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The purpose of this paper is to focus on understanding of stakeholder attributes and attitudes towards privatisation. It examines the stakeholder attributes through the framework provided by Mitchell et al. (1997). By combining it with the concept of issue salience proposed by Bundy et al. (2013), it addresses the current gap in research on how stakeholders influence the process of privatisation.

This research uses a process research approach to examine the privatisation process in New Zealand’s electricity industry in order to explore contexts, content and process of change. By collecting real-time data during the period of privatisation, utilising a process approach provided the authors a view of the historical path and associated events which lead to identification of stakeholder attributes and attitudes towards privatisation.

The research offers a unique insight into stakeholder attributes exhibited by different groups during privatisation. The authors identified that during privatisation the government is the ultimate stakeholder who sets the rules of the game of privatisation by exhibiting the attributes of power, legitimacy and urgency. The attributes exhibited by other stakeholders were transitory and were impacted by issue salience. The authors also identified that stakeholders exhibiting all three attributes (the government) chose a non-response approach to deal with any conflicting issues raised by other stakeholders.

The research examined the new public management emphasis on the privatisation of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) vis-à-vis stakeholder groups, utilising the complementary concepts of stakeholder salience and issue salience. This research makes a contribution to stakeholder management theory in the public sector by identifying how various stakeholders influence the process of privatisation of SOEs.

This paper aims to develop and estimate a logit model of whether homeownership could be promoted by participation in and use of the Housing Provident Fund (HPF) program, with a focus on factors that influence the use of HPF loans.

This paper develops and estimates a logit model of whether homeownership could be promoted by participation in and use of the HPF program, with a focus on factors that influence the use of HPF loans.

The results show that coefficients of marital status, educational level, age, duration of employment and employer are significantly related to the use of HPF loan for homeownership.

Because of the chosen research approach, the research results may lack generalizability.

The research findings provide a better understanding of homeowners’ characteristics.

To manage the HPF program effectively, it is important for government to have a better understanding of the underlying demand for homeownership, especially with respect to the different demographic variables and accessibility to HPF loans and the HPF.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate, at the industry level, the modes of governance used by multinational companies in the UK petrochemical industry to outsource maintenance activities to engineering contractors. The study focusses on a form of novel governance structure called an Employer Panel (EP).

The study applies an inductive case study method to investigate the contractor governance mechanisms in 19 out of the 20 major petrochemical instillations located in the UK. Data included interviews, documentary and secondary evidence gathered from the cases and also industry bodies.

The study uncovered three distinct types of governance mode: market, managing contractor, and EP of contractors. The latter relies on the governance process of “mandated collaboration” to coordinate.

The main limitation is the focus on a particular industry, albeit an important one. The research implications include extending the empirical research into other sectors which use on-site contracted maintenance such as ship and aircraft manufacturing.

The EP structure with its mandated collaboration process is of value to managers of contractual relationships as it gives insights into coordinative process and it may provide an alternative model for managing outsourcing relationships.

The mandated collaborative process requires clients to engage its contractors in longer term relationships, thus increasing corporate social responsibility and providing wider job security for contractor employees.

The EP mode, as far as can be ascertained, has not been addressed in the literature before.

The purpose of this paper is to examine relationships among governmental organizations, non-governmental organizations and the organization and management of instruction in US public education, with the aim of raising issues for cross-national research among countries in which the involvement of non-governmental organizations is increasing.

The paper is structured in four parts: an historical analysis of the architecture and dynamics of US public education; an analysis of contemporary reform efforts seeking to improve quality and reduce inequities; an analysis of ways that legacy and reform dynamics manifest in two US public school districts; and a discussion of considerations for cross-national research.

In US public education, dependence on non-governmental organizations for instructional resources and services is anchored in deeply institutionalized social, political and economic values dating to the country’s founding and that continue to function as constraints on educational reform, such that new solutions always emerge in-and-from the same problematic conditions that they seek to redress. The consequence is that reform takes on an evolutionary (vs transformative) character.

