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1 – 10 of 399Pavel Král and Andrew Schnackenberg
Despite considerable evidence of the benefits of organizational transparency, policies to enhance transparency often fail or are met with resistance and unexpected results. In…
Abstract
Purpose
Despite considerable evidence of the benefits of organizational transparency, policies to enhance transparency often fail or are met with resistance and unexpected results. In part, this is due to a lack of knowledge about the drivers of organizational transparency and their interrelationships. This study examines the interplay among the forces that influence organizational transparency, and thus answers numerous calls for developing a deeper theoretical understanding of the determinants of organizational transparency. We propose three forces that influence organizational transparency and theorize how they combine in nonlinear ways to form five archetypical transparency regimes that organizations operate within. We then discuss contingencies to organizational transparency within each regime.
Design/methodology/approach
We employ configurational theorizing to capture the complexity of transparency and the nonlinear relationships among the forces of transparency.
Findings
We propose three forces that influence organizational transparency: institutional, societal, and leadership. We identify configurations of the three forces that yield five archetypical transparency regimes. We then discuss contingencies for cultivating organizational transparency within each regime. Vanguard transparency and pioneering transparency represent the desired regimes for fostering organizational transparency. In contrast, hollow transparency and deceptive transparency reveal a combination of determinants that cultivate less desirable forms of organizational transparency. Paradoxical transparency represents a regime in which socially desirable outcomes are associated with undesirable consequences for an organization.
Research limitations/implications
This paper is among the first to theorize the drivers of organizational transparency and to discuss the limits and boundaries of organizational responses to transparency determinants.
Practical implications
Despite the many benefits of transparency, we explain why efforts to enhance organizational transparency often fail or are met with mixed results. By considering the three forces, managers and policymakers can avoid unexpected and undesired organizational responses to transparency regimes.
Social implications
We propose five transparency regimes that place a spotlight on social contingencies to enhance transparency.
Originality/value
This study offers an integrative theory of organizational responses to transparency determinants and develops its theoretical foundations. The model integrates the fragmented empirical findings from previous studies on the determinants of transparency and draws attention to overlooked institutional, societal, and leadership forces that influence organizational transparency.
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Liangzhi Yu and Yao Zhang
This study aims to examine the potential of Information Ethics (IE) to serve as a coherent ethical foundation for the library and information science profession (LIS profession).
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to examine the potential of Information Ethics (IE) to serve as a coherent ethical foundation for the library and information science profession (LIS profession).
Design/methodology/approach
This study consists of two parts: the first part present IE’s central theses and the main critiques it has received; the second part offers the authors' own evaluation of the theory from the LIS perspective in two steps: (1) assessing its internal consistency by testing its major theses against each other; (2) assessing its utility for resolving frequently debated LIS ethical dilemmas by comparing its solutions with solutions from other ethical theories.
Findings
This study finds that IE, consisting of an informational ontology, a fundamental ethical assertion and a series of moral laws, forms a coherent ethical framework and holds promising potential to serve as a theoretical foundation for LIS ethical issues; its inclusion of nonhuman objects as moral patients and its levels of abstraction mechanism proved to be particularly relevant for the LIS profession. This study also shows that, to become more solid an ethical theory, IE needs to resolve some of its internal contradictions and ambiguities, particularly its conceptual conflations between internal correctness, rightness and goodness; between destruction, entropy and evil; and the discrepancy between its deontological ethical assertion and its utilitarian moral laws.
Practical implications
This study alerts LIS professionals to the possibility of having a coherent ethical foundation and the potential of IE in this regard.
Originality/value
This study provides a systemic explication, evaluation and field test of IE from the LIS perspective.
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This chapter reviews possible regulatory updates needed to address the four general challenges arising from digitalization of financial services, regardless of the business models…
Abstract
This chapter reviews possible regulatory updates needed to address the four general challenges arising from digitalization of financial services, regardless of the business models of the financial services providers. These challenges are customers' data rights, artificial intelligence (AI) ethics, cybersecurity and financial exclusion.
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Renata Couto de Azevedo de Oliveira and Maurice Patterson
This paper aims to address what it means to brand a city as “smart”. In other words, what ideas, understandings and actions are mobilized by the discourse of smart cities in a…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to address what it means to brand a city as “smart”. In other words, what ideas, understandings and actions are mobilized by the discourse of smart cities in a particular context.
