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Companies utilize increasingly capable Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies to deliver modern services across a range of consumer service industries. AI autonomy, however, sparks skepticism among consumers leading to a decrease in their willingness to adopt AI services. This raises the question as to whether consumer trust in companies can overcome consumer reluctance in their decisions to adopt high (vs low) autonomy AI services.

Using a representative survey (N = 503 consumers corresponding to N = 3,690 observations), this article investigated the link between consumer trust in a company and consumers' intentions to adopt high (vs low) autonomy AI services from the company across 23 consumer service companies accounting for six distinct service industries.

The results confirm a significant and positive relationship between consumer trust in a company and consumers' intentions to adopt AI services from the same company. AI autonomy, however, moderates this relationship, such that high (vs low) AI autonomy weakens the positive link between trust in a company and AI service adoption. This finding replicates across all 23 companies and the associated six industries and is robust to the inclusion of several theoretically important control variables.

The current research contributes to the recent stream of AI research by drawing attention to the interplay between trust in companies and adoption of high autonomy AI services, with implications for the successful deployment and marketing of AI services.

The integration of the digital economy and the real economy has been a key focus in promoting digital economic development. It denotes a comprehensive digital transformation of national economic activities regarding technological infrastructure and production modes, which is crucial for establishing a modern economic system, advancing industrial infrastructure and modernizing industrial chains.

Firstly, the study delves into the internal logic behind the emergence of the new development dynamic resulting from digital technology's evolution. Secondly, it explores the mechanism of mutual promotion and support between the new development dynamic and the digital economy based on China's shift in focus from international engagement to the domestic economy during different stages of industrialization. Subsequently, it analyzes the characteristics and critical factors of digital economy development and examines the macro-, meso- and micro-level constraints on these factors. Finally, the paper explores approaches to promoting digital economy development while constructing the new development dynamic and provides relevant policy suggestions.

The construction of the new development dynamic and the development of the digital economy are inextricably linked, and only by mutually reinforcing each other can they provide an inexhaustible impetus for China's high-quality economic development.

The new development dynamic and the digital economy development form an indivisible whole. The new development dynamic creates the necessary conditions for digital economy development and promotes the formation of digital production modes. In turn, the development of the digital economy should strive to improve the mainstay position of the domestic economy, enhance the synergy between the domestic economy and international engagement, upgrade value chains while improving the supply and the industrial chains in China and ensure a parallel increase in labor income alongside improved productivity.

This study aims to focus on a key unanswered question about how digitalization and the knowledge processes it enables affect firms’ strategies in the international arena.

The authors conduct a systematic literature review of relevant theoretical and empirical studies covering over 20 years of research (from 2000 to 2023) and including 73 journal papers.

This review allows us to highlight a relationship between firms’ international strategies and the knowledge processes enabled by applying digital technologies. Specifically, the authors discuss the characteristics of patterns of knowledge flows and knowledge processes (their origin, the type of knowledge they carry on and their directionality) as determinants for the emergence of diverse international strategies embraced by single firms or by populations of firms within ecosystems, networks, global value chains or alliances.

Despite digital technologies constituting important antecedents and critical factors for the internationalization process, and international businesses in general, and operating cross borders implies the enactment of highly knowledge-intensive processes, current literature still fails to provide a holistic picture of how firms strategically use what they know and seek out what they do not know in the international environment, using the affordances of digital technologies.

This study aims to estimate the value of the impact from digital transformation (DX) focusing on its automation effect, looking at the time and cost savings coming from the substitution effect with an adoption of digital technologies. For example, cloud and artificial intelligence technologies such as ChatGPT have the potential to change ways of working, substituting and replacing several of the tasks that are currently carried out by public administration (PA) employees and labor processes underpinning PA services.

The paper outlines a new framework to estimate the potential impact of DX on the public sector. The authors apply this framework to estimate the value of the impact of DX on the Italian PA, defining the latter by the collection of the value of its labor (i.e. PA workforce salaries) and by the collection of the value of its outputs (i.e. public services’ costs).

