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To meet customers' expectations on shorter lead times, high product availability, flexibility, and variation in delivery and return options, retailers have turned their attention to warehousing and are making big investments in technology. Currently, technology providers are pushing for smart warehousing, a new and under-researched phenomenon. This study aims to conceptualize the term and examine pathways toward implementing smart warehousing.

An exploratory survey was administered to 50 leading Swedish retailers in varying segments. A two-tailed t-test for equality of means was used to detect significant differences between current and future states.

The study found that future smart warehouses will be automated, autonomous, digital, and connected, but that retailers will follow different paths along this journey, driven by contextual trends, e.g. sales growth, wider product assortment, shorter lead-time offerings, and integration of brick-and-mortar and online stores. Interestingly, the study revealed that many of the retailers that aim to create smart warehouses in five years are not the retailers with the most developed technology today.

The paper operationalizes smart warehousing in two dimensions: degree of automation and degree of digitalization and connectivity of information platforms. Based on the findings, 16 theoretical propositions are put forth that, based on contextual factors, explain different pathways for retailers to implement smart warehousing.

The empirical insights and theoretical discussions provide practically useful guidance, including outlined trends, for selecting and benchmarking automation and complementary technologies in warehouse operations.

This paper conceptualizes and operationalizes smart warehousing – an original approach. It is also one of the first to investigate the technological transformation in retail warehousing empirically, explaining how and why retailers choose different pathways toward smart warehousing.

Drawing upon a systematic literature review in new technology, innovation transfer and diffusion theories, and from interviews with technology leaders in digital transformation programs in the US Oil & Gas (O&G) industry, the authors explore the relationships among O&G industry dynamics, organization's absorptive capacity and resource commitment for new digital technology adoption-implementation process.

The authors employed the empirical survey method to gather the data (a sample size of 172) in the US O&G industry and used structural equation modeling (SEM) to test the measurement model for validity and reliability and the conceptual model for hypothesized structural relationships.

The results provide support for the study’s causal model of adoption and implementation with positive and direct relationships between the initiation and trial stages, between the trial stages and the evaluation of effective outcomes and between the effective outcomes and the effective implementation stages of digital technologies. The results also reveal partial mediating relationships of industry dynamics, absorptive capacity and resource commitment between respective stages.

Based on the current study's findings, managers are recommended to pay attention to the evolving industry dynamics during the initiation stage of new digital technology adoption, to utilize the organization's knowledge-based absorptive capacity during digital technology trial and selection stages and to support the digital technology implementation project when the adoption decision of a particular digital technology has been made.

The empirical research contributes literature on digital technology adoption and implementation by identifying and demonstrating the importance of industry dynamics, absorptive capacity and resource commitment factors as mediating variables at various stages of the adoption-implementation process and empirically validating a process-based causal model of digital technology adoption and a successful implementation project that has been missing in the current body of literature on digital transformation.

The purpose of this paper is to present a comprehensive picture of the innovative efforts undertaken over time to develop the digital technologies for managing the interface between supply chain management and marketing processes and the role they play in sustaining supply chain management-marketing (SCM-M) integration from an information processing point of view.

Patent analysis and actual examples are used to carry out this study. In detail, first, the authors identify the subset of enabling technologies pertaining to the fourth industrial revolution (Industry 4.0) that can be considered the most relevant for effective SCM-M integration (i.e. Industrial Internet of Things, Cloud computing, Big Data analytics and customer profiling, Cyber security). Second, the authors carry out a patent analysis aimed at providing a comprehensive overview of the patenting activity trends characterizing the set of digital technologies under investigation, hence highlighting their innovation dynamics and applications.

This research provides insightful information about which digital technologies may enable the SCM-M integration. Specifically, the authors highlight the role those solutions play in terms of information acquisition, storage and elaboration for SCM-M integration by relying on illustrative actual examples. Moreover, the authors present the organisations more involved in the development of digital technologies for SCM-M integration over time and offer an examination of their technological impact in terms of influence on subsequent technological developments.

So far, much has been said about why marketing and supply chain management functions should be integrated. However, a clear picture of the digital technologies that might be adopted to achieve this objective has yet to be revealed. Thus, the paper contributes to the literature on SCM-M integration and Industry 4.0 by highlighting the enabling technologies for the Industry 4.0 that may particularly serve for managing the SCM-M interface from an information processing perspective.

