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Multinational business deliver value via multiple sites with similar operational capacities. The age of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) delivers significant opportunities for the deployment of digital tools for business optimization. Therefore, this study aims to study the Industry 4.0 implementation for multinationals.

The key objective of this research is multi-site systems integration using a reproducible, modular and standardized “Cyber Physical System (CPS) as-a-Service”.

A best practice reference architecture is adopted to guide the design and delivery of a pioneering CPS multi-site deployment. The CPS deployed is a cloud-based platform adopted to enable all manufacturing areas within a multinational energy and petrochemical company. A methodology is developed to quantify the system environmental and sustainability benefits focusing on reduced carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions and energy consumption. These results demonstrate the benefits of standardization, replication and digital enablement for multinational businesses.

The research illustrates the ability to design a single system, reproducible for multiple sites. This research also illustrates the beneficial impact of system reuse due to reduced environmental impact from lower CO₂ emissions and energy consumption. The paper assists organizations in deploying complex systems while addressing multinational systems implementation constraints and standardization.

This study aims to examine how the legitimacy of internal auditing is reconstructed during enterprise resource planning (ERP)-driven technological change.

The study is based on the comparative analysis of internal auditing and its transformation due to ERP implementations at two case firms operating in the food sector in Egypt – one a major Egyptian multinational corporation (MNC) and the other a major domestic company (DC).

Internal auditors (IAs) at MNC saw ERP implementation as an opportunity to reconstruct the legitimacy of internal auditing work by engaging and partnering with actors involved with the ERP change. In doing so, the IAs acquired system certifications and provided line functions and external auditors with data-driven business insights. The “practical coping mechanism” adopted by the IAs led to the acceptance (and legitimacy) of their work. In contrast, IAs at DC adopted a purposeful strategy of disengaging, blaming and rejecting since they were skeptical of the top management team's (TMT's) sincerity. The “disinterestedness” led to the loss of legitimacy in the eyes of the stakeholders.

The article offers two contributions. First, it extends the literature by highlighting a spectrum of behavior displayed by IAs (coping with impending issues vs strategic purposefulness) during ERP-driven technological change. Second, the article contributes to the literature on legitimacy by highlighting four intertwined micro-processes – participating, socializing, learning and role-forging – that contribute to reconstructing the legitimacy of internal auditing.

Site supervision features largely influence the productivity status of construction operational processes. This study aims to use a case study containing mixed methods to test the site supervisory traits in applying mathematical theories to construction operations for directing supervisory capabilities under various operational characteristics.

A total of 62 construction site supervisors were trained as part of a new apprenticeship programme. Through literature reviews and expert consultations, grading criteria were designed with various degrees of descriptions and score ratings. The supervisory attributes were evaluated under seven competency element characteristics mapped with the relevant learning domains.

The results demonstrate a detailed sectional view of performance ratings of supervisors under different characteristics of competency factors with the validity, reliability, applicability and generalisability assurance of the research findings using relevant statistical tests and expert evaluations.

Though the research applications were engaged directly with the construction industry in the Sri Lankan setting, other developing countries and emerging industries can also employ equivalent tactics to attain similar outcomes in their industry-based operations.

The research findings have led to producing a new guide that makes significant impacts on deciding the capability levels in construction supervisory attributes while executing problem-solving applications in construction planning and operational processes. Accordingly, the findings push to open a gate to intake advanced cognitive attributes towards addressing the industry's knowledge gap on how the problem-solving-based apprenticeship protocols need to be linked with the supervision features.

This study aims to identify the interfaces between Industry 4.0 (I4.0) technologies and circular supply chains (CSC) in Brazilian foodtechs, focusing on key stakeholders’ perspectives to understand the efficiency and sustainability impacts of these integrations.

Using a qualitative exploratory research design, the study analyzes eight Brazilian foodtechs through interviews and content analysis. It identifies CSC practices and examines the adherence of I4.0 technologies within these enterprises, assessing stakeholder engagement and the implications for CSC optimization.

Fifteen CSC practices were identified across the foodtechs, with notable integration of three distinct I4.0 technologies. The findings suggest that while I4.0 technologies enhance efficiency in CSC, their adoption is in early stages. Stakeholder engagement emerges as a crucial element for optimizing CSC in the context of Brazilian foodtechs.

This study contributes to the academic discussion on the synergy between I4.0 and circular economy (CE) models, providing empirical evidence of their application in the foodtech sector and highlighting the role of stakeholders in facilitating these integrations.

The findings suggest that stakeholder engagement in circular practices is vital for both supply chain and organizational levels, with potential benefits including improved efficiency and sustainability outcomes. The research also underscores the need for public sector support, including regulatory frameworks and incentives for adopting I4.0 technologies.

