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Digital communication technologies have become ubiquitous for various firm processes related to international business (IB) and global strategy. However, IB and strategy scholars lack an encompassing and theory-based typology of these technologies that facilitates analysis and discussion of their uses and effects. Likewise, managers have a large choice of technologies at their disposal making it difficult to determine what technology to use in different IB areas. This paper aims to develop a typology of digital communication technologies based on the synchronicity and interactivity of these technologies and capture their fundamental social and temporal dimensions. This results in four ideal types: broadcasting, corresponding, aggregating and collaborating technologies.

This is a conceptual paper incorporating theoretical perspectives to theorize about four ideal types of digital communication technologies. A subsequent empirical test of this typology has been provided in the appendix.

The authors discuss how the typology might be applied in IB decisions and some of the contingencies that impact this choice. Building on that, the authors develop directions for future research to increase their understanding of the use of digital communication technologies to help improve IB functions. Overall, the authors suggest future research explores contingencies about where and when different types of digital communication technologies should be used. Finally, the authors provide implication of having a unified typology for both academics and managers.

The authors offer a robust framework for thinking about and capturing different types of digital communication technologies that can be applied by researchers and used by managers when making decisions related to IB. The authors also provide some initial testing of the typology with a three-country study design helping to determine its validity.

The aim of the paper is to bring together the state-of-the-art research and theory from the communication and service research fields to examine the implications of new technologies for the future of service communication.

The authors apply the media affordances perspective to develop an overarching framework that facilitates theoretical conceptualization and research question formulation on the constantly evolving technology-enabled communication formats.

Central to the forward-looking framework of service communication facilitated by new technologies, this paper identifies various affordances at the service frontline where service customers and providers interact with the technologies. Customers are empowered to expand their roles blurring the role distinction between service providers and customers. Depending on what kind of relationships service providers form with the emerging technologies, they may develop new service communication strategies and new interaction possibilities with customers. As a result, the technologies' affordances would facilitate value creation outcomes that can manifest in the external (whether it is in the physical or digital space) and/or internal (one's own mind) spaces. Applying the affordances framework, the authors map out four key areas of future research regarding new technologies in service communication: (1) social media technologies; (2) multisensory reality-enhancing technologies; (3) AI-enabled voice assistants; and (4) AI-driven service robots.

This paper proposes an original theoretical framework to stimulate and guide future research and theory development regarding the implications of new technologies in the constantly evolving and complex service communication landscape.

The benefits associated with visibility in organizations depend on employees' willingness to engage with technologies that utilize visible communication and make communication visible to others. Without the participation of workers, enterprise social media have limited value. This study develops a framework to assess what deters and drives employees' use of enterprise social media.

Data were collected from 753 employees of a global company using an online survey. The response rate was 24.5%. The authors used structural equation modeling to test the hypothesized framework.

The results show that various fears by workers may deter or motivate enterprise social media use. This offers an alternative viewpoint for examining the consequences of communication visibility in organizations. Specifically, the findings demonstrate that the fear of accountability and the fear of losing uniqueness reduce enterprise social media use through increased codification efforts. The fear of missing out is directly and positively related to collecting behaviors on enterprise social media.

Expectations about participation in visible organizational communication environments are rising. However, as individuals may experience anxiety in such settings, the authors need to direct more analytical focus to the ways individuals manage communication visibility in organizing contexts and develop a deeper understanding of the consequences of fear in workplace communication.

The analysis recognizes that fear can play a key role in deterring or motivating workers' specific choices in navigating the challenges that occur when technology can make communication broadly visible. This study uses theorizing on communication visibility to bring together different fear mechanisms to predict enterprise social media use.

The research aims to provide a longitudinal case study to understand how digital transformation can be embedded in municipal reporting frameworks. The central role of such technology becomes increasingly evident as citizens demand greater transparency and engagement between them and governing institutions.

