Search results

This study aims to analyse the differences between professional interaction mediated by video conferencing and direct professional interaction. The research identifies diverging interests of office workers for the purpose of addressing work ethical and business ethical issues of professional collaboration, competition, and power in future hybrid work models.

Based on 28 qualitative interviews conducted between November 2020 and June 2021, and through the theoretical lens of phenomenology, the study develops explanatory hypotheses conceptualising four basic intentions of professional interaction and their corresponding preferences for video conferences and working on site.

The four intentions developed on the basis of the interviews are: the need for physical proximity; the challenge of collective creativity; the will to influence; and control of communication. This conceptual framework qualifies a moral ambivalence of professional interaction. The authors identify a connectivity paradox of professional interaction where the personal dimension remains unarticulated for the purpose of maintaining professionality. This tacit human connectivity is intertwined with latent power relations. This plasticity of both connectivity and power in direct interaction can be diminished by transferring the interaction to video conferencing.

The application of phenomenology to a collection of qualitative interviews has enabled the identification of underlying intention structures and the system in which they affect each other. This research identifies conflicts of interests between workers relative to their different self-perceived abilities to persevere in competitive professional interaction. It is therefore able to address consequences of future hybrid work models at an existential and societal level.

(Digital) servitization, referring to service-driven strategies and their increasing implementation in manufacturing, is one of the most rapidly growing areas in industrial service research. However, the cultural change involved in successful servitization is a phenomenon that is widely observed but poorly understood. This research aims to clarify the processes of social construction as manufacturers change their organizational culture to transform into industrial service providers.

This research takes a systematic approach to integrate disparate literature on servitization into a cohesive framework for cultural change, which is purposefully augmented by rationale culled from organizational learning and sensemaking literature.

The organizational learning framework for cultural change in servitization introduces a dynamic perspective on servitizing organizations by explaining social processes between organizational and member-level cultural properties. It identifies three major cultural orientations toward service, digital and learning that govern successful servitization.

This research contributes to the servitization literature by presenting a new approach to reframe and explore cultural change processes across multiple levels, thus providing a concrete starting point for further research in this area.

The current digital work environment promoting a “constant-on” culture is a hotbed for cyber incivility. Thus, there is a pressing need to understand its mechanisms. This study aims to shed light on the triggers, sources and impact of rude behaviours in cyberspace. The authors also present the boundary conditions that exacerbate or alleviate the effects of such negative experiences.

Through a systematic literature review based on predefined search protocols, the authors synthesised the current knowledge on cyber incivility and identified 21 peer-reviewed research articles.

The findings reveal the different sources of cyber incivility, its personal, relational and organisational antecedents and consequences, and its personal and situational boundary conditions that curb or enhance the negative impact.

The authors unravel the main future research avenues based on the review findings by systemising knowledge on cyber incivility. Managerial efforts in the form of interventions and mitigation are also discussed to help combat this grieving issue in the workplace.

This paper presents the first systematic review of the cyber incivility literature and identifies new avenues for future research. Scholars can expand upon the findings of this study to fill gaps and move the incivility in cyberspace forward. It also offers practical insights on mitigating the advancement of such behaviours in organisations.

Servitization of products is becoming increasingly prevalent among manufacturing enterprises. Existing research has primarily focused on exploring whether the direct impact of servitization on manufacturer performance follows a linear or a curvilinear relationship. However, the understanding of the underlying mechanisms between servitization and manufacturer financial performance remains limited. This paper aims to examine the non-linear relationship between servitization and manufacturer performance as well as the mediating process and boundary condition associated with this relationship.

Drawing on resource-advantage theory, this paper proposes a theoretical model of the U-shaped relationship between servitization and the financial performance of equipment manufacturers. Panel data of 248 listed equipment manufacturers in China during the period of 2010–2020 are used to test each hypothesis through the ordinary least square method.

The empirical results indicate that servitization follows a U-shaped relationship with service business focus and the financial performance of equipment manufacturers. Service business focus mediates this U-shaped relationship between servitization and financial performance, and digital technology application moderates this relationship.

This paper pioneers the unraveling of the potential mechanism that can explain the curvilinear relationship between servitization of manufacturers and financial performance. This mechanism is the focus of the service business, which is theoretically delineated and empirically tested. Furthermore, digital technology application enables manufacturers to achieve service business focus more effectively in the process of servitization. Thus, this study addresses the call for research on digital servitization.

Through a theoretical lens of psychological ownership, this study aims to investigate how technology mindfulness may stimulate metaverse tourism users’ feelings of individual psychological ownership, aesthetic value and conversational value, which in turn fosters intention to engage in prosocial behaviors.

The study used a scenario-based survey that allowed U.S.-based participants to create their own avatars and imagine using their avatars to explore heritage sites in the metaverse. Structural equality modeling was applied for data analysis.

