Search results

The employment rate of autistic people is low, and they are often employed in low-paying jobs or in jobs involving tasks that fall short of their skills and competence. To address this situation, the individual placement and support method (IPS) offers promising perspectives for personalized and long-term support measures. This evidence-based method has produced positive results in several countries. IPS has been used in France only since 2016. This paper aims to examine the experience of autistic people in France who have benefitted from supported employment measures.

Nineteen autistic adults in France took part in semistructured interviews. Interview questions focused on work and measures to support employment. The authors analysed the interviews using reflexive thematic analysis, within the paradigm of critical realism. The authors adopted a participatory approach; the project was led by an autistic researcher and autistic individuals were included at all stages.

This study identified six primary themes and three subthemes across the data: (1) The uphill battle to obtain adjustments in the workplace; (2) insufficient knowledge of autism; (2.1) explaining again and again: the educative burden; (3) the challenge of making oneself heard; (3.1) when the entourage steps in; (4) support measures as material assistance and reassurance; (4.1) between benevolence and condescension; (5) organizational factors that affect the quality of support; and (6) personal and professional life are closely intertwined.

This research provides a better understanding of how autistic people experience supported employment in France and highlights ways to improve it. Job coaches play a crucial role in offering practical help and reassurance, and their efforts to nurture an active personal life are perceived positively. However, supported employment also carries the risk of limiting autistic individuals' capacity for action and causing several difficulties if job coaches are not well-informed about autism, do not reflect on their own attitudes, do not assist in obtaining necessary accommodations and if there are organizational problems leading to a lack of resources.

This study explores the consequences of digitalization in the field of education, particularly in relation to teachers’ course processes in higher education institutions. It emphasizes the importance of understanding how information systems (IS) support not only individual tasks but also processes as a whole. The results reveal that process practices have not been considered comprehensively and even core processes may be unseen.

A systematic literature review was conducted to explore the extent to which teachers’ processes are discussed in the literature. A qualitative case study was then conducted at a Finnish higher education institution to identify course processes and their relationships to IS.

Teachers’ processes have scarcely been discussed in the literature, and the process support provided by ISs is remarkably limited. It seems that course processes, which are core to education, are a blind spot in education digitalization. To support evaluating the level of support by IS, novel course process indicators were introduced.

Developing core processes, teachers’ course processes and thesis processes in education field, supports improving service quality. In all industries, organizations should consider whether processes are properly recognized and whether IS support not only individual tasks but also processes as a whole. We recommend recognizing and applying business process management practices to better support teachers’ work and to improve overall efficiency in education.

To the best of our knowledge, this is the first education sector study that attends to teacher’s work as a comprehensive process.

This study aims to understand how distributed agile teams (DATs), encouraged by globalisation, and recently accelerated by the COVID-19 outbreak, adopt agile practices to achieve project goals by working virtually.

This study developed a multiple-case study involving four companies undergoing several changes, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. The authors collected data mainly through in-depth, face-to-face interviews with seven key informants. Moreover, this study operates data triangulation by referring to secondary data sources and developing a grounded theory data analysis.

The findings highlight three main categories associated with the DAT functioning, namely, “DATs’ implementation issues”, “elements supporting DATs’ implementation” and “outcomes of DATs’ implementation”, that show DATs’ primary triggers, critical aspects and supportive actions for team functioning.

This paper produced valuable theoretical knowledge of DATs’ dynamics within a socio-technical approach that distinguishes soft and hard variables supporting DAT implementation. Moreover, the evidence provides useful suggestions for managers about creating an objective-oriented virtual work environment based on DATs’ self-organisation, digitally shared leadership and occasional on-site socialisation.

This paper provides new and interesting insights that bring to evidence the main variables related to DATs’ adoption and dynamics, showing supporting activities that enhanced their operativity. It provides a valuable descriptive framework for academics and practitioners to understand DATs’ functioning better and take action to improve their implementation.

