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1 – 10 of 170Jeroen Schepers and Edwin J. Nijssen
Many organizations expect their service engineers, or frontline employees (FLEs), to behave as brand advocates by engaging in favorable communication about the brand and its…
Abstract
Purpose
Many organizations expect their service engineers, or frontline employees (FLEs), to behave as brand advocates by engaging in favorable communication about the brand and its offerings toward customers. However, this approach is not without risk as customers may be disappointed or even frustrated with brand advocacy behavior in many service encounters. The purpose of this paper is to study the impact of FLEs’ brand advocacy on customer satisfaction with the service encounter, and identify the conditions under which the effects are detrimental. This paper specifically considers service issue severity and product newness as contingency conditions.
Design/methodology/approach
Building on social identification theory, the paper builds a conceptual model, which is empirically tested using a data set that matches data from service engineers, customers, and archival records from the after-sales service department of a globally operating business-to-business print and document management solutions provider.
Findings
This paper finds that brand advocacy behavior harms customer satisfaction especially in service encounters that involve simple service issues (e.g. maintenance) for products that are new to the market. Fortunately, brand identification can compensate this negative effect under many service conditions. While the joint effect of brand identification and advocacy is most beneficial for severe service issues of new products, no effect on customer satisfaction was found for established products.
Practical implications
This paper identifies those service situations in which brand advocacy is advisable and guides managers toward achieving more favorable customer evaluations.
Originality/value
Past research has considered several FLE branding activities in the frontline but the effects of brand advocacy have not been isolated. In addition, most studies have assumed the effects of employee brand-related behaviors on customer satisfaction to be universally positive rather than negative and focused on antecedents and not on moderators and consequences.
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Suzana Sukovic, Jamaica Eisner and Kerith Duncanson
Effective use of data across public health organisations (PHOs) is essential for the provision of health services. While health technology and data use in clinical practice have…
Abstract
Purpose
Effective use of data across public health organisations (PHOs) is essential for the provision of health services. While health technology and data use in clinical practice have been investigated, interactions with data in non-clinical practice have been largely neglected. The purpose of this paper is to consider what constitutes data, and how people in non-clinical roles in a PHO interact with data in their practice.
Design/methodology/approach
This mixed methods study involved a qualitative exploration of how employees of a large PHO interact with data in their non-clinical work roles. A quantitative survey was administered to complement insights gained through qualitative investigation.
Findings
Organisational boundaries emerged as a defining issue in interactions with data. The results explain how data work happens through observing, spanning and shifting of boundaries. The paper identifies five key issues that shape data work in relation to boundaries. Boundary objects and processes are considered, as well as the roles of boundary spanners and shifters.
Research limitations/implications
The study was conducted in a large Australian PHO, which is not completely representative of the unique contexts of similar organisations. The study has implications for research in information and organisational studies, opening fields of inquiry for further investigation.
Practical implications
Effective systems-wide data use can improve health service efficiencies and outcomes. There are also implications for the provision of services by other health and public sectors.
Originality/value
The study contributes to closing a significant research gap in understanding interactions with data in the workplace, particularly in non-clinical roles in health. Research analysis connects concepts of knowledge boundaries, boundary spanning and boundary objects with insights into information behaviours in the health workplace. Boundary processes emerge as an important concept to understand interactions with data. The result is a novel typology of interactions with data in relation to organisational boundaries.
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Lu Chen, Wei Zheng, Baiyin Yang and Shuaijiao Bai
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the forces driving organizational innovation, particularly CEO transformational leadership as it affects external and internal social…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the forces driving organizational innovation, particularly CEO transformational leadership as it affects external and internal social capital in top management teams.
Design/methodology/approach
Survey questionnaires were administered to 90 Chinese top management teams. Structural equation modeling was used to test the hypothesized relationships.
Findings
Both internal and external social capital mediated the relationship between transformational leadership and organizational innovation.
Practical implications
Organizations should strengthen internal and external capital of top management teams to reap maximal innovation outcomes from transformational leadership.
Originality/value
The findings contribute to the transformational leadership, social capital, and innovation literature first by showing how leadership influences innovation through largely neglected mechanisms – internal and external social capital. Second, a social capital focus challenges the tacit assumption that transformational leadership has only internal influences by showing that it potentially spills over to the external domain.
