Search results
1 – 10 of 122Robert Ford and Lindsay Schakenbach Regele
This historical example of the creation of the arms industry in the Connecticut River Valley in the 1800s provides new insights into the value of government venture capital (GVC…
Abstract
Purpose
This historical example of the creation of the arms industry in the Connecticut River Valley in the 1800s provides new insights into the value of government venture capital (GVC) and government demand in creating a new industry. Since current theoretical explanations of the best uses of governmental venture capital are still under development, there is considerable need for further theory development to explain and predict the creation of an industry and especially those industries where failures in private capital supply necessitates governmental involvement in new firm creation. The purpose of this paper is to provide an in depth historical review of how the arms industry evolved spurred by GVC and government created demand.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses abductive inference as the best way to build and test emerging theories and advancing theoretical explanations of the best uses of GVC and governmental demand to achieve socially required outcomes.
Findings
By observing this specific historical example in detail, the authors add to the understanding of value creation caused by governmental venture capital funding of existing theory. A major contribution of this paper is to advance theory based on detailed observation.
Originality/value
The relatively limited research literature and theory development on governmental venture capital funding and the critical success factors in startups are enriched by this abductive investigation of the creation of the historically important arms industry and its spillover into creating the specialized machine industry.
Details
Keywords
Brandon A. Smith and Karen E. Watkins
The purpose of this review is to evaluate existing learning agility measures and offer recommendations for their use in organizational and scholarly contexts.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this review is to evaluate existing learning agility measures and offer recommendations for their use in organizational and scholarly contexts.
Design/methodology/approach
This is a general review paper assessing the psychometric qualities of prevalent learning agility measures. Measures were selected based on their predominance and use in the learning agility literature and organizational settings.
Findings
Learning agility measurement is an area requiring further research. Multiple conceptualizations of learning agility exist, making the true structure of learning agility unclear. The learning agility measures in the academic literature deviate from learning agility’s traditional conceptualization and require further validation and convergent validity studies. Commercial measures of learning agility exist, but their development procedures are not subjected to peer review and are not widely used in academic research, given the cost associated with their use.
Practical implications
Learning agility is prevalently used in organizational settings and is receiving increased scholarly attention. Various conceptualizations and measurement tools exist, and it is unclear how these theories and measures relate and differ. This paper contributes to practice by providing practical guidelines and limitations for measuring learning agility.
Originality/value
Learning agility was initially conceived as a multidimensional construct comprising people agility, results agility, change agility and mental agility. As the construct has evolved, the dimension structure of the measure has evolved as well. This study addresses a gap in our current understanding of how to conceptualize and measure learning agility.
Details
Keywords
Lifan Chen, Shanshan Zhang, Xiaoli Hu, Shengming Liu and Rujia Lan
As a counterproductive interpersonal work behavior, knowledge hiding inhibits team creativity, hampers collaboration and ultimately has a detrimental impact on organizational…
Abstract
Purpose
As a counterproductive interpersonal work behavior, knowledge hiding inhibits team creativity, hampers collaboration and ultimately has a detrimental impact on organizational performance. Drawing upon the impression management perspective. This study aims to investigate how and when employees’ political skill affects their knowledge-hiding behavior in real work contexts.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors tested the hypotheses using data gathered from 266 employees in China using a time-lagged research design.
Findings
The results indicate that political skill positively influences knowledge hiding through the supplication strategy. Moreover, the positive effect of political skill on this strategy is stronger under higher levels of competition.
Research limitations/implications
A cross-sectional design and the use of self-report questionnaires are the limitations of this study.
Originality/value
The authors contribute to the literature on the emergence of knowledge hiding by identifying an impression management perspective. The authors also contribute to the literature on political skill by exploring the potential negative effects of political skill in the interpersonal interaction. Moreover, the authors enrich the understanding of the literature in competitive climate by introducing the impression management theory and exploring its influence on knowledge floating.
Details
Keywords
Carolyn J. Cordery and David Hay
New public management (NPM) has transformed the public sector auditing context, although in quite different ways. Further, investigations into NPM’s impact on public sector…
Abstract
Purpose
New public management (NPM) has transformed the public sector auditing context, although in quite different ways. Further, investigations into NPM’s impact on public sector auditors and audit institutions have been largely unconnected, with the exception of the critical examination of performance audits. We investigate the question of how public sector auditors’ roles and activities have changed as a result of NPM and later reforms.
Design/methodology/approach
We examine and synthesise public sector audit research examining reforms since the year 2000. The research presented considers changes to external and internal public sector audits as well as the development of public sector audit institutions – known as supreme audit institutions (SAIs).
