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In the realm of innovation systems and technology transfer (TT), the emergence of open innovation and complex market dynamics has amplified innovation intermediaries’ prominence of their role and involvement in TT projects. This study delves into private consultants’ involvement in TT projects, namely in what got them involved by the project’s key stakeholders.

An iterative two-phased research approach was followed, including exploratory interviews and a quantitative case study of a consultancy firm engaged in 219 TT projects.

Five main key motivators were found to lead TT stakeholders to involve private consultants in their TT projects, being the most relevant, the proactivity of private consultants.

The case study and results provide an alternative perspective of TT endeavours, emphasising the importance given by TT stakeholders (mostly recipient companies) to private consultants’ involvement as innovation intermediaries.

This paper explores the impact of multiple team membership (MTM) on the productivity of team members in engineering consulting firms. MTM refers to employees participating concurrently in multiple teams, a concept closely linked to projectification. Despite the fact that this concept can enhance collaboration, it also introduces coordination challenges that may negatively affect productivity.

Through an inductive approach involving 12 semi-structured interviews with engineering consulting professionals specializing in water and energy infrastructure projects, this paper examines the factors affecting team member productivity in an MTM setting. Following the interviews, a Delphi technique was employed, engaging 16 experts to rank the factors and sub-factors identified from the interview data. This two-stage approach ensured a comprehensive and validated assessment of productivity factors.

This study develops 8 factors process model grounded in structuration theory to explain the socio-technical mechanisms by which multiple team membership shapes productivity outcomes in engineering consulting firms specialized in water and energy infrastructure projects. Key findings surface micro-foundations, tensions in technology provisions, planning processes, and career development that inform theoretical advances and practical improvements.

This research contributes empirically insights into managing MTM in expert service contexts. Applying Giddens' structuration theory, this study reveals how agency and structures shape productivity across organizational, team, and individual levels. In practice, this study provides recommendations for improving productivity within projectified environments, mainly for team members working in an MTM environment in engineering consulting firms specializing in water and energy infrastructure projects.

Bank–fintech associations are significant globally, establishing purposeful eco-systems towards extending and complementing capabilities, reach and customer experiences. This paper aims to explore 39 leading fintechs in India catering across payments, lending, wealth management, regulation, neo-banks and other banking functions. Alongside fintechs, the research studies 19 leading banks (public and private) to understand the nature of bank–fintech associations in the Indian context.

The research focuses on narratives from leading banks and top fintechs in India, captured from public disclosures and leadership interviews. The study leverages qualitative research techniques, including grounded theory approaches of inductive analysis, to codify interview and narrative observations to discover relevant objectives, scenarios, challenges and outcomes in India-centric bank–fintech associations.

Bank–fintech associations in India are increasingly focusing on financial services portfolio diversification and improvement in customer experience. Simultaneously, both banks and fintechs, differentiate with innovations and extend offerings to target underserved customer segments. The associations are beneficial for both banks and fintechs in transforming offerings and improving efficiency, scale across channels. Through codification of observations, review of existing literature and evaluation of best practices, alongside subject matter expertise, the study evolves a generalized “Association Model”. The model can steer meaningful bank–fintech associations in India and globally. The association model relates to observables like objectives, enablers of bank–fintech associations, challenges and association-driven value outcomes. Built from study of practices, the proposed model is relevant for strategic orientation in bank–fintech associations.

The findings reveal practices in bank–fintech associations in India with significant learning opportunity for organizational leaders globally. Understanding the nature of association is relevant for strategic interventions, particularly in scenarios of inter-organization collaborations. Central banks, policymakers, governments, investors, banks and fintechs can use the derived association model to establish, govern and steer purposeful value-driven associations.

This study aims to investigate causes of sustainability failures of ISO 9001 Quality Management Systems in Botswana.

The research employed qualitative and quantitative methods, including literature review and secondary data analysis to understand trends relating to Botswana, and a survey to identify gaps leading to certification sustainability failures, focusing on; motives for certification, causes of decertification and issues in the certification process.

ISO 9001 adoption in Botswana is slow, with low acceptance rate in the public sector at 13% compared to the private sector at 87%. Termination rates have been high at 55% over two decades. Manufacturing dominates certification with 45% of total certification. While micro and small companies struggle to sustain certification, often failing within 2 years, medium-sized companies demonstrate better sustainability, lasting beyond 6 years. Product/service quality and process improvement drive certification while decertification is influenced by management factors, financial constraints, and process management. The study recommends a model for effective integration of ISO 9001.

