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1 – 10 of 28Alireza Ahmadsimab, Mahdi Tajeddin and Russell Fralich
The purpose of this study is to describe how Zoom became the tope video conferencing service across the globe.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to describe how Zoom became the tope video conferencing service across the globe.
Research methodology
This case was developed from secondary sources including industry reports, academic, newspaper, periodical sources, company annual reports, social media sites and company websites. This case has been classroom tested with undergraduates in a strategic management course as a capstone course.
Case overview/synopsis
The case study describes the rapid growth of Zoom Communications Inc., a San Jose based publicly traded video conferencing company founded in 2011 by Eric Yuan. It illustrates the competition in the online meeting solutions industry in late 2020, during the COVID-19 lockdown. To explain how Zoom became the top video conferencing service across the globe, the case highlights the attractiveness of the market and the competitive advantage of Zoom over its rivals. Students can evaluate the internal capabilities and competencies of Zoom as well as identify key challenges in the external environment for sustaining Zoom’s competitive advantage.
Complexity academic level
This case study is suitable for strategic management classes for upper-level undergraduates and at the graduate level for MBA and/or master students. It prepares students to discuss core concepts in strategy, such as competitive strategy and competitive forces that shape strategy.
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David Veganzones and Eric Severin
This study investigates the connection between corporate governance and zombie firm’s exit time.
Abstract
Purpose
This study investigates the connection between corporate governance and zombie firm’s exit time.
Design/methodology/approach
With a sample of 2,794 French zombie firms, the analysis focuses on four aspects of corporate governance: board size (BS), managerial ownership (MO), director turnover (DT) and ownership concentration, using tobit regression.
Findings
Dimensions of corporate governance have an important role in determining zombie firms’ exit time. MO and ownership concentration increase zombie firm exit time, whereas larger BSs and DT reduce it.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to include corporate governance as a characteristic relevant to zombie firms’ exit time. It provides new insights on why some zombie firms remain in the market longer than expected.
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Araz Zirar, Abdul Jabbar, Eric Njoya and Hannan Amoozad Mahdiraji
This study aims to explore the key challenges and drawbacks of smart contracts (SCs) and how they impact digital resilience within small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Whilst this…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore the key challenges and drawbacks of smart contracts (SCs) and how they impact digital resilience within small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Whilst this type of technology is seen as a step forward in terms of traceability, transparency and immutability to increase digital resilience, we argue that it should be approached with trepidation.
Design/methodology/approach
In developing this paper, the authors conduct a systematic literature search using the Scopus database. Through this, we identified 931 relevant articles, of which 30 were used as the focus of this article. Thematic analysis was used as the analytical approach to develop themes and meaning from the data.
Findings
In this paper, there is an emphasis on the importance of understanding the potential risks associated with SC implementation, as well as identifying appropriate strategies for mitigating any negative impact. In our findings, we puts forward three key themes, namely legality, security and human error, which we argue are key smart contract challenges that impact SME digital resilience.
Originality/value
In this paper, we propose the notion of “centralised control in decentralised solutions”. This comes from the research highlighting SC weaknesses in digital resilience for SMEs. We argue that there is a need for standards, regulations and legislation to address these issues, advocating, ironically, a centralised approach to decentralised technology.
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Bright Awuku, Eric Asa, Edmund Baffoe-Twum and Adikie Essegbey
Challenges associated with ensuring the accuracy and reliability of cost estimation of highway construction bid items are of significant interest to state highway transportation…
Abstract
Purpose
Challenges associated with ensuring the accuracy and reliability of cost estimation of highway construction bid items are of significant interest to state highway transportation agencies. Even with the existing research undertaken on the subject, the problem of inaccurate estimation of highway bid items still exists. This paper aims to assess the accuracy of the cost estimation methods employed in the selected studies to provide insights into how well they perform empirically. Additionally, this research seeks to identify, synthesize and assess the impact of the factors affecting highway unit prices because they affect the total cost of highway construction costs.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper systematically searched, selected and reviewed 105 papers from Scopus, Google Scholar, American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), Transportation Research Board (TRB) and Science Direct (SD) on conceptual cost estimation of highway bid items. This study used content and nonparametric statistical analyses to determine research trends, identify, categorize the factors influencing highway unit prices and assess the combined performance of conceptual cost prediction models.
Findings
Findings from the trend analysis showed that between 1983 and 2019 North America, Asia, Europe and the Middle East contributed the most to improving highway cost estimation research. Aggregating the quantitative results and weighting the findings using each study's sample size revealed that the average error between the actual and the estimated project costs of Monte-Carlo simulation models (5.49%) performed better compared to the Bayesian model (5.95%), support vector machines (6.03%), case-based reasoning (11.69%), artificial neural networks (12.62%) and regression models (13.96%). This paper identified 41 factors and was grouped into three categories, namely: (1) factors relating to project characteristics; (2) organizational factors and (3) estimate factors based on the common classification used in the selected papers. The mean ranking analysis showed that most of the selected papers used project-specific factors more when estimating highway construction bid items than the other factors.
Originality/value
This paper contributes to the body of knowledge by analyzing and comparing the performance of highway cost estimation models, identifying and categorizing a comprehensive list of cost drivers to stimulate future studies in improving highway construction cost estimates.