The US case provides a foundation for framing issues for cross-national research comparing among macro-level educational infrastructures, patterns of instructional organization and classroom instruction.

Such research would move beyond reductionist approaches to cross-national research toward new approaches that examine how histories, legacy architectures, contemporary reforms and patterns of instructional organization and management interact to shape students’ day-to-day lives in classrooms.

The rapid growth of credit card use in China poses the potential for card overuse and the accumulation of increased debt. The purpose of this paper is to report on an investigation into the determinants of overall credit card spending and card-financed debt by Chinese consumers.

This study focusses on two dependent variables: credit card monthly spending and card debt. The spending measure is based on consumer outlay for the month preceding the survey. Card debt is the consumers’ outstanding credit card debt when the survey was conducted. Three groups of independent measures are used: socio-demographic characteristics, card features and consumer attitude towards money. Both card spending and card debt are estimated with OLS methods. Data was obtained from the 2013 China Household Finance Survey of 1,920 households in 29 provinces and 262 counties across China that used credit cards over the survey period.

The empirical findings suggest consumers’ attitude towards money is more important in explaining card spending and debt variation than socio-demographic characteristics and card features. The credit limit set for a card, obligations to other loans and the method of paying for ordinary shopping exhibit positive effects on both card spending and card debt, while age exhibits a negative effect. Further, card spending is positively correlated with card debts, but the factors that determine card spending do not necessarily affect card debt and vice versa. Minimum card debt payments, cash advances, card tenure and interest-bearing debt have no effect on card spending but have positive effects on card debt. In addition, gender and income have opposite effects on card spending and debt.

The relationships we have documented suggest several actions the Chinese Government could consider dealing with credit card debt risk. Controlling the aggressive promotional campaigns that card issuers use to attract consumers and aggressive credit policies should be a focus of attention. The Chinese Government might, for example, impose minimum age and income requirements for granting credit cards and prohibit issuance of new cards to applicants who are already in debt with other types of credit. In addition, more stringent criteria to curb increases in card limits and tighter control over cash advances made on cards should be applied. Minimum payment amounts can also be increased in order to reduce credit card debt risk.

Despite ample documentation of consumers’ credit card behaviour, the literature is deficient in at least two areas of enquiry. First, most previous research has investigated either credit card spending behaviour or card debt, but not both. Second, with few exceptions, most research has investigated a range of specific factors that affect credit card use. In contrast, this study investigates card spending as well as card debt behaviour using a wide variety of consumer dimensions particularly relevant to credit card use and resulting debt. In addition, this study focusses on Chinese consumers, who traditionally prefer to save first and delay spending. The impact of the rapid growth of credit card use on this traditional Chinese orientation towards spending is dynamic. Documenting the influence of the individual factors examined in this study is likely to be of value to both policy makers and institutions that offer and manage credit in this changing environment.

The paper aims to fill this gap by positing a framework that considers the service automation decision as a matter of knowledge management: a choice between human resident and codified knowledge assets.

The paper is a conceptual paper, grounded in the knowledge-based view.

The paper uses the information processing theory, which argues that the level of uncertainty in a process should dictate the type of knowledge deployed, as the contingency for the automation choice, and customer interaction uncertainty as the driver of that contingency. From these ideas, propositions are generated relating customer interaction uncertainty and service automation. Further implications for artificial intelligence (AI) are also explored.

The framework illuminates and informs the strategic choices regarding service automation, including the use of AI in professional services, a timely and highly important topic. It offers a valuable model for practitioners and contributes to the academic literature by pointing the way for future directions for scholarly research.

The purpose of this paper is to consider how the dimensions of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) may support or diminish the creation of social value.

The approach applies Lumpkin and Dess’s multidimensional conceptualization of EO to the growing body of literature on social entrepreneurship.

Propositions on the effects of autonomy, competitive aggressiveness, innovativeness, proactiveness and risk-taking on social value creation are developed.

The propositions offered in the paper suggest avenues for future empirical studies that seek to examine the impact of EO on social, rather than financial, performance.