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For a long time, researchers have stressed the importance of identity for collaborative supply relationships. Accordingly, it has been proposed that supply relationships may be…
Abstract
Purpose
For a long time, researchers have stressed the importance of identity for collaborative supply relationships. Accordingly, it has been proposed that supply relationships may be efficiently managed by establishing a shared collective identity among partners. However, this strategy may challenge the partners' individual distinctiveness and thus lead to adversarial relationship outcomes. In this article, it is argued how and when establishing an intergroup relational identity may be a better choice than building a collective identity.
Design/methodology/approach
The conceptual research is based on an analysis of previous literature. Relational identity theorizing and the theory of intergroup leadership are applied to build on and extend previous views on identity in interorganizational contexts.
Findings
It is proposed that when supply chain actors are subject to identity threats in collaborative supply relationships, such threats are driven by the imbalance of power between or among the parties. Therefore, establishing an intergroup relational identity should be preferred over a collective identity in situations characterized by a high identity threat.
Research limitations/implications
Future studies could support this article's theoretical suggestions with empirical evidence.
Practical implications
Intergroup relational identity preserves the distinctiveness of all parties involved in a collaborative relationship and is based on their individual contributions. Managers could support a collaborative environment and promote a shared vision between or among organizations through appropriate rhetoric.
Originality/value
This study contributes to an understanding of the relational aspects of interorganizational behavior by adapting social psychological theories to this area of research.
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Silvia Massa, Maria Carmela Annosi, Lucia Marchegiani and Antonio Messeni Petruzzelli
This study aims to focus on a key unanswered question about how digitalization and the knowledge processes it enables affect firms’ strategies in the international arena.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to focus on a key unanswered question about how digitalization and the knowledge processes it enables affect firms’ strategies in the international arena.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors conduct a systematic literature review of relevant theoretical and empirical studies covering over 20 years of research (from 2000 to 2023) and including 73 journal papers.
Findings
This review allows us to highlight a relationship between firms’ international strategies and the knowledge processes enabled by applying digital technologies. Specifically, the authors discuss the characteristics of patterns of knowledge flows and knowledge processes (their origin, the type of knowledge they carry on and their directionality) as determinants for the emergence of diverse international strategies embraced by single firms or by populations of firms within ecosystems, networks, global value chains or alliances.
Originality/value
Despite digital technologies constituting important antecedents and critical factors for the internationalization process, and international businesses in general, and operating cross borders implies the enactment of highly knowledge-intensive processes, current literature still fails to provide a holistic picture of how firms strategically use what they know and seek out what they do not know in the international environment, using the affordances of digital technologies.
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Mohamed Farhoud, Alex Bignotti, Ralph Hamann, Ngunoue Cynthia Kauami, Michelle Kiconco, Seham Ghalwash, Filip De Beule, Bontle Tladi, Sanele Matomela and Mollette Kgaphola
Context matters in social entrepreneurship, and it matters a lot. Social entrepreneurs are deeply entrenched in the context where they operate: they respond to its challenges, are…
Abstract
Purpose
Context matters in social entrepreneurship, and it matters a lot. Social entrepreneurs are deeply entrenched in the context where they operate: they respond to its challenges, are shaped by it, and attempt to shape it in turn. The purpose of this paper is to discuss how social entrepreneurship in Africa is still understood within the scope of Western theories, without much consideration for local variations of the commonly shared archetype of social entrepreneurship or for how African norms, values and beliefs may shape our common understanding of this phenomenon.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors survey the often-neglected literature on social entrepreneurship in Africa and bring it together in this paper to discuss – also from the vantage point of their own experience and research in diverse African countries – how important assumptions in the social entrepreneurship literature are confirmed, enriched or challenged by key dimensions of African contexts.
Findings
Four important themes in the literature on social entrepreneurship in Africa emerged – institutions, embedding values, entrepreneurial behaviour and bricolage and scaling impact – each with its own considerations of how African contexts may challenge predominant assumptions in the extant social entrepreneurship literature, as well as implications for future research.
Originality/value
The authors uncover ways in which the peculiarities of the African context may challenge the underlying – and mostly implicit – assumptions that have shaped the definition and analysis of social entrepreneurship. They end by offering their understanding of social entrepreneurship and its concomitant dimensions in Africa as a stepping stone for advancing the field in the continent and beyond.