Integrated systems are crucial for consistent process performance and continual improvement in all sectors for sustainable organizational success. Although the ISO 9001 Quality Management System has shown positive impacts globally, the impact of its adoption in Botswana remains questionable with high failure rates post implementation. There appears to exist a significant gap in development, implementation, and maintenance of the QMS. The public domain has no evidence of any past investigation on causes of sustainability failures of ISO 9001 post certification. The current study sought to close that knowledge gap.

Engineering knowledge continuity is crucial for the life cycle management of long-lived and complex assets, such as nuclear plants, locks and storm surge barriers. At the storm surge barriers in the Netherlands, engineering knowledge continuity is not yet fully assured, despite long-standing efforts. This study aims to explore the relationship between system characteristics, the organizational demarcation of maintenance and operation and the challenges in achieving engineering knowledge continuity and provides suggestions for improvement of theory and policy.

Ten semi-structured interviews were conducted with professionals from various backgrounds in construction, engineering and asset management of the Dutch storm surge barriers, augmented with visits to barriers and barrier teams. A thematic analysis was used to identify and describe the challenges to engineering continuity, their origins and potential solutions. We reviewed knowledge management policy documents and asset management consultancy reports to validate the findings. Additionally, we engaged in frequent interactions with professionals at the barriers. We achieved saturation and validation once no new issues were raised during these discussions.

The thematic analysis developed multiple themes describing the challenges to engineering continuity, their origins and potential solutions. The key findings are that expert engineers are critically important to deal with redesigns induced by obsolescence. Moreover, due to barrier uniqueness, long redesign cycles and reliability requirements, conventional knowledge continuity tools are insufficient to enable new engineers to reach expert level. Finally, the thematic analysis shows that, in some cases, outsourcing should be reduced to facilitate internal learning.

The study introduces the application of the knowledge-based view of the firm and the concept of requisite knowledge redundancy to the long-term management of complex assets. It calls for more attention to long gaps in the use of unique knowledge and the effect on knowledge continuity.

This study explores how strategic human resource practices enhance the competitive capability of differentiation and cost-effectiveness by leveraging knowledge resources in Indian IT/software organizations. It examines the mediating effect of knowledge management (KM) processes in the relationship between strategic HR practices, competitive differentiation and cost-effectiveness capabilities.

An online questionnaire survey collected data from 380 knowledge workers in 25 IT/software and consultancy firms. The authors checked data reliability and validity by conducting exploratory factor analysis in SPSS and confirmatory factor analysis in AMOS. The authors evaluated hypotheses using path analysis in structural equational modeling in AMOS.

Strategic HR practices significantly and positively affect KM processes and competitive capabilities-differentiation and cost-efficiency. Both strategic HR practices and KM processes have a closer association with differentiation than cost-effectiveness. Knowledge management processes significantly and positively mediate between strategic HR practices and competitive capabilities. The mediation is more substantial in predicting differentiation than cost-effectiveness.

It is a cross-sectional study with a constrained capacity to predict accurate causal inferences; The authors call for future studies with longitudinal design and objective measures. Further studies are required to explore the impact of various strategic HR configurations on KMP to understand how different routes stimulate a particular competitive strategy. This conceptual framework can be validated across different industry types and sizes.

This study provides practical insights to HR and knowledge managers regarding devising HR and KM processes to accomplish the goals of differentiation and cost-effective, competitive strategies. This study highlights that leveraging human capital for effective KM is crucial for gaining a competitive advantage.

The paper adds to the strategic HR and KM literature by exploring the mediating role of KM processes in enabling strategic HR processes to enhance differentiation and cost-effective, competitive strategies. It provides original empirical evidence from knowledge-intensive IT/software consultancies, particularly in India's emerging economy. It indicates the current state of HR practices adopted for optimum utilization of knowledge resources and the importance of differentiation strategy for Indian knowledge-intensive IT/software firms.

This study aims to explore the relationship between three primary constructs: leadership styles, job satisfaction and organizational commitment among private-practice quantity surveyors in the Nigerian construction industry.

A questionnaire survey of 127 quantity surveying consultancy firms in Abuja was conducted using a quantitative research approach. A total of 76 acceptable questionnaires were returned from a total of 127 that were distributed, giving a response rate of approximately 60%. The data were analyzed using partial least square structural equation modelling.

Results showed a positive indirect link between leadership styles and organizational commitments, with job satisfaction acting as a partial mediator. It was also found through importance–performance map analysis, which is crucial for prioritizing managerial actions, that an employee’s commitment to a task is strongly influenced by that person’s level of job satisfaction.

