Search results

Cryptomarkets have expanded rapidly since the launch of Silk Road in 2011, offering a significant new mode for the sale and distribution of illicit drugs. One of the key questions accompanying the proliferation of cryptomarkets and online drug distribution concerns how these unique online fora alter relationships between drug suppliers and their customers. Existing research points to an increase in perceptions of safety and respect among people who use cryptomarkets to purchase drugs relative to other ‘offline’ modes of drug acquisition. There is a growing body of evidence that suggests that drug suppliers are also attracted to cryptomarkets by perceptions of increased safety, as well as by market norms and institutional processes that are characterised by respect and courteous engagement. These issues fall broadly under what has been termed market ‘gentrification’ – that is, the substitution of offline drug market norms, which are sometimes characterised by violence, intimidation, suspicion, and exploitation, with relative feelings of safety, respect, and courtesy. This chapter explores the ‘gentrification hypothesis’ and examines how the unique structural characteristics of cryptomarkets, which include user feedback and ratings, dispute resolution systems, and administrator and community ‘policing’ of cryptomarkets, as well as online discussion forums, assist in fostering the development of pro-social norms that appear to be prevalent on cryptomarkets.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of external factors on the Facebook dialogue. As both weather and point in time substantially. As both weather and point in time substantially influence people’s lives, it can be assumed that both factors may also affect communication on Facebook. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study focusing on the impact of the external factors “weather” and “point in time” on a public utility’s Facebook communication.

The potential influence is explored through the case study of an Austrian public utility. The study focuses on 321 postings, published via the company’s official Facebook account between August 2016 and February 2018.

The empirical results confirm the influence of “weather” and “point in time” indicators on the stakeholder dialogue. The findings highlight how the relevant items affect the posting behavior of a utility, as well as stakeholders’ reactions, comments and shares.

By introducing both external factors to the social media literature, this paper broadens the understanding of Facebook communications beyond the sender and receiver of digital information. In this way, the research contributes to a more holistic view of Facebook dialogue. It provides practical advice on how social media managers of public utilities may use weather forecasts and “point in time” considerations to more strategically foster stakeholder dialogue in social media.

Backpackers can be found all over the world, especially in urban areas where the main enclaves are established. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the operationalisation of the term “backpacker” and present a proposal to conceptualise backpackers and backpackers’ segments based on the operational criteria available in literature to avoid incongruities among researchers.

Based on a literature review, this study provides a critical review of the backpacker conceptualisation and operationalisation using a methodology divided into three phases, a quantitative analysis based on the Scopus database and a bibliometric analysis coupled with a manual analysis of documents (content analysis).

Substantial heterogeneity and complexity regarding the conceptualisation of backpacker tourism and its diversified subsegments were evident. For this reason, this paper argues that backpacker tourism can and should continue to be analysed from different perspectives, suitably framed in the theoretical instrument constructed to identify and distinguish the different subsegments through its operationalisation features.

This study provides a practical contribution to all researchers interested in the topic of backpackers proposing the operationalisation of the term backpacker and it subsegments to avoid disparate results and deviations. This contribution will enable the correct and objective assessment of the operationalisation of this concept for researchers, managers and destination management organisations, identifying exactly what phenomenon is to be studied.

Companies are increasingly implementing business process management systems (BPMSs) to support their processes. However, there is a gap in the literature regarding whether users also use BPMSs to manage the knowledge needed for processes to be completed. This study aims to analyze the factors that cause users to use BPMSs to manage the knowledge required in business processes.

The paper proposes an original model that integrates two successful information system models applied to BPMSs and knowledge management systems. To test the hypotheses derived from this new model, data were collected from 242 mature BPMS users from 12 Spanish and Latin American companies. Structural equation modeling with AMOS was used to examine the model.

Users’ perceived usefulness of a BPMS when using it for knowledge management (KM) is the only factor influencing them to use it for KM.

