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The purpose of this paper is to contribute a framework that explains how value is formed during the usage of immersive technologies in industrial contexts.

Drawing on activity theory and a customer-dominant logic, the authors tentatively develop an activity-centric framework for value formation enabled by physical and mental activities conducted by users of immersive technologies. The authors evaluate the framework through a case study focusing on the use of virtual reality (VR) in an industrial setting.

The findings from the case study illustrate the tentative framework and specify how it is enacted by users in the studied context through three physical activities constituted by a set of actions and reflected in five emotional responses.

Both researchers and practitioners may use the framework presented in this paper as a guide for further academic and practical developments concerning the value of immersive technologies such as VR and augmented reality.

The activity-centric framework contributes a novel perspective to the literature on value formation enabled by immersive technologies.

The question of how the firm responds to performance feedback forms the backbone of the behavioral theory of the firm. Although the literature works with goals aspirations and additional determinants of a firm’s search activity – proximity to bankruptcy and slack resources – the majority of the empirical research assumes the firm’s response to performance feedback to be linear with a spline at the aspiration level. The purpose of this paper is to study possible curvilinear properties of performance feedback itself that may yield insight on the behavior of firms responding differently from the theory’s predictions.

The research uses data from exchange-listed German industrial firms followed from 2001 to 2015. It evaluates hypotheses using historical aspiration models with ROA as a measure of performance and with a spline specification. The fixed-effects panel data models serve as an estimation technique.

The research supports an inverted U-shape relationship between performance feedback and research and development (R&D) intensity for firms below their aspiration levels, and a U-shape relationship for firms above their aspiration levels.

The research is one of the first to directly study curvilinearity in performance feedback relationships. Arguably, there is no such a study directly focusing on a firm’s search as represented by R&D, despite the fact, that R&D forms the backbone of performance feedback research. Also, the population of German industrial firms is new in the literature.

In industrial buyer–supplier relationships, being an attractive customer has been found to result in superior supplier performance. However, there is a limited understanding of how these benefits transfer to the public domain. This study aims to explore the influence of customer attractiveness on supplier resource mobilization efforts toward the public sector.

A qualitative approach was used, focusing on in-depth interviews with 23 informants from 3 critical and complex supplier markets. The data were processed using inductive coding and thematic analysis.

The findings indicate that customer attractiveness in the public sector influences suppliers’ mobilization efforts on several dimensions. In addition to stimulating competition in the tender phase, customer attractiveness can yield important benefits to quality, supply stability and innovation during the business relationship. It appears imperative for the public sector to improve its standings with suppliers to both mitigate the apparent risk of sub-par treatment and to unlock the preferential supplier treatment associated with being an attractive customer.

Receiving increased mobilization from suppliers will result in better use of public money and help improve resilience and innovation in public procurement.

This study extends the research on customer attractiveness in the public sector by being the first to explore the range and nature of its influence on supplier mobilization efforts.

To further extend the understanding of multidimensional engagement of stakeholders embedded in service systems, the purpose of this paper is to explore the antecedents that constitute stakeholder engagement in inter-organizational service ecosystems where stakeholders co-create innovations over time.

An explorative, longitudinal case study design is employed to analyze stakeholders’ engagement in co-innovation in an inter-organizational service system in an engineering context.

The study identifies eight antecedents for stakeholder engagement in innovation in the context of a B2B environment. Building on related engagement research, the empirical data show how stakeholder engagement is influenced at both individual and organizational levels by the antecedents friendship, common experiences, self-representation, trust, a common goal, resource dependency, level in the hierarchy, institutional arrangements, and local proximity.

The paper extends current understanding of engagement and illuminates stakeholder engagement on a micro level, addressing four key issues for stakeholder engagement in a service ecosystem. How can stakeholder engagement be maintained over time? Does stakeholder engagement at specific hierarchical levels enhance or hinder inter-organizational co-innovation? Is strong engagement necessary for innovation activities? Are the different engagement antecedents linked?

The purpose of this paper is to develop the role of integration flexibility as a mediator of acquisition performance and demonstrate how this capability varies across firms.

The study develops a conceptual framework of anticipated relationships by building on existing but so far unintegrated acquisition research.

The study suggests integration flexibility provides an explanation for variance in acquisition performance. The study identifies drivers behind acquisition integration flexibility in acquirer characteristics, deal characteristics and integration management. The authors further specify the positive and negative impact of several key factors commonly discussed in acquisition research.

