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This study aims to review and understand the state of records management practices in Malawi, focusing on both public and private sector organisations.

The hermeneutic framework underpinned a qualitative review of the study phenomenon. The inclusion and exclusion criterion for the literature was guided by the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis methodology. Fifteen documents met the eligibility criteria and informed the study findings. The literature comprised of journal articles, dissertations at both master and doctoral levels, and conference papers.

The study found that records are created, captured and maintained both in print and electronic formats. It also confirmed that different types of organisations (public, private, academia and civil society) recognise the need for proper records management practices. However, effective and efficient records management is besieged by numerous obstacles, including lack of funding, absence of records management policy, standards and procedures at both institutional and national levels, poor records classification systems and a lack of top management support. Most importantly, the review shows that the majority of studies in Malawi have focused on academia, with little attention to other equally fundamental areas such as agriculture, trade, tourism, transport and energy. Thus, this situation calls for more empirical studies of records management practices in those sectors.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first kind of review to be done at a national level, so the findings provide significant insights for policymakers and research practitioners on records management research trends to date in Malawi.

The study aims to present a hermeneutic literature review on records management practices in institutions of higher education in Africa to inform a prevailing records management phenomenon.

The review was underpinned by the hermeneutic approach as adapted from Boell and Cecez-Kecmanovic (2014). It was further guided by a qualitative analysis to underscore a critical assessment and development of themes in the study.

This process found that the management of records in Sub-Saharan African higher education is evident, but is overwhelmed by many factors. Hence, the study recommends the formulation and implementation of records management tools to guide and spur records management practices in African higher education.

The study operationalizes the hermeneutic approach in the records management practice.

This study aims to investigate records management practices in Malawian private universities with a focus on University of Livingstonia.

The study used embedded case study design using a mixed methods approach. A survey questionnaire, semi-structured interview guide and a document review were used to collect data from University of Livingstonia staff.

The study found that University of Livingstonia created records such as minutes, grades, mails, theses, policy documents and reports. Some of the challenges related to records management at the institution were uncoordinated records management practices due to, among others, lack of records management policy, retention and disposal schedules among others. It further reported a number of factors frustrating the success of records management practices at UNILIA such as lack of management support, poor funding and lack of information communication technology infrastructure. Nevertheless, the study acknowledged the role of records management at University of Livingstonia.

Previous studies on records management in Malawi focused on public sector. However, this is a novel study undertaken in the private higher education. Therefore, it forms a basis for conceptualising records management phenomena in the private higher education in Malawi.

Social media posts have been an integral part of our society’s communication and serve purposes from the personal to the national, from the mundane to the silly to the momentous. This study aims to examine social media posts as records, discussing how social media technology serves, perhaps unexpectedly, to reinforce traditional archival understandings of issues such as provenance, custody, access, disposition and preservation.

This study follows a four-step methodology. First, this study analyzes literature for a matching definition of the social media record. In the second step, we appraise three social media postings previously curated and cited in news articles by journalists to determine their characteristics – Are these social media posts “records?” Third, this study evaluates the sample records against two dominant theoretical record models, the life cycle and the continuum and attempt to apply the model specifications to the data samples. Finally, this study proposes appropriate records management solutions to address governance issues from the study findings in the conclusion section.

This study shows that, even by the most traditional of definitions, social media posts are records. The paper also demonstrates that platform mediation transforms simple narrative documents into records whose provenance, custody and control are dictated by platform logics and governance, outside of the control of their creators. Through appraisal of a small sample of “important” social media posts, this study illustrates that, rather than obsolete, traditional records management concepts and approaches are necessary to ensuring the ongoing accessibility, usability and evidentiary character of social media posts in the broader “platformized” context.

This is exploratory, theoretical work. In future works, this study plans to expand and validate aspects of this study.

This paper tests existing theoretical frameworks, namely, the Records Life cycle and the Records Continuum for applicability to the social media record. The paper also offers a view of the potential for traditional archival and records management concepts in service of a just and inclusive recordkeeping, because such concepts allow us to demonstrate the centralized, elite-serving, bureaucratic structures which underpin social media records are obscured by the seemingly decentralized, participatory nature of social media.

