Search results
1 – 10 of 26Krzysztof Kubacki, Natalia Szablewska, Dariusz Siemieniako and Linda Brennan
Modern slavery in global value chains is an emerging topic of interest across various fields, including in international business, but is often fragmented in its approach. This…
Abstract
Purpose
Modern slavery in global value chains is an emerging topic of interest across various fields, including in international business, but is often fragmented in its approach. This study aims to provide a practical framework for studying relationships between participants in global value chains by exploring the nexus of three concepts – vulnerability, resilience and empowerment (VRE) – in the context of modern slavery.
Design/methodology/approach
This article offers a deductive thematic analysis of 51 empirical and conceptual business research studies on modern slavery in global value chains published until mid-2021 according to the three categories of interest at the micro (within individuals and organisations), meso (between individuals and organisations) and macro (structural) levels.
Findings
The findings have informed the development of three themes, each of which is an opportunity for future research with clear policy implications: a reductionist approach to vulnerability obscures its complexity; externalising the empowerment process and locating it outside of the agency of workers serves to further disempower them; and focusing exclusively on organisational resilience conceals the essentiality of resilience within individuals, communities and societies.
Originality/value
This article is among the first to extend the focus of business literature on modern slavery in global value chains beyond its current largely facile engagement with VRE, offering an original descriptive VRE typology to engage with the nexus between these three concepts.
Details
Keywords
He-Boong Kwon, Jooh Lee and Ian Brennan
This study aims to explore the dynamic interplay of key resources (i.e. research and development (R&D), advertising and exports) in affecting the performance of USA manufacturing…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore the dynamic interplay of key resources (i.e. research and development (R&D), advertising and exports) in affecting the performance of USA manufacturing firms. Specifically, the authors examine the dynamic impact of joint resources and predict differential effect scales contingent on firm capabilities.
Design/methodology/approach
This study presents a combined multiple regression analysis (MRA)-multilayer perceptron (MLP) neural network modeling and investigates the complex interlinkage of capabilities, resources and performance. As an innovative approach, the MRA-MLP model investigates the effect of capabilities under the combinatory deployment of joint resources.
Findings
This study finds that the impact of joint resources and synergistic rents is not uniform but rather distinctive according to the combinatory conditions and that the pattern is further shaped by firm capabilities. Accordingly, besides signifying the contingent aspect of capabilities across a range of resource combinations, the result also shows that managerial sophistication in adaptive resource control is more than a managerial ethos.
Practical implications
The proposed analytic process provides scientific decision support tools with control mechanisms with respect to deploying multiple resources and setting actionable goals, thereby presenting pragmatic benchmarking options to industry managers.
Originality/value
Using the theoretical underpinnings of the resource-based view (RBV) and resource orchestration, this study advances knowledge about the complex interaction of key resources by presenting a salient analytic process. The empirical design, which portrays holistic interaction patterns, adds to the uniqueness of this study of the complex interlinkages between capabilities, resources and shareholder value.
Details
Keywords
Regine Marguerite Abos, Simone Taffe, Jane Connory, Gamithri Gayana Karunasena and David Pearson
This paper aims to demonstrate how the design of data visualisations can act as a tool to support social marketing messages in prompting behaviour change to reduce food waste…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to demonstrate how the design of data visualisations can act as a tool to support social marketing messages in prompting behaviour change to reduce food waste using the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) as a theoretical framework. It also responds to a lack of consumer-led insight to develop campaigns in reducing food waste.
Design/methodology/approach
The research uses data collected by the End Food Waste Cooperative Research Centre (EFW CRC) in Australia to determine which text-based campaign messages are most likely to prompt people toward reducing food waste. Behaviour change messages were first identified through workshops with 11 food waste experts, then explored through online focus group discussions with 18 participants from three food-wasting market segments. The messages were further tested via a quantitative survey among 1,000 decision makers in Australian households in their own homes, with the top three performing messages examined using summative content analysis.