Sustainability and accessibility of education are the main purposes of educational institutions. Higher education institutions (HEIs) have been addressing these concerns through their distance education departments for years. Especially during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, HEIs encountered challenges related to productivity, escalating costs and decreasing user satisfaction with distance education. This study proposes the integration of new and suitable information technologies (ITs) into the steps of lean management (LM) implementation. It suggests that this approach will be highly effective and beneficial, providing solutions to the problems above in higher education (HE) field. The study aims to highlight the effectiveness and benefits of incorporating new and suitable ITs into the application stages of LM principles. Sample applications in HE will be provided to enhance understanding.

A model is introduced for researching new ITs and incorporating appropriate ones in the application steps of LM. This model has been applied and analyzed in two case studies at Gazi University for a more comprehensive understanding.

When examining periodic surveys and usage statistics from case studies, it becomes evident that implementing LM with the support of ITs reduces waste and enhances the quality of existing work. The success observed in the case studies was notably influenced by managers’ proficiency in business processes, experience in ITs, managerial skills and support from senior management.

This case study provides a roadmap and step-by-step implementation of LM with IT support for HEIs. The implementation process and results will also be guiding for other sectors.

There is a notable absence of significant studies on integrating ITs, which have become crucial in today’s context in the stages of LM implementation. This study is envisioned as a pioneering endeavor to address this gap in the literature. Notably, challenges exist in applying LM principles outside production sectors, and limited research has been conducted. This study aims to pave the way for further research in diverse fields by conducting a comprehensive case study in the realm of HE.

From a firm-centric perspective, this study aims to elaborate on the types of servitisation strategies that can support a firm’s circular ambitions by asking: What is the role of servitisation in narrowing, slowing and/or closing resource loops? And, how are resources and capabilities arranged to provide such strategic circular service offerings?

Drawing on the experiences of an international manufacturing company from a dynamic capabilities perspective, the study offers an analytical framework that goes inside the firm’s operationalisation of its service offerings to support circularity in terms of the strategic decisions made. This framework is later used to frame the findings.

The study highlights the case-specific feedback loops and capabilities needed to support circular transitions. Various resource and innovation strategies for circularity are combined along customer interfaces and in partnership with upstream actors. Yet, open innovation strategies are conditioned by physical distance to provide circular services in remote areas.

The main contributions are empirical, analytical, conceptual and practical. The servitisation framework for circularity connects prior servitisation-circularity research and provides an analytical tool for framing future studies. The study also expands the definition of open innovation in that closed innovations for circularity can be achieved through “open” information exchange in knowledge networks, as well as provides advice for similar large manufacturing companies.

This study focuses on the strategic choices made by industrial firms for circular service provision and emphasises the environmental benefits from such choices, in addition to the economic and customer benefits covered in extant servitisation research.

This study investigates how global retailers develop sustainability through network interactions that influence institutionalized sustainability perceptions. The findings enable retailers to drive sustainability systematically and understand the critical internal and external issues.

The study investigates how retailers can work to increase support for sustainability through the normative, cognitive, and regulative institutional pillars. The network perspective suggests the need to offer relevant resources, involve influential actors and perform supporting activities to mobilise stakeholders. Empirically, qualitative case studies of IKEA and Hennes & Mauritz were conducted.

Based on the network and institutional perspectives, the study identified nine fields that retailers can use to develop sustainability internally and in their networks. The study shows that they can mobilise actors, resources, and activities to change institutionalised values and practices.

The developed model provides guidelines on how to systematically work with sustainability. The broad view developed is particularly relevant considering that most of the existing research on global firms and sustainability focuses on a narrow research problem without relating it to sustainability as a complex and overarching phenomenon.

Meaningfulness at work means experience of work as important, satisfying and valuable. It is a key factor in promoting individual growth, strengthening the belief in one's own abilities and supporting a sense of belonging and commitment to the organization. In this paper, we explore managers' perceptions of meaningful work in the future, focusing on managers' talk about meaningful work and its promotion in their organizations.

The data for the study consists of 25 stories of future working life collected from Finnish managers in spring 2022, using the empathy-based method.

From managers' stories of future working life, we identified two overarching perception categories of meaningful work: (1) Perceptions of contexts underlining the experience of meaningfulness: evolving technologies, developing expertise and demands and change in working life values and (2) Perceptions of management practices determining meaningful work: leader-centered, distant and technical management practice versus participatory and interactive management practice.