This study ultimately maps out the magnitude and trends of how likely the PA occupations and services could be substituted in a wider process of DX. To do this, the authors apply their framework to the Italian PA, and they triangulate secondary data collection, from official accounts of the Italian Ministry of Economics and the National Statistical Institute, with methodological antecedents from the UK Office for National Statistics and experts’ insights. Results provide a snapshot on the type and magnitude of PA jobs and services projected to be affected by automation over the next 10 years.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper provides for the first time an approach to estimate the value of the impact of DX on the public sector in a data-constrained environment – or in the lack of the required primary data. Once applied to the Italian PA, this approach provides a granular map of the automatability of each of the PA occupations and of the PA services. Finally, this paper mentions preliminary insights on potential challenges related to equity in public sector jobs and implications on recruitment processes.

Technology-enabled business-to-business (B2B) services contribute the largest share to GDP growth and are fundamental for an economy’s value creation. This article aims to identify key service- and digital technology-driven B2B innovation modes and proposes a research agenda for further exploration.

This conceptual paper adopts a techno-demarcation view on service innovation, encompassing three core dimensions: service offering (the service product, or the “what”), service process (the “how”) and service ecosystem (the “who/for whom”). It delineates the implications of three digital technologies – the internet-of-things (IoT), intelligent automation (IA) and digital platforms – for service innovation across these core dimensions in B2B markets.

Digital technology has immense potential ramifications for value creation by reshaping all three core dimensions of service innovation. Specifically, IoT can transform physical resources into reconfigurable service products, IA can augment and automate a rapidly expanding array of service processes, while digital platforms provide the technical and organizational infrastructure for the integration of resources and stakeholders within service ecosystems.

This study suggests an agenda with six themes for further research, each linked to one or more of the three service innovation dimensions. They are (1) new recurring revenue models, (2) service innovation in the metaverse, (3) scaling up service innovations, (4) ecosystem innovations, (5) power dependency and lock-in effects and (6) security and responsibility in digital domains.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the performance of Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) offering FinTech services. This study contributes to the existing literature on microfinance digitalization, financial inclusion and sustainable development. The study also takes into consideration a behavioral perspective through the efficiency evaluation process of MFIs offering FinTech services.

The following study employs the Stochastic Frontier Analysis approach to estimate the operational and social efficiency scores of the 387 MFIs over the period 2005–2019. Then, it tries to consider factors influencing MFIs' efficiency and assess their effects. Hence, two separate models for operation and social efficiency introducing a set of factors, including FinTech proxies and overconfidence proxies, are tested. The first model for operational efficiency uses a random-effects estimator while the second one for social efficiency uses a fixed-effects estimator.

The results show that innovative MFIs have weaker averages of operational efficiency than non-innovative ones but higher averages of social efficiency. This was justified by the fact that innovative MFIs are more socially oriented. Further, findings of this study depict that the proxies of FinTech affect negatively the level of operational efficiency of MFIs. They also depict a negative relationship between FinTech proxies and the level of social efficiency. These results hold through robustness tests.

The highlight of this study is that it takes heed of the indirect effect of technological innovation on the efficiency of MFIs. It has been proved that it moderates the impact of managerial overconfidence (manifested by excessive risk-taking, viz., high levels of PAR30, LGR and NIM) on the level of both operational and social efficiencies.

本文旨在對提供金融科技服務的微型金融機構的表現作出評價。我們的研究, 就現有之學術文獻而言, 在以下課題之探討上作出了貢獻: 微型金融的數字化、普惠金融、以及可持續發展。本研究亦以行為主義觀點, 對微型金融機構提供之金融科技服務的效率作出評價。

本研究使用隨機邊界分析法的理念, 去估計有關的387間微型金融機構於2005年至2019年期間、經營方面和社會方面的效率分數; 繼而嘗試找出影響微型金融機構效率的因素, 並評估這些因素的影響。為此目的, 研究人員分別測試兩個模型, 一個是探究運作方面的效率, 另一個則探究社會方面的效率。兩個模型內均放入一系列的因素, 其中包括金融科技代理和過度自信代理。探究運作方面的效率的模型使用了隨機效果估算器, 而探究社會方面的效率的模型則使用了固定效果估算器。

研究結果顯示、具創新精神的微型金融機構, 在運作方面的效率的平均值上,較沒具創新精神的為弱, 而社會方面的效率的平均值卻較高。這個結果是合理的, 因為具創新精神的微型金融機構會更著眼於社會。另外, 研究結果描繪了一個現象, 就是: 金融科技代理會對微型金融機構的運作效率水平產生負面影響; 我們也看到、金融科技代理與社會方面的效率水平之間的關聯是負面的; 這些研究結果、均通過穩健性檢驗。

