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This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting‐edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

Companies with IT at their heart are inevitably quick out of the blocks when it comes to embracing social media and Iyer et al.'s article paints a convincing picture of a firm who know precisely what they are doing. By contrast, Ainger's piece shows us that for the sector, social media usage is very much work in progress. While some initiatives will doubtless have “legs”, others may fall by the wayside. Koo et al. have produced some highly complex and exhaustive research. An article whose very title is difficult to absorb is not going to make for reading, and the findings are unremarkable but there is some interest in their use of media richness theory in relation to the research.

The paper provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world's leading organizations.

The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy‐to digest format.

This paper aims to propose an innovative blockchain-based system enabling implementation of a bond-pays model in credit rating industry. Issuer-pays model has led to conflict of interest resulting in rating shopping and inflation. Alternative business models have their own problems, e.g. investor-pays model suffers from “free rider” and public dissemination challenges, whereas government-controlled business models can lead to market distortion. Bond-pays model has been difficult to implement owing to operational difficulties in managing co-ordination amongst multiple entities involved, often with conflicting goals. Blockchain technology enables inter-organizational systems that foster trust amongst non-trusting entities, facilitating business functions such as credit rating to be carried out.

This paper outlines current processes in credit rating business that has led to repeated rating failures and proposes a new set of processes, leveraging capabilities of blockchain technology to enable implementation of an arms-length bond-pays model.

A proof-of-concept system, namely, rating chain has been designed to implement a small part of the proposed model to establish technical feasibility in a blockchain environment.

A fully functional blockchain-based system on bond-pays business model, if built and adopted, could impact how credit rating market functions currently and could contribute to a reduction in rating-related challenges.

The proposal to adopt blockchain technologies in implementing a bond-pays model in credit rating industry is a novel contribution.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of cloud computing (CC) use on collaboration and its ultimate impact on the agility of humanitarian supply chains. Further, this paper aims to analyze the moderating role of inter-organizational trust in the relationship between CC use and collaboration.

This paper provides an empirical assessment of CC use based on an interview analysis of 19 individuals from humanitarian organizations. A survey questionnaire is later used with 107 participants from US relief organizations. Partial least squares test is used to examine the relationships depicted in the conceptual model.

The results provide an account of how CC is used in a humanitarian context. Further, the results indicate that CC use has a positive and significant impact on collaboration between humanitarian organizations and their suppliers. Collaboration is found to be significantly positively associated with agility in humanitarian organizations.

No study, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, has empirically assessed the impact of CC use on humanitarian supply chain collaboration. This will be the first study to empirically analyze the relationships between CC use, inter-organizational trust, collaboration and agility in a humanitarian context.

This study provides a theoretically and empirically validated model depicting the relationships between CC use, collaboration, agility and inter-organizational trust in humanitarian supply chains. Humanitarian organizations can use these findings to optimize agility.

This study contributes to supply chain management research, particularly humanitarian supply chain management knowledge, by empirically examining the usefulness of CC use on collaboration and agility in the supply chain.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the varying impact of advertising appeals on customers’ impulse buying (IB) for vice and virtue products.

This research used two experiments varying humor/scarcity (high/low) and product category (vice versus virtue).

Humor (scarcity) enhances IB of vice (virtue) products through anticipation of enjoyment (perception of uniqueness).

This research identifies a new antecedent of IB, advertising and additionally, a new moderator, product type (vice/virtue) in the ad appeal–IB relationship.

Practitioners managing vice (virtue) brands may use humor (scarcity) appeals to promote impulse buying.

This paper demonstrates that humor (scarcity) appeals enhance impulse buying of vice (virtue) products and shows the underlying mechanisms behind these effects.

Owing to the dramatic rise of FinTech credit in the financial sector, this study describes its knowledge and intellectual structure and paves the way for future research.

The study employs citation analysis, keyword analysis, co-author analysis, co-citation analysis and bibliographic coupling on 268 peer-reviewed articles published during 2010–2021 and extracted from the Web of Science database.