Findings
Considerable changes have occurred. Many were influenced by NPM, but others have evolved from the eco-system of accounting, auditing and public sector management. External auditors have responded to an increase in demand for accountability. Additional management and governance techniques have been introduced from the private sector, such as internal auditing and audit committees. NPM has also led to conflicting trends, particularly when governments introduced competition to public sector auditing by contracting out but then chose to centralise to improve accountability. There is also greater international influence now through bodies like the International Organisation of Supreme Audit Institutions (INTOSAI) and similar regional bodies.
Originality/value
NPM reforms and the eco-system have impacted public sector auditing. Sustainability reporting is emerging as an area requiring more auditing attention; auditors also need to continue to develop better ways to communicate with citizens. Further, research into auditing in non-Western nations and emerging technologies is also required, especially where it provides learnings around more valuable audit practices. Empirical evidence is required of the strengths and weaknesses of SAIs’ structural variety.
Details
Keywords
Zhihong Tan, Ling Yuan, Junli Wang and Qunchao Wan
This study aims to investigate the negative interpersonal antecedents, emotional mediators and boundary conditions of knowledge sabotage behavior.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the negative interpersonal antecedents, emotional mediators and boundary conditions of knowledge sabotage behavior.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors collected data from 275 Chinese employees using convenience sampling and snowball sampling across three stages. Subsequently, the authors used both hierarchical regression and bootstrap methods to test the proposed hypotheses.
Findings
The results confirmed that workplace ostracism has positive effects on employee knowledge sabotage behavior both directly and via employee anger. In addition, the authors found that employee bottom-line mentality (BLM) moderates not only the direct effect of workplace ostracism on employee anger but also the indirect effect of employee anger in this context. Employee conscientiousness moderates only the direct effect of workplace ostracism on employee anger and does not moderate the indirect effect.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study not only explores the influence of workplace ostracism on employee knowledge sabotage behavior for the first time but also elucidates the underlying emotional mechanisms (anger) and boundary conditions (employee BLM and conscientiousness) by which workplace ostracism influences employee knowledge sabotage behavior, thus deepening the understanding of how knowledge sabotage emerges in organizations.
Details
Keywords
Omer Farooq Malik and Shaun Pichler
Drawing on affective events theory, the purpose of this paper was to investigate direct and indirect relationships between perceived organizational politics and workplace…
Abstract
Purpose
Drawing on affective events theory, the purpose of this paper was to investigate direct and indirect relationships between perceived organizational politics and workplace cyberbullying (WCB) perpetration mediated through anger, as well as to examine the moderating role of gender in these relationships.
Design/methodology/approach
The sample comprised 534 white-collar employees who were employed in a variety of service industries, including banking, higher education, telecommunications, health care and insurance in Islamabad, Pakistan. Data were analyzed using the structural equation modeling technique in Amos.
Findings
Results demonstrated that perceived organizational politics has a direct positive effect on WCB perpetration. Moreover, results indicated that perceived organizational politics evokes anger among employees that, in turn, triggers WCB perpetration. Results of a multigroup analysis revealed that the positive effect of perceived organizational politics on WCB perpetration was not significantly different between men and women. However, the positive relationship between perceived organizational politics and anger was significantly stronger for men than for women. Likewise, this study found a significantly stronger relationship for men than for women between anger and WCB perpetration. Anger partially mediated the relationship between perceived organizational politics and WCB perpetration only among men.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the literature by demonstrating that perceived organizational politics triggers WCB perpetration directly and indirectly through its impact on anger. Moreover, this study identified gender differences in the experience and expression of anger in response to perceived organizational politics.
Details
Keywords
Revanth Kumar Guttena, Ferry Tema Atmaja and Cedric Hsi-Jui Wu
Pandemics are frequent events, and the impact of each pandemic makes a strong and long-term effect on companies and markets. Given the potential impact of the COVID-19 pandemic…
Abstract
Purpose
Pandemics are frequent events, and the impact of each pandemic makes a strong and long-term effect on companies and markets. Given the potential impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is important to investigate the crisis from a different perspective to know how companies have sustained growth in markets. The purpose of this paper is to understand how profit-oriented customer-centric companies (small, medium and large) have responded and adapted to COVID-19 crisis, using the complexity theory.
Design/methodology/approach
Drawing upon the complexity theory, a humble attempt is made to develop theoretical propositions by conceptualizing companies as complex adaptive systems. The paper examines companies from three dimensions (i.e. internal mechanism, environment and coevolution).
Findings
Companies self-organize, emerge into new states and become adaptive to the changing environment. Companies create knowledge to understand the dynamic anatomy and design survival and growth strategies during and post COVID-19 era. Complex adaptive systems perspective provides companies with insights to deal with complex issues raised due to COVID-19 pandemic. They can handle the impact of pandemic efficiently with complex adaptive systems by developing and implementing appropriate strategies post-COVID-19.
