healthcare management implications.

The study’s relevance lies in its ability to enhance healthcare practices without necessitating disruptive and resource-intensive process overhauls. This pragmatic approach aligns with the imperative for healthcare organizations to improve their operations efficiently and cost-effectively, making the study’s findings relevant.