Search results

The purpose of this paper is to propose a method for identifying business process-relevant contextual information that is likely to impact on the process goal. The ORGANON method describes a semi-structured procedural guide alongside with a set of criteria and a matrix for analyzing ontological transactions, which can be used to identify which context information can be considered relevant to a business process.

The authors report on an evaluation of the ORGANON method through a case study conducted in an organization that works in the social security domain.

The results provide evidences of the feasibility of the method application in this scenario.

Our research contributes to the literature on business processes flexibility, specifically through a proposal for context identification that can be extended to current techniques for business process modeling and in turn forms the basis for existing approaches for making business processes more flexible. The work has implications for the strategic management of organizations, by suggesting a method that provides informational support to decision makers about when, where and why business processes need to be adapted.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate why managerial leaders engage in leader self-development (SD) vis-à-vis China’s transition process and what domains of leadership competencies are enhanced. It aims to investigate leader SD as an interaction between self-regulation and the confluence of multiple contexts experienced simultaneously by these managerial leaders within China’s transition.

This paper adopts a two-phase exploratory sequential mixed-method design. The absence of empirical research on leader SD in China led to a qualitative approach in the initial stage. Focus groups were first conducted to establish the relevance of the focal construct in a holistic and elaborative way. In-depth interviews were then undertaken to capture the richness of the phenomenon through meaningful contextualization and to identify themes as representative of issues faced by participants. Seven themes emerged from this process, which, through consultation with the relevant literature, were operationalized in the second stage to generate a survey for hypothesis testing.

The combination of insights from qualitative and quantitative studies highlights the dynamic and interactive nature of leader SD as a product of contextual and personal influences in China. The influential mechanisms connecting personal and contextual enablers and SD are in the cognitive processing of developmental needs and personal responsibility. Chinese managerial leaders who take the initiative to assess their own developmental needs and assume responsibility for their development are more likely to undertake SD. The developmental activities focus primarily on technical leadership competencies.

A competency perspective to development may not address fully complexities involved in leader development. Also developing leadership competencies is an ongoing process. Due to limited time and fund, this paper did not take a time perspective to investigate both the immediate and long-term outcomes of leader SD.

SD is an emerging strategy that has the potential to address the shortage of managerial leadership competencies. The analysis of the self-regulatory process explains the mediating dynamism underlying different domains of leader SD. Recruitment focusing on people with a relatively higher degree of self-regulation thus increases the potential for organizations to staff themselves with employees aware of, and prepared for, SD organization would like to take place. It is also advisable that organizations make efforts to create a learning environment in general.

This mixed-method approach provides a multi-layered investigation that ultimately adds rigor and relevance to the research findings. It is this analysis of the complex web of economic, social and cultural contexts existing in China, and applying them to social cognitive theory as an explanatory platform, that underpins the originality of the study.

The advancement of enterprise social networks (ESNs) facilitates information sharing but also presents the challenge of managing information boundaries. This study aims to explore the factors that influence the information-control behavior of ESN users when continuously sharing information.

This study specifies the information-control behaviors in the “wall posts” channel and applies communication privacy management (CPM) theory to analyze the effects of the individual-specific factor (disposition to value information), context-specific factors (work-relatedness and information richness) and risk-benefit ratio (public benefit and public risk). Data on actual information-control behaviors extracted from ESN logs are examined using multilevel mixed-effects logistic regression analysis.

The study's findings show the direct effects of the individual-specific factor, context-specific factors and risk-benefit ratio, highlighting interactions between the individual motivation factor and ESN context factors.

This study reshapes the relationship of CPM theory boundary rules in the ESN context, extending information-control research and providing insights into ESNs' information-control practices.

The current longitudinal study investigated the within- and between-person variance in work-to-family conflict and family-to-work conflict among working mothers over time. It also examined the effects of a nonstandard work schedule and relationship quality on work-to-family conflict and family-to-work conflict using bioecological theory. Results of multilevel modeling analyses showed that there was significant within- and between-person variance in work-to-family conflict and family-to-work conflict. The linear and quadratic terms were significantly related to family-to-work conflict, whereas the quadratic term was significantly associated with work-to-family conflict. There was also a positive relationship between a nonstandard work schedule and work-to-family conflict, whereas relationship quality was negatively associated with family-to-work conflict. Future studies should consider diversity among working mothers to adequately predict work–family conflict. The current study provides important implications for employers to consider, concerning within-and between-person differences among working mothers, which could in turn allow for accommodations and help to decrease work–family conflict.

In this paper, I argue that English could be of more relevance to the Arabian Gulf if we conceptualized it as an educational forum for familiarizing students with socio-linguistic conventions relating to a wide variety of text types and for sharpening their critical awareness of the political implications of the uses of English. I make my case against the backdrop of a particular local context in the Arabian Gulf: the current BA programme in English at the College of Arts and Social Science, Sultan Qaboos University, the Sultanate of Oman. I maintain that the programme is predicated upon conceiving of English as a field (or rather fields) of knowledge, as academic disciplines of English literature, linguistics and translation, each with its own sets of concepts and frames of reference. As such, the programme both falls short of being fully theoretically coherent and fails to take into account the recent educational developments in Oman. Drawing upon the theoretical construct of discourse, I propose an outline of an alternative BA programme in English that revolves around the uses of English and their political implications.