Integration flexibility stands out as a novel explanation for acquisition performance. Still, the benefits from flexibility are not universal and developed logic suggests it represents a dynamic capability for acquirers. Our framework helps predict which acquirers and deals are more likely demonstrating this capability, thus contributing to predict acquisition performance.

Acquisitions often take place in dynamic environments and reportedly often fail. Predicting and developing acquisition integration flexibility stands out as an important task for acquiring management.

Annual global acquisition values are on par with the GDP of large industrial nations (e.g. Germany) and failures for reasons of lacking acquisition integration flexibility contributes to value destruction harming not only firms, but society at large. Improved integration flexibility likely mediates this risk.

Making an acquisition to adapt to environmental change implicitly assumes greater integration that can limit flexibility. While our argument builds on key concepts from acquisition research these so far have remained unconnected in relation to acquisition integration flexibility. The authors develop factors influencing this important capability and show how it mediates acquisition performance. This links acquisition antecedents with integration or phases typically treated separately.

Part I: Introduction This seems an interesting and exciting time to be thinking about and discussing the role and impact of science. The good luck is mine because when I agreed to contribute this small paper, I had no idea that current events would conspire in the way they have.

Presents a special issue, enlisting the help of the author’s students and colleagues, focusing on age, sex, colour and disability discrimination in America. Breaks the evidence down into manageable chunks, covering: age discrimination in the workplace; discrimination against African‐Americans; sex discrimination in the workplace; same sex sexual harassment; how to investigate and prove disability discrimination; sexual harassment in the military; when the main US job‐discrimination law applies to small companies; how to investigate and prove racial discrimination; developments concerning race discrimination in the workplace; developments concerning the Equal Pay Act; developments concerning discrimination against workers with HIV or AIDS; developments concerning discrimination based on refusal of family care leave; developments concerning discrimination against gay or lesbian employees; developments concerning discrimination based on colour; how to investigate and prove discrimination concerning based on colour; developments concerning the Equal Pay Act; using statistics in employment discrimination cases; race discrimination in the workplace; developments concerning gender discrimination in the workplace; discrimination in Japanese organizations in America; discrimination in the entertainment industry; discrimination in the utility industry; understanding and effectively managing national origin discrimination; how to investigate and prove hiring discrimination based on colour; and, finally, how to investigate sexual harassment in the workplace.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of international financial reporting standards (IFRS) on the performance of UK investment closed-end trust funds with domestic equity focus using Carhart’s Four-Factor model.

The paper is based on the Efficient Market Hypothesis, which argues that all available information is already included in the price of assets, and therefore, investors cannot beat the market or generate abnormal returns.

The results show that on average, UK investment trusts neither do generate abnormal returns, nor is their performance persistent. This paper provides empirical evidence to support the efficient market hypotheses and provides proof that the adoption of IFRS has, on average, a decreasing impact on the excess returns generated by UK investment trusts.

The findings of this paper have business policy implications for investment trust in the UK.

In 2001, the US moved to regulate internal control reporting by management and auditors. While some jurisdictions have followed the lead of the US, many others have not. An important question, therefore, is the relevance of internal control to stakeholders. The more specific issue of the benefits of US-style regulation of internal control reporting is also topical. We review studies on the determinants of internal control quality and its economic consequences for stakeholders including investors, creditors, managers, auditors and financial analysts. We extend previous reviews by focusing on US studies published since 2013 as well as all non-US studies investigating IC quality including countries regulating IC disclosure as well as unregulated settings and both developed and developing economies. In doing so, we identify research questions where evidence remains mixed and new directions in which there are research opportunities.

Three main insights arise from our analysis. First, evidence on the economic consequences of internal control quality suggests that the quality of internal control can have a significant effect on decision making by users of financial information. Second, the results of research on the empirical association between ownership structure, certain board characteristics and internal control quality is generally mixed. Empirical evidence concerning the association between audit committee characteristics and internal control quality generally supports a positive and significant association. Finally, while studies in non-US jurisdictions are increasing, opportunities remain to explore the determinants and consequences of internal control in other jurisdictions. Our review provides evidence for policy makers of whether there are benefits from requiring management and auditors to report on internal control over financial reporting.