The results from 357 valid responses indicate that technology mindfulness arouses tourists’ individual psychological ownership, aesthetic value, conversational value and prosocial behavioral intentions. The moderating role of biospheric value orientation on willingness to donate and intention to volunteer is investigated.

The research sheds light on the significance of technology mindfulness, conversational value and psychological ownership perspectives in the metaverse, which have been previously overlooked. The authors used a scenario-based survey for mental stimulation due to current metaverse technology limitations.

The study is one of the first to explore the possibility of encouraging prosocial behaviors using metaverse-facilitated technology. The research offers guidelines to engage hospitality and tourism customers in the metaverse that can blend their virtual experiences into the real world.

This study represents one of the pioneering efforts to gain an in-depth understanding of the application of metaverse in triggering prosocial behavior toward heritage sites, explained via a technology mindfulness-driven model with a psychological ownership perspective.

Recently, increasing costs and competitive pressure have accelerated the search for different business models in both the production and service sectors. The rapid development of technology has increased the importance of digitalization, especially in developing new and different strategies. The digital service business model has also become a new business model that companies have recently preferred. In addition to its many advantages, it is a business model in which different barriers arise in practice. When we look at the literature, there are very few studies, especially on digital servitization. The purpose of this study is to integrate the concept of digital servitization with the Industry 4.0 perspective.

To achieve this aim, first, the authors identify various challenges and barriers in front of digital servitization based on the Industry 4.0 perspective. Later, they determine the relative importance of these barriers critical to the success of digital servitization. Lastly, one multi-criteria decision-making method, the fuzzy decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory method, is used to analyze the cause-and-effect relationship between each barrier based on the Industry 4.0 perspective

Based on the results, the most crucial cause-and-effect barriers are insufficient infrastructure/lack of IT infrastructure and high implementation, respectively. Therefore, this study offers the reader the possible barriers to sustainable digital servitization with Industry 4.0 perspective implementations and comprehensive solutions for these barriers. In addition, this study draws a roadmap for disseminating digital service applications.

There is no study, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, about determining barriers and problems with merging digital servitization with the Industry 4.0 perspective. So, there is still a significant gap in the literature about investigating these two essential topics from the Industry 4.0 perspective.

This study aims to examine how veganism is “seen” by young adult non-vegan consumers and how prevailing attitudes reinforce or challenge stigmas around veganism.

Photovoice methodology was used to explore young non-vegan consumers’ attitudes and beliefs towards veganism. Data was collected from students studying advertising at a major university in Australia, who produced images and narratives reflective of their own attitudes towards veganism. Polytextual thematic analysis of the resulting visual data was then undertaken to reveal the dominant themes underpinning participants’ attitudes. Participant narratives were then reviewed to confirm whether the ascribed meaning aligned with participants’ intended meaning.

Participant images were reflective of first, how they saw their world and their place within it, which showed the interplay and interconnectedness between humans, animals and nature, and second, how they saw vegans within this world, with both positive and negative attitudes expressed. Interestingly, vegans were simultaneously admired and condemned. By situating these attitudes along a spectrum of moral evaluation, bounded by stigmatisation and moral legitimacy, participants saw vegans as being either Radicals, Pretenders, Virtuous or Pragmatists. For veganism to become more widely accepted by non-vegans, there is an important role to be played by each vegan type.

This study offers a more nuanced understanding of how and why dissociative groups, such as vegans, become stigmatised, which has implications for messaging and marketing practices around veganism and associated products/services. Future research could use a similar methodology to understand why other minority groups in society are stereotyped and stigmatised, which has broader social implications.

Quality management practices (QMP) have stood as one of the critical strategic differentiators for enhancing firm performance. The production and manufacturing industry is the main driving force of economic growth and social development for any developed or developing country. This study aims to focus on two primary dimensions of QMP: soft quality management practices (SQMP) and hard quality management practices (HQMP) from the socio-technical system perspectives. Based on institutional theory perspectives, the study explores the impact of SQMP and HQMP on quality performance (QP), innovation performance (IVP) and financial performance (FP) in Indian oil processing organizations.

A proposed research model is validated using 289 cross-sectional survey data collected from the senior officials of oil processing firms in India. Covariance-based structural equation modeling is used to verify the proposed theoretical model.

SQMP, directly and indirectly, influenced QP and IVP while only indirectly to FP mediated through QP. HQMP directly impacted only QP while indirectly to IVP and FP mediated through QP.

Impact of organizational legitimacy in proper utilization or application of QMP in achieving the firm sustainable growth. The future study may address the following Research Question (RQ) also: How do QMP enhance the legitimacy of organizations operating in the oil processing industries? Are there specific mechanisms or pathways through which improved performance contributes to enhanced organizational legitimacy? How does legitimacy impact the success and sustainability of organizations, particularly, within the context of the oil processing industries? Are there regulatory requirements or industry certifications that organizations must adhere to in order to maintain legitimacy?