Utilising a longitudinal case study methodology, the research focusses on Turin’s Integrated Popular Financial Report (IPFR) as a lens through which to evaluate the broader implications of digital transformation on governmental transparency and operational efficiency.

Digital tools, notably sentiment analysis, offer promising avenues for enhancing governmental efficacy and citizenry participation. However, persistent challenges highlight the inadequacy of traditional, inflexible reporting structures to cater to dynamic informational demands.

Embracing digital tools is an imperative for contemporary public administrators, promoting streamlined communication and dismantling bureaucratic obstructions, all while catering to the evolving demands of an informed citizenry.

Different from previous studies that primarily emphasised technology’s role within budgeting, this research uniquely positions itself by spotlighting the transformative implications of digital tools during the reporting phase. It champions the profound value of fostering bottom-up dialogues, heralding a paradigmatic shift towards co-creative public management dynamics.

There has been an avalanche of global natural disasters in recent times. In recent years approximately 210 million people were affected, an estimated economic cost of US$153bn was incurred and 68,000 deaths were recorded. This was a work up call that made it imperative for humanitarian actors to impetuously adopt information and communication technologies (ICTs) to timeously assist affected populations in disaster prevention, mitigation response and recovery However, the use of ICTs in the humanitarian field is still at its infancy in most third world countries. The purpose of this study was, therefore, to evaluate the utilization of ICTs in humanitarian relief operations associated with Cyclone Idai in Zimbabwe.

Using a pragmatic approach, the study gathered data using semistructured questionnaires that were triangulated with interviews of humanitarian staff that were involved in Cyclone Idai relief efforts.

An observed suboptimal utilization of ICTs was further disadvantaged by the inequitable distribution of communication infrastructure. However, despite the suboptimal usage, there was a significant positive influence of ICT adoption on effectiveness, efficiency and flexibility in humanitarian relief operations.

Optimal use of ICTs has the potential to revolutionize humanitarian supply chain management. A smooth transition to new technologies is recommended in which personnel are given professional development opportunities on a regular basis.

Digital platform users not only consume but also produce communication related to their experiences. Although service research has explored users' motivations to communicate and focused on outcomes such as electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM), it remains largely unexplored how users iteratively interact with communication artifacts and potentially create value for themselves, other users and service providers. The purpose of this paper is, thus, to introduce communicative affordances as a framework to advance user-created communication (UCC) in service.

Drawing from the literature in communication, service research and interactive marketing, an affordance perspective on UCC in service is introduced.

Three UCC affordances for the service context are presented – interactivity, visibility and anonymity – opportunities and challenges for service providers associated with these affordances are discussed and, finally, affordance-specific research questions and general recommendations for future research are offered.

By conceptualizing UCC in service from an affordances perspective, this paper moves beyond the traditional sender–receiver communication framework and emphasizes opportunities and challenges for service research and practice.

Instead of focusing separately on specific technologies or user behaviors, it is recommended that service managers adopt a holistic perspective of user goals and motivations, use experiences and platform design.

By conceptualizing UCC as an augmenting, dialogical process concerning users’ experiences, and by introducing communicative affordances as a framework to advance UCC in service, an in-depth understanding of the diverse and ever-evolving landscape of communication in service is offered.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the emergence of innovation in smart service systems to conceptualize how actor’s relationships through technology-enabled interactions can give birth to novel technologies, processes, strategies and value. The objectives of the study are: to detect the different enablers that activate innovation in smart service systems; and to explore how these can lead dynamically to the emergence of different innovation patterns.

The empirical research adopts an approach based on constructivist grounded theory, performed through observation and semi-structured interviews to investigate the development of innovation in the Italian CTNA (Italian acronym of National Cluster for Aerospace Technology).

The identification and re-elaboration of the novelties that emerged from the analysis of the Cluster allow the elaboration of a diagram that classifies five different shades of innovation, introduced through some related theoretical propositions: technological; process; business model and data-driven; social and eco-sustainable; and practice-based.

