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This study is an analysis that aims to understand the rationale behind the concept of value creation contained in the integrated reporting (IR) framework. As such, the authors examined the quality of the disclosures made in integrated reports by measuring the level to which the six capitals (6Cs) have been integrated into disclosures on value creation.

The IR framework’s value creation model focuses on six content elements and three guiding principles. Hence, the present analysis combines content analysis with quantitative measures in the form of a bespoke Integrated Disclosure Index. The index measures the level of integration found in the disclosures instead of the mere presence or absence of mentioned capitals, content elements and guiding principles in isolation. The present sample comprised the 2016 integrated/sustainability reports for 184 listed companies sourced from the Integrated Reporting Examples Database.

The 6Cs are well disclosed in form but only partially disclosed in substance. Further, overall levels of integration between the capitals, the content elements and the guiding principles are higher than average. Disclosures on materiality, business models and stakeholder relationships are somewhat lacking, as are the related medium- and long-term disclosures on outlook.

The paper contributes to the academic debate on IR by building a case for holistically assessing the substance of integrated reports. Considering that the IR value creation model can underpin and align with the 17 UN sustainable development goals, the authors show how the fundamental concept of the 6Cs sustaining value creation is understood and implemented differently across the various elements and principles of the IR framework.

This research also provides guidance for overcoming some of the practical hurdles associated with assessing the quality of reports because the authors provide tools for spotlighting the substance of disclosures over their form.

This paper delves into the substance of integrated reports by assessing how well the 6Cs have been integrated into disclosures on the content elements and guiding principles of the IR framework. In contrast to previous IR research that has mainly analysed capital, elements and principles in isolation, the authors develop an index assessing the integration of these three fundamental concepts of IR.

The purpose of this paper is to compare service outsourcing decisions between public and private organizations and against a theoretical decision-making framework to both understand differences across the sectors and to provide an outsourcing framework more suitable specifically for outsourcing (and for the public sector).

Multiple case studies, i.e. a study of phenomena (here outsourcing process) at various sites is used as an approach.

Findings indicate that public sector organizations are trailing behind private sector organizations in how the decision-making process is conducted and resourced. The authors suggest regular evaluation of service functions internally as a starting point for the outsourcing service decision-making process. Additionally, the market analysis should be done prior to cost analysis and benchmarking as the availability of suppliers more qualified than the internal process defines the make or buy decision.

The newly developed framework based on empirical evidence includes the following phases: regular evaluation of service functions, market analysis, cost analysis and benchmarking and evaluating relevant service activities. Applying the framework improves the efficient delivery of outsourced public services and brings public sector outsourcing closer to the professionalism currently present in the private sector.

Choosing between in-house and outsourced service delivery is a fundamental decision in both private and public sector organizations. Previous outsourcing research has mostly focused on the private sector, with limited focus on the public sector’s outsourcing processes, yet understanding of the service outsourcing process is important in ensuring organizational competitiveness and cost efficiency.

This research aims to investigate the impact of the current COVID-19 pandemic (C19, Corona) on trends of transcontinental sourcing as an extreme form of global sourcing. This study starts by observing that the sideward movement of international trade in the past decade can be differentiated into an increase in transcontinental sourcing and a relative decline of intra-EU sourcing. By differentiating between continental and transcontinental sourcing, this study gains insights into global sourcing trends and conducts a fine-grained analysis of the impact of COVID-19.

After analysing Eurostat statistics, the authors conducted 21 semi-structured interviews with companies from multiple industry sectors affected by a high share of transcontinental suppliers. Using the Gioia method, data from the interviews were structured. By examining the identified motives, challenges and solutions, the authors analyse the impact of COVID-19 on transcontinental sourcing.