A major factor hampering the continuing and explosive rise of e-commerce, particularly for experience goods, is the lack of tactile information that could help to reduce uncertainty in consumer purchase decision making online. The purpose of this paper is to identify the specific touch-related properties worthwhile to enable in online retailing and the type of customer value that can be provided, as well as the drivers and barriers for consumer acceptance toward touch-enabling technologies for online shopping.

By means of consumer focus groups, the authors address the research questions regarding touch-related properties, their value to consumers, and the drivers and barriers for consumer acceptance by taking into consideration two specific touch-enabling technologies.

The study reveals that touch-enabling technologies can provide utilitarian and hedonic value to consumers, mainly at the pre-purchase stages in the path-to-purchase. Valuable applications conceived by consumers primarily pertain to offering information on material and geometric product properties. A hurdle for consumer adoption seems to be the necessity of a dedicated output device, such as a glove.

Due to the early development stage of the new technologies under investigation, this study is exploratory in nature. The findings should be validated in the future, once these technologies actually get introduced for online marketing purposes.

This study aims to raise awareness among online retailers about marketing opportunities comprised of touch-enabling technology.

The authors provide a first outlook with regard to future consumer acceptance of touch-enabling technologies in online shopping and how and when such technologies can provide consumer value.

Information Technology (IT) has ushered in not only large societal opportunities but also large uncertain ‐ ties and risks. Future developments, like ubiquitous networked embedded systems, are technologies society may face. Such technologies offer larger opportunities and uncertainties because of their ability to widely distribute power through their small, inexpensive, and ubiquitous characteristics. Many interpretations of how these technologies may develop have been postulated, ranging from the conservative Precautionary Principle, to uncontrolled development leading to “singularity.” With so much uncertainty and so many predictions about the benefits and consequences of these technologies, it is important to raise ethical questions, determine potential scenarios, and try to identify appropriate decision points and stakeholders. Rather than going along an unknown path, perhaps lessons could be learned from recently deployed technologies, such as nuclear technology, that were controversial but offered similarly large potential benefits and risks. The experience of nuclear technology development, with its various successes and failures, is recalled and compared with potential scenarios in the development of networked embedded systems

Research at the interface of marketing and entrepreneurship has emphasized digital entrepreneurship and how entrepreneurs pursue business opportunities centered on new technologies. However, a different type of entrepreneurship focused on opportunities involving consumers’ (re)adoption of displaced analog technologies when digital alternatives are dominant – analog entrepreneurship – is a trend and counter phenomenon to digital entrepreneurship that is receiving intense practitioner interest but limited scholarly attention. The purpose of this article is to present a theoretical framework that explains the role of analog entrepreneurship in technology revitalization.

In this conceptual paper, the authors use the microfoundations perspective to develop a multilevel theory of analog entrepreneurship. The authors define and delineate the “analog entrepreneurship” concept and formulate a midrange theory explaining how entrepreneurs influence the reemergence of analog technologies.

The theory’s main insight is that the renewal of analog technologies is not confined to consumers. Entrepreneurs are creating businesses that stimulate demand for analog technologies. As a result of entrepreneurs’ activities, legacy analog technologies do not fade into nonexistence in the face of rival digital technologies.

The theory of analog entrepreneurship contributes to research at the intersection of entrepreneurship and marketing by expanding its focus to consider the entrepreneurs who revitalize displaced analog technologies when digital alternatives are dominant. The authors provide insight into the potential trajectories of technologies after their initial displacement and the role entrepreneurs play in shaping the late stages of technology lifecycles. The theory draws attention to an underexplored phenomenon made increasingly prevalent by recent technological disruptions and suggests an agenda for studying how entrepreneurs renew analog technologies.

This paper aims to provide a systematic literature review (SLR) of the relationship between smart and digital technologies and organisations’ reporting processes, proposing a future research agenda. The paper examines the effects of data and digital technology on the corporate reporting process by analysing the various kinds of reports by organisations.

A two-decade assessment of studies was analysed to answer research questions. A SLR explored the role of digital and smart technologies for corporate reporting processes. The Scopus database was used as a leading source for access to the articles. Initially, 163 items were collected. After reading the abstract and several refinements, 43 prioritised publications were analysed and categorised to derive significant results.