Similarly, manufacturing firms establish QMP of interaction and maintaining relationships with all the stakeholders, total employee empowerment and involvement, workforce commitment and workforce management, helping to control their reputations and maintain legitimacy (Li et al., 2023). Similarly, in the health industry, the health management information system (HMIS), which uses the DHIS2 platform, establishes that isomorphism legitimizes data QMP among health practitioners and, subsequently, data quality. Further, it was concluded that mimetic isomorphism led to moral and pragmatic legitimacy. In contrast, normative isomorphism led to cognitive legitimacy within the HMIS structure and helped to attain the correctness and timeliness of the data and reports, respectively (Msendema et al., 2023). Quality, flexibility and efficiency of Big Data Analytics through better storage, speed and significance can optimize the operational performance of a manufacturing firm (Verma et al., 2023).

The study provides the academician with the different dimensions of QMP. The study demonstrates how a firm develops multiple performance capabilities through proper QMP. Also, it shows how vital behavioral and managerial perspectives are to QMP and statistically solid tools and techniques. The study draws their importance to risk factors involved in the firms. Since the SQMP play a vital role, thus, emphasis on the behavioral dimension of quality requires more investigation and is in line with hard technological advancements in the quality field.

The study of the impact of HQMP and SQMP on performance is still not established. There are inconsistencies in the findings. The study of the impact of HQMP and SQMP in oil processing industries has not dealt with before. The effects of HQMP and SQMP on the firm’s FP have least been dealt. In context to the intended influence of QM implementation, QP has not been examined as a potential mediator between FP. Research carried out in the past is limited to American and European countries. However, a limited study was done in Asia, and no study has been conducted in the Indian context.

The purpose of this paper was to understand the difficulties related to asset management observed by experts in Brazilian organizations in light of the requirements outlined in the ISO 55001:2014 standard.

A survey was performed with asset management experts. The collected data were analyzed using frequency analysis, hierarchical cluster analysis and fuzzy technique for order preference by similarity to deal solution (TOPSIS).

Based on data analysis, the most critical difficulties observed were related to managing and controlling the impact of changes in the company that affect asset management objectives; to the committing to and supporting the asset management system by the top management of the organization; to manage the processes for dealing with risks and opportunities for the asset management system and plans, and correcting failures in asset performance; and to plan and conduct actions in an integrated manner to identify and minimize adverse impacts associated with the asset management system, and afterwards verifying their effectiveness.

The findings of this study have important theoretical and practical contributions, since they indicate the most critical points observed in asset management in Brazil, which can be used as a source for future research and by professionals to prioritize difficulties in future planning and develop action plans to overcome them. The step-by-step methodological approach presented in this study provides professionals and researchers with a replicable method of identifying potential asset management difficulties in a given specific reality.

The agricultural supply chain is susceptible to disruptive geopolitical events. Therefore, agri-food firms must devise robust resilience strategies to hasten recovery and mitigate global food security effects. Hence, the central aim of this paper is to investigate how supply chains could leverage digital technologies to design resilience strategies to manage uncertainty stemming from the external environment disrupted by a geopolitical event. The context of the study is the African agri-food supply chain during the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The authors employ strategic contingency and dynamic capabilities theory arguments to explore the scenario and conditions under which African agri-food firms could leverage digital technologies to formulate contingency strategies and devise mitigation countermeasures. Then, the authors used a multi-case-study analysis of 14 African firms of different sizes and tiers within three main agri-food sectors (i.e. livestock farming, food-crop and fisheries-aquaculture) to explore, interpret and present data and their findings.

Downstream firms (wholesalers and retailers) of the African agri-food supply chain are found to extensively use digital seizing and transforming capabilities to formulate worst-case assumptions amid geopolitical disruption, followed by proactive mitigation actions. These capabilities are mainly supported by advanced technologies such as blockchain and additive manufacturing. On the other hand, smaller upstream partners (SMEs, cooperatives and smallholders) are found to leverage less advanced technologies, such as mobile apps and cloud-based data analytics, to develop sensing capabilities necessary to formulate a “wait-and-see” strategy, allowing them to reduce perceptions of heightened supply chain uncertainty and take mainly reactive mitigation strategies. Finally, the authors integrate their findings into a conceptual framework that advances the research agenda on managing supply chain uncertainty in vulnerable areas.

This study is the first that sought to understand the contextual conditions (supply chain characteristics and firm characteristics) under which companies in the African agri-food supply chain could leverage digital technologies to manage uncertainty. The study advances contingency and dynamic capability theories by providing a new way of interacting in one specific context. In practice, this study assists managers in developing suitable strategies to manage uncertainty during geopolitical disruptions.