The study is quantitative and cross-sectional in nature, collecting information from a single source within an organization. A longitudinal strategy and a mixed methods approach should be used in future research.

Superiors/principal partners should make an effort to demonstrate a comprehensive understanding of leadership styles that is capable of enhancing job satisfaction and creating pleasant interaction in the work environment to increase the commitment of employees working in quantity surveying consultancy businesses.

As far as the author is aware, this study is one of the few to examine the impact of job satisfaction as a mediator between organizational commitments and leadership styles in the Nigerian construction industry. Furthermore, the study provides the basis for further discussion of the concepts offered in the paper.

Financial services firms have a significant societal responsibility to prevent issues. The three lines model helps them do that though faces challenges in its effectiveness. This paper aims to offer a behavioural perspective on these challenges and practical solutions to help improve the model and herewith better prevent issues.

The authors detail key behavioural pitfalls and underlying psychological mechanisms that hinder the effectiveness of the model. The authors illustrate these with examples from the corporate practice, alluding to the behavioural patterns and drivers identified in the academic and consultancy work. The authors conclude with offering practical solutions how to enhance the effectiveness of the model.

The authors discuss common ineffective intergroup behaviours between the controllers (here: internal audit) and the controlled (here: the audited business or 2nd line functions): the controllers responding to issues with increased scrutiny; the controlled dismissing the feedback and challenging the issues raised; and the controlled and the controller competing for power. The root causes of these ineffective intergroup behaviours include: psychological defence mechanisms, social categorisation and collective beliefs about intrusiveness. The offered solutions range from actions the controllers can take, actions the controlled can take and actions both can take to improve the effectiveness of the model in practice.

The authors argue that the behavioural perspective on the effectiveness of the model is a blind spot and largely omitted from organisations’ agendas. This paper adds this behavioural perspective to help organisations improve the effectiveness of the model.

The purpose of this study is to revisit the conventional wisdom about a key contribution [i.e. strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats (SWOT) analysis] in the field of strategic management. The societal context and the role of academics, consultants and executives is taken into account in the emergence of SWOT analysis during the 1960–1980 period as a pivotal development within the broader context of the satisfactory, opportunities, faults, threats (SOFT) approach. The authors report on both the content and the approach, so that other scholars seeking to invigorate indigenous theories and/or underreported strategy practices will thrive.

Applying a historiographic approach, the authors introduce an evidence-based methodology for interpreting historical sources. This methodology incorporates source criticism, triangulation and hermeneutical interpretation, drawing upon insights from robust evidence through three iterative stages.

The underreporting of the SOFT approach/SWOT analysis can be attributed to several factors, including strategy tools being integrated into planning frameworks rather than being published as standalone materials; restricted circulation of crucial long-range planning service/theory and practice of planning reports due to copyright limitations; restricted access to the Stanford Research Institute Planning Library in California; and the enduring popularity of SOFT and SWOT variations, driven in part by their memorable acronyms.

In the spirit of a renaissance in strategic planning research, the authors unveil novel theoretical and social connections in the emergence of SWOT analysis by combining evidence from both theory and practice and delving into previously unexplored areas.

Caution is advised for scholars who examine the discrete time frame of 1960–1980 through mere bibliometric techniques. This study underscores the risks associated with gathering incomplete and/or inaccurate data, emphasizing the importance of triangulating evidence beyond scholarly databases. The paradigm shift of strategic management research due to the advent of large language models poses new challenges and the risk of conserving and perpetuating academic urban legends, myths and lies if training data is not adequately curated.

This study aimed to address a gap in subcontractor management by focusing on previously unexplored complexities surrounding subcontractor management in developing countries. While past studies concentrated on selection and relationships, this study delved into how effective subcontractor management impacts project success.

This study used the Bayesian Network analysis approach, through a meticulously developed questionnaire survey refined through a piloting stage involving experienced industry professionals. The survey was ultimately distributed among participants based in Accra, Ghana, resulting in a response rate of approximately 63%.

The research identified diverse components contributing to subcontractor disruptions, highlighted the necessity of a clear regulatory framework, emphasized the impact of financial and leadership assessments on performance, and underscored the crucial role of main contractors in Integrated Project and Labour Cost Management with Subcontractor Oversight and Coordination.

Previous studies have not considered the challenges subcontractors face in projects. This investigation bridges this gap from multiple perspectives, using Bayesian network analysis to enhance subcontractor management, thereby contributing to the successful completion of construction projects.