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This study presents a model for assessing the effects of employee ICT training on organizations’ results. It also introduces digital transformation as a mediator between the two concepts and studies the role of organizational commitment and human capital in terms of digital transformation.

Surveys were completed by the CEOs of 184 Spanish companies, and their responses were analyzed with Partial Least Squares.

The results empirically analyze the proposed theoretical model and highlight the fact that human capital and organizational commitment partially mediate the link between ICT training and digital transformation. Furthermore, there is a direct relationship between ICT training and company performance.

Directors and managers should invest more resources in the human capital of their company through ICT training. In fact, it can improve organizational commitment, encouraging employees to adopt innovative behaviors, thus allowing for the necessary digital transformation.

Despite heavy theoretical emphasis on the study of the conditions necessary for the digital transformation of companies, few studies have empirically analyzed the effects of adopting certain practices for its implementation. This paper focuses on analyzing the effect of ICT training, which is configured as a tool capable of improving staff knowledge and increasing employee commitment. This is essential for adopting organizational change such as digital transformation.

Professionals and academics need to know what human resource practices are necessary in this Industry 4.0 environment and digital revolution. This research studies some human resource practices in the digital age that favor the implementation of digital transformation. The authors’ arguments suggest that for personnel to be a key asset in digital transformation processes, a strategic alignment is necessary to drive the company toward these objectives.

The hypotheses were tested in a representative sample of 184 manufacturing companies with ten or more employees located in the southeast of Spain, using partial least squares.

The authors’ findings show that human resource practices partially mediate the relationship between strategic alignment and digital transformation. Based on the contingent approach, the authors also maintain that the company must implement human resource practices that encourage employee behaviors that are consistent with the organization's strategy. This strategic alignment and these human resource practices enable companies to achieve digital transformation in search of superior performance.

Longitudinal and multilevel studies could increase the strength of the research, which could also include companies from other sectors. Although the technology component is fundamental in digital transformation processes, human capital management is even more important. This research highlights the mediating role of human resource management, where practices such as teleworking, teamwork and employee engagement are essential to foster innovative behavior and implement the digital transformation process.

In the new digital environment, companies must adopt a set of human resource practices that favor innovative employee behavior that helps digitally transform their businesses.

To the best of authors’ knowledge, this empirical study has not been previously carried out. The theoretical model and hypothesis testing provide strategic value for understanding some of the determinants of digital transformation in relation to human resource management.

This study provides insights into the most salient elements of the Costa Rican bar servicescape/barscape (atmosphere). This is done qualitatively via six focus groups, six expert interviews, and six on-site observations. Results indicate that servicescape elements traditionally covered by the literature are of secondary importance. Participants instead emphasized social elements (other patrons, staff), supplemented by ambience elements (music, lighting, colors, noise, air, odors, scents). Moreover, the underlying socialization interest steered ambience preferences. Results support the increasingly important social servicescape notion. Generalizing traditionally studied servicescape elements across cultures and hospitality settings, as conventionally done, may result suboptimal. Commonalities might exist. However, research should be specifically contextualized to gain more nuanced servicescape understandings. Relating servicescape preferences to macro, meso, and micro considerations further enhances how servicescapes are understood. This study is the first to explore Latin-American barscapes. Notably, it expressly links servicescape preferences to patronage motives. It thereby uncovers why certain servicescape elements become important.

Complex systems adapt to survive, but little comparative literature exists on various approaches. Adaptive complex systems are generic, this referring to propositions concerning their bounded instability, adaptability and viability. Two classes of adaptive complex system theories exist: hard and soft. Hard complexity theories include Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) and Viability Theory, and softer theories, which we refer to as Viable Systems Theories (VSTs), that include Management Cybernetics at one extreme and Humanism at the other. This paper has a dual purpose distributed across two parts. In Part 1, the purpose of this paper is to identify the conditions for the complementarity of the two classes of theory. In Part 2, the purpose is to explore (in part using Agency Theory) the two classes of theory and their proposed complexity continuum.

A detailed analysis of the literature permits a distinction between hard and softer approaches towards modelling complex social systems. Hard theories are human-incommensurable, while soft ones are human-commensurable, therefore more closely related to the human condition. The characteristics that differentiate between hard and soft approaches are identified.

Hard theories are more restrictive than the softer theories. The latter can embrace degrees of “softness” and it is explained how hard and soft approaches can be mixed, sometimes creating Harmony.

There are very few explorations of the relationship between hard and soft approaches to complexity theory, and even fewer that draw in the notion of harmony.