The paper embraces a synthesis view that detects the enabling structural and systems dimensions for innovation (the “what”) and the way in which these can be combined to create new technologies, resources, values and social rules (the “how” dimension). The classification of five different kinds of innovation can contribute to enrich extant research on value co-creation and innovation and can shed light on how given technologies and relational strategies can produce varied innovation outcomes according to the diverse stakeholders engaged.

The study explores the alignment of Swiss small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) managers' understanding of digital transformation, with evidence of digital tool adoption in managerial and operative work. This reveals opportunities for more fully realizing the potential of digital transformation for SMEs.

This multiple-case study, with four theoretically sampled cases, analyzes data from the qualitative answers of 1,593 respondents to a survey of Swiss SMEs about digital transformation. The study draws on a convenience sample of Swiss SME managers.

The analysis shows little understanding of digital transformation as related to managerial work. However, there are two clear digital tool adoption patterns for managerial work: (1) workflow and workforce management and (2) work-flow and team management. Understandings of digital transformation and operative work focus on the (1) organization of operational work or (2) a combination of organization and changing the way people work. The digital tool adoption in operational work additionally focuses on the digital skills of operational employees.

The study is only able to identify patters of understanding of digital transformation and digital tool adoption in managerial and operative work. More research is needed to understand why these patterns are observed.

SME managers need to think far more carefully about aligning their vision for digital transformation and the digital tools they adopt in both managerial and operational work, but especially in managerial work.

This is the first empirical study of the digital transformation of Swiss SMEs and their digital tool adoption. Significant potential for alignment is revealed, suggesting potential performance gains are possible.

The purpose of this paper is to describe how emerging open standards are replacing traditional industrial networks. Current industrial Ethernet networks are not interoperable; thus, limiting the potential capabilities for the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). There is no forthcoming new generation fieldbus standard to integrate into the IIoT and Industry 4.0 revolution. The open platform communications unified architecture (OPC UA) time-sensitive networking (TSN) is a potential vendor-independent successor technology for the factory network. The OPC UA is a data exchange standard for industrial communication, and TSN is an Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers standard for Ethernet that supports real-time behaviour. The merging of these open standard solutions can facilitate cross-vendor interoperability for Industry 4.0 and IIoT products.

A brief review of the history of the fieldbus standards is presented, which highlights the shortcomings for current industrial systems in meeting converged traffic solutions. An experimental system for the OPC UA TSN is described to demonstrate an approach to developing a three-layer factory network system with an emphasis on the field layer.

From the multitude of existing industrial network schemes, there is a convergence pathway in solutions based on TSN Ethernet and OPC UA. At the field level, basic timing measurements in this paper show that the OPC UA TSN can meet the basic critical timing requirements for a fieldbus network.

This paper uniquely focuses on the specific fieldbus standards elements of industrial networks evolution and traces the developments from the early history to the current developing integration in IIoT context.

The paper aims to define a model for rural development, able to stimulate collaborations between actors involved in the agrifood chain and based on digital technologies as enabling factors for such collaborations.

An exploratory research, based on a qualitative approach, is conducted, using both constructivist grounded theory and Gioia methodology. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and roundtables administered to Italian key players.

The authors identify five actions (definition of territorial identity, involvement of internal and external supply chain actors, definition of quality standards, cooperation intra and infra supply chains, communication through technology) for collaboration in the development of rural areas that policymakers should encourage and actors in the supply chains must implement. The paper also entails both theoretical and practical implications. From the theoretical point of view, this study contributes to the literature on the relationship between agrifood, local development and the role of technologies. From the managerial point of view, this paper provides insights for policymakers to define strategies and actions aimed at developing collaborations between actors involved in the agrifood chain and leveraging digital technologies to support rural development.

The paper proposes a framework for the collaboration of the actors of the agrifood sector and related food tourism that could be the basis for the development of a digital platform able to connect all the subjects involved in rural development.