Design/methodology/approach
Taking a brand interpretive approach, this paper uses deconstructive criticism to understand the performativity of smart cities within the Brazilian Charter for Smart Cities and to expose hegemonic power structures and the various colonizations that disenfranchise consumers and citizens of the Global South.
Findings
This paper finds that the branding of smart cities within the Brazilian Charter for Smart Cities is largely performative and rhetorical in nature. The authors identify those dimensions of the smart city that are materialized by this branding performance. For example, the authors identify how the Charter calls forth issues around technological solutionism, sustainability and social inclusion. At the same time, the analysis draws attention to the dimensions of smart cities that are disguised by such performances.
Research limitations/implications
The implications of the work suggest that the authors need to understand the designation “smart city” as a branding performance. More research is required in context to determine in exactly what ways smart city projects are being implemented.
Practical implications
Rather than adhering only to the rhetoric of smartness, cities have to work hard to make smartness a reality – a smartness constructed not just on technical solutions but also on human solutions. That is, the complexity of urban issues that are apparently addressed in the move to smartness demand more than a technological fix.
Originality/value
The research offers a novel lens through which to view smart cities.
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Arne Roar Nygård and Sokratis K. Katsikas
This paper aims to discuss the ethical aspects of hardware reverse engineering (HRE) and propose an ethical framework for HRE when used to mitigate cyber risks of the digital…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to discuss the ethical aspects of hardware reverse engineering (HRE) and propose an ethical framework for HRE when used to mitigate cyber risks of the digital supply chain of critical infrastructure operators.
Design/methodology/approach
A thorough review and analysis of existing relevant literature was performed to establish the current state of knowledge in the field. Ethical frameworks proposed for other areas/disciplines and identified pertinent ethical principles have been used to inform the proposed framework’s development.
Findings
The proposed framework provides actionable guidance to security professionals engaged with such activities to support them in assessing whether an HRE project conforms to ethical principles. Recommendations on action needed to complement the framework are also proposed. According to the proposed framework, reverse engineering is neither unethical nor illegal if performed honourably. Collaboration with vendors and suppliers at an industry-wide level is critical for appropriately endorsing the proposed framework.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no ethical framework currently guides cybersecurity research, far less of cybersecurity vulnerability research and reverse engineering.
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Peixu He, Hanhui Zhou, Qiongyao Zhou, Cuiling Jiang and Amitabh Anand
Employees may adopt deceptive knowledge hiding (DKH) due to nonworking time information and communication technology (ICT) demands. Drawing from the conservation of resources…
Abstract
Purpose
Employees may adopt deceptive knowledge hiding (DKH) due to nonworking time information and communication technology (ICT) demands. Drawing from the conservation of resources (COR) theory, this study aims to develop and test a model of deceptive knowledge hiding (DKH) due to nonworking time information and communication technology (ICT) demands.
Design/methodology/approach
In total, 300 service employees have joined the three-wave surveys. Path analysis and bootstrapping methods were used to test the theoretical model.
Findings
Results suggest that knowledge requests during nonworking time could deplete employees’ resources and increase their tendency to engage in DKH, whereas work recovery and emotional exhaustion mediate this relationship. In addition, employees’ work–family segmentation preferences (WFSP) were found to moderate the direct effects of nonworking time ICT demands on employees’ work recovery and emotional exhaustion and the indirect effects of knowledge requests after working hours on DKH through employees’ work recovery and emotional exhaustion.
Originality/value
First, the findings of this study shed light on the relationship between knowledge requests during employees’ nonworking time and knowledge hiding, suggesting that knowledge hiding could occur beyond working hours. Second, drawing on COR theory, this study explored two joint processes of resource replenishment failure and depletion and how nonworking time ICT demands trigger knowledge hiding. Third, the interaction effect of individuals’ WFSP and nonworking time factors on knowledge hiding deepens the understanding of when nonworking time ICT demands may induce knowledge hiding through various processes.
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Yenti Afrida, Harif Amali Rivai, Laura Syahrul and Hendra Lukito
This paper aims to investigate Islamic work ethics and adaptability towards change readiness of Islamic Bank employees in Indonesia with commitment as a mediating variable. This…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate Islamic work ethics and adaptability towards change readiness of Islamic Bank employees in Indonesia with commitment as a mediating variable. This study focuses on the Sharia banking industry, which is facing transformation from Sharia business units to Sharia commercial banks by preparing its human resources, thus minimizing resistance.