The COVID-19 pandemic seems not to represent a turning point stopping global sourcing. The authors did not find evidence for a trend reversal. Most of the interviewed companies share the opinion that transcontinental sourcing will remain important or slightly increase in the future. Based on the analysis of their specific motives for transcontinental sourcing, it became clear that factors supportive as well as detrimental to transcontinental sourcing are levelling each other out.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study explicitly differentiating between continental and transcontinental sourcing as different types of global sourcing. While in European sourcing, a decreasing trend is already evident, as shown by our data analysis, there is a lack of investigations addressing transcontinental sourcing. In this study, the authors concentrated on motives, challenges and solutions of transcontinental sourcing. Extending beyond the immediate COVID-19 impact assessment, findings suggest that purchasing would benefit from treating transcontinental, remote sourcing as a distinct process from continental sourcing, particularly intra-EU-sourcing.

Private equity and venture capital (VC) firms in the capital markets sector invest capital with the primary goal of delivering economic value. However, some firms in the capital markets sector have started to shift this focus to create (i.e. invest in) social value. More specifically, traditional VC firms are starting socially oriented funds, while other firms have emerged to focus solely on investments in social enterprises. These VC firms are contributing to an interesting paradox – performance metrics are not measured by profit alone but also by social innovation. From an architectural perspective, the authors examine the implications of internal design, i.e. how specific strategic and structural factors influence the financial performance of VC firms with a social orientation to determine if these firms really can “do well and do good.”

Social orientation was determined by content analysis of mission statements of the VC firms. Firm strategies, structures and performance were sourced from secondary data. A moderated mediation model was used to test relationships.

Results suggest that (1) socially responsible VC firms adopt distinct foci of social investing that directs their strategic orientation and (2) these various foci have vastly differing effects on the firm's overall performance, strategic decisions made and the architecture of their structural design.

This study is among the first to explore socially responsible VC architectural dimensions, with implications for firm design based on blended measures of success.

From the organisational perspective, the authors know that management, including innovation management, becomes less “organised” by bureaucracy and administrative tools, and much more impacted by organisational capabilities, competences and hidden, “soft” routines, bringing innovation and creativity to the core of organisation. The purpose of this paper is to focus on competency sets for open innovation (OI) and is to provide recommendations for OI competency development in companies, linked to the core OI processes.

The research is exploratory and aims at theory-based practical indication combining deductive identification of competency clusters and inductive model development. Thus, the authors apply quantitative methods to data collection and analysis. The authors conducted an extensive literature review on competence challenges with regard to execution of OI, and empirical data analysis based on a large-scale structured industrial survey in Europe (N=264), leading to the development of competency sets for companies. SPSS tools are applied for empirical tests.

The authors develop a generic OI competency model applicable across industries, combined with organisational implications for sustaining OI management capabilities. The research clusters competencies based on the empirical analysis, which addresses the various challenges of OI, leading to recommendations for competency management in an OI context.

The data were collected from one key informant per company. Although the authors made efforts to ensure that this was a senior manager responsible for innovation, the authors cannot exclude some bias in the way that OI activities and related competencies are perceived. Exploratory nature of the research, which calls for a more systematic investigation of the OI activity modes and the OI competencies resulting competency model. In particular, the competencies could be tested on an inter-professional sample of employees with involvement in and/or responsibility for innovation, development, and HR management, as well as on leaders of innovating companies. Third, although significant in size for the analyses undertaken, the sample is not large enough to enable a more fine-tuned analysis of regional differences across Europe in the way that OI is managed through the development and implementation of competencies.

The research contributes to the OI management field with an outlined OI competency profile that can be implemented flexibly and tailored to individual firm’s needs. It brings indications for both further theory building and practice of innovation organisation, especially with regard to human resource development and organisational capability building for OI.

The social implications of the paper result from the contribution to innovation management competency development in OI regimes, which is an important tool for designing contemporary educational programmes, contributes to OI management sophistication in business which is especially important during the economy slowdown and search for new sources of growth and productivity, and supports firms productive engagement in OI ecosystems and collective technology upgrading towards higher societal benefits and stakeholder involvement.

An empirically grounded OI competency model is proposed with an implication to support human resource development for OI. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, there has been no prior attempt to build such a model. The distinguished feature of the research is its extensive European coverage of 35 countries and multinational scope. The empirical validation strategy makes the research extremely relevant for management decisions related to human factors related OI capability development in organisations.