Findings
The significant findings were that participants want to see 1) evidence of how adopting new behaviours would lead to financial savings and benefit the environment, and 2) concrete steps to reduce food waste. When examined through the ELM, the findings suggest that tools that encourage both cognitive and peripheral processing as a means of persuasion, like data visualisations, may be useful for changing food-wasting behaviours.
Research limitations/implications
Applying principles from the field of communication design to the ELM has uncovered the potential for a cross-disciplinary approach to enhance theoretical frameworks for understanding consumer engagement with messages. This process in turn, may lead to the development of more effective behaviour change marketing strategies.
Practical implications
Six principles for using data visualisations in a social marketing campaign are proposed: personal relevance, ease of use, emotional storytelling, context, prioritising the message itself and long-term usage.
Originality/value
This study proposes that data visualisations could enhance the effectiveness of social marketing campaigns by leveraging consumer-derived insights and the persuasive capacity inherent in their theoretical underpinnings.
Details
Keywords
Joe Campbell, Kylienne Shaul, Kristina M. Slagle and David Sovic
Prior research suggests that collaboration is key to sustainable community development and environmental management, and peer-to-peer learning (P2PL) may facilitate community…
Abstract
Purpose
Prior research suggests that collaboration is key to sustainable community development and environmental management, and peer-to-peer learning (P2PL) may facilitate community building and collaborative learning skills. This study aims to examine the effect of P2PL on the enhancement of environmental management and sustainable development skills, community building and social capital (i.e. connectedness) and understanding of course learning objectives.
Design/methodology/approach
Quantitative and qualitative longitudinal survey data was collected in a sustainable development focused course offered at a large American public university that uses P2PL to explicitly facilitate community building and collaborative skills. Safety precautions and changing locational course offerings due to the COVID-19 pandemic in years 2020, 2021 and 2022 provided an opportunity to evaluate the impact of P2PL on these skills during both virtual and in-person formats. Additionally, this study compared in-course student evaluations with students taking other sustainable development-related courses with collaborative learning aspects to understand the wider effectiveness of this course structure.
Findings
This study finds that course format (virtual vs in-person) overall made no difference in either connectedness or conceptual understandings, and that students in both formats felt more connected to others than students taking other courses with P2PL. Scaffolding P2PL and supplemental peer support can yield improved connectedness and learning among students taking environmental coursework.
Originality/value
Sustainable development requires group collaboration and partnership building skills. Issues are consistently raised about the challenges to teaching these skills in higher education. The students and instructors in this research study identify P2PL strategies to address these challenges for in-person and virtual classroom settings.
Details
Keywords
Robert Faff, David Mathuva, Mark Brosnan, Sebastian Hoffmann, Catalin Albu, Searat Ali, Micheal Axelsen, Nikki Cornwell, Adrian Gepp, Chelsea Gill, Karina Honey, Ihtisham Malik, Vishal Mehrotra, Olayinka Moses, Raluca Valeria Ratiu, David Tan and Maciej Andrzej Tuszkiewicz
The authors passively apply a researcher profile pitch (RPP) template tool in accounting and across a range of Business School disciplines.
Abstract
Purpose
The authors passively apply a researcher profile pitch (RPP) template tool in accounting and across a range of Business School disciplines.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors document a diversity of worked examples of the RPP. Using an auto-ethnographic research design, each showcased researcher reflects on the exercise, highlighting nuanced perspectives drawn from their experience. Collectively, these examples and associated independent narratives allow the authors to identify common themes that provide informative insights to potential users.
Findings
First, the RPP tool is helpful for accounting scholars to portray their essential research stream. Moreover, the tool proved universally meaningful and applicable irrespective of research discipline or research experience. Second, it offers a distinct advantage over existing popular research profile platforms, because it demands a focused “less”, that delivers a meaningful “more”. Further, the conciseness of the RPP design makes it readily amenable to iteration and dynamism. Third, the authors have identified specific situations of added value, e.g. initiating research collaborations and academic job market preparation.
