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This research aims to develop a blockchain smart contract–enabled framework to resolve power imbalance problems in construction payment.

This research adopts a design science research method to develop the blockchain smart contract–enabled framework. The authors then develop a prototype system. Finally, the authors evaluate its performance in solving power imbalance-induced payment problems.

The results show that the prototype system can resolve power imbalance problems in construction payment by allowing project participants to make transparent and decentralized decisions that are self-enforceable by blockchain smart contracts.

This study provides theoretical explanations for how blockchain smart contracts can resolve power imbalances in construction payment; based on that, it proposes a novel blockchain smart contract–enabled method to rebalance the power of stakeholders in construction payment. Thus, it contributes to the body of knowledge on blockchain technology and construction payment.

This study moves beyond a conceptual framework and develops a practical blockchain smart contract system for resolving power imbalances in construction payment, strengthening construction project members' confidence in using blockchain technology.

The proposed blockchain smart contract–enabled solution helps mitigate negative social impacts associated with late payment and non-payment. Furthermore, the research maximizes trust among participants in payment processes to inspire collaborative culture in the construction industry.

This paper introduces a novel blockchain smart contract integrated method, allowing project stakeholders to resolve power imbalance problems in construction payment through decentralized decision-making.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the relationship between public spending, budget imbalance and underground economy. In addition, this paper investigates how budget imbalance moderates the public spending–underground nexus.

By utilizing a data set spanning from 1995 to 2017 of 35 OECD countries, the study has employed Dynamic Common Correlated Effects (DCCE) approach. The study is also extended to consider the marginal effects of public spending on the underground economy at different degrees of budget imbalance.

The results indicate that an increase in public spending and budget imbalance contributes to the expansion of underground economy. Interestingly, the effects of public spending on the underground economy will enhance and intensify with a higher budget imbalance level. The results are robust to various specifications and their broader implications are discussed.

Governments should carefully implement a fiscal policy with a clear understanding that increasing public spending leads to the expansion of informality. Besides, policymakers should enforce supportive policies to boost economic growth, cooperation and cross-border trade to control the size of the underground economy.

This study stresses the role of public spending, budget imbalance on the underground economy in OECD nations. To the best of the author's knowledge, this study pioneers to explore the moderating effect of budget imbalance in the public spending–undergrround nexus.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-09-2022-0645.

Drawing on information processing theory, the linkage between buffering and bridging and the ability on the part of procurement to resolve demand–supply imbalances is investigated, as well as contexts in which these strategies may be particularly useful or detrimental. Buffering may be achieved through demand change or redundancy, while bridging may be achieved by the means of collaboration or monitoring.

This study employs a hierarchical regression analysis of a survey of 150 Finnish and Swedish procurement and sales and operations planning professionals, each responding from the perspective of their own area of supply responsibility.

Both the demand change and redundancy varieties of buffering are associated with procurement's ability to resolve demand–supply imbalances without delivery disruptions, but not with cost-efficient resolution. Bridging is associated with the cost-efficient resolution of imbalances: while collaboration offers benefits, monitoring seems to make things worse. Dynamism diminishes, while the co-management of procurement in S&OP improves procurement's ability to resolve demand–supply imbalances. The most potent strategy for tackling problematic contexts appears to be buffering via demand change.

The results highlight the importance of procurement in the S&OP process and suggest tactical measures that can be taken to resolve and reduce the effects of supply and demand imbalances.

The results contribute to the procurement and S&OP literature by increasing knowledge regarding the role and integration of procurement to the crucial process of balancing demand and supply operations.

This paper examines global imbalance and rebalancing issues from the viewpoint of Korea. As IMF (2009) notes, the unwinding of global imbalance seems inevitable and, in fact, it is in progress. We illustrate that Korea, with a flexible exchange rate system and relatively balanced current accounts, has little direct linkage to global imbalance. However, we also find that Korea is not immune to the costly adjustment process of imbalance due to the triangular trade between Korea, China and the U.S. The fact that Korea is ‘indirectly’ linked to global imbalance limits Korea’s ability to cope with the situation. Boosting domestic demand, often mentioned recommendation for East Asia, is not an appropriate solution for Korea with low personal savings rate. A lot depends on China’s policy. If China reduces its dependence on U.S. market and increases domestic consumption despite unemployment risk in export manufacturing sector, it will provide Korea with an opportunity for more stable growth based on China’s final demand. Korea can also make efforts to increase economic integration and expand monetary cooperation in Asia that would help to increase consumption demands and final goods trade in the region.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the performance of unpaced reliable production lines that are unbalanced in terms of their mean operation times, coefficients of variation and buffer capacities.

Simulations were carried out for five‐ and eight‐station lines with various buffer capacities and degrees of means imbalance. Throughput, idle time and average buffer level performance indicators were generated and statistically analysed.

The results show that an inverted bowl allocation of mean service times, combined with a bowl configuration for coefficients of variation and a decreasing order of buffer sizes results in higher throughput and lower idle times than a balanced line counterpart. In addition, considerable reductions in average inventory levels were consistently obtained when utilizing a configuration of progressively faster stations, coupled with a bowl‐shaped pattern for coefficients of variation and an ascending buffer size order.

The results for these specific experiments imply that resources expended on trying to achieve a balanced line could be better used by seizing upon possible enhanced performance via controlled mean time, variability and buffer imbalance. Results are valid for only the line type and parameter values used (simulation results are specific and not general).

Guidelines are provided on design strategies for allocating labour and capital unevenly in unpaced lines for better performance in terms of increased throughput or lowered idle time or average buffer levels.

This paper might be viewed as one of the first simulation investigations into the performance of unpaced production lines with three sources of imbalance.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between transformational leadership and effort-reward imbalance as well as the moderating role of overcommitment and subjective well-being. In particular, the study focuses on the transformational leadership component individualized consideration and its relationship with effort-reward imbalance.