The current study aims to investigate the development of the sustainability habitus in the Arab Middle East (ME) based on the pioneer case organisation, Aramex, which has been the pioneer of sustainability practices and reporting. The context of the Arab region, as well as the global logistics sector, has significantly influenced the development of sustainable development at Aramex, as illustrated by their sustainability and integrated reports.

The research approach of the current study is qualitative on the basis of open and selective coding techniques. The case organisation’s annual sustainability and integrated reports and additional relevant publicised information are analysed. Using publicised information from different sources increases triangulation and allows for more reliable findings. The theoretical context is Bourdieu’s habitus and field, which also reflects the interplay between habitus and field, and how Aramex’s sustainability practices and reports are being constructed.

The findings reflect Aramex’s sustainability practices and related reporting, subsumed in its organisational sustainability habitus. They span the sustainability reporting endeavours of the case organisation, commencing with the first sustainability report in 2006 until the most recent annual integrated report in 2018. Aramex is the precursor of sustainability and integrated reporting (IR) in the ME and is a significant contributor to developing a sustainability habitus in the region. The findings outline various elements of their reports as evidence of sustainability practices and reporting in the ME and the global logistics sector and as an illustration of the developing sustainability habitus.

This study reviews the original case of Aramex and its sustainability and IR practices. It also discusses the company’s practices and reporting details with regard to its organisational sustainability habitus and interplay with the local, Arab World and global, logistics sector, fields.

Traditional leadership theory and research courses do not adequately prepare students for cross-cultural leadership. This article notes six premises of Western theories and demonstrates the limitations of these premises in non-Western settings. A framework for the study of cross-cultural leadership, The Global Leadership-Learning Pyramid, is proposed, and the theoretical foundations are discussed.

Needs for information literacy, disparities in society, bridging digital divides, richness of information sources in electronic (e-)environments and the value of dictionaries have often been propagated. To improve information sources and information literacy training, information behaviour must be understood (i.e. all information activities). This paper conceptualises new opportunities for information sources (e.g. electronic dictionaries) to all society sectors, dictionary literacy and research lenses such as lexicography to supplement information literacy and behaviour research.

A scoping review of information literacy and behaviour, lexicography and dictionary literature grounds the conceptualisation of dictionary literacy, its alignment with information literacy, information activities and information behaviour and lexicography as additional research lens.

Research lenses must acknowledge dictionary use in e-environments, information activities and skills, meanings of information and dictionary literacy, the value of e-dictionaries, alignment with information behaviour research that guides the development of information sources and interdisciplinary research from, e.g. lexicography – thus contextualisation.

Research implications – information behaviour and information literacy research can be enriched by lexicography as research lens. Further conceptualisation could align information behaviour, information literacy and dictionary literacy.

Dictionary training, aligned with information literacy training, can be informed by this paper.

The value of dictionary literacy for all sectors of societies can be improved.

Large bodies of literature on information behaviour and lexicography individually do not cover combined insights from both.

Context-awareness has emerged as an important principle in the design of flexible business processes. The goal of the research is to develop an approach to extend context-aware business process modeling toward location-awareness. The purpose of this paper is to identify and conceptualize location-dependencies in process modeling.

This paper uses a pattern-based approach to identify location-dependency in process models. The authors design specifications for these patterns. The authors present illustrative examples and evaluate the identified patterns through a literature review of published process cases.

This paper introduces location-awareness as a new perspective to extend context-awareness in BPM research, by introducing relevant location concepts such as location-awareness and location-dependencies. The authors identify five basic location-dependent control-flow patterns that can be captured in process models. And the authors identify location-dependencies in several existing case studies of business processes.

The authors focus exclusively on the control-flow perspective of process models. Further work needs to extend the research to address location-dependencies in process data or resources. Further empirical work is needed to explore determinants and consequences of the modeling of location-dependencies.

As existing literature mostly focusses on the broad context of business process, location in process modeling still is treated as “second class citizen” in theory and in practice. This paper discusses the vital role of location-dependencies within business processes. The proposed five basic location-dependent control-flow patterns are novel and useful to explain location-dependency in business process models. They provide a conceptual basis for further exploration of location-awareness in the management of business processes.

Drawing on the entrepreneurial event model (EEM), entrepreneurship education programs (EEPs) and perceived contextual support (adapted from social cognitive career theory) and perceived contextual barriers, this study aims to unravel the differences in entrepreneurial activity among university students in higher education institutes in two diverse Asian countries.

This study uses a cross-sectional survey-based data collection technique using paper and electronic methods. The study analyzes data using descriptive statistics, principal component analysis, reliability analysis and logistic regression analysis via SPSS version 25.

The findings show the positive influence of perceived desirability and feasibility on entrepreneurial intentions; however, the stronger desirability was found among university students in China and stronger feasibility toward entrepreneurial intentions among Pakistani students. The study reveals the negative significant influence of EEPs on entrepreneurial intentions, and this finding is consistent across both samples. Furthermore, the findings show that university students in both countries show insignificant impact of perceived contextual support in predicting entrepreneurial intentions. Finally, the study confirms the negative influence of perceived barriers on entrepreneurial intentions in both contexts.

This study provides differences in entrepreneurial activity by combing EEM, EEPs, perceived contextual support and barriers in two diverse Asian countries, and to the best of author’s knowledge, no previous study considered these factors in a single framework. Furthermore, the findings of the study enrich existing literature and also provide policy recommendations for practitioners.