By demonstrating how I4.0 technologies can support CE practices in foodtechs, the study highlights the potential for these integrations to contribute to more sustainable and efficient food systems, addressing environmental concerns and promoting social well-being.

This study addresses a gap in the literature by exploring the interface between I4.0 technologies and CSC in the emerging context of Brazilian foodtechs, offering insights into the practical and societal benefits of these integrations.

This study examines how the strong emphasis placed on the purposes of budgeting, referring to a comprehensive focus on budgeting, is related to top managers' education and tenure while controlling for their functional positions in their respective firms and ages, as well as several company-specific predictors (information quality, firm size, information technology, importance of profit and strategy).

Survey data were collected from senior managers of large manufacturing firms in Finland and Sweden.

The results suggest that academic business education is positively associated with a comprehensive focus on budgeting, but tenure as well as functional position in the company (Chief Financial Officer (CFO) or not) and age are not. Overall, the company-specific control variables in general and information quality in particular are shown to have greater explanatory power than the top management characteristics analyzed.

This study identifies several empirically supported factors that seem to contribute to a comprehensive focus on budgeting. The effects of information quality, business education, the importance of profit and firm size could be considered in future research.

Academic business education matters more than the other top management characteristics analyzed. If organizations want to make comprehensive use of budgets, they should employ business graduates and be mindful of company-specific variables.

This study is the first to address a comprehensive focus on budgeting and some of its determinants. Future research could investigate a broader set of such determinants in different contexts.

A global crisis like that caused by the COVID-19 pandemic threatens the survival of any business, but especially of nascent entrepreneurs, due to their vulnerable situation. At this stage of entrepreneurship, information and communication technology capabilities (ICTCs) are critical skills that help entrepreneurs develop their new businesses, fostering economic adaptability to counteract adverse effects. This study advances knowledge of how nascent entrepreneurs react in an environment of global crisis.

The study analyzes a sample of 331 Spanish nascent entrepreneurs to determine the mediating effect of ICTCs on the relationship between the impact of a global crisis (e.g. COVID-19) and the firm’s strategic response.

The results suggest that crises influence adaptation and compensation strategies significantly and that ICTCs exert a total mediating effect on this relationship. The results do not, however, establish a clear relationship between the impact of the COVID-19 crisis and disengagement response, but rather a negative relationship, possibly influenced by government attempts to mitigate the pandemic’s economic consequences (economic aid to maintain the workforce, financial support for business model survival).

The COVID-19 crisis revealed ICT as a key technology for continuing business operations. This study analyzes how ICTCs affect nascent entrepreneurs’ strategies in crisis environments. Our analysis is important because these entrepreneurs have invested resources in their new project. We must determine their strategic response to crisis environments: adaptation, compensation or disengagement. The sample itself, collected during the pandemic, provides unique insights into the impact of the crisis on nascent business decisions.

像2019冠狀病毒病大流行等的全球危機一旦發生，各工商企業能否繼續生存必會受到威脅和影響。這影響以剛開始發展的創業者為甚，因為他們處於脆弱的處境。在這個創業階段，創業者必須擁有資訊與通訊科技能力，才能發展他們的新業務，他們亦需培養經濟上的適應能力，以能抵銷各種不利的影響。本研究擬就剛開始發展的創業者在全球危機發生時應如何應對進行探討，以增進我們對這課題的知識。

本研究分析一個涵蓋331名西班牙新生創業者的樣本，來鑒定資訊與通訊科技能力對全球危機 (如2019冠狀病毒病) 帶來的影響與企業戰略應對之間的關聯所起的中介效應。

研究結果似顯示，危機會顯著地影響企業的適應和賠償策略; 研究結果似乎也顯示，資訊與通訊科技能力會對這關聯 (全球危機所帶來的影響與企業戰略應對之間的關聯) 發揮極大的中介效應。但研究結果並沒有就2019冠狀病毒病危機的影響與脫離反應、建立明確的關聯。反之，研究結果似顯示兩者有一個負相關的關係，這可能是因為政府施行應對方法，以減輕大流行所帶來的經濟後果所致 (這些應對方法包括用以維持勞動力隊伍的經濟援助、和使商業模式能繼續生存的財政支援) 。

2019冠狀病毒病危機揭示了資訊與通訊科技是讓商業運作能繼續進行的關鍵技術。本研究分析資訊與通訊科技能力如何於危機發生時影響新生創業者的策略。我們的分析有其重要性，這是因為這些創業者把資源投入他們的新項目; 我們必須鑒定他們對危機所採取的戰略對策: 適應、賠償和脫離。取自大流行期間有關的樣本本身已能就危機如何影響新生創業者的商務決策、提供獨特的啟示。

Digital transformation is a foundational change in how firms operate and deliver value to customers by using digital technologies to create new business opportunities. The purpose of this study is to offer a conceptual framework by reorganizing the elements of digital transformation, including resources, technology, capabilities and performance, into a workable process and investigating how firms integrate these resources, build new capabilities and transform them into enhanced performance.

