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This research analyses the searching, interacting and purchasing behavior of shoppers seeking semidurable and fast-moving consumer goods in an immersive virtual reality (VR) store, showing how physical examinations and visual inspections relate to purchases.

Around 60 participants completed two forced-purchase tasks using a head-mounted display with visual and motor-tracking systems. A second study using a pictorial display of the products complemented the VR study.

The findings indicate differences in shopping behavior for the two product categories, with semidurable goods requiring greater inspection and deliberation than fast-moving consumer goods. In addition, visual inspection of the shelf and products was greater than a physical examination through virtual handling for both product categories. The paper also presents relationships between visual inspections and product interactions during the searching stage of purchase decisions.

The research consists of two types of implicit measures in this study: eye-tracking and hand-product interactions. This study reveals the suitability of implicit measures for evaluating consumer behavior in VR stores.

Sailing toward sustainability is becoming the strategic focus of shipping firms. Drawing on organizational information processing theory (OIPT) and the theory of planned behavior (TPB), we investigated the impact of digital transformation (DT) on shipping firms’ sustainable management performance and the boundary conditions guiding this relationship.

The authors examined the hypotheses by employing hierarchical linear modeling on two-wave time-lagged data from 189 shipping firm employees in China.

The results suggest that a shipping firm’s DT is positively associated with its sustainable management performance and that the relationship is strengthened by having better cross-functional and customer coordination mechanisms. Furthermore, our three-way interaction analyses show that while injunctive norms in a shipping firm’s networks can strengthen the contingency roles of both cross-functional and customer coordination mechanisms, descriptive norms alone significantly influence customer coordination.

Drawing on organizational information processing and planned behavior theories, the present research provides new insights into leveraging DT for sailing toward sustainable success. Moreover, this study extends the current understandings of the boundary conditions of the relationship between DT and sustainable management performance by showing the two-way and three-way interaction effects of coordination mechanisms and subjective norms. The findings of the present research can be utilized as effective strategies for promoting sustainable management performance.

While previous operations management literature acknowledges the positive influence of Lean and Industry (I4.0) on performance, recent studies examining the synergy between these two factors have produced inconsistent and contradictory results. Therefore, this study aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the effect of Lean and I4.0 synergy on firm performance.

This study utilised a meta-analysis approach, examining 23 empirical studies exploring multiple effects of the Lean and I4.0 synergy on firm performance. Multiple subgroup analyses were conducted to assess the contradictory outcomes and identify in what conditions such synergy may achieve performance.

The results affirm the prevailing positivist perspective among most scholars regarding the positive influence of the Lean and I4.0 synergy on firm performance. However, the overall effect size derived from the studies indicates a weak relationship, suggesting that this synergy alone is not the sole determinant factor of firm performance. In addition, the subgroup analyses reveal the presence of contingent conditions that may affect the performance outcomes when integrating Lean and I4.0, as most effects exhibit a weak relationship.

This study represents the first meta-analysis investigating the relationship between the Lean and I4.0 synergy on firm performance. By shedding light on the contradictory effects often depicted in the operations management literature, this study provides a critical reflection for researchers who tend to adopt an overly optimistic view of such synergy.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how different manufacturing technologies are bundled together and how these bundles influence operations performance and, indirectly, business performance. With the emergence of Industry 4.0 (I4.0) technologies, manufacturing companies can use a wide variety of advanced manufacturing technologies (AMT) to build an efficient and effective production system. Nevertheless, the literature offers little guidance on how these technologies, including novel I4.0 technologies, should be combined in practice and how these combinations might have a different impact on performance.

Using a survey study of 165 manufacturing plants from 11 different countries, we use factor analysis to empirically derive three distinct manufacturing technology bundles and structural equation modeling to quantify their relationship with operations and business performance.

Our findings support an evolutionary rather than a revolutionary perspective. I4.0 technologies build on traditional manufacturing technologies and do not constitute a separate direction that would point towards a fundamental digital transformation of companies within our sample. Performance effects are rather weak: out of the three technology bundles identified, only “automation and robotization” have a positive influence on cost efficiency, while “base technologies” and “data-enabled technologies” do not offer a competitive advantage, neither in terms of cost nor in terms of differentiation. Furthermore, while the business performance impact is positive, it is quite weak, suggesting that financial returns on technology investments might require longer time periods.

Relying on a complementarity approach, our research offers a novel perspective on technology implementation in the I4.0 era by investigating novel and traditional manufacturing technologies together.

This paper aims to analyze the thematic content of research addressing the relation between board of directors (BoD) and business transformation (BT) to obtain better understanding of status and to derive future areas of study.