Research on FinTech credit has picked up momentum from 2016, with majority contributions from China, followed by UK and USA. International Journal of Bank Marketing is found to be the most productive journal. Co-citation analysis reveals that past studies have focused on three dominant themes, viz. (a) factors that influence user intention to adopt technological products and services (b) borrowers' and lenders' characteristics that impact fund-raising in FinTech credit platforms and (c) evolution of FinTech market over the years. Bibliographic coupling reveals that recent trends in FinTech credit include (a) impact of emerging technologies like blockchain, artificial intelligence, big data on financial system, (b) factors that encourage consumers to adopt the FinTech products and services, (c) mechanisms by which FinTechs have transformed formal credit markets, (d) factors that lead to successful fundraising in FinTech platforms and (e) critical perspectives on digital lending platforms.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is a pioneering study undertaking an exhaustive analysis of FinTech credit as a research area. The study offers valuable insights on potential topics of research in FinTech credit domain like investigating Balance Sheet Lending Model, investigating the impact of FinTechs on financial system, and new markets by collaborating with scholars of other regions.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has had a big impact on organisations globally, leaving organisations with no choice but to adapt to the new reality of remote work to ensure business continuity. Such an unexpected reality created the conditions for testing new applications of smart home technology whilst working from home. Given the potential implications of such applications to improve the working environment, and a lack of research on that front, this paper pursued two objectives. First, the paper explored the impact of smart home applications by examining the factors that could contribute to perceived productivity and well-being whilst working from home. Second, the study investigated the role of productivity and well-being in motivating the intention of remote workers to use smart home technologies in a home-work environment in the future.

The study adopted a cross-sectional research design. For data collection, 528 smart home users working from home during the pandemic were recruited. Collected data were analysed using a structural equation modelling approach.

The results of the research confirmed that perceived productivity is dependent on service relevance, perceived usefulness, innovativeness, hedonic beliefs and control over environmental conditions. Perceived well-being correlates with task-technology fit, service relevance, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, attitude to smart homes, innovativeness, hedonic beliefs and control over environmental conditions. Intention to work from a smart home-office in the future is dependent on perceived well-being.

The findings of the research contribute to the organisational and smart home literature, by providing missing evidence about the implications of the application of smart home technologies for employees' perceived productivity and well-being. The paper considers the conditions that facilitate better outcomes during remote work and could potentially be used to improve the work environment in offices after the pandemic. Also, the findings inform smart home developers about the features of technology which could improve the developers' application in contexts beyond home settings.

Retailers are increasingly using self-service technologies to improve customer experience and reduce costs. The purpose of this study is to identify factors that could explain the level of continuance intention of mobile self-scanning applications in retail. Based on previous theoretical streams, the present study integrates technology readiness (TR) and service quality into the technology acceptance model.

Using data collected through an online survey of 217 users of a mobile self-scanning application of a large supermarket chain operating in Portugal, the study uses partial least squares structural equation modeling to test the proposed hypotheses.

The results indicate that the continuance usage of the self-scanning apps is directly driven by users' satisfaction and perceived usefulness. Findings also show that TR has a positive and significant impact on ease of use and perceived usefulness. Ease of use has a positive impact on users' satisfaction and perceived usefulness but has no direct effect on the continuance intention to use the application. Perceived quality has a positive direct effect on satisfaction and a positive indirect effect on continuance intention. Finally, need for interaction has a negative effect on TR.

This work contributes to a better understanding of the emerging market for mobile self-scanning applications in retail applications, particularly relevant in a digital transition context.

The purpose of this paper is to propose and to test a model that illustrates the impact of technology anxiety on the intention to use a self-service technology (SST) in public. The study includes two context variables that are relevant in public settings: perceived crowding and perceived time pressure.

A cross-sectional survey was conducted to reflect individual perceptions and intentions when initially using a self-checkout. The proposed relationships and interaction effects were examined using structural equation modeling.

