Search results

The increasing economic importance of knowledge is redefining firm‐market boundaries, work arrangements and the links between education work and learning. This article proposes a new framework: the knowledge supply model, which helps individuals, firms and learning institutions understand the dynamics of change and emerging patterns of knowledge demand and supply in different sectors of the economy. It also assists learning institutions to tailor their products and services to the needs of knowledge consumers. As working and learning become synonymous, firms, workers, educators and intermediaries will have to adopt new roles and develop new strategies. Understanding the dynamics of knowledge demand and supply should assist all actors in navigating knowledge markets of the new economy.

Examines different approaches to the challenge of Australian corporate law enforcement and governance, and discusses success in this area and how it might be determined. Describes barriers to measuring success of regulatory action, and debates what level of law enforcement is appropriate and cost‐effective. Concludes that a more broadly based approach to regulatory action and assessment is of prime importance.

This essay addresses the topic of research lifeworlds and personal lifeworlds and what we gain and lose as researchers, and as people, from their overlaps and collisions. The essay analyses six narrative accounts of the authors lived experience of a unique collision between research and personal lifeworlds when the researcher-mother presented with her sick daughter to the hospital emergency department that served as the field site for her own research. This analysis revealed the following themes through which a researcher’s personhood animates the research process: feeling exposed but empowered; gaining conceptual clarity while opening up ethical ambiguity; and becoming liminal because of identity shifts and coping through self-reflexivity. The essay contributes to our collective understanding and shared learning of the ways a researcher’s personhood shapes, and is shaped by, the research process and (re)production of knowledge.

In the last decades, many of the most talented and promising young graduates in the developed economies have joined the financial industry. Simultaneously, ill-designed incentives’ schemes have favored the development of a culture in which excessive greed, free-riders’ behavior, unreasonable appetite for risk, and short-term decision making have endangered the economy and, potentially, have laid the foundations for financial, economic, social, and environmental crises.

In this chapter, we review current challenges in the financial industry from the lens of human and social capital. We examine some of the factors that allowed unethical behavior and a short-term financial focus in the financial sector, examining how compensation and an extremely competitive culture became key elements that favored greedy and manipulative behavior and ultimately generated socially harmful human and social capital in the financial sector. Finally, we discuss the emergence of a number of game-changers (namely, Brexit, FinTech, the growing relevance of ethical standards, and the increasing participation of women and millennials in the industry) that might represent potential promotors of change and help restructure and reshape the financial industry.

The purpose of this paper is to understand how business process configurations influence motivation among process participants.

An experiment was conducted in which business process rules complexity, work backlog, and case distribution method were manipulated. Participant motivation and its antecedents were measured using a survey.

The study finds that business process configurations influence the motivation of process participants through their effect on perceived competence. Increasing business process rules complexity reduces competence. The effect of case distribution method on competence depends on backlog. Sequential distribution undermines competence in the presence of backlog, and enhances competence when backlog is absent. However, batch distribution results in higher competence in the presence of backlog than in its absence.

The study confirms the applicability of self-determination theory for analyzing the effect of work settings, including business process configurations, on employee motivation. The study further demonstrates the applicability of the task technology fit model in the context of business process automation.

The study suggests that reducing process complexity through the use of information technology can benefit process participant motivation. Additionally, the study highlights the importance of case distribution method on performance expectations.

While much of the extant research has considered the enhancement of business processes at the organizational level, this study examines how business process design can be used to preserve and potentially enhance the motivation of human process participants.