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Face‐to‐face business meetings are a widely used method of group interaction, and a rich source of data on what actually happens in group discussions. Active participation in a meeting is usually perceived to be making an oral contribution of some kind to the discussion. This paper describes a field study of ten face‐to‐face business meetings which were videotaped and subsequently analysed. Participant contributions were coded, and the data summarized. The mean contribution was approximately 12 seconds and 18 words. The most common contribution type was information giving. The highest single contributor in each meeting captured, on average, about 30% of the available airtime, while the two highest, combined, captured over half of the airtime. These findings are discussed within the context of requirements for designers of collaborative technology systems to support group interpersonal communication through the use of computing and data communication technologies.

Videoconferencing, which uses live television to permit face‐to‐face business meetings between executives at separate locations, has been brought within the reach of many companies following the introduction of a portable videoconferencing unit. The concept has been successfully used over the last few years by many international companies, including BP, Ford, Barclays, Hewlett Packard, Boeing Aircraft Corporation and British Gas, and it played a key role in the merging of the Royal Bank of Scotland and Williams & Glynns. Essentially it permits groups of people in one location to have a face‐to‐face meeting with colleagues at another site, in the same country or abroad. However while many users of videoconferencing — and there are over 1,000 installations in the USA alone — have reported substantial benefits, costs of acquiring an in‐house facility have up to now involved a significant investment.

Many businesses are attracted by the idea of relocating where the air is clean, housing cheap and labour plentiful. And the information and communications experts are telling them it is possible, thanks to the burgeoning power of the internet and the advent of broadband. So why do those same experts still meet face‐to‐face when they want to innovate?

The purpose of this paper is to present a framework based on lessons learnt from a recently completed project aimed at developing intercultural online communication competencies in business students.

The project entailed collaboration between students and staff in business communication courses from an Australian and European university. The project was designed as a response to calls within the literature to equip business graduates with intercultural expertise for global online collaboration.

Based on theoretical perspectives, staff experience and data based on student evaluations of the project, a framework has been constructed based on the issues that emerged. The issues include: institutional support, project and course goal alignment, interpersonal and intercultural relationship management and technological capabilities.

The paper is limited to the experiences and responses from the Australian university. Future research should aim to collect data from both organizations involved in the collaboration.

The framework has been constructed to assist business educators in creating collaborative international projects in the future.

Research in international education suggests the need to create collaborative projects that provide students with real life opportunities in intercultural collaboration. However, little guidance exists for academics in terms of creating and coordinating such activities. The current paper provides a framework towards the development of such pedagogic activities.

COVID-19 pandemic has affected the whole world, socially and economically. It changes the whole scenario, limiting our daily activities and the business environment. It creates a chaotic situation where people are forced to stay at home, do very limited things. Digital entrepreneurs seek opportunities instead of problem in such situations. In Malaysia, the digital entrepreneurs strategically maneuver their activities with their business operations while other businesses are forced to close. In fact, COVID-19 pandemic offers advancement for digital entrepreneurs and also offers for others to follow the footsteps of active digital entrepreneurs. The online business will become norms post COVID-19, and businesses shall be done across the borders without much hustle. International business for the small enterprise is expected to be common with the advancement of information technology for communication and reliable banking system.

“No man is an island, entire of itself” (Donne, 1624). When the British metaphysical poet John Donne (1572–1631) wrote that, concepts such as entrepreneurship, marketing, tourism, and world trade were either not known or rudimentarily conceived. The scope and implications of these business forces for the health of countries would not be more fully realized for centuries to come. While Donne was not speaking directly to the issues of this research, it is significant, given the central focus of marketing on exchange, that what Donne wrote about in the context of human relations and the need of people to exist in interaction with one another has a connective interpretation to commerce. By extension, individual companies or organizations are not islands unto themselves as they face the make-or-buy and outsourcing decisions, industries are not islands as they must exchange for raw materials and labor, and countries are not metaphorical islands given the uneven distribution of raw materials around the planet. The relative geographic isolation of Iceland (2 hours by airplane from Great Britain), a small population base of approximately 300,000, and a location near the Arctic Circle underscores the need for trade and interaction with other countries as a means of creating and maintaining a vibrant economy.

