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The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of digital transformation on the intersection of marketing and sales departments.

This area has received little attention in academic literature while considerable amount of research exists surrounding the marketing and sales integration, the influence of the trend of digital transformation on both departments and how it affects their collaboration is not investigated in-depth and is therefore studied by qualitative research via semi-structured interviews in six German organizations.

By considering the findings the collaboration between the marketing and sales departments in German organizations is perceived as good. However, generation-related conflicts occur due to different demographic structures of employees. The study provides evidence that the digital transformation affects the marketing and sales integration and thus, the overall organizational performance.

Moreover, it is crucial that organizations face the challenges that occur in terms of interdepartmental relationships and be aware of the huge potentials which arise due to digital transformation to improve the marketing and sales collaboration.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce translational mobilization theory (TMT) and explore its application for healthcare quality improvement purposes.

TMT is a generic sociological theory that explains how projects of collective action are progressed in complex organizational contexts. This paper introduces TMT, outlines its ontological assumptions and core components, and explores its potential value for quality improvement using rescue trajectories as an illustrative case.

TMT has value for understanding coordination and collaboration in healthcare. Inviting a radical reconceptualization of healthcare organization, its potential applications include: mapping healthcare processes, understanding the role of artifacts in healthcare work, analyzing the relationship between content, context and implementation, program theory development and providing a comparative framework for supporting cross-sector learning.

Poor coordination and collaboration are well-recognized weaknesses in modern healthcare systems and represent important risks to quality and safety. While the organization and delivery of healthcare has been widely studied, and there is an extensive literature on team and inter-professional working, we lack readily accessible theoretical frameworks for analyzing collaborative work practices. TMT addresses this gap in understanding.

This study examines the relationship of positive career shocks and career optimism. The mediating role of career decision-making self-efficacy (CDSE) between positive career shocks and career optimism and the moderating role of consideration of future consequences – immediate (CFC-I) between CDSE and career optimism are checked.

Through cluster sampling, cross-sectional data from 192 professionals of electronic media industry were collected via an electronically administered questionnaire. For preliminary descriptive data analysis, SPSS version 21 was used. SmartPLS version 3.0 was used for testing the proposed hypotheses.

The results showed that positive career shocks have a relationship with career optimism via CDSE. Also, CFC-I moderated the relationship of CDSE and career optimism such that the relationship of CDSE and career optimism was stronger at higher level of CFC-I.

The study provides implications for the career consultants, human resource professionals and senior management of organizations. All these stakeholders can strive to build an inventory of positive career shocks. Also, shifting to a surprised business model of announcing compensations and promotions is another area to work on. The results of this study further suggest disengaging the fresh potential employees in the initial processes of recruitment. Interdepartmental coordination of health and safety department and human resource management department is also a very important implication for this study to highlight the positive aspects of being optimistic.

The study is among the few empirical studies which investigates the relationship between positive career shocks and career optimism via CDSE. Also, in light of the latest call of various empirical works in the domain, this study adds a moderating variable, i.e. CFC-I in predicting career optimism. Furthermore, contrary to the conventional approach of applying students' data on career models, this study tests the proposed career model on data collected from professionals.

This paper is to explore how cross-functional integration (CFI) of production-marketing can impact the firm's build-to-order (BTO) competitiveness, marketing performance (MP) and financial performance (FP).

Empirical study with the structural equation modeling approach is applied. Six hypotheses are constructed and tested based on survey data collected from Chinese manufacturing firms.

The survey data supports that production-marketing integration (PMI) improves BTO competitiveness (BTOC) and MP and that BTOC also positively affects marketing outcome which, in turn, impacts a firm's FP. The results reveal that CFI of production-marketing is an effective approach for achieving the BTO manufacturing strategy and can improve organizational performance.

The paper uncovers the role of CFI of production-marketing in BTO manufacturing strategy and its impacts on a firm's MP and FP and provides important managerial implications for practitioners to improve organizational time-based competitiveness and performance in today's time-based competition era.

Building trust and living interpersonal trust are crucial corporate executive virtues that are needed today. Once you have developed and solidified a high level of genuine interpersonal trust with all your stakeholders, especially customers, suppliers, and employees, then you are on the right path of managing and transforming your company. A high level of interpersonal trust between all stakeholders and corporates in a business situation will break down communication barriers, foster serious conversation and sharing of ideas, and will eliminate corporate transactional anxieties of fear, mistrust, guilt, rigidity, blame, and resentment. When stakeholders trust you and you trust them, then you speak freely, they speak freely, and your mutual sustained transparency is a gateway to survival, revival, and sustained corporate recovery and transformation, and steady growth and prosperity. Conversely, when there is low trust, high mistrust, and high distrust among stakeholders in a business situation, communications and conversations are stressed and fragmented, teamwork and team spirit are very low, and the company is heading toward its ruin and extermination. Such is the crucial role of interpersonal trust in business. This chapter explores the crucial phenomenon of corporate interpersonal trust. We review various cases, models, concepts, definitions, and theories of trust from the management literature in general, and from the marketing field in particular, to derive psychological, behavioral, ethical, and moral principles of corporate trust, trusting relations, and trusting strategies.

Massive open online courses (MOOCs), a Taylorist attempt to automate instruction, help make course delivery more efficient, economical and better. As an implementation of Digital Taylorism Implementation (DTI), MOOCs enable individuals to obtain an occupation-oriented education, equipping them with knowledge and skills needed to stay employable. However, learning through online platforms can induce tremendous amounts of technology-related stress in learners such as complexity of platforms and fears of redundancy. Thus, the