This study has practical implications for managers wishing to successfully implement a BPMS to support processes and for employees to use the knowledge embedded in the tool. The latter will only happen if users perceive the tool’s usefulness for KM.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this model is the first empirically validated model to successfully analyze BPMS users’ tendency to use BPMSs as a tool to support necessary KM in processes.

This paper aims to identify ethical challenges of using artificial intelligence (AI)-based accounting systems for decision-making and discusses its findings based on Rest's four-component model of antecedents for ethical decision-making. This study derives implications for accounting and auditing scholars and practitioners.

This research is rooted in the hermeneutics tradition of interpretative accounting research, in which the reader and the texts engage in a form of dialogue. To substantiate this dialogue, the authors conduct a theoretically informed, narrative (semi-systematic) literature review spanning the years 2015–2020. This review's narrative is driven by the depicted contexts and the accounting/auditing practices found in selected articles are used as sample instead of the research or methods.

In the thematic coding of the selected papers the authors identify five major ethical challenges of AI-based decision-making in accounting: objectivity, privacy, transparency, accountability and trustworthiness. Using Rest's component model of antecedents for ethical decision-making as a stable framework for our structure, the authors critically discuss the challenges and their relevance for a future human–machine collaboration within varying agency between humans and AI.

This paper contributes to the literature on accounting as a subjectivising as well as mediating practice in a socio-material context. It does so by providing a solid base of arguments that AI alone, despite its enabling and mediating role in accounting, cannot make ethical accounting decisions because it lacks the necessary preconditions in terms of Rest's model of antecedents. What is more, as AI is bound to pre-set goals and subjected to human made conditions despite its autonomous learning and adaptive practices, it lacks true agency. As a consequence, accountability needs to be shared between humans and AI. The authors suggest that related governance as well as internal and external auditing processes need to be adapted in terms of skills and awareness to ensure an ethical AI-based decision-making.

This paper aims to investigate the connection between different perceived organizational cultures and information security policy compliance among white-collar workers.

The survey using the Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument was sent to white-collar workers in Sweden (n = 674), asking about compliance with information security policies. The survey instrument is an operationalization of the Competing Values Framework that distinguishes between four different types of organizational culture: clan, adhocracy, market and bureaucracy.

The results indicate that organizational cultures with an internal focus are positively related to employees’ information security policy compliance. Differences in organizational culture with regards to control and flexibility seem to have less effect. The analysis shows that a bureaucratic form of organizational culture is most fruitful for fostering employees’ information security policy compliance.

The results suggest that differences in organizational culture are important for employees’ information security policy compliance. This justifies further investigating the mechanisms linking organizational culture to information security compliance.

Practitioners should be aware that the different organizational cultures do matter for employees’ information security compliance. In businesses and the public sector, the authors see a development toward customer orientation and marketization, i.e. the opposite an internal focus, that may have negative ramifications for the information security of organizations.

Few information security policy compliance studies exist on the consequences of different organizational/information cultures.

The service sector is at an inflection point with regard to productivity gains and service industrialization similar to the industrial revolution in manufacturing that started in the eighteenth century. Robotics in combination with rapidly improving technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), mobile, cloud, big data and biometrics will bring opportunities for a wide range of innovations that have the potential to dramatically change service industries. The purpose of this paper is to explore the potential role service robots will play in the future and to advance a research agenda for service researchers.

This paper uses a conceptual approach that is rooted in the service, robotics and AI literature.

The contribution of this paper is threefold. First, it provides a definition of service robots, describes their key attributes, contrasts their features and capabilities with those of frontline employees, and provides an understanding for which types of service tasks robots will dominate and where humans will dominate. Second, this paper examines consumer perceptions, beliefs and behaviors as related to service robots, and advances the service robot acceptance model. Third, it provides an overview of the ethical questions surrounding robot-delivered services at the individual, market and societal level.

This paper helps service organizations and their management, service robot innovators, programmers and developers, and policymakers better understand the implications of a ubiquitous deployment of service robots.

This is the first conceptual paper that systematically examines key dimensions of robot-delivered frontline service and explores how these will differ in the future.