本研究最突出之處為研究人員關注科技之創新會間接影響微型金融機構的效率。研究人員證明了於微型金融機構整合金融科技服務是會緩和管理上的過度自信給運作和社會兩方面的效率水平帶來的影響 (管理上的過度自信、顯露於過度的風險承擔, 即是, PAR30(貸款組合風險-30日)、LGR(貸款增長率) 和NIM(淨息差) 處於高水平)。

This study aims to conduct performance and clustering analyses with the help of Digital Government Reference Library (DGRL) v16.6 database examining the role of emerging technologies (ETs) in public services delivery.

VOSviewer and SciMAT techniques were used for clustering and mapping the use of ETs in the public services delivery. Collecting documents from the DGRL v16.6 database, the paper uses text mining analysis for identifying key terms and trends in e-Government research regarding ETs and public services.

The analysis indicates that all ETs are strongly linked to each other, except for blockchain technologies (due to its disruptive nature), which indicate that ETs can be, therefore, seen as accumulative knowledge. In addition, on the whole, findings identify four stages in the evolution of ETs and their application to public services: the “electronic administration” stage, the “technological baseline” stage, the “managerial” stage and the “disruptive technological” stage.

The output of the present research will help to orient policymakers in the implementation and use of ETs, evaluating the influence of these technologies on public services.

The research helps researchers to track research trends and uncover new paths on ETs and its implementation in public services.

Recent research has focused on the need of implementing ETs for improving public services, which could help cities to improve the citizens’ quality of life in urban areas. This paper contributes to expanding the knowledge about ETs and its implementation in public services, identifying trends and networks in the research about these issues.

Digital natives constitute a substantial part of consumers nowadays. Yet, a theoretical understanding of the factors driving their engagement with new-age digital services is lacking. This study therefore aims to examine digital natives’ continuance usage of the proliferating over-the-top (OTT) services. To address these objectives, the study uses a comprehensive model that primarily integrates perceived value, cognitive absorption and customer brand engagement theories.

Data were collected using an online personal questionnaire targeting active digital natives OTT service users using the online software tool SurveyMonkey. A sample of 1,415 digital natives was analysed using structural equation modelling.

The findings indicated that continuance usage is predicted by all three theories. The results illustrate that cognitive absorption and customer brand engagement are the most critical in enhancing continuance usage. Gender effects on digital natives’ value perceptions were found. The model explains 57% of the variance in users’ continuance usage.

The study adds valuable contributions to the existing literature that are relevant to digital natives’ engagement with new-age digital services. The proposed integrated model and the role of gender in value formations provide managers with novel insights when designing effective strategies to increase continuance usage for the largest consuming generation.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-03-2022-0133

Operational risks can cause considerable, atypical disturbances and impact food supply chain (SC) resilience. Indicatively, the COVID-19 pandemic caused significant disruptions in the UK food services as nationwide stockouts led to unprecedented discrepancies between retail and home-delivery supply capacity and demand. To this effect, this study aims to examine the emergence of digital platforms as an innovative instrument for food SC resilience in severe market disruptions.

An interpretive multiple case-study approach was used to unravel how different generations of e-commerce food service providers, i.e. established and emergent, responded to the need for more resilient operations during the COVID-19 pandemic.

SC disruption management for high-impact low-frequency events requires analysing four research elements: platformisation, structural variety, process flexibility and system resource efficiency. Established e-commerce food operators use partner onboarding and local waste valorisation to enhance resilience. Instead, emergent e-commerce food providers leverage localised rapid upscaling and product personalisation.

Digital food platforms offer a highly customisable, multisided digital marketplace wherein platform members may aggregate product offerings and customers, thus sharing value throughout the network. Platform-induced disintermediation allows bidirectional flows of data and information among SC partners, ensuring compliance and safety in the food retail sector.

The study contributes to the SC configuration and resilience literature by investigating the interrelationship among platformisation, structural variety, process flexibility and system resource efficiency for safe and resilient food provision within exogenously disrupted environments.