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This paper aims to make sense of the social enterprise in a frame of social procurement and conceptualise it as a provider of public welfare based on bibliometric material. Comprehensively, it contributes to developments in social procurement, which has received limited attention.

Scoping literature from Web of Science and using bibliometric methods, the paper identifies and qualitatively explores the literary intersections between social enterprise and social procurement.

Of the 183 articles, four literary clusters are revealed illustrating scholarly intersections and a detailed exploration of social enterprise as a public provider. The alignment and themes of the clusters further indicate the application of, and role played by, social enterprise in social procurement. Collectively, they reveal the dominance of social enterprise in this dyadic relationship and a minor undertaking of research in social procurement.

This “sense-making” groundwork forms a foundational step in developing our understanding of procurements through social enterprises. Furthermore, a positioning and conceptualisation of social enterprise accredits their utility and applicability in delivering public benefits. In this way, the paper informs and supports scholarly and practice-based interest into social enterprises for the delivery of public services.

The paper presents the first bibliometric conceptualisation of social enterprise in relation to social procurement and offers detailed insights through the bibliometric clusters. Furthermore, the paper contributes to the underdeveloped social dimension of procurement and bridges the gap between two distinct fields of scholarship: public management and administration and social entrepreneurship.

This study aims to investigate the influence of information and communication technology (ICT) capabilities on supply chain fraud and sustainability within the context of Ghana’s small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Additionally, the research explores the mediating role of supply chain fraud in the relationship between ICT capabilities and supply chain sustainability.

Data were collected from 102 respondents within Ghana’s SME sector, and the research employed the dynamic capability theory as the conceptual framework. The study utilized partial least squares-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to develop and analyze the proposed model.

The results of the study reveal a significant reduction in supply chain fraud attributable to enhanced ICT capabilities within Ghanaian SMEs. Moreover, ICT capabilities exert a significant positive influence on supply chain sustainability. Importantly, supply chain fraud emerges as a mediator, elucidating its role at the nexus of supply chain sustainability and ICT capabilities.

This research contributes to the limited body of evidence on the interconnectedness of ICT capabilities, supply chain fraud and supply chain sustainability, particularly within the context of Ghanaian SMEs. Notably, this study pioneers an examination of the mediating impact of supply chain fraud on the relationship between ICT capabilities and supply chain sustainability.

This paper’s objective is to provide a systematic literature review of the contextual factors affecting downward communication from supervisors to subordinates in the audit environment. In addition, this review identifies emerging research themes and directions for future research.

I accomplish this review’s objectives by leveraging communication literature to establish a framework to identify and synthesize contextual factors affecting downward communication in the audit environment. The review identifies 50 published articles in the last 20 years from leading accounting and auditing journals.

This study consolidates research findings on downward communication under two primary contextual factors: (1) message and (2) channel. Findings indicate that empirical research examining communication in audit is fragmented and limited. Studies examining the message focus heavily on its content and treatment in the areas of feedback, nonverbal cues, and fraud brainstorming, and a handful of additional studies examine the effectiveness of the channel in these areas. Additional research is needed to understand a broader set of supervisor–subordinate communication practices, including those that are computer-mediated, and their effect on subordinate auditors’ judgments and behaviors in the contemporary audit environment.

Much of the audit literature examining communication to date is topic-versus construct-based, making it difficult to see how the research findings relate to one another. This review is the first to synthesize the literature to provide academics recommendations for a way forward, and inform practitioners of communication practices whereby supervisors can be trained to improve audit quality.

Circular supply chain management (CSCM) is considered a promising solution to attain sustainability in the current industrial system. Despite the exigency of this approach, its application in the food industry is a challenge because of the nature of the industry and CSCM being a novel approach. The purpose of this study is to develop an industry-based systematic analysis of CSCM by examining the challenges for its application, exploring the effects of recognised challenges on various food supply chain (FSC) stages and investigating the business processes as drivers.

Stakeholder theory guided the need to consider stakeholders’ views in this research and key stakeholders directly from the food circular supply chain were identified and interviewed (n = 36) following qualitative methods.

Overall, the study reveals that knowledge, perception towards environmental initiatives and economic viability are the major barriers to circular supply chain transition in the UK FSC.

This research provides a holistic perspective analysing the loopholes in different stages of the supply chain and investigating the way a particular circular supply chain stage is affected by recognised challenges through stakeholder theory, which will be a contribution to designing management-level strategies. Reconceptualising this practice would be beneficial in bringing three-tier (economic, environmental and social) benefits and will be supportive to engage stakeholders in the sustainability agenda.

This study examines the adoption of information and communication technologies (ICT) for e-recruitment and its impacts on public value outcomes.

A survey was conducted with 213 public sector employees in the federal civil service using a questionnaire to test a conceptual model integrating the Technology Acceptance Model, Media Richness Theory and Public Value Theory using PLS-SEM analysis.

Results validate significant positive relationships between ICT adoption, social media use for e-recruitment and public value creation. Internet self-efficacy positively moderates public value outcomes.

While this study makes valuable contributions, avenues remain to further expand generalizability, strengthen validity and incorporate additional institutional factors in the framework.

The study provides insights to guide policies and interventions aimed at improving ICT adoption success and public value gains from e-government investments in developing countries.