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Eric Dahlin, Samantha K. Ammons, Jacob S. Rugh, Rachel Sumsion and Justin Hebertson
While current scholarship on innovation typically examines its antecedents, the purpose of this paper is to provide a more complete account by advocating for social impacts as a…
Abstract
Purpose
While current scholarship on innovation typically examines its antecedents, the purpose of this paper is to provide a more complete account by advocating for social impacts as a critical component of the sociological study of innovation.
Design/methodology/approach
This study adopts a conceptual approach to illustrate the ways in which innovation may generate unequitable outcomes. The authors illustrate the purpose of the paper by discussing strategically selected examples that are intended to reflect prominent themes and topics in the relevant literature.
Findings
The analysis suggests that while innovation yields many positive benefits, pervasive narratives about its virtues can be overstated when, in fact, innovation may generate adverse effects for particular social groups by reproducing or exacerbating inequality. The authors provide a more complete account of innovation by naming social impacts as a critical component of its sociological study and discussing examples that illustrate how innovation can produce disadvantageous effects by race, gender and social class. The authors move forward the discussion of social impacts by elaborating conditions in which innovation is likely to reproduce the status quo as well as ameliorate negative impacts.
Originality/value
While many studies have explained the conditions that foster innovation, this study pushes the boundaries of the study of innovation – a timely topic for practitioners and scholars in the fields of not only sociology, but management, education and public policy. Accordingly, we move forward the discussion of the social impacts of innovation by identifying the ways in which innovation is likely to reproduce structural inequalities.
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Xiaoying Jiang and John D. Holst
The purpose of this study is to conduct a systematic review of the literature addressing international aid to education, primarily focusing on China's aid principles and its…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to conduct a systematic review of the literature addressing international aid to education, primarily focusing on China's aid principles and its practice of scholarship programs and short-term training held in higher education institutions (HEIs).
Design/methodology/approach
Using the systematic review approach, the authors identified 25 English-language articles in the academic databases. The review is driven by the analytical lenses of (a) the policy formulation and implementation of China's educational aid across macro-, meso- and micro-levels and (b) theories and methodologies that are commonly adopted in the existing studies.
Findings
The review identified three themes: (a) China's aid discourse in the international aid landscape, (b) critical reflections on educational aid program management and (c) international students' study experiences and perceptions of China. The authors also outline prevalent theories and methodological approaches used in the existing literature.
Research limitations/implications
This literature review provides a review of research on China's international aid to education in the past 20 years, as a frequently cited example of emerging donors that have taken alternative aid approaches, thus bringing about a broader and nuanced perspective of aid to education. It also generates implications for researchers who are interested in studying education and development in the global context.
Originality/value
This study provides is first systematic literature review of studies on international aid to education provided by emerging donors, taking China as an example, to summarize its aid principles and aid practice in China's HEIs.
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Benjamin (Benjy) J. Li and Andrew Z.H. Yee
While videoconferencing has allowed for meetings to continue in a virtual space without the need for face-to-face interaction, there have been increasing reports of individuals…
Abstract
Purpose
While videoconferencing has allowed for meetings to continue in a virtual space without the need for face-to-face interaction, there have been increasing reports of individuals affected by a phenomenon colloquially known as videoconference fatigue (VF). This paper presents a systematic review of existing literature to understand the empirical manifestations of the phenomenon, the causes behind it and potential theoretical explanations behind its effects.
Design/methodology/approach
A comprehensive search on four academic databases was conducted using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines and produced 34,574 results, with 14 articles meeting the eligibility criteria.
Findings
Analyses showed that VF can be classified into four dimensions: physical, emotional, cognitive and social. Antecedents of VF can be organized into psychological, social, technical, chronemic and productivity factors. Potential theoretical explanations applied in existing studies were described and elaborated upon. The authors also highlight the importance of addressing social concerns as a key priority in alleviating VF.
Originality/value
To our knowledge, this is the first comprehensive systematic review of existing research on VF. The contribution of this paper is twofold: First, the authors described VF in a systematic and rigorous manner and provide theoretical insights, as much of the current discourse around VF tends to be based on anecdotal evidence and reports. Second, the authors explore potential theoretical explanations surrounding the phenomena, to address the lack of understanding behind the processes by which VF affects individuals.
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Mustafa Polat and Kürşat Arslan
The worldwide interdependency of nations has been acknowledged throughout the globalization literature and by many national and international organizations, including higher…
Abstract
The worldwide interdependency of nations has been acknowledged throughout the globalization literature and by many national and international organizations, including higher education institutions (HEIs), which have become an essential tool to accelerate this process. Financial, cultural, and political motives have driven 21st century higher education (HE) toward a more international direction shaping HE policies and promoting the mobility of ideas and individuals across the world. Utilizing bibliometric and descriptive tools, the article aims to analyze the existing knowledge base on international mobility of academics (IMA) as a core component of internationalization. More specifically, the study examines 423 papers published between 1970 and 2021 in Scopus and Web of Science (WoS) databases to reveal the big picture of the knowledge base by identifying the volume, growth trajectory, geographical dispersion, the most influential authors, articles, journals as well as the intellectual structure and the topical foci in the field. The findings have produced four distinct schools of thought labeled as “Knowledge Transfer and Mobility Networks,” “Academic Mobility in IHE Process,” “Expatriate Studies,” and “Scientific Mobility.” Moreover, the co-occurrence keyword map has yielded several topical foci: “Internationalization and Expatriate Academics,” “Academic Mobility and Career Paths,” and “Knowledge Transfer, Migration, and Academic Identity.” Considering the general trends and developments in the field, the study might provide more insight into further research.
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