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The purpose of this study is to explore whether immersive virtual reality (VR) can complement e-participation and help alleviate some major obstacles that hinder effective communication and collaboration. Immersive virtual reality (VR) can complement e-participation and help alleviate some major obstacles hindering effective communication and collaboration. VR technologies boost discussion participants' sense of presence and immersion; however, studying emerging VR technologies for their applicability to e-participation is challenging because of the lack of affordable and accessible infrastructures. In this paper, the authors present a novel framework for analyzing serious social VR engagements in the context of e-participation.

The authors propose a novel approach for artificial intelligence (AI)-supported, data-driven analysis of group engagements in immersive VR environments as an enabler for next-gen e-participation research. The authors propose a machine-learning-based VR interactions log analytics infrastructure to identify behavioral patterns. This paper includes features engineering to classify VR collaboration scenarios in four simulated e-participation engagements and a quantitative evaluation of the proposed approach performance.

The authors link theoretical dimensions of e-participation online interactions with specific user-behavioral patterns in VR engagements. The AI-powered immersive VR analytics infrastructure demonstrated good performance in automatically classifying behavioral scenarios in simulated e-participation engagements and the authors showed novel insights into the importance of specific features to perform this classification. The authors argue that our framework can be extended with more features and can cover additional patterns to enable future e-participation immersive VR research.

This research emphasizes technical means of supporting future e-participation research with a focus on immersive VR technologies as an enabler. This is the very first use-case for using this AI and data-driven infrastructure for real-time analytics in e-participation, and the authors plan to conduct more comprehensive studies using the same infrastructure.

The authors’ platform is ready to be used by researchers around the world. The authors have already received interest from researchers in the USA (Harvard University) and Israel and run collaborative online sessions.

The authors enable easy cloud access and simultaneous research session hosting 24/7 anywhere in the world at a very limited cost to e-participation researchers.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the very first attempt at building a dedicated AI-driven VR analytics infrastructure to study online e-participation engagements.

The research asked: How do daughters take the lead in their family businesses? What are the relevant issues that characterize the succession process for daughters, what are the attributes of daughter successors, and what, if any, features distinguish their leadership style?

Qualitative research comprised reflective interviews with 14 daughter successors. Thematic data analysis was used to analyze data, build models and link to previous research.

The shifting landscape of women's roles in family businesses is evidenced through the experiences of daughters who have taken over the top leadership positions in their family firms. Skill and commitment override gender in successor selection. The women were intrinsically motivated to take over their family businesses and owned significant shares in their firms. The findings confirm the centrality of the successor‐incumbent relationship and reveal mentoring, frequently by the incumbent, as the principal vehicle for the transfer of business leadership. Emotional competence emerged as a key successor quality.

This research is based on a single perspective, that of the successor. The accounts may include elements of performance, that is, selection of content based on the audience and the participant's desired results.

The paper provides an alternate view to female invisibility in the family business, and the practice of primogeniture. This is new research on succession and women's roles in family business.

The presence of political corruption possibly predates the historical record. For years, it was viewed as an artifact of political development, a common malignancy that nations would naturally reject as a function of their respective national maturations; this was one of the underlying theses of the American progressive movement. However, this cleansing has been neither as straightforward nor as natural as its proponents would argue. An anti-corruption coalition established in the 1990 under the umbrella of Transparency International (TI) has brought a new light on the world of political corruption. TI annually publishes a Corruption Perception Index that in 2001 ranked over 90 nations in terms of their perceived political corruptions. Peter Eigen, the TI Chairman, observed that “There is no end in sight to the misuse of power by those in public office – and corruption levels are perceived to be as high as ever in both the developed and developing nations” (Transparency International Press Release, 2001).¹

Product functionalities aim to satisfy the operative needs of the customer, while product meanings (i.e. the emotion and the symbolic values represented by the product) aim to satisfy the emotional and socio‐cultural needs of the customer. What consumers are increasingly looking for in consumer products are new forms of psychological satisfaction that go beyond normal and simple consumption; today, more than ever, products define their own presence not only through their attributes, but also through the meanings that they assume, through the dialogue that they establish with the user, and also through the symbolic nature that they emanate. Figures of speech can be exploited to emphasise a message or a meaning. The purpose of this paper is to propose an application of rhetorical figures to product design that will make them more communicative.

