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This paper aims to investigate the interrelated role of relational commitment and dependence as drivers of key performance outcomes. Specifically, the authors provide a conceptual model of the impact of commitment on relationship value dependence and switching cost dependence. The authors further investigate how these dimensions of dependence offer differing noneconomic and economic paths to strategic and financial performance.

Survey data was collected from 296 purchasing agents across multiple industries located in the USA. The conceptual model and accompanying hypotheses were tested via partial least squares structural equation modeling.

The results show that the relational path is driven by affective and normative commitment, which are related to relationship value dependence. Conversely, calculative commitment is related to switching cost dependence. This economic path is related to both strategic and financial performance, whereas the relational path is more closely related to strategic as opposed to financial performance outcomes.

This study extends research on Business-To-Business (B2B) relationships by leveraging social exchange theory to examine the interrelated roles played by two forms of dependence on performance outcomes. Thus, the authors answer Scheer et al.’s (2015) call for research into the two distinct types of dependence – relationship value and switching cost dependence – and their roles in determining B2B relationship outcomes. The findings contribute to the literature by integrating social exchange and relationship marketing concepts to develop a dual pathway approach to B2B partnerships.

The results suggest that dependence is not necessarily negative for firms. Specifically, buyers can and do still exhibit positive performance, both strategic and financial, in relationships with suppliers even when dependent on the relationship. Regardless of whether buyers are dependent due to a relationship or economic factors, both can, in different ways, lead to positive strategic and financial outcomes. Together, the authors contribute to the understanding of B2B partnerships by offering guidelines for both buyers and suppliers in the dyad.

The authors derive a comprehensive model depicting primarily relational and economic paths to performance through different types of commitment and dependence. The authors contribute to the literature by demonstrating that relational and economic paths to success are not the same, highlighting how firms could influence performance even when the relationship is not necessarily characterized by generally positive relational benefits and behaviors.

This study examines the impact of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI), particularly ChatGPT, on higher education (HE). The ease with which content can be generated using GenAI has raised concerns across academia regarding its role in academic contexts, particularly regarding summative assessments. This research makes a unique contribution to the literature by examining university student and staff perceptions of current and future issues pertaining to the role of GenAI in universities.

A qualitative method involving five one-to-one semi-structured interviews with four students and a lecturer explored the ethical and practical issues of GenAI text generation in academia. An inductive thematic analysis was chosen as it provided nuanced insights aligned with the study’s goals.

Use of GenAI was discussed within the context of a range of topics, including perceptions of academic misconduct, authorial integrity and issues pertaining to university policies. Participants universally defined traditional classifications of academic misconduct but were unable to provide clear definitions where the use of GenAI was included for writing summative assessments. Students showed a more open engagement with GenAI, considering it a tool for overcoming obstacles rather than a means to plagiarise. Educators were generally more cautious and less optimistic about the academic role of GenAI. Lack of clear institutional policies surrounding such tools also contributed to ethical ambiguities.

The study highlights diverging perspectives between students and academics, which necessitate a forum for dialogue, ensuring the need to develop clear policies to steer the integration of GenAI in a manner that is beneficial for students and academics.

In order to better optimize the internal management system of book publishing and to cope with the changes in the external market environment, the purpose of this paper is to carry out cross-border publishing with the help of a transmedia storytelling model to realize the transformation and upgrading of the industry. Focusing on the relationship between the book publishing transmedia storytelling model and business performance, the moderating effect of the innovation environment on different variables is assessed.

This paper proposes several feasible hypotheses based on existing research. The research data came from 365 managers of Chinese book publishing organizations, and the scale was validated by Cronbach’s a, composite reliability (CR) and average variance extracted (AVE). Reliability and validity were verified, and correlation and regression analyses were used to test the impact of the book publishing transmedia storytelling model on business performance and to analyze the moderating role of the innovation environment.

The results show that the book publishing transmedia storytelling model (content production, technology integration, organizational innovation, marketing integration) helps to improve business performance (market performance, financial performance), and the innovation environment has a positive moderating effect on the relationship between the book publishing transmedia storytelling model and business performance, which provides a guarantee for the transformation and upgrading of book publishing. The market information reflected in the innovation environment has a certain role in promoting the innovation and business performance of the book publishing transmedia storytelling model.

The empirical evidence provides a theoretical link between the book publishing transmedia storytelling model and business performance, but there are still some shortcomings, and more factors, such as equity structure, government subsidies and research and development investment, should be included in future research. In addition, the scope of the research should be broadened on this basis to make the results of the data analysis more objective.

This paper introduces the transmedia storytelling model and deeply analyzes the relationship between the book publishing transmedia storytelling model and business performance, which is of great practical significance for optimizing the application and service quality of book publishing, prolonging the industrial chain, enhancing the interaction and participation of users and perfecting the business management system of the book publishing industry.

The application and research of the book publishing transmedia storytelling model are imperfect. Therefore, this paper not only helps to promote the innovation of book publishing organizational structure and improve the management system of business performance, but also may help to improve the innovation environment of book publishing enterprises and promote the diversification of industrial structure.