Using linear hierarchical regression analyses, the authors tested four hypotheses on a broad sample of 229 German employees.

The results confirm the expected relationship between transformational leadership and effort-reward imbalance and that the strongest relationship exists with individualized consideration. However, there is no support for the hypothesized moderating effects.

First, the recruitment of the sample via fora and periodicals may bias the results. Second, the dependent and the independent variables were assessed with the same method, thus facilitating a common method bias. Third, the study underlies a cross-sectional design which does not allow drawing conclusions on causality.

The findings provide implications for leaders by showing that the most effective leadership behaviours are those encompassed by the transformational leadership component individualized consideration when it comes to reducing negative health effects of adverse working conditions. Furthermore, the results suggest that overcommitment plays a major role for employees’ effort-reward imbalance and should thus be addressed by specific training measures.

Researchers have devoted little attention to revealing how effort-reward imbalance can be avoided or reduced by leaders. The study attempts to fill this gap by exploring the relationship between effort-reward imbalance and transformational leadership.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate and compare the impact of order imbalance on returns, liquidity and price volatility in agricultural futures markets on an intraday basis. The authors examine whether order imbalance is more powerful to explain variations in asset prices compared to other indicators of trading activity, particularly trading volume.

Using Chicago Mercantile Exchange best bid best offer data, the impact of order imbalance is analyzed via regression analyses. The analyses are carried out for corn, wheat, soy, live cattle and lean hogs in March 2008 and March 2016.

Results confirm the positive relation between order imbalance and returns as well as between order imbalance and price volatility as suggested by market microstructure models. Order imbalance, however, does not generally outperform trading volume as an explanatory variable.

For some contracts, returns can be predicted using lagged order imbalance. This offers the opportunity to derive profitable trading strategies.

This paper is one of the first attempts to explore the relationship between order imbalance and returns, liquidity and volatility for agricultural commodity futures on an intraday basis, accounting for the increased trading volume and for the high speed at which new information enters the market in an electronic trading environment.

Current relationship marketing literature has stressed the importance of building customer‐employee bonds. These efforts sometimes result in customer‐employee relationships that overwhelm or supersede the customer‐firm relationships. Previous studies report that such an imbalance weakens the firm's position with the customer. Very little research has investigated what factors contribute to the imbalance and its consequences for the firm's relationship with the customer. This research aims to look at customer relationship quality (RQ) imbalance, specifically the imbalance that favors the employee, and identifies six factors as important antecedents. Also studied are the customers' cognitive and emotional reactions to the termination of the customer‐employee relationship when RQ imbalance favors the employee.

In total, 780 customer‐employee pairs from 72 service firms were surveyed using a structured questionnaire.

Analyses of variance (ANOVA) revealed significant group difference along all six antecedents and three consequences.

The findings of this study suggest that imbalanced customer relationships might be prevented, or at least predicted, if the causes of such relationship structure are better understood.

Service organizations should be aware of the negative consequences of imbalanced customer relationships and take necessary caution in their company policies in order to eliminate the negative consequences of imbalanced customer relationships.

This study is the first quantitative inquiry into imbalanced customer relationship issues, which are extremely important in the services industry. Thus, it enhances the literature on services management.

Service networks are inherently complex as they comprise of many interrelated actors, often driven by divergent interests. This can result in imbalance, which refers to a situation where the interests of at least one actor in a network are not secured. Drawing on the “balanced centricity” perspective, the purpose of this paper is to explore the causes of imbalance in complex service networks.

Adopting a qualitative case-based approach, this paper examines a public health service network that experienced imbalance that was detrimental to the lives of its users: the Mid-Staffordshire National Health Service (NHS) Trust, UK. Drawing on service-dominant logic and stakeholder theory, case evidence provides insight into the origin and drivers of imbalance in complex public service networks.

The origin of imbalance stems from competing institutional logics of various actors (patients/public, employees, managers, regulatory bodies, etc.), but the degree to which these competing institutional logics lead to imbalance is moderated by accountability, communication, engagement, and responsiveness within the service network.

By uncovering causes of imbalance in complex public service networks, this paper pinpoints important research avenues for developing the balanced centricity perspective.

The inherent existence of multiple parallel institutional arrangements makes networks imbalanced, but value creation can be achieved when the appropriate mechanisms are fostered to manage balance between divergent logics.

By examining imbalance as the underlying cause of network dysfunction, this research contributes to understanding of the dynamics in, and performance of, complex public service networks.

Theory predicts that balancing exploratory and exploitative learning (i.e., ambidexterity) across alliance portfolio domains (e.g. value chain function, governance modes) increases firm performance, whereas balance within domains decreases performance. Prior empirical work, however, only assessed balance/imbalance within and across two domains. The purpose of this study is to determine if theory generalizes beyond specific domain combinations. The authors investigated across multiple domains to determine whether alliance portfolios should be imbalanced toward exploration or exploitation within domains or balanced across domains. The authors also extended prior research by exploring whether the direction of imbalance matters. Current theory only advises managers to accept imbalance without helping with the choice between exploration and exploitation.

Hypotheses are tested using fixed-effects generalized least squares (GLS) regression analysis of a large 13-year panel sample of Fortune 500 firms from 1996 to 2008.

With respect to the balance between exploration and exploitation within each of the five domains investigated, imbalanced alliance portfolios had higher firm performance. No evidence was found that balance across domains relates to performance. Instead, for four of the five domains, imbalance toward exploration related positively to firm performance.

An alliance portfolio that allows for exploration in some domains and exploitation in other domains appears more difficult to implement than prior theory suggests. Firms benefit mostly from using the alliance portfolio for exploratory learning.