Regarding the retail internal supply chain (SC), both retailers and research are currently focused on reactive food waste reduction options in stores (e.g. discounting or donations). These options reduce waste after a surplus has emerged but do not prevent an emerging surplus in the first place. This paper aims to reveal how retailers can proactively prevent waste along the SC and why the options identified are impactful but, at the same time, often complex to implement.

The authors follow an exploratory approach for a nascent topic to obtain insights into measures taken in practice. Interviews with experts from retail build the main data source.

The authors identify and analyze 21 inbound, warehousing, distribution and store-related options applied in grocery retail. Despite the expected high overall impact on waste, prevention measures in inbound logistics and distribution and warehousing have not been intensively applied to date.

The authors provide a structured approach to mitigate waste within retailers' operations and categorize the types of barriers that need to be addressed.

This research provides a better understanding of prevention options in retail operations, which has not yet been empirically explored. Furthermore, this study conceptualizes prevention and reduction options and reveals implementation patterns.

This study aims to examine decision factors for global sourcing, differentiated into transcontinental and continental sourcing to obtain insight into locational aspects of sourcing decisions and global trends. This study analyzed various country perceptions to reveal their influence on sourcing decisions. The country of origin (COO) theory explains why certain country perceptions and images influence purchasing experts in their selection of suppliers.

This study used a two-study approach. In Study 1, the authors conducted discrete choice card experiments with 71 purchasing experts located in Europe and the USA to examine the importance of essential decision factors for global sourcing. Given the clear evidence that location is a factor in sourcing decisions, in Study 2 the authors investigated purchasers’ perceptions and images of countries, adding country ranking experiments on various perceived characteristics such as quality, price and technology.

Study 1 provides evidence that the purchasers’ personal relationship with the supplier plays a decisive role in the supplier selection process. While product quality and location impact sourcing decisions, the attraction of the buying company and cultural barriers are less significant. Interestingly, however, these factors seem as important as price to respondents. This implies that a strong relationship with suppliers and good quality products are essential aspects of a reliable and robust supply chain in the post-COVID-19 era. Examining the locational aspect in detail, Study 2 linked the choice card experiments with country ranking experiments. In this study, the authors found that purchasing experts consider that transcontinental countries such as Japan and China offer significant advantages in terms of price and technology. China has enhanced its quality, which is recognizable in the country ranking experiments. Therefore, decisions on global sourcing are not just based on such high-impact factors as price and availability; country perceptions are also influential. Additionally, the significance of the locational aspect could be linked to certain country images of transcontinental suppliers, as the COO theory describes.

The new approach divides global sourcing into transcontinental and European sourcing to evaluate special decision factors and link these factors to the locational aspect of sourcing decisions. To deepen the clear evidence for the locational aspect and investigate the possible influence of country perceptions, the authors applied the COO theory. This approach enabled authors to show the strong influence of country perception on purchasing departments, which is represented by the locational effect. Hence, the success of transcontinental countries relies not only on factors such as their availability but also on the purchasers’ positive perceptions of these countries in terms of technology and price.

The purpose of this paper is to map and analyse the literature from 1989 to 2016 on humanitarian supply chain management (SCM) responding to refugees. This literature review systematically assesses existing literature, thereby highlighting gaps, challenges and directions for future research.

The authors apply a structured content analysis method which has been recognised as a traceable, systematic and reproducible research tool to analyse qualitative and quantitative aspects of existing literature.

The relative scarcity of literature implies that the interface of the fields of Humanitarian SCM and refugees has been rarely addressed. More specifically, the quantitative content analysis highlights a dearth of research that focusses on both fields in a well-balanced manner. In particular, empirical, practice-led studies, as well as research on development aid operations are under-represented. The qualitative analysis finds that further research on logistics models as well as technological innovations is necessary to increase data availability, forecast accuracy and the efficiency of (local) supply network operations during disasters.

The review suggests a number of areas in need of future research, proposes possibilities of collaborations between different actors and provides a research agenda for Humanitarian SCM in the context of refugees.

This review is the first to analyse the literature on Humanitarian SCM related to refugees.