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The paper aims to explore the value generated by a specific configuration of a smart city's infrastructure by proposing a comparison between a silos configuration versus a crowd configuration at the data storage and processing level.

A system dynamics simulation is adopted to determine and compare the value created by the two configurations of smart city's infrastructure. The simulation outlines the flow of data and their positive and negative feedback that reinforce and hinder the smart city value generation.

The results demonstrate the huge impact of the availability of data for App developers when crowdsourcing configuration is adopted. Furthermore, results unveil the potential in value generation of a crowdsourcing smart city platform configuration compared to a silos architecture.

The authors have proposed a comparison between two alternative smart city digital platform configurations. The paper seeks to test the magnitude of the pros and cons of a crowdsourcing approach in setting up a smart city digital platform. The paper provides new guidelines for improving the data management of smart cities.

This study aims to investigate which configurations of organizational-level and group-level management controls support an identity fit for management accountants in the management accounting profession. It aims to complement recent qualitative management accounting research. This stream just begun to use role and identity theory to investigate role expectations, conflicts and coping strategies of management accountants when they struggle with their work identity.

Based on configuration theory, this study uses a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis to indicate all possible configurations of formal and informal management controls that improve management accountants’ sense of their identity in an organization. The analyses are based on the results of a cross-sectional survey of 277 management accountants from Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Liechtenstein.

The results show that a strong group culture and high psychological safety at the group level are relevant conditions for a high identity fit. Further, the configurations differ regarding the career stages of management accountants.

This study contributes to work identity research of management accountants and to research on formal and informal control configurations as a control package. It is of particular importance for various professions that are affected by role change, as from the findings on management accountants’ identity fit, implications can also be made for other organizational functions that need to engage in identity work.

Drawing upon the importance of research and development (R&D) alliances in driving firm innovation performance, extant research has analyzed individually the impact of R&D alliance partner attributes on firm innovation performance. Despite such analyzes, research has generally underestimated the configurations of partner attributes leading to firm innovation performance. This research gap is interesting to explore, as firms involved in R&D alliances usually face a combination of partner attributes. Moreover, gaining a better understanding of how R&D partner attributes tie into configurations is an issue that is attracting particular interest in coopetition research and alliance literature. This paper aims to obtain a better knowledge of this underrated, but important, aspect of alliances by exploring what configurations of R&D alliance partner attributes lead firms involved in R&D alliances to achieve high innovation performance. To tackle this question, first, this study reviews the extant literature on R&D alliances by relying on the knowledge-based view of alliances to identify the most impactful partner attributes on firms’ innovation performance. This paper then applies a fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to explore the configurations of R&D alliance partner attributes that lead firms involved in R&D alliances to achieve high innovation performance.

This study selects 27 R&D alliances formed worldwide in the telecom industry. This paper explores the multiple configurations of partner attributes of these alliances by conducting a fsQCA.

The findings of the fsQCA show that the two alternate configurations of partner attributes guided the firms involved in these alliances to achieve high innovation performance: a configuration with extensive partner technological relatedness and coopetition, but no experience; and a configuration with extensive partner experience and competition, but no technological relatedness.

The research highlights the importance of how partner attributes (i.e. partner technological relatedness, partner competitive overlap, partner experience and partner relative size) tie, with regard to the firms’ access to external knowledge and consequently to their willingness to achieve high innovation performance. Moreover, this paper reveals the beneficial effect of competition on the innovation performance of the firms involved in R&D alliances when some of the other knowledge-based partner attributes are considered. Despite these insights for alliance and coopetition literature, some limitations are to be noted. First, some of the partners’ attributes considered could be further disentangled into sub-partner attributes. Second, other indicators might be used to measure firms’ innovation performance. Third, as anticipated this study applies fsQCA to explore the combinatory effects of partner attributes in the specific context of R&D alliances in the telecom industry worldwide and in a specific time window. This condition may question the extensibility of the results to other industries and times.