The analysis confirms the core relationships of the model (technology self-efficacy→technology anxiety→perceived ease of use→ intention to use) and yields three important results. First, technology anxiety has a direct negative effect on intention to use, which is greater than the indirect effect through the reduction of ease of use. Second, perceived crowding reinforces the negative effect of technology anxiety. Third, when perceived crowding coincides with perceived time pressure, technology anxiety almost completely inhibits the intention to use the SST in public.

Technology anxiety is examined as the only antecedent of perceived ease of use.

Initial encounters to public self-service technologies should be provided in servicescapes that avoid or at least reduce perceptions of crowding and time pressure.

The approach highlights the impact of technology anxiety on the acceptance of self-service technologies used in public by considering two context variables that are salient in public settings: perceived crowding and perceived time pressure.

Hot corrosion is the major degradation mechanism of failure of boiler and gas turbine components. The present work aims to investigate the hot corrosion resistance of detonation gun sprayed (D-gun) Cr₂O₃-75 per cent Al₂O₃ ceramic coating on ASTM-SA210-A1 boiler steel.

The coating exhibits nearly uniform, adherent and dense microstructure with porosity less than 0.8 per cent. Thermogravimetry technique is used to study the high temperature hot corrosion behavior of bare and coated boiler steel in molten salt environment (Na₂SO₄-60 per cent V₂O₅) at high temperature 900°C for 50 cycles. The corrosion products are analyzed by using X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and field emission scanning electron microscope/energy-dispersive analysis (EDAX) to reveal their microstructural and compositional features for elucidating the corrosion mechanisms.

During investigations, it was found that the Cr₂O₃-75 per cent Al₂O₃ coating on Grade A-1 boiler steel is found to be very effective in decreasing the corrosion rate in the molten salt environment at 900°C. The coating has shown lesser weight gains along with better adhesiveness of the oxide scales with the substrate till the end of the experiment. Thus, coatings serve as an effective diffusion barrier to preclude the diffusion of oxygen from the environment into the substrate boiler steel.

Therefore, it is concluded that the better hot corrosion resistance of the coating is due to the formation of desirable microstructural features such as very low porosity, uniform fine grains and the flat splat structures in the coating; as compared to the bare substrate under cyclic conditions.

This research is useful for coal-fired boilers and other power plant boilers.

This research is useful for power generation plants.

There is no reported literature on hot corrosion behavior of Cr₂O₃-75 per cent Al₂O₃ coating deposited on the selected substrates by D-gun spray technique. The present work has been focused to study the influence of the Cr₂O₃-75 per cent Al₂O₃ coating developed with D-gun spraying technique on high temperature corrosion behavior of ASTM-SA210-A-1 boiler steel in an aggressive environment of Na₂SO₄-60 per cent V₂O₅ molten salt at 900°C under cyclic conditions.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between two major constructs (supply chain management practices (SCMP) and supply chain performance measures), which determines the efficiency and efficacy of retail-supply chain management, using a rigorous empirical method to validate the instrument scale for measuring the validity and reliability of the identified constructs. Additionally, the paper further tests the relationship between SCMP and supply chain performance measures using structural equation modeling (SEM).

Data were compiled and collected from 213 operations and supply chain (SC) heads from leading retail stores in India. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to test the validity of the proposed measurement scale and the relationship is tested using SEM.

The results of the research will help the decision makers in the SC/procurement field to understand the importance of the association between SCMP and supply chain performance measures. Statistical tests show that the implementation of SCMP are associated with supply chain performance measures, which leads to overall improvements; moreover, there is a statistically significant association between the five SCMP and eight SCPM.

This research is also needed to provide more understanding about the SCMP along with the supply chain performance measures and the positive association among them. Overall, this research provides an additional insight into the growing field of the relationships between SCMP and SCPM. Clearly, the field has ample space to grow in terms of research and practice.

This research paper contributes to the literature on supply chain performance measurement.