Practical implications
The RPP tool can provide the basis for developing a scalable interactive researcher exchange platform.
Originality/value
The authors argue that the RPP tool potentially adds meaningful incremental value relative to existing popular platforms for gaining researcher visibility. This additional value derives from the systematic RPP format, combined with the benefit of easy familiarity and strong emphasis on succinctness. Additionally, the authors argue that the RPP adds a depth of nuanced novel information often not contained in other platforms, e.g. around the dimensions of “data” and “tools”. Further, the RPP gives the researcher a “personality”, most notably through the dimensions of “contribution” and “other considerations”.
Details
Keywords
İrem Buran, Şenay Sabah and Akin Koçak
This study aims to investigate the impact of online collective feminist actions on social media participation and the perceived value of social media as part of the social…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the impact of online collective feminist actions on social media participation and the perceived value of social media as part of the social identity model of collective action (SIMCA).
Design/methodology/approach
A mixed methodology is used. Within the SIMCA model in the context of feminist collective actions, social identity, group-efficacy and fear predicted the intention of online collective action participation in the first part (quantitative) of the study. Contrary to predictions, the influence of anger on the intention to participate in collective action was negative. In-depth interviews are conducted in the study’s second (qualitative) part to investigate why individuals do not participate in collective actions despite their anger at violence against women.
Findings
The concept of online feminist collective action, from the perspective of the SIMCA model, deals with violence against women in the context of social marketing, revealing the importance of online collective actions as an antecedent of social media participation and the perceived value of social media. The possible causes of the negative impact of anger, which is an important emotion within the framework of the SIMCA model, on online feminist collective action were determined, and a contribution was made to the social marketing literature in the context of women’s rights.
Originality/value
The study makes three major contributions to the literature. First, women’s rights are addressed in the context of online collective action, an issue that has received little attention in social marketing. Second, in the context of the social identity theory of collective action, online collective feminist action and its predecessors are addressed. Finally, the Turkish case is used to highlight the probable causes of anger’s negative impact on collective action.
Details
Keywords
Beatriz Gallo Cordoba, Catherine Waite and Lucas Walsh
This paper aims to understand if buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) services, a digital type of credit that targets young consumers, acts as a protective or a risk factor for food…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to understand if buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) services, a digital type of credit that targets young consumers, acts as a protective or a risk factor for food insecurity among young consumers in Australia.
Design/methodology/approach
The study uses survey data from a representative sample of young consumers aged 18–24 from all internal states and territories in Australia. Propensity score matching is used to test two hypotheses: BNPL drives young consumers to food insecurity, and food insecurity leads young consumers to use BNPL.
Findings
There is evidence that BNPL use is driving young Australian consumers to experience food insecurity, but there is no evidence of food insecurity driving the use of BNPL services.
Practical implications
The evidence of BNPL driving young consumers to experience food insecurity calls for the adoption of practices and stronger regulation to ensure that young users from being overindebted.
Originality/value
Although the link with more traditional forms of credit (such as personal loans) and consumer wellbeing has been explored more broadly, this project is the first attempt to have causal evidence of the link between BNPL and food insecurity in a high-income country, to the best of the authors’ knowledge. This evidence helps to fill the gap about the protective or risky nature of this type of digital financial product, as experienced by young Australians.
Details
Keywords
Marwa Elnahass, Xinrui Jia and Louise Crawford
This study aims to examine the mediating effects of corporate governance mechanisms like the board of directors on the association between disruptive technology adoption by audit…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to examine the mediating effects of corporate governance mechanisms like the board of directors on the association between disruptive technology adoption by audit clients and the risk of material misstatements, including inherent risk and control risk. In particular, the authors study the mediating effects of board characteristics such as board size, independence and gender diversity.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on a sample of 100 audit clients listed on the FTSE 100 from 2015 to 2021, this study uses structural equation modelling to test the research objectives.