This framework builds three blocks: resource integration, organizational capabilities and outcomes, exploring the impact of resource integration on outcomes through organizational capabilities. For resource integration, this study adopts a resource-based view (RBV) and service-dominant logic (SDL) to integrate organizational resources, including information technology (IT)-based resources, which play a role in moderating the effect of resource integration. Moreover, the author argues that firms’ capabilities have two levels: higher-order capabilities and lower-order capabilities, which will convert these resources through the capabilities into organizational performance.

This framework is built to understand the process of digital transformation and its antecedents for firms’ performance in business environments. Drawing on RBV, it provides a more holistic perspective that has been linked to resource integration, organizational capabilities and outcomes at the firm level. In this way, the theoretical basis for diminishing implicitness associated with the current perspective of digital transformation can be strengthened.

This paper offers a coherent discussion of digital transformation and explains the process of digital transformation, thus advancing prior work. The major contribution is connecting the process of digital transformation through which firms integrate resources, i.e. digital technologies and valuable, rare, inimitable and nonsubstitutable (VRIN) and nonVRIN resources as well, to build organizational dynamic capabilities based on RBV and SDL.

This study aims to analyze how startups organize their purchasing activities to improve operative excellence and become attractive customers.

The authors use a two-phase exploratory approach with semistructured interviews and a World Café. In total, 20 startup purchasers and suppliers participated. It is an international study with participants from eight countries (Belgium, Brazil, France, Germany, Hungary, The Netherlands, the UK and the USA).

The authors find that startups organize the purchasing function in five ways: partial outsourcing, transactional-oriented, strategic only, outsourced purchasing and full department. Each type has advantages and disadvantages regarding operative excellence. The authors identify type-specific antecedents to operative excellence: forecasting, payment habits, ordering process, contact accessibility and quick decision-making.

The value of this paper is that it offers entrepreneurs a framework to organize startup purchasing activities, including outsourcing options. Furthermore, it provides theoretical contributions that expand the topic of purchasing and supply organization and operative excellence to the startup context.

The value of this paper is that, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, it is the first to explore purchasing organization and operative excellence in startups.

We studied the relationship between job engagement and systematic problem solving (SPS) among shop-floor employees and how lean production (LP) and Internet of Things (IoT) systems moderate this relationship.

We collected data from a sample of 440 shop floor workers in 101 manufacturing work units across 33 plants. Because our data is nested, we employed a series of multilevel regression models to test the hypotheses. The application of IoT systems within work units was evaluated by our research team through direct observations from on-site visits.

Our findings indicate a positive association between job engagement and SPS. Additionally, we found that the adoption of lean bundles positively moderates this relationship, while, surprisingly, the adoption of IoT systems negatively moderates this relationship. Interestingly, we found that, when the adoption of IoT systems is complemented by a lean management system, workers tend to experience a higher effect on the SPS of their engagement.

One limitation of this research is the reliance on the self-reported data collected from both workers (job engagement, SPS and control variables) and supervisors (lean bundles). Furthermore, our study was conducted in a specific country, Italy, which might have limitations on the generalizability of the results since cross-cultural differences in job engagement and SPS have been documented.

Our findings highlight that employees’ strong engagement in SPS behaviors is shaped by the managerial and technological systems implemented on the shop floor. Specifically, we point out that implementing IoT systems without the appropriate managerial practices can pose challenges to fostering employee engagement and SPS.

This paper provides new insights on how lean and new technologies contribute to the development of learning-to-learn capabilities at the individual level by empirically analyzing the moderating effects of IoT systems and LP on the relationship between job engagement and SPS.

This study aims to explore the effects of intellectual capital (IC) on the occurrence of a modified audit opinion decision. The authors expect that high IC intensive firms are positively associated with the occurrence of a modified audit opinion since they are associated with an increased business risk and are more likely to exhibit issues concerning their financial health and stability.

Using a data sample of 423 listed firms from Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal over a 10-year period, the authors estimated a logistic regression model to examine the effects of IC on the probability that a modified audit opinion is issued. The authors used organizational capital as a measure of a firm’s intensity on IC.

Empirical findings indicate a significant and positive relationship between the IC and the likelihood of a firm receiving a modified audit opinion decision.

This study expands prior literature by exploring the predictive ability of IC on the likelihood of a firm receiving a modified audit opinion decision.