This study also bears two interesting implications for alliance managers. First, the paper suggests that R&D alliance managers need to be aware that potential alliance partners have multiple attributes leading to firm innovation performance. In this regard, partner competitive overlap is particularly important for gaining a better understanding of firm innovation performance. When looking for strategic partners, managers should try to ally with highly competitive enterprises so as to access their more innovative knowledge. Second, the results also highlight that this beneficial effect of coopetition in R&D alliances can be amplified in two ways. On the one hand, when the partners involved in the alliance have not yet developed experience in forming alliances. Partners without previous experience supply ideal stimuli to unlock more knowledge in the alliance because new approaches to access and develop knowledge in the alliance could be explored. On the other hand, this paper detects the situation when the allied partners are developing technologies and products in different areas. When partnering with firms coming from different technological areas, the knowledge diversity that can be leveraged in the alliances could drive alliance managers to generate synergies and economies of scope within the coopetitive alliance.

Extant research has analyzed individually the impact of R&D alliance partner attributes on firm innovation performance but has concurrently underestimated the configurations of partner attributes leading to firm innovation performance. Therefore, this paper differs from previous studies, as it provides an understanding of the specific configurations of R&D alliance partner attributes leading firms involved in R&D alliances to achieve high innovation performance.

This paper explores the use of social media (SM) in Human Resource Management (HRM). Building on the configurational approach, the study investigates the existence of different configurations of social e-HRM, their consequences for the organizations and their predictors.

This empirical study draws on a survey administered to HR directors of 176 companies operating in Italy. Two-step cluster analysis, test for variance and logistic regressions were employed for data analysis.

Three social e-HRM configurations emerged – non-use, relational use and extended relational use – which distinguish different goals for using SM in HRM. The three configurations lead to similar outcomes for organizations, even if SM users, in general, enjoy greater success than non-users. Certain structural, strategic and HRM factors are systematically and variously associated with each configuration.

The study is based on cross-sectional research, and thus it is difficult to identify causal links between the variables. The study also relies on data collected in a specific national context, which limits the generalizability of the results.

The study suggests that different and equally effective social e-HRM configurations exist and that their presence is predicted by specific structural, strategic and HRM factors.

The study contributes to an emerging and still scarce literature on types, drivers and outcomes of SM use in HRM.

Organisational slack has been widely considered in strategic management, but there is a gap in understanding the process of accumulation and application of slack resources. From a dynamic perspective and over an extended period of time, this paper analyses the management of slack resources and evaluates whether the different behaviours, in relation to the accumulation and consumption of slack resources, have any effect on performance.

The resource-based view and the dynamic extension of this theory, i.e. resource management and resource orchestration, were analysed in order to evaluate how slack resources can be managed and generate value. Assuming a configurational approach, the analysis was structured into two stages to answer the proposed hypothesis. The first stage studied whether there were different patterns of management of slack resources over time using the DistatisR package. The second stage evaluated which behaviours had the greatest impact in terms of profitability by using a dynamic panel data regression.

Three different types of slack resource management were found in companies: efficient, effective and erratic. Different types do not have the same impact on performance.

The dynamic management of slack resources has scarcely been considered, even during periods of crisis and economic expansion. This research advances the understanding of how firms transform slack resources into performance from a dynamic perspective.

The emergence of distributed manufacturing (DM) is examined as a new form of localised production, distinct from previous manifestations of multi-domestic and indigenous production.

Supply network (SN) configuration and infrastructural provisioning perspectives were used to examine the literature on established localised production models as well as DM. A multiple case study was then undertaken to describe and explore the DM model further. A maximum variation sampling procedure was used to select five exemplar cases.

Three main contributions emerge from this study. First, the research uniquely brings together two bodies of literature, namely SN configuration and infrastructure provisioning to explore the DM context. Second, the research applies these theoretical lenses to establish the distinctive nature of DM across seven dimensions of analysis. Third, emerging DM design rules are identified and compared with the more established models of localised production, drawing on both literature and DM case evidence.