The research produces a new and detailed understanding of the ways in which managers talk about decreasing and increasing meaningfulness at work and management practices related to it. As the research is qualitative in nature and based on a small dataset, its results cannot be generalized. Instead, it strengthens and sharpens the previous understanding of meaningful work and the future of work.

The study analysed the aerospace industry, a traditionally important sector for the topic of risk management, from three complementary perspectives: the supply chain risks present in the sector, the mitigation strategies adopted to face them, and the characteristics (dimensions) observed in the SCRM process of aerospace companies.

The research employed a quali–quantitative method: a survey was carried out, followed by interviews with professionals from companies belonging to different tiers of aerospace supply chains. Interviews helped to interpret the survey data and understand in more detail risk management in aerospace companies.

The study presents a panorama of the aerospace industry in terms of risk management. The sector’s turbulent environment is described as well as the strategies to prevent, minimise or postpone the impact of supply chain risks. In particular, ten dimensions that have been identified in the SCRM process of aerospace firms are discussed. These characteristics influence the objectives of this process and are related to resources, roles and responsibilities, incentives, development of competences and skills, scope (internal and external) and approaches to integrate decisions and actions in the context of the supply chain.

Articles that address the SCRM process usually focus on the process steps, whereas this study investigated dimensions that transcend these steps but whose discussion in the literature is still fragmented. It also analysed a reference sector for the topic from a broader perspective than others available in the literature (supply chain risks, mitigation strategies and characteristics of the SCRM process). Supply chain members with relationships with each other were investigated, a desirable approach for SCRM but still under-explored. The study also answers calls for industry-specific studies and research on emerging countries.

This research demonstrates the theoretical merit of a reference architecture-based approach to life cycle cost (LCC) analysis system provision in the built environment. LCC insight is considered fundamental to sustainable decision making by asset managers; however, the current capabilities in practice do not align with the political ambition and the scale of competencies required to realise sectoral emissions–reduction targets.

In pursuing practical outcomes, the study employs a custom design science research-inspired methodology. Domain requirements are gathered via literature research as an initial top-down software reference architecture which is refined, bottom-up, through testing and implementation in a representative case study. A prototype IT system and reference architecture artefact are developed and used to evaluate the concept qualitatively through broad practitioner focus groups.

Sentiment analysis of the expert opinions is broadly positive and helps to substantiate the proposal’s theoretical suitability in addressing the scalability challenge. Additionally, constructive feedback provides guidance towards this trajectory, highlighting the importance of aligning with existing communities and standards, broadening future research scope to consider further scenarios and prioritisation of efforts to build trust around contracts and data quality.

The novelty of the work is the provision of the reusable LCC reference architecture development methodology.

The concept has the potential to provide LCC capabilities to industry at scale while the artefacts developed herein can be appended to existing LCC standards as implementation guidance to support IT system developers. Furthermore, the developed methodology can be employed in harmonisation efforts between policy and practice.

Blockchain technology can potentially address the challenges of information storage, sharing and management and improve them further in an organization and sector as a whole. This study aims to investigate the effects of technology, organization and environment on the behavioral intention of employees to adopt blockchain in the Indian insurance sector and the mediating role of knowledge management practices.

A structured questionnaire was used to collect a sample size of 390 responses based on convenience sampling. Partial least square structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data.

The findings highlighted that organizational factors, followed by technological factors, significantly impact employees' behavioral intentions. The results established that the impact of environmental factors is insignificant on blockchain adoption intention. Knowledge management practices significantly mediate the relationship between organizational factors, technological factors and behavioral intention.

The results indicate that organizations must prioritize organizational factors (technological competence, top management support and financial readiness) and knowledge management practices (knowledge creation, sharing and retention) to positively impact employees' behavioral intentions and ensure successful and effective technology adoption.

Using the Technology-Organization-Environment framework, the study tests the conceptual model, showing the relationship between technological, organizational and environmental factors, behavioral intention and knowledge management practices. The role of knowledge management practices in technology adoption within organizations has been scarcely explored. This study adds significant and novel contributions in this area.