A significant body of research has examined the relationship between EO and financial performance, but potential implications for social value creation remain unclear. This paper seeks to address this gap in understanding of EO and social entrepreneurship and argues that two components of EO may adversely impact the creation of social value.

The purpose of this study is to test whether equity theory (ET) – which posits that individuals compare their outcome/input ratio to the ratio of a “comparison other” and classify individuals as Benevolent, Equity Sensity, and Entitled – applies to the modern workplace of global virtual teams (GVT), where work is mostly intellectual, geographically dispersed and online, making individual effort nearly impossible to observe directly.

Using a sample of 1,343 GVTs comprised 6,347 individuals from 137 countries, this study tests three ET’s predictions in the GVT context: a negative, linear relationship between Benevolents’ perceptions of equity and job satisfaction in GVTs; an inverted U-shaped relationship between Equity Sensitives’ perceptions of equity and job satisfaction in GVTs; and a positive, linear relationship between Entitleds’ perceptions of equity and job satisfaction in GVTs.

Although the second prediction of ET is supported, the first and third have statistically significant opposite signs.

The research has important ramifications for management studies in explaining differences in organizational behavior in GVTs as opposed to traditional work settings.

The authors conclude that the main novelty with ET in GVTs is that GVTs are an environment stingy with satisfaction for “takers” (Entitleds) and generous in satisfaction for “givers” (Benevolents).

Social media are channels of communication and relationship between consumers and brands. In this paper, the determinants of consumer engagement in firm-generated content on Facebook are examined in a higher education institutions (HEIs) context.

Data was collected from 1,981 Facebook brand posts of 16 Brazilian HEIs and thoroughly analyzed with seemingly unrelated regression (SUR).

The results indicated that the type of media does not increase the user's engagement. The emotional content, on the other hand, increases the number of likes and shares and not comments. An interaction between dimensions, type of media and content is relevant disclosed to increase engagement metrics, while characteristics related to the day and time of posting are not relevant.

This study analyzes the factors that influence consumer engagement in brand messages published on Facebook, in the context of higher education institutions. Specifically, the authors seek to examine the influence that emanates from the likes, comments and shares: (1) factors related to the type of media (interactivity and liveliness); (2) content-related factors (remuneration, emotional, entertainment and informational); and (3) factors related to posting (day of the week and time of day).

In the context of educational services, social media is increasingly present, remarkably in HEI marketing practices. Previous studies have shown that universities use social media (mainly Facebook) to promote interactivity with students. The study presents the key characteristics of the postings by the HEIs, with an emphasis on the liveliness, the interactivity of the media, and the information content of the posts. It stands out by the examination of the most relevant factors that influence Facebook engagement, and by providing evidence on the strength of the factors related to post features that influence user engagement.

The research contributes to the proposition and empirical test of a predictive model of consumer engagement on Facebook, which can predict engagement in an HEI context.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-06-2020-0242

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact that several of these factors have on a consumer’s decision to hold a credit card, as well as those involved in determining the level of credit card limit.

Potential explanatory variables were identified in the literature, then used to build a binary logit model to test the impact of the card and consumer characteristics on credit card ownership. Data were collected via a structured interview of 409 consumers living in Hebei Province, China.

The results indicate that convenience in use, level of credit card interest rates, the application process, number of people in the household, a rewards programme, marital status, credit limit and age influence the likelihood of the respondent holding a credit card. Further, an anaylsis shows that the number of credit cards held, duration of holding a credit card, monthly credit card purchasing volume and having a degree at the tertiary level, are significantly and positively related to different levels of credit limit.

In summary, in order to attract more consumers to credit card use, the banks and credit card companies should consider making it more convenient for consumers to use their credit cards. Moreover, banks can increase their networking and degree of cooperation with merchants to increase the acceptance of payment by credit card. The most heavily used businesses such as supermarkets and smaller retailers, where consumers purchase goods frequently, would be good targets for banks’ attention. In addition, banks might also improve credit card reward programmes to make these more efficient and perhaps increase the size of the rewards customers can earn through card use.