Specifically, the authors propose the “Rhetorical Innovation Process” as a methodology that foresees the application of figures of speech as semantic operators. First, the authors discuss several product innovations that can be interpreted according to the “Rhetorical Innovation Process”. Then, a brief workshop assignment in the strategic design course at the Faculty of Industrial Design of Politecnico di Milano explored the potentialities of the method in relation to different product typologies: 40 Italian master students were divided into eight groups (five industrial design students each) in order to develop five products per group.

The results obtained by design students demonstrated as figures of speech can stimulate associations with other contexts and modifications to existing architecture. The exploration of the “rhetorical innovation process” in collaboration with eight design student teams has shown that this method can support and enrich the concept generation phase. Moreover, four configurations proposed by the “rhetorical innovation process” allow one to generate different alternatives supporting the creative process and allowing the identification of strengths and weaknesses associated to each solution.

The method described in the paper elucidates the structure and process adopted by several designers and also illustrates an effective framework for communicating choices to their clients. In particular, the cross‐context associations proposed in the “rhetorical innovation process” provide additional insights and incentives during the concept generation.

It is argued that whilst operational and support processes deliver performance presently, it is the managerial processes that sustain performance over time. The purpose of this research paper is to better understand what these managerial processes are and how they influence organisational performance.

The theoretical background is reviewed covering literature on the subject of business process management, resourced‐based view (RBV), dynamic capabilities and managerial processes. A research framework leads to qualitative case study‐based research design. Data are collected from 37 organisations across Europe, classified according to their performance.

Findings suggest that the five managerial processes and their constituent managerial activities, identified through the empirical research, influence performance of organisations as an interconnected managerial system rather than as individual processes and activities. Also, the execution and maturity of this managerial system is influenced by the perceptions of the managers who organise it.

Within the limitation of the study the discussion leads to eight research propositions that contribute to our understanding of how managerial processes influence organisational performance. These propositions and ensuing discussion provide insights into the content and structure of managerial processes, as well as contributing to the debate on RBV by suggesting that managerial processes and activities could be considered as valuable, rare and inimitable resources. Furthermore, the discussion on how managerial perceptions influence the organisation and execution of the managerial system contributes towards our understanding of how and why dynamic capabilities develop.

The results suggest that in higher performing organisations, managers: demonstrate a wider awareness of the overall managerial system; achieve a balance between short‐term and future‐oriented activities; exploit their managerial activities for multiple purposes; demonstrate greater maturity of managerial activities; and pay greater attention to the organisation of the managerial system.

This paper presents one of the first empirical studies that attempt to understand how business processes, and particularly managerial processes, as an interconnected managerial system serve to sustain performance of organisations.

THIS is the month when librarians and library workers everywhere, their holidays over, turn to their winter plans. There are, however, some interesting events to take place before the darker and more active months come. The first is the meeting at Oxford on September 21st and subsequent days of the Federation International de Documentation. This will be followed by and merge into the ASLIB Conference, and there is in prospect an attendance of over three hundred. Our readers know that this organization produces and advocates the International Decimal Classification. It is not primarily a “library” society but rather one of abstractors and indexers of material, but it is closely akin, and we hope that English librarianship will be well represented. Then there is a quite important joint‐conference at Lincoln of the Northern Branches of the Library Association on September 30th— October 3rd, which we see is to be opened by the President of the Library Association. Finally the London and Home Counties Branch are to confer at Folkestone from October 14th to 16th, and here, the programme includes Messrs. Jast, Savage, McColvin, Wilks, Carter, and the President will also attend. There are other meetings, and if the question is asked: do not librarians have too many meetings ? we suppose the answer to be that the Association is now so large that local conferences become desirable. One suggestion, that has frequently been made, we repeat. The Library Association should delegate a certain definite problem to each of its branches, asking for a report. These reports should form the basis of the Annual Conference. It is worthy of more consideration.