The paper provides a detailed historical account of Douglass C. North's early intellectual contributions and analytical developments in pursuing a Grand Theory for why some countries are rich and others poor.

The author approaches the discussion using a theoretical and historical reconstruction based on published and unpublished materials.

The systematic, continuous and profound attempt to answer the Smithian social coordination problem shaped North's journey from being a young serious Marxist to becoming one of the founders of New Institutional Economics. In the process, he was converted in the early 1950s into a rigid neoclassical economist, being one of the leaders in promoting New Economic History. The success of the cliometric revolution exposed the frailties of the movement itself, namely, the limitations of neoclassical economic theory to explain economic growth and social change. Incorporating transaction costs, the institutional framework in which property rights and contracts are measured, defined and enforced assumes a prominent role in explaining economic performance.

In the early 1970s, North adopted a naive theory of institutions and property rights still grounded in neoclassical assumptions. Institutional and organizational analysis is modeled as a social maximizing efficient equilibrium outcome. However, the increasing tension between the neoclassical theoretical apparatus and its failure to account for contrasting political and institutional structures, diverging economic paths and social change propelled the modification of its assumptions and progressive conceptual innovation. In the later 1970s and early 1980s, North abandoned the efficiency view and gradually became more critical of the objective rationality postulate. In this intellectual movement, North's avant-garde research program contributed significantly to the creation of New Institutional Economics.

The purpose of this paper is to research the impact of digitalization on employees' future competencies and the conditional role of human resource development (HRD) in the relationship between independent and dependent variables.

Empirical research covered 1209 enterprises from all of Slovakia, Poland and the Czech Republic. The research was conducted from 2019 to 2021. Using structural equation modeling (SEM), a theoretical model was tested and verified.

Confirmatory factor analysis has shown a good fit for the tested model. The purpose and character of our data showed a good alignment with the SEM partial least squares method, as the goal is to predict a construct. The model showed that employee-oriented digitalization positively affected the employees' future competencies, with no impact of customer-oriented digitalization treated as a control variable. Also, the moderating role of HRD has not been shown to be significant for the “digitalization – competencies” relationship.

Previous studies on the development of personnel competencies treated these competencies as antecedents of digital transformation and examined the formal role of HRD in building the competencies. The novelty of this study lies in exploring the pattern of interactions among the impact of an environment built by innovative technologies and HRD on the competencies of the future. Also, the research embedded in the environment of Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia has contributed to the complex understanding of the transition to digitalization, as this region has often been omitted in the field of human resource management (HRM) research focused on exploring digital transformation.

Preservice teachers (n = 39) described their definitions of patriotism and to what extent they believed statements from The 1619 Project (2019) and The 1776 Commission Report (2021) were patriotic.

This study employed a mixed-method survey including open-ended prompts requesting participants’ descriptions of patriotism and Likert scale prompts asking participants to agree/disagree with deidentified statements from The 1619 Project and the 1776 Commission Report. In vivo words reflecting emotional responses to patriotism and the statements informed the categorization process in a second round of coding.

Four categories of patriotism definition were identified. Identified were relationships between groups’ conceptualizations of patriotism and whether statements from history narratives were viewed as patriotic.

This article contributes to the field by exploring the intersectionality of the concept of patriotism with competing narratives regarding the foundation and growth of the United States.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a prototype of a wearable medical device in the form of a bandage with a real-time data monitoring platform, which can be used domestically for diabetic patients to identify the possibility of foot ulceration at the early stage.

The prototype can measure blood volumetric change and temperature variation in the forefoot area simultaneously. The waveform extracted using a pulsatile-blood-flow signal was used to assess blood perfusion-related information, and hence, predict ischemic ulcers. The temperature difference between ulcerated and the reference was used to predict neuropathic ulcers. The medical device can be used as a bandage during the application wherein the sensory module is placed inside the hollow pocket of the bandage. A platform was developed through a mobile application where doctors can extract real-time information, and hence, determine the possibility of ulceration.

The height of the peaks in the pulsatile-blood-flow signal measured from the subject with foot ischemic ulcers is significantly less than that of the subject without ischemic ulcers. In the presence of ischemic ulcers, the captured waveform flattens. Therefore, the blood perfusion from arteries to the tissue of the forefoot is considerably low for the subject with ischemic ulcers. According to the temperature difference data measured over 25 consecutive days, the temperature difference of the subject with neuropathic ulcers occasionally exceeded the 4 °F range but mostly had higher values closer to the 4 °F range. However, the temperature difference of the subject who had no complications of neuropathic ulcers did not exceed the 4 °F range, and the majority of the measurements occupy a narrow range from −2°F to 2 °F.

The proposed prototype of wearable medical apparatus can monitor both temperature variation and pulsatile-blood-flow signal on the forefoot simultaneously and thereby predict both ischemic and neuropathic diabetes using a single device. Most importantly, the wearable medical device can be used domestically without clinical assistance with a real-time data monitoring platform to predict the possibility of ulceration and the course of action thereof.