This study provides a rich SN configuration and infrastructural provisioning view on DM leading to a set of design rules for DM adoption, thus supporting practitioners in their efforts to develop viable DM implementation plans.

The authors contribute to the intra- and inter-organisational requirements for the emerging DM context by providing new perspectives through the combined lenses of SN configuration and infrastructural provisioning approaches.

This study aims to answer the question of how to structure a circular ecosystem for extractive fishing in the Amazon region. It explores possibilities for implementing a circular ecosystem management model in an imperfect market with low technological availability, high informality and limited public assistance.

Qualitative approach was adopted for this paper, with a case study on extractive fishing in the state of Amazonas. Data was collected through 35 interviews and direct observation of the processes of collecting, storing and transporting fish on two routes: Tapauá-Manaus and Manacapuru-Manaus.

Through the data collected, it was possible to observe the importance of an orchestrating agent – such as an association or even a public authority – for the establishment and development of a circular ecosystem for extractive fishing in the region.

The paper makes theoretical contributions by presenting how a circular ecosystem management model could be implemented for an imperfect market in the Global South, as well as contributing to the literature on how the circular economy contributes to mitigate the threat to biodiversity posed by the linear economy.

It contributes to the management practice of structuring circular ecosystems.

The role of public authorities and the collective organization of fishermen as orchestrators connecting the network of actors that develop the extractive fishing ecosystem is fundamental, guaranteeing effective social participation in solving local problems.

The idea of circular ecosystems was applied to imperfect contexts, with high informality, weak institutions and bioeconomy, topics still little explored in the literature.

Crowd network systems have been deemed as a promising mode of modern service industry and future economic society, and taking crowd network as the research object and exploring its operation mechanism and laws is of great significance for realizing the effective governance of the government and the rapid development of economy, avoiding social chaos and mutation. Because crowd network is a large-scale, dynamic and diversified online deep interconnection, its most results cannot be observed in real world, and it cannot be carried out in accordance with traditional way, simulation is of great importance to put forward related research. To solve above problems, this paper aims to propose a simulation architecture based on the characteristics of crowd network and to verify the feasibility of this architecture through a simulation example.

This paper adopts a data-driven architecture by deeply analyzing existing large-scale simulation architectures and proposes a novel reflective memory-based architecture for crowd network simulations. In this paper, the architecture is analyzed from three aspects: implementation framework, functional architecture and implementation architecture. The proposed architecture adopts a general structure to decouple related work in a harmonious way and gets support for reflection storage by connecting to different devices via reflection memory card. Several toolkits for system implementation are designed and connected by data-driven files (DDF), and these XML files constitute a persistent storage layer. To improve the credibility of simulations, VV&A (verification, validation and accreditation) is introduced into the architecture to verify the accuracy of simulation system executions.

Implementation framework introduces the scenes, methods and toolkits involved in the whole simulation architecture construction process. Functional architecture adopts a general structure to decouple related work in a harmonious way. In the implementation architecture, several toolkits for system implementation are designed, which are connected by DDF, and these XML files constitute a persistent storage layer. Crowd network simulations obtain the support of reflective memory by connecting the reflective memory cards on different devices and connect the interfaces of relevant simulation software to complete the corresponding function call. Meanwhile, to improve the credibility of simulations, VV&A is introduced into the architecture to verify the accuracy of simulation system executions.

This paper proposes a novel reflective memory-based architecture for crowd network simulations. Reflective memory is adopted as share memory within given simulation execution in this architecture; communication efficiency and capability have greatly improved by this share memory-based architecture. This paper adopts a data-driven architecture; the architecture mainly relies on XML files to drive the entire simulation process, and XML files have strong readability and do not need special software to read.

As evident from the literature review, the research on cyber security performance is centered on security metrics, maturity models, etc. Essentially, all these are helpful for evaluating the efficiency of cyber security organization but what matters is how the factors of internal efficiency affect the business performance, i.e. the external effectiveness. The purpose of this research paper is to derive the factors of internal efficiency and external effectiveness of cyber security and develop impact model to identify the most and least preferred parameters of internal efficiency with respect to all the parameters of external effectiveness.