This paper reviews literature through a bibliometric analysis based on co-occurrence of articles published in Web of Science Core Collection ™ (WoS) between 1990 and 2022, identifying key concepts, setting network of relations and identifying the strategic importance of clusters of concepts. Findings and implications are discussed, future lines of research are presented and limitations are noted.

Thematic research on boards addressing transformation shifted from the analysis of individuals' traits to an organizational approach with majority of research centered on the role of boards under different theories and the consequences of strategic changes on firm's performance. Further research is around gender diversity, sustainability and the moderating role of ownership structure and business culture.

Some limitations are also noted. This analysis considered articles indexed by WoS for Q1+Q2 publications as source of literature, while including others such as Scopus would increase knowledge base. Also, to identify main streams of research, the authors considered keywords with cumulative occurrence spanning from 30% to 40% while increasing this percentage would add terms that might improve precision to the connections among keywords. Other techniques could have been used such as co-citation or bibliographic coupling, although the authors find these as better suited to investigate the basic structure behind the foundational knowledge of the topic while the authors’ intention was to understand the positioning of study fields regarding the degree of research progress.

This paper presents some practical implications for future researchers. Those who wish to leverage previous evidence to address new research questions might look into principal themes covering BoD dynamics and composition to exert CG, and the relation between strategic decisions and performance measured by different variables. Those who wish to position their research as new findings to shed light on dilemmas, might find opportunities in the fields of climate change-sustainability, R&D for growth and innovation under the perspective of intangible assets.

This paper, is the first to the best of the authors’ knowledge, to identify research clusters for the intersection of boards and transformation and to determine their stage of development.

本文旨在分析探討董事會與業務轉型之間的關係的學術研究的專題內容，以能對有關課題的研究狀況有更深入的了解，並擬從分析中取得未來可供研究的範疇。

本文透過科學計量分析法來進行文獻探討。方法乃基於在1990年至2022年期間在Web of Science Core Collection 刊載的學術論文的共現分析而進行; 透過這個研究方法，研究人員建立了聯繫的網絡，並確認了各個概念群組的策略重要性。在本文中，研究結果和研究結果帶來的啟示會被討論，未來的研究領域和方針也會得到說明，研究的局限也會被認定和記錄下來。

探討董事會而又涉及業務轉型的專題研究，由當初集中探討董事個人的特質、轉移到現在研究整體的組織理念和處事取向，而就後者來說，大部份的研究都集中於在不同的理論框架裡董事會所扮演的角色，以及因策略上的改變而為公司的業績帶來的影響。進一步的學術研究都是圍繞著性別多元化、可持續性、所有權結構所扮演的緩和角色和商業文化的研究。

盡我們所知，本文乃為首篇學術論文，去鑑定關於董事會與業務轉型之間的關聯的研究集群，也是首篇學術論文，去確定這些研究集群的發展階段。

The financial system has witnessed the substantial growth of financial technology (fintech) firms. One of the strategies that banks have adopted to cope with this emergence is to cooperate with fintech firms. This study empirically investigated whether cooperation between banks and fintech companies would improve banks’ risk-adjusted returns.

We developed a novel index of bank–fintech cooperation across various fintech sectors. A system generalized method of moments (GMM) was used to examine this relationship using a sample of Vietnamese banks from 2007 to 2019.

The findings show that the diversity of bank–fintech cooperation across seven sectors tends to enhance banks’ risk-adjusted returns. The results also highlight that this relationship may depend on the types of fintech sectors and bank ownership. More specifically, the positive association between this cooperation and banks’ risk-adjusted returns only holds in the comparison sector of fintech, whereas there is a negative relationship between them in the payments and mobile wallets sector. Furthermore, state-owned commercial banks that engage in more bank–fintech cooperation tend to generate greater earnings. If we look at listed banks, the positive effect of bank–fintech partnerships on risk-adjusted returns still holds. A similar result was also found in the case of large banks.

Our empirical evidence provides motivations for incumbent banks to implement appropriate strategies toward diversity in bank–fintech partnerships when fintech firms have engaged in various financial segments.

This study adds more evidence to the existing literature on the relationship between bank–fintech cooperation and bank performance.

This research aims to investigate how manufacturing flexibility can address the challenges of an ever-changing and unpredictable business environment in Bangladesh’s labor-intensive ready-made garment (RMG) industry, which is underserved and situated in a developing country.

Using Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modeling, this study empirically evaluated the relationships between manufacturing flexibility, environmental uncertainty and firm performance. The analysis utilized 320 survey responses from potential RMG experts, representing 95 organizations.