Purpose: An examination of the uptake and application of Robotic, Artificial Intelligence and Service Automation (RAISA) technologies by the events industry.

Design/methodology/approach: Academic and practitioner literature review and analysis pertaining to the relevance of RAISA in events.

Findings: The events industry has tended to rely on automation in staging and event production and the application of RAISA in events has been limited but holds great potential for the future. Whereas, in the hospitality and tourism industries RAISA has been applied across a range of service functions. For example, in such industries, artificial intelligence, machine learning and service robotics technologies have become commonplace. Nonetheless, the same level of adoption of RAISA in events is less evident particularly in front-of-house operation, due largely to the incompatibility with the raison d'être of event attendance – the purposive congregation of people seeking an event experience.

Research limitations/implications: The findings are the views of the authors and are therefore reliant upon existing events management literature on RAISA and their interpretation of this information and its application to the events industry.

Practical implications: RAISA has the capacity to play a crucial technical function in the events industry. However, it needs to be acknowledged that an event is essentially an experiential product which is simultaneously delivered and consumed in a particular setting/venue. RAISA applications and techniques avail event management immense sustainability and growth potential.

Social implications: Events are expressions of human social interactions and activities. Given the recent trend in sports media consumption as a substitute for live event attendance compounded by barriers to event attendance such as heightened terrorism threat and high expense/cost, there is a real risk of degradation of the social significance of the events industry. The prudent uptake of RAISA has the potential to emolliate the barriers to attendance while facilitating effective marketing and industry sustainability.

Originality/value: This chapter provides a new perspective in focusing on the potential applicability of RAISA in event management practice.

At the time of its demise in 2001, the Enron Corporation could boast of its comprehensive, state-of-the-art management control and governance systems. Yet these controls were rendered ineffective in the company's last few years. This article identifies the radical change in Enron's corporate culture that took place from the Lay-Kinder era (1986–1996) to the Lay-Skilling era (1997–2001). It argues that this was a major cause of neutralizing these controls, which in turn proved to be a major factor in Enron's fall into bankruptcy. The article draws on Schein's (1993, Legitimating clinical research in the study of organizational culture, Journal of Counselling and Development, 71, 703–708; 1996, 2004) framework of cultural practice to develop our analysis. Thus, it supports Simon's (1990, 1995) urging to more meaningfully include corporate culture in management control research studies. The article contributes to the literature by drawing attention to the rich but untold story of Enron's governance and control and also extends the research linking corporate culture and control systems.

The purpose of this paper is to present research findings on how the threat of terrorism to Australia affects managers and employees in workplaces in a large city. It investigates the various workplace impacts of the terrorist threat and examines how this affects organizational efficiency and effectiveness and employee wellbeing.

A literature review of the impact of the terrorist threat to workplaces is presented using academic research and journalistic commentary. This review informs research collected in seven organizations via in‐depth interviews of 40 minutes length conducted with staff and management in the administrative, legal, retail, sporting and services sectors. In total, 55 interviews were conducted with an additional 50 respondents who were unavailable for interviews completing surveys.

A number of significant negative impacts of the threat of terrorism on Melbourne workplaces are identified. The most significant were workplace discrimination and diversity management, cultural change to be security oriented, and increased occupational stress.

The sample population for the research is quite small so the conclusions cannot be considered generalizable. Rather, the research represents specific cases where the impacts are felt and, as such, may exist in other sectors and cities. The results are highly concerning and suggest that terrorism has a detrimental effect at work and on life.

The findings can assist organizations in preparing management responses and actions in preventing the negative impacts of the threat of terrorism.

Research of this kind is extremely limited yet of the highest importance to organizations in large cities.