Design/methodology/approach
This study is based on a survey of 135 Bank Syariah Indonesia employees via an online questionnaire. PLS-SEM is used to analyze data and test hypotheses using SMART-PLS.
Findings
The results of the study show that adaptability does not have a positive and significant effect on readiness for change in Indonesian Sharia banks and organizational commitment. Meanwhile, Islamic work ethics have a positive and significant effect on the change readiness of Islamic bank employees in Indonesia as well as organizational commitment. This study also found that organizational commitment mediates the impact of Islamic work ethics on the change readiness of Islamic bank employees in Indonesia.
Research limitations/implications
This research uses a sample of employees at Sharia commercial banks (BUS) in Indonesia, so it is still limited to certain types of banks. Future research needs to test the model in different contexts, such as banks that still have Sharia business unit (UUS) status. In addition, further research needs to use other variables such as leader support for transformational change readiness. Future research also needs to control more variables and use a more complex scale than a binary scale (e.g. percentage of share ownership or area within a province or district/city). This study recommends that employee change readiness is very necessary to avoid resistance and resistance to the transformation and acceleration of Sharia banking in Indonesia.
Originality/value
This research looks at employee readiness for change in Indonesian Sharia banks through the lens of adaptability Islamic work ethics and organizational commitment.
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Stephen Oloo Ajwang and Anselimo Peters Ikoha
This study aims to shed light on the dilemma of “publish or perish” within the context of artificial intelligence (AI) and to suggest approaches that scholars and organizations…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to shed light on the dilemma of “publish or perish” within the context of artificial intelligence (AI) and to suggest approaches that scholars and organizations can implement to enhance ethical behavior in research and publishing.
Design/methodology/approach
This investigation examined institutional guidelines, policies, processes, norms and prior research to pinpoint ethical patterns that could be leveraged to promote ethical behavior in research and publishing.
Findings
The research outlined various unethical behaviors that have a detrimental impact on research outcomes including falsification, fabrication, plagiarism, p-hacking, authorship conflicts of interest, salami publication, republishing and manipulation of visual data, as well as incorrect selection of statistical analysis techniques. Furthermore, the study recommends optimal strategies for researchers and institutions to improve the quality of research, such as embracing the Open Research Library, forming partnerships and consortia, adhering to established informed consent standards and safeguarding confidentiality and privacy, among other practices.
Practical implications
These findings can serve as a foundation for policies that enable institutions and scholars to heighten their comprehension of ethical research practices and establish mechanisms for supervising research outcomes.
Originality/value
Numerous research and educational institutions are contending with new obstacles brought about by using technologies such as AI. These findings can offer a reference point to stimulate the ongoing discourse regarding the utilization of generative AI in academic settings.
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This study aims to explore how service delivery can be enhanced through digital transformation in the public sector in South Africa.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore how service delivery can be enhanced through digital transformation in the public sector in South Africa.
Design/methodology/approach
This case study used a qualitative research approach to obtain data through semi-structured interviews. The units of analysis were made up of individual professionals limited to purposive sampling to select chief information officers, investigators and administrative officers from national government departments and state-owned enterprises. The collected data from 12 participants was thematically analysed. The findings revealed that the government lacks legislation and strategy for digital transformation, leading to inconsistent implementation of digital transformation that enhances service delivery in the public sector of South Africa.
Findings
The findings revealed that the government lacks legislation and strategy for digital transformation, leading to inconsistent implementation of digital transformation that enhances service delivery in the public sector of South Africa.
Research limitations/implications
The study was limited to the public sector of South Africa; however, its recommendations are applicable to all organisations that need to provide their services using digital transformation.
Practical implications
Practically, the implications of this study will serve as a resourceful benchmark for the public sector and other organisations.
Social implications
Socially, the implications of this study ensure proper implementation of its recommendations to enhance service delivery in the public sector and other organisations.
Originality/value
Regarding the value that this study brings, it proposes an amendment of the current legislative framework in favour of one that covers digital transformation, which has become dominant in today’s enhanced provision of service delivery.
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