There are two objectives for this research: Deriving the factors of internal efficiency and external effectiveness of cyber security; Developing a model to identify the impact of internal efficiency factors on the external effectiveness of cyber security since there is not much evidence of research in defining the factors of internal efficiency and external effectiveness of cyber security, the authors have chosen grounded theory methodology (GTM) to derive the parameters. In this study emic approach of GTM is followed and an algorithm is developed for administering the grounded theory research process. For the second research objective survey methodology and rank order was used to formulate the impact model. Two different samples and questionnaires were designed for each of the objectives.

For the objective 1, 11 factors of efficiency and 10 factors of effectiveness were derived. These are used as independent and dependent variable respectively in the later part of the research for the second objective. For the objective 2 the impact models among independent and dependent variables were formulated to find out the following. Most and least preferred parameters lead to internal efficiency of cyber security organization to identify the most and least preferred parameters of internal efficiency with respect to all the parameters external effectiveness.

The factors of internal efficiency and external effectiveness constructed by using grounded theory cannot remain constant in the long run, because of dynamism of the domain itself. Over and above this, there are inherent limitations of the tools like grounded theory, used in the research. Few important limitations of GTM are as below in grounded theory, it is comparatively difficult to maintain and demonstrate the rigors of research discipline. The sheer volume of data makes the analysis and interpretation complex, and lengthy time consuming. The researchers’ presence during data gathering, which is often unavoidable and desirable too in qualitative research, may affect the subjects’ responses. The subjectivity of the data leads to difficulties in establishing reliability and validity of approaches and information. It is difficult to detect or to prevent researcher-induced bias.

The internal efficiency and external effectiveness factors of cyber security can be further correlated by the future researchers to understand the correlations among all the factors and predict cyber security performance. The grounded theory algorithm developed by us can be further used for qualitative research for deriving theory through abstractions in the areas where there is no sufficient availability of data. Practitioners of cyber security can use this research to focus on relevant areas depending on their respective business objective/requirements. The models developed by us can be used by the future researchers to for various sectoral validations and correlations.

Though the financial costs of a cyber-attack are steep, the social impact of cyber security failures is less readily apparent but can cause lasting damage to customers, employees and the company. Therefore, it is always important to be mindful of how the impact of cyber security affects society as well as the bottom line when they are calculating the potential impact of a breach. Underestimating either impact can destroy a brand. The factor of internal efficiency and external effectiveness derived by us will help stakeholder in focusing on relevant area depending on their business. The impact model developed in this research is very useful for focusing a particular business requirement and accordingly tune the efficiency factor.

During literature study the authors did not find any evidence of application of grounded theory approach in cyber security research. While the authors were exploring research literature to find out some insight into the factor of internal efficiency and external effectiveness of cyber security, the authors did not find concrete and objective research on this. This motivated us to use grounded theory to derive these factors. This, in the authors’ opinion is one of the pioneering and unique contribution to the research as to the authors’ knowledge no researchers have ever tried to use this methodology for the stated purpose and cyber security domain in general. In this process the authors have also developed an algorithm for administering GTM. Further developing impact models using factors of internal efficiency and external effectiveness has lots of managerial and practical implication.

This study describes how maintenance capability should be created during the design and construction phases of construction projects. Purpose of the abstract to define the elements for creating the maintenance capability and the process to be used in construction life cycle projects for buildings.

An inductive and qualitative research method was used to construct the proposed process based on the literature and 18 interviews in two large construction companies.

The results indicate that the maintenance phase is usually overlooked during the design and construction phases, and capabilities are not systematically built. In particular, processes are lacking in data management, causing severe problems in maintenance.

This study presents a process including key requirements and activities for creating maintenance capability in conjunction with the design and construction phases, which is novel to the literature. The validated process can be adapted based on the needs of the construction company.