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This paper aims to explore graduate perspectives about the creation and use of professional artefacts to communicate work-based inquiry projects to professional audiences.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore graduate perspectives about the creation and use of professional artefacts to communicate work-based inquiry projects to professional audiences.
Design/methodology/approach
The study was based on constructivist qualitative interviews with 14 graduates from a part-time professional practice in arts programme and used thematic analysis to interpret and discuss the findings.
Findings
Participants indicated a perceived value in the use of the professional artefact as a way of articulating their professional inquiry. Professional artefacts enable essential communication skills for professional contexts, have the capacity for engaging with professional audiences that are external to the university, have the potential for enabling further study and workplace employability, show awareness of project management and leadership capabilities and helped some individuals build on and share their own personal philosophy of practice with peer professionals.
Research limitations/implications
As a small-scale research project that used purposive sampling, the findings are not representative, but could provide the creative means to develop professional artefacts within work-related educational programmes and workplace learning programmes.
Practical implications
It is argued that the process and production of professional artefacts can provide the means for communicating work-based projects to professional audiences within workplace settings.
Originality/value
Professional artefacts explore and present developmental aspects of work-based inquiries with distinctive creative approaches to favour practice knowledge and innovation that can be expressively shared with peer professionals.
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Udayan Dhar and Richard Boyatzis
Modern careers are marked by periods of feeling betwixt, or “in-between,” – yet, there is no validated measure of this experience, recognized as subjective liminality. The present…
Abstract
Purpose
Modern careers are marked by periods of feeling betwixt, or “in-between,” – yet, there is no validated measure of this experience, recognized as subjective liminality. The present research aims to (1) operationalize subjective liminality and (2) develop and validate a scale to measure it.
Design/methodology/approach
A literature review was used to operationalize subjective liminality, and the scale validation was performed using four separate samples: 150 workers on M-Turk, 151 graduate and professional students at a large Midwestern University, 252 unemployed individuals in the US and Canada, and 416 full-time employed individuals in the US.
Findings
Subjective liminality was conceptualized as a second-order latent construct reflected by three dimensions: feelings of anxiety, ambiguity and reduced group identification. A 9-item scale was developed and validated to measure it.
Originality/value
This study clarifies and measures an emergent construct in the career transition and organizational change literature.
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Ana Burcharth, Mette Præst Knudsen and Helle Alsted Søndergaard
The purpose of this paper is to examine how organisational activities that formally provide employees with work autonomy explain the performance of open innovation (OI).
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine how organisational activities that formally provide employees with work autonomy explain the performance of open innovation (OI).
Design/methodology/approach
The study reports the results of mediation analyses conducted on the basis of survey data from 307 firms.
Findings
The economic benefits of both inbound and outbound OI are fully captured only if firms provide employees with time, freedom and independence. The results show that employee autonomy fully mediates the relationship between openness and innovation sales, while the adoption of inbound OI is positively associated with the introduction of new products.
Practical implications
The opening of innovation induces managers to provide employees with discretion, as OI requires high levels of flexibility and experimentation.
Originality/value
The paper addresses theoretically and empirically the role of job design in the implementation of OI, while also distinguishing between the effects of inbound and outbound practices on innovation performance.
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The purpose of this study is to review literature on the relationship between leadership and workplace learning, to critically analyze and discuss findings and to suggest future…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to review literature on the relationship between leadership and workplace learning, to critically analyze and discuss findings and to suggest future research paths based on the synthesis.
Design/methodology/approach
This study applied a refined literature review process leading to a selection of 40 articles, which originated from 14 internationally acclaimed journals.
Findings
When explaining leadership influence regarding individual and team learning, the concepts of role modeling behavior, relational support and negotiation of meaning is significant. If leaders provide support, show exemplary behavior and negotiate individual arrangements with employees, workplace learning development is positively affected.
Research limitations/implications
Future studies should focus on empirical cases further illustrating how the leader–employee relationship is formed in practice, to further understand differences in leadership influence on employee workplace learning.
Practical implications
The gathered knowledge implicates that carefully designed leadership training programs and personalized work arrangements between leader and employees are beneficial for leader’s ability to influence employee workplace learning.
Originality/value
The reviewed studies were solely published in top management journals, which resulted in an original literature selection. This study also discusses implicit or articulated assumptions about the view of learning in the selected studies, offering additional understanding about the underlying learning views in leadership–workplace learning research.
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