Results of the analysis highlight the following emerging research streams about the digital transformation of corporate reporting: digital technology for corporate information management and decision-making processes; digital technologies as a tool of stakeholder engagement and sustainable reporting practices; and finally, digital technologies as a way to address earning management, corporate social responsibility, accountability and transparency.

How digital technology and data analytics may potentially transform the corporate reporting process to make it more effective, resulting in greater transparency for shareholders and all stakeholders.

The originality of this paper derives from connecting, for the first time, smart and digital technologies and corporate reporting processes, drafting the state of the art of this research topic for future research.

This article aims to contribute to the digital servitisation literature by investigating the interrelations amongst Industry 4.0 technologies, servitisation and the performance of manufacturing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

The research uses survey data drawn from 200 manufacturing SMEs operating in the metals and machinery sector in Italy.

The study shows that Industry 4.0 technologies – Internet of Things (IoT), advanced simulation, cloud computing and Big Data Analytics (BDA) – positively moderate the relationship between servitisation and the performance of SMEs.

The study supports the need for firm managers of manufacturing SMEs to align servitisation and technological investments, suggesting that the synergic deployment of Industry 4.0 technologies supports servitisation performance.

The study supports the need for firm managers operating in business-to-business contexts to align their technological investments and servitisation strategies, suggesting that the synergic deployment of these Industry 4.0 technologies empower the effectiveness of servitisation strategies in terms of performance achieved.

The study highlights the moderating role played by specific Industry 4.0 technologies in the servitisation–performance relationship, opening avenues for future research exploring the mechanisms that underpin this complex relationship.

The evolving digital transformations of organizational processes involve vast complexities. Factors such as labor resources at the individual and team levels that integrate and utilize information resources and evolving technologies to achieve collective intelligence are essential to this process. In order to better understand evolving demands of labor resources, existing research regarding worker/technology interactions for firm performance must be implemented and adapted to the changing market. This paper provides a conceptual research model enabling organizations to better understand the integration of worker/team attributes with collaboration modes, information resources and augmented technologies that yield effective collective intelligence for decision-making.

This manuscript includes a literature review on worker/team attributes interfacing with various technology platforms and the creation of collective intelligence. It then reviews complementary research including leadership elements for organizational outcomes and introduces more current work involving a digital transformation. The literature review provides the underpinnings for a conceptual model that incorporates essential elements for the creation of collective intelligence for decision-making and adds factors that are relevant for digital transformations. These elements include augmented technologies including cognitive technologies, collaborative platforms and worker attributes (skills, social sensitivity, leadership) all of which illustrate components of intellectual capital.

The paper summarizes key findings of existing research in worker/team interactions with technology platforms on organizational performance and provides an applied, conceptual research model incorporating these findings, along with new elements in the digital era for better identifying new worker requirements.

The value of this work is the introduction of an applied conceptual model based on established literature findings that includes new technologies (e.g. cognitive technologies), collaboration modes and worker/team attributes to address the requirements of the evolving knowledge worker in the digital era. It provides a framework to better understand more optimal resource allocations for the creation of collective intelligence and integrates the model components within an intellectual capital framework.

This article aims to synthesize and integrate current research on customer experience (CX), identifying the intellectual structure of the field, systematizing a conceptual framework and identifying future research opportunities.

To analyze 629 articles published in peer-reviewed journals in almost four decades, this study employs both bibliometric co-keyword and thematic literature analysis in a complementary way.

This article maps the CX literature by describing its intellectual structure in terms of three research domains (customer, organizational and technological), their corresponding most relevant research themes and topics. Moreover, this study develops a conceptual framework and research propositions to summarize and integrate the CX literature. This work recognizes technology as an important driver for the development of CX research. Lastly, this article provides future research opportunities for moving the field forward, considering an integrative view among domains.

This paper complements other reviews on CX by using a novel methodological approach (co-keyword and thematic analysis) that enables the identification and visualization of the CX intellectual structure. In addition, the study explores the increasing connection between technology and CX research, by raising evidence that technology, by continuously modifying services and consequently CX, has become a transversal component in the research field. These outcomes may be useful for academics and practitioners.