Originality/value
The study reveals how companies evolve and emerge into as complex adaptive systems to adapt themselves to the highly dynamic environment, which are uncertain, unpredictable, nonlinear and multifaceted, in the context of COVID-19. Implications for theory and practice of viewing companies as complex adaptive systems and coevolving structures in the COVID-19 context are discussed.
Details
Keywords
Anna Young-Ferris, Arunima Malik, Victoria Calderbank and Jubin Jacob-John
Avoided emissions refer to greenhouse gas emission reductions that are a result of using a product or are emission removals due to a decision or an action. Although there is no…
Abstract
Purpose
Avoided emissions refer to greenhouse gas emission reductions that are a result of using a product or are emission removals due to a decision or an action. Although there is no uniform standard for calculating avoided emissions, market actors have started referring to avoided emissions as “Scope 4” emissions. By default, making a claim about Scope 4 emissions gives an appearance that this Scope of emissions is a natural extension of the existing and accepted Scope-based emissions accounting framework. The purpose of this study is to explore the implications of this assumed legitimacy.
Design/methodology/approach
Via a desktop review and interviews, we analyse extant Scope 4 company reporting, associated accounting methodologies and the practical implications of Scope 4 claims.
Findings
Upon examination of Scope 4 emissions and their relationship with Scopes 1, 2 and 3 emissions, we highlight a dynamic and interdependent relationship between quantification, commensuration and standardization in emissions accounting. We find that extant Scope 4 assessments do not fit the established framework for Scope-based emissions accounting. In line with literature on the territorializing nature of accounting, we call for caution about Scope 4 claims that are a distraction from the critical work of reducing absolute emissions.
Originality/value
We examine the implications of assumed alignment and borrowed legitimacy of Scope 4 with Scope-based accounting because Scope 4 is not an actual Scope, but a claim to a Scope. This is as an act of accounting territorialization.
Details
Keywords
Monica J. Barratt, Ross Coomber, Michala Kowalski, Judith Aldridge, Rasmus Munksgaard, Jason Ferris, Aili Malm, James Martin and David Décary-Hétu
Drug cryptomarkets increase information available to market actors, which should reduce information asymmetry and increase market efficiency. This study aims to determine whether…
Abstract
Purpose
Drug cryptomarkets increase information available to market actors, which should reduce information asymmetry and increase market efficiency. This study aims to determine whether cryptomarket listings accurately represent the advertised substance, weight or number and purity, and whether there are differences in products purchased from the same listing multiple times.
Design/methodology/approach
Law enforcement drug purchases – predominantly cocaine, methamphetamine, MDMA and heroin – from Australian cryptomarket vendors (n = 38 in 2016/2017) were chemically analysed and matched with cryptomarket listings (n = 23). Descriptive and comparative analyses were conducted.
Findings
Almost all samples contained the advertised substance. In most of these cases, drugs were either supplied as-advertised-weight or number, or overweight or number. All listings that quantified purity overestimated the actual purity. There was no consistent relationship between advertised purity terms and actual purity. Across the six listings purchased from multiple times, repeat purchases from the same listing varied in purity, sometimes drastically, with wide variation detected on listings purchased from only one month apart.
Research limitations/implications
In this data set, cryptomarket listings were mostly accurate, but the system was far from perfect, with purity overestimated. A newer, larger, globally representative sample should be obtained to test the applicability of these findings to currently operating cryptomarkets.
Originality/value
This paper reports on the largest data set of forensic analysis of drug samples obtained from cryptomarkets, where data about advertised drug strength/dose were obtained.
Details
Keywords
Undertaking the theoretical lens of “The need to belong” theory, the present study intends to explore the aftermath of internal whistleblowing and the behavioral outcomes that…
Abstract
Purpose
Undertaking the theoretical lens of “The need to belong” theory, the present study intends to explore the aftermath of internal whistleblowing and the behavioral outcomes that follow by linking it to the literature on workplace ostracism, loneliness and intentions to quit.
Design/methodology/approach
The respondents were hotel employees in the Delhi NCR region of northern India. A hypothesized sequential mediation model was tested on a sample of employees from a hotel using a three-wave time-lagged multistudy design.
Findings
The findings of the study established that internal whistleblowing leads to intentions to quit via workplace ostracism and loneliness at work.
Originality/value
The unique contribution of this study lies in understanding the underlying mechanisms and discussing the behavioral outcomes that follow post-whistleblowing. HR managers need to develop a work environment that protects whistleblowers and has a zero-tolerance policy against employees engaging in any form of retaliation or unethical business practices. Managers must be more proactive and sensitive to the social cues that will make them aware of the presence of acts of ostracism. Upon encountering such acts, managers can consider counseling employees engaging in such unhealthy practices.
Details