The study achieved a decision-making model for implementing manufacturing flexibility in the RMG industry of Bangladesh with acceptable model fit criterion. The research pinpointed that workforce flexibility plays the maximum mediating among different types of manufacturing in coping with demand and supply uncertainty in the RMG sector.

The study made valuable contributions to theoretical and practical knowledge in the context of manufacturing flexibility in Bangladesh’s RMG and other underserved labor-intensive sectors in developing economies. It suggests that managers should shift from defensive and risky business strategies to more aggressive and proactive approaches by utilizing workforce flexibility resources adaptively to enhance manufacturing capabilities and align with dynamic market demand. Additionally, the study offers recommendations for future research to build upon its findings.

This study is unique in its approach because it presents a decision model for implementing manufacturing flexibility in a labor-intensive industry in a developing economy, specifically the RMG industry in Bangladesh, whereas previous research has primarily focused on high-tech industries in developed economies.

This paper aims to contribute to the development of the European Union (EU) regulatory environment for sustainability reporting by analyzing how materiality is defined in the Non-Financial Reporting Directive (NFRD) and Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and by examining the added value and challenges of legalizing reporting and materiality requirements from both regulatory and practical company perspectives. It provides insights on whether this is reflected by EU pharmaceutical companies and to what extent companies report information on their materiality analysis process.

Doctrinal analysis was used to examine regulatory instruments. Qualitative document analysis was used to analyze companies’ reports. The added value and challenges were examined using a governance approach. It focused on legalizing reporting and materiality requirements, with a brief extension to corporate management and organization studies.

Materiality has evolved from a vague concept in the NFRD toward double materiality in the CSRD. This was reflected by the industry, but reports revealed inconsistencies in materiality definitions and reported information. Challenges include lack of self-reflection and company-centric perceptions of materiality. Companies should explain how they identify relevant stakeholders and how input is considered in decision-making.

Managers must consider how they conduct materiality assessments to meet society’s expectations. The underlying processes should be explained to increase the credibility of reports. Sustainability reporting should be seen as a corporate governance tool.

This work contributes to the literature on materiality in sustainability reporting and to the debate on the need for a holistic, society-centric approach to enhance the sustainability of companies.

The study aims to estimate the short- and long-run effects of monetary policy on residential property prices in South Africa. Over the past decades, there has been a monetary policy shift, from targeting money supply and exchange rate to inflation. The shifts have affected residential property market dynamics.

The Johansen cointegration approach was used to estimate the effects of changes in monetary policy proxies on residential property prices using quarterly data from 1980 to 2022.

Mortgage finance and economic growth have a significant positive long-run effect on residential property prices. The consumer price index, the inflation targeting framework, interest rates and exchange rates have a significant negative long-run effect on residential property prices. The Granger causality test has depicted that exchange rate significantly influences residential property prices in the short run, and interest rates, inflation targeting framework, gross domestic product, money supply consumer price index and exchange rate can quickly return to equilibrium when they are in disequilibrium.

There are limited arguments whether the inflation targeting monetary policy framework in South Africa has prevented residential property market boom and bust scenarios. The study has found that the implementation of inflation targeting framework has successfully reduced booms in residential property prices in South Africa.

For the design of this case study, the authors used primary sources of information from the shops visited by them in preparation of the case and website of Fred Perry and secondary sources of information from both academic and journalistic publications.

Fred Perry is a premium clothing brand, well-known for its polo shirts. It was created by Mr Fred Perry, a British tennis player. The brand’s stated values are integrity, personality and individuality. Throughout its history, the brand has been adopted by different British subcultures but recently it has faced a challenge because of the brand appropriation by the Proud Boys, a US far-right white supremacy group and other extremist groups as Antifa and hooligans. The nature and actions of the group mean that Fred Perry runs the risk of losing control over its brand equity. This brand hijack means that Fred Perry risks alienating some of its customers by openly opposing the group but also by embracing this subculture’s appropriation. Practically, the brand opposed the appropriation in a press release and by putting an end to the sale of the black and yellow polo shirts in the USA and Canada. Fred Perry has also made a lot of efforts to reposition the brand away from extremist groups while maintaining its strong historical and cultural roots. Through this case study, students will have the opportunity to discuss this topic and explore solutions for brands that face this type of dilemma.

This case is designed to be used in a marketing management, brand strategy or consumer behavior/culture course, especially in the subfield of market segmentation in the telecommunications sector. Specifically, this case is designed for college seniors or master students with basic strategic marketing training. This case will help students understand the difference between the brand identity that the brand owners intend and the brand image that consumers actually perceive. It provides the basis of discussions on the topics of brand management, consumer culture, consumers-brands relationships, brand architecture, brand equity, brand appropriation and repositioning strategy.