Findings
The findings indicate a significant and negative association between disruptive technology adoption by audit clients and inherent risk. However, there is no significant evidence observed for control risk. The utilisation of disruptive technology by the audit client has a significant impact on the board characteristics, resulting in an increase in board size, greater independence and gender diversity. The authors also find strong evidence that board independence mediates the association between disruptive technology usage and both inherent risk and control risk. In addition, board size and gender exhibit distinct and differential mediating effects on the association and across the two types of risks.
Research limitations/implications
The study reveals that the significant role of using disruptive technology by audit clients in reducing the risk of material misstatements is closely associated with the board of directors, which makes audit clients place greater emphasis on the construction of effective corporate governance.
Practical implications
This study offers essential primary evidence that can assist policymakers and standard setters in formulating guidance and recommendations for board size, independence and gender quotas, ensuring the enhancement of effective governance and supporting the future of audit within the next generation of digital services.
Social implications
With respect to relevant stakeholders, it is imperative for audit clients to recognise that corporate governance represents a fundamental means of addressing the ramifications of applying disruptive technology, particularly as they pertain to inherent and control risks within the audit client.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the existing literature by investigating the joint impact of corporate governance and the utilisation of disruptive technology by audit clients on inherent risk and control risk, which has not been investigated by previous research.
Details
Keywords
Brent Smith and Sereikhuoch Eng
We aim to ascertain whether and how an individual’s social comparison affects their self-gifting motivations (SGMs).
Abstract
Purpose
We aim to ascertain whether and how an individual’s social comparison affects their self-gifting motivations (SGMs).
Design/methodology/approach
We survey a North American sample comprising 619 Canadian and US respondents. We apply partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to examine relationships between social comparison, attachment orientation, parenthood, and self-gifting motivations.
Findings
We find that social comparison positively impacts self-gifting motivations. Additionally, we find that attachment orientation and parenthood can moderate social comparison’s impact on positively valenced SGMs and negatively valenced SGMs, respectively.
Originality/value
We elevate and expand existing scholarship on consumers’ self-gifting. Through the current study, we contribute new, empirical evidence illuminating how individuals’ attachment orientation (i.e. secure v. insecure) and parenthood status (i.e. parent v. non-parent) serve as agency-oriented moderators to temper social comparison’s influences on SGMs.
Details
Keywords
Haihan Li, Per Hilletofth, David Eriksson and Wendy Tate
This study aims to investigate the manufacturing reshoring decision-making content from an Eclectic Paradigm perspective.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the manufacturing reshoring decision-making content from an Eclectic Paradigm perspective.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected through a six-step systematic literature review on factors influencing manufacturing reshoring decision-making. The review is based on 100 peer-reviewed journal papers discussing reshoring decision-making contents published from 2009 to 2022.
Findings
In total, 80 decision factors were extracted and then categorized into resource-seeking (8%), market-seeking (11%), efficiency-seeking (41%) and strategic asset-seeking (16%) advantages. Additionally, 24% of these were identified as hybrid, which means that they were classified into multiple categories. Some decision factors were further identified as reshoring influencing factors (i.e. drivers, enablers and barriers).
Research limitations/implications
Scholars need to consider what other theories can be used or developed to identify and evaluate the decision factors (determinants) of manufacturing reshoring as well as how currently adopted theory can be further advanced to create clearer and comprehensive theoretical frameworks.
Practical implications
This research underscores the importance of developing clearer and more comprehensive theoretical frameworks. For practitioners, understanding the multifaceted nature of decision factors could enhance strategic decision-making regarding reshoring initiatives.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the value and practicality of the Eclectic Paradigm in categorizing factors in manufacturing reshoring decision-making content and presents in-depth theoretical classifications. In addition, it bridges the gap between decision factors and influencing factors in the decision-making content research realm.
Details