Protests surrounding the 2004 Republican National Convention (RNC) resulted in over 1,800 arrests. Scholarship on repression is divided about the likely impacts of arrests on subsequent activism. Interviews with RNC arrestees are used to examine potential effects. Findings offer twists to social movements and socio-legal hypotheses: (1) while many arrestees were less willing to protest after their arrest, for many of these individuals deterrence was selective, not wholesale; (2) many factors that were expected to neutralize repressive impacts either resulted in deterrence or set the stage for radicalization; and (3) individuals who were radicalized shared strong preparation for their arrest experience.

This paper aims to examine driving retirement and its impact on the well-being of older citizens. The concepts of value creation and destruction are used to understand older consumers’ experiences with the self-service consumption activity of driving. This paper formally introduces the concept of value re-creation, as a means of restoring the overall value lost from the destruction of certain components of previous value structures. In doing so, this paper explores the different ways that resources across the micro, meso and macro levels of the ecosystem can be re-aligned, in order for older citizens to maintain their well-being after driving retirement.

A qualitative, individual-depth interview approach was undertaken with 26 participants living in New South Wales, Australia. The participants comprised of both drivers approaching driving retirement age, as well as driving retirees. Thematic analysis was undertaken to analyse the data.

The findings identified that emotional value in the forms of freedom, independence/autonomy and enjoyment, functional value in the forms of convenience and mobility and community value are created from driving. Driving retirement destroys certain components of this value (e.g. enjoyment and convenience) irrevocably, however freedom, independence/autonomy, mobility and social connectedness can still be maintained through re-aligning resources across the micro, meso and macro levels of the ecosystem. New components of value are also created from driving retirement. These include peace of mind, which contributes to the re-creation of the emotional value dimension, and cost savings, which creates the new value dimension of economic value. These changes to the value structure effectively re-create the overall value obtained by individuals when they retire from driving.

The main contribution of this work is the formal introduction of the concept of value re-creation at the overall and value dimension level, and development of a conceptual model that explains how this value re-creation can occur. The model shows the resource contributions required across all levels of the ecosystem, expanding on existing conceptualisations that have predominantly focussed on resource contributions at the individual and service levels.

In this paper, of exploratory character, the purpose of this paper is to propose the analysis of the life cycle for assessing the environmental, economic, and social impact in the activity of recovery, restoration, and valorization of Cultural Heritage.

The analysis protocol is applied to the case of recovery and restoration processes and then outlining the salient features of what may become a model of Cultural Heritage Life Cycle Management (CH-LCM).

The authors propose the approach of the life cycle, normally used to assess the impact of materials, processes or products, to the management of cultural heritage as an innovative methodology with great potential.

The methodology for this sector is highly innovative, especially in its interdisciplinary approach, through the use of different technical, historical, and economic skills which can provide the tools for the preparation of a management plan according to the logic of the life cycle.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze and map the main areas of the Circular Economy literature of the first two decades of 21st century, offering a broad vision about the growth of the theme during these years.

The research was divided into two stages: the first was a systematic review of literature and the second consisted on generation and analysis of bibliographic maps.

The publication indicates the prominence of China and European Union countries in the production of articles about Circular Economy. Furthermore, the topic is restricted to academic area, and that research on Circular Economy is still very focused on theory studies, even with exponential growth in the number of published articles about the theme since 2015. Finally, it also provides a collection of information as the principal authors, the most cited publications, citations, co-citations and countries that have most published beyond which are the most discussed topics.

A possible limitation of the research is that it was performed only in the Scopus database. It may be suggested as future searches that other databases are included as well, and another suggestion is to reduce the time period between research samples due to the exponential increase in the number of publications and topics discussed lately.

The results of this paper can guide future researches about the development of Circular Economy during the next decades or years and serve as a facilitator for researchers and for managers that want to know more about the topic.

A mapping of the principal players and main discussions about Circular Economy made in the first two decades of the 21st century and an analysis about the growth and changes about the theme.

The purpose of the paper is to introduce the 2008 annual special issue on knowledge‐based development (KBD), from the perspective of the construction of an R&D agenda relevant to the international community of knowledge‐based development (KBD) practitioners and researchers.

The papers in the special issue are introduced and discussed.

A number of preliminary exercises around the world show a trend towards building a common KBD research and innovation agenda able to diversify into specialized topics such as urbanism, economics and geography, while maintaining a distinctive set of core issues.

This paper introduces a volume that may contribute to raise new questions and stimulate further research into the potential of knowledge as a leverage to the social and economic development of cities, regions and countries.