The research makes key contributions by operationalizing and empirically assessing the public value impacts of e-government innovations and examining adoption issues in an understudied developing country context.

Global brands have become increasingly vulnerable to external disruptions that have negative spillover effects on consumers, business and brands. This research area has recently garnered interest post-pandemic yet remains fragmented. The purpose of this paper is to recognize the most impactful exogenous brand crisis (EBC) and its affective and behavioural impact on consumers.

In Study 1, we applied repertory grid technique (RGT), photo elicitation method and ANOVA comparisons, to identify the most significant EBC, in terms of repercussions on consumer purchases. In Study 2, we performed collage construction and content analysis to ascertain the impact of the identified significant crisis (from Study 1) on consumer behaviour in terms of affective and behavioural changes.

Study 1 results reveal Spread-of-diseases and Natural disaster to be the most impactful EBC based on consumer’s purchase decisions. Study 2 findings uncover three distinct themes, namely, deviant demand, emotional upheaval and community bonding that throws light on the affective and behavioural changes in consumer behaviour during the two significant EBC events.

The collated results of the two studies draw insights towards understanding the largely unexplored conceptualisation of EBC from a multi-level (micro-meso-macro) perspective. The integrated framework drawn, highlight the roles and influences of different players in exogenous brand crisis management and suggests future research agendas based on theoretical underpinnings.

To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study which identifies the most important EBC and explicates its profound impact on consumer purchase behaviour, providing critical insights to brand managers and practitioners to take an inclusive approach towards exogenous crises.

Security education, training and awareness (SETA) programs are the key to addressing “people problems” in information systems (IS) security. Contrary to studies using conventional methods, the present study leveraged an “event” lens and dimensionalized employees' perceptions into three sub-dimensions: perceived novelty, perceived disruption and perceived criticality. Moreover, this research went a step further by examining how pedagogical and communication approaches to a SETA program affect employees' perceptions of the program. This study then investigated whether – and if so, how – these approaches impact employees' perceptions of the SETA program and their subsequent commitment to it.

Utilizing a factorial-based scenario survey, this study empirically tested a model of the above relationships via covariance-based structural equation modeling.

The results of this research showed that pedagogical approaches were more effective than communication approaches and that employees' perceptions of the SETA program accounted for a large variance in their commitment to SETA.

First, this research deepens understanding of the protection of information assets by elaborating on the different approaches that organizations can take to encourage employees' commitment to SETA. Second, the study enriches the SETA literature by theorizing a SETA program as an organizational “event”, which represents a major shift from the conventional approach. Third, the study adds to the theoretical knowledge of the event lens by extending it to the SETA context and investigating the relationship among three event strength components.

The purpose of the study is to investigate the effect of augmented reality (AR) characteristics in packaging on perceived value and consumer behavioral intentions such as purchase intention and pay more in traditional Iranian nougat GAZ packaging.

The statistical population was the 550 customers bought traditional Iranian nougat GAZ. Sampling method was simple random sampling. Questionnaire had been chosen for collecting data. In total, 236 customers filled in questionnaires. Research model tested by structural equation modeling method and by using SPSS and PLS software.

The finding considered the characteristics of AR packaging which include interactivity, informativeness, enjoyment and usefulness have a positive effect on the dimensions of the perceived value, hedonic and utilitarian value. In the same way hedonic and utilitarian value had positive effects on the consumer behavior, purchase intention and willingness to pay more.

These results help managers to use AR characteristics to improve the interaction between customers and product and sell their products.

Cyber security has never been more important than it is today in an ever more connected and pervasive digital world. However, frequently reported shortages of suitably skilled and trained information system (IS)/cyber security professionals elevate the importance of delivering effective Security Education,Training and Awareness (SETA) programmes within organisations. Therefore, the purpose of this study is the questionable effectiveness of SETA programmes at changing employee behaviour and an absence of empirical studies on the critical success factors (CSFs) for SETA programme effectiveness.

This exploratory study follows a three-stage research design to give voice to practitioners with SETA programme expertise. Data is gathered in Stage 1 using semi-structured interviews with 20 key informants (the emergence of the CSFs), in Stage 2 from 65 respondents to a short online survey (the ranking of the CSFs) and in Stage 3 using semi-structured interviews with nine IS/cyber security practitioners (the emergence of the guiding principles). Using a multi-stage research design allows the authors to propose and evaluate the 11 CSFs for SETA programme effectiveness.

This study conducted a mean score analysis to evaluate the level of importance of each CSF within two independent groups of IS/cyber security professionals. This multi-stage analysis produces a ranked list of 11 CSFs for SETA programme effectiveness, while the difference in the rankings leads to the emergence of five CSF-specific guiding principles (to increase the likelihood of delivering an effective SETA programme within an organisational context). This analysis also reveals that most of the contradictions/differences in CSF rankings between IS/cyber security practitioners are linked to the design phase of the SETA programme life cycle. While two CSFs, “maintain quarterly evaluation of employee performance” (CSF-DS6) and “build security awareness campaigns” (CSF-EV1), represent the most significant contradiction in this study.

The 11 CSFs for SETA programme effectiveness, along with the five CSF-specific guiding principles, provide a greater depth of knowledge contributing to both theory and practice and lays the foundation for future studies. Therefore, the outputs of this study provide valuable insights on the areas that practice needs to get right to deliver effective SETA programmes.