Municipalities, as the front lines of service delivery, use websites as one of the tools to communicate information to the public. While it is considered a record, many organisations, including municipalities, do not manage websites as such. This study aims to explore the archiving of websites as records in the municipalities of KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) Province in South Africa by using the web archiving life cycle model.

This study used a mixed-methods research with an explanatory design, with quantitative data collected first through content analysis of websites and qualitative data collected through interviews. Researchers used multilevel sampling, first quantitatively analysing all available websites of the municipalities (52) in KZN, and then qualitatively selecting only records managers, information managers, web administrators, communication managers and website managers or designers from municipalities because of their understanding and involvement with websites in some way.

This study established that some records on municipal websites are often in paper format in record-keeping systems, whereas others are born digital and are not captured in the systems. Municipalities lack a dedicated web online harvesting tool as well as an archiving policy or strategy to guide website archiving. Furthermore, municipalities placed a high reliance on service providers to keep their websites operational.

It became clear during the interviews that most of the participants were unfamiliar with web archiving. As a result, only 12 of the 56 selected participants from the municipalities provided the required information in relation to the current study as others could not provide answers. Data for other participants were not analysed.

Due to a lack of infrastructure for ingesting digital records into archival custody, a framework for harvesting web content of value is proposed both internally in municipalities and externally to an archive repository.

This paper aims to examine the concept of standardization beyond its traditional use in generating and implementing standards and good practice guidelines (S&GPG) by looking at existing and emerging trends.

This paper utilizes two primary approaches to categorizing S&GPG for better comprehension: categorization based on provenance as well as based on subject matter.

A significant concern related to categorizing S&GPG based on provenance or subject is the constant proliferation of standards being developed and introduced every year. This rapid growth in standards requires frequent re-categorization to keep up with the dynamic nature of this field. To tackle this problem, this paper explores emerging concepts such as ontological representation and frameworks that offer archives and records management (ARM) professionals.

Standardization refers to establishing uniform rules through mutual agreement to ensure consistency. The study of standardization goes beyond the development of individual S&GPG, encompassing their practical application in work settings. Categorizing standards alone may not fully capture their actual use. However, abstraction mechanisms like ontological representations, models and frameworks can demonstrate how these standards have been leveraged. This paper provides illustrative examples rather than an exhaustive list to showcase how these mechanisms have been applied in research projects or as practical tools.

This paper explores the emerging topic of standardization from the perspective of ontological representations and models or frameworks. In addition, it also contributes to the discussion of the 2022 version of ARMA International’s Information Governance Implementation Model and the 2020 version of the World Bank Group's Records Management Roadmap, providing unique insights into these topics.

This research paper aims to investigate detailed relationships between market selection and product positioning decisions and their associated short- and long-term product performance outcomes in the context of the music category: a cultural goods industry with high amounts of product introductions. Market selection decisions are defined by the size, competitiveness and age of market subcategories within an overall product category. Positioning decisions include where a product’s attributes are located spatially in the category (periphery versus the market center), whether a product resides within a single subcategory or spans multiple ones and what brand strategy (single versus co-branding) is used.

Data are from multiple sources for the US music industry (aka product category) from 1958 to 2019 to empirically test the hypotheses: genres (rock, blues, etc.) correspond to subcategories; artists to brands; and songs to products. Regression analyses are used.

A complex set of nuanced results are generated and reported, finding that key marketing decisions drive short-term new product success differently and frequently in opposing ways than long-term success. Launching into very new, well-established or very competitive markets leads to the strongest long-term success, despite less attractive short-run prospects. Positioning a product away from the market center and spanning subcategories similarly poses short-run challenges, but long-run returns. Brand collaborations have reverse effects. Short-run product success is found, overall, to be difficult to predict even with strong data inputs, which has substantial implications for how firms should manage portfolios of products in cultural goods industries. Long-run product success is considerably more predictable after short-run success is observed and accounted for.

While managers and firms in cultural goods industries have long relied on intuition to manage market selection and product positioning decisions, this research tests the hypothesis that objective data inputs and empirical modeling can better predict short- and long-run success of launched products. Specific insights on which song characteristics may be associated with success are found – as are more generalizable, industry-level results. In addition, by distinguishing between short- and long-run success, a more complete picture on how key decisions holistically affect product performance emerges. Many market selection and product positioning decisions have differential impacts across these two frames of reference.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a commercialization model based on gaining economic benefits through the transfer of technological capabilities in the oil and gas industry. Since commercialization models are mostly based on the implement of technology to produce and sell new products, this study focuses on developing a specific independent technology commercialization model.

The method of this research is qualitative based on the grounded theory. For this purpose, general variables with content analysis were extracted by reviewing documents (Literature review) and then for identifying special components, interviewing experts in the Iranian oil and gas industry. Participations were selected using snowball sampling for semistructured interviews.

The findings of this research were extracted based on grounded theory with data analysis in MAXQDA software. In this research, first, 210 open codes were identified based on qualitative content analysis of relevant documents and results of interviews with experts. Then the classification of open codes was done, and 46 subcategories (variables) were determined in the commercialization model. Finally, 46 subcategories were classified into 10 categories as axial codes in grounded theory as components of the commercialization model.

The results of this research have led to the creation of new practical and theoretical implications. In this research, a new perspective of commercialization with the aim of transferring technology and obtaining its economic benefits for oil and gas industry companies was discussed. Also, based on the practical implications explained in this research, policymakers can use the suggested model to effectively implement independent technology commercialization to acquire economic benefits.

This study is purely original and the outcome of the research conducted by the authors. The research findings are the outcome of in-depth study on technology commercialization in the Iranian oil and gas industry.

The study sought to examine the mediating effect of employee environmental commitment (EEC) in the relationships between green human resource management practices (Green HRMPs) and environmental sustainability (ES) and employee turnover intentions (ETI).

Using a cross-sectional survey approach, data was sourced from 296 respondents from five manufacturing firms listed on the Ghana Stock Exchange. Data was analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics with the help of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) and SmartPLS.

Results showed that EEC had a partial mediation effect on the relationship between Green HRMPs and ES at the organisational level but fully mediated the relationship between Green HRMPs and ETI at the individual level.

It is evident from the findings that Green HRMPs improve ES and employee stability. Therefore, practitioners and educational institutions should consider integrating environmental concerns into their functional processes and operations. In addition, governments as policymakers should formulate and strengthen the enforcement of already-existing environmental management and sustainability policies that promote the integration of green practices and initiatives in both private and public entities.

Little is known about Green HRM and its effect on organisational and individual-level outcomes, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. This study presents empirical evidence from an emerging economy.

The advent of Internet of Things, cloud computing and advanced computing has endowed smart manufacturing environments with resilience, reconfigurability and intelligence, resulting in the emergence of novel capabilities. These capabilities have significantly reshaped the manufacturing ecosystem, enabling it to effectively navigate uncertainties. The purpose of this study is to assess the operational transformations resulting from the implementation of smart manufacturing, which distinguish it from conventional systems.

A list of qualitative and quantitative smart manufacturing performance metrics (SMPMs) are initially suggested and categorized into strategic, tactical and operational levels. The SMPMs resemble the capabilities of smart manufacturing systems to manage disruptions due to uncertainties. Then, industry and academia experts validate the SMPMs through the utilization of the Delphi method, enabling the ranking of the SMPMs.

The proposition of the SMPMs serves as a metric to assess the digital transformation capabilities of smart manufacturing systems. In addition, the ranking of the proposed SMPMs shows a degree of relevance of the measures in smart manufacturing deployment and managing the disruptions caused due to the COVID-19 pandemic

The findings benefit managers, consultants, policymakers and researchers in making appropriate decisions for deploying and operationalizing smart manufacturing systems by focusing on critical SMPMs.

The research provides a metric to assess the operational transformations during the deployment of smart manufacturing systems. Also, it states the role of the metric in managing the potential disruptions that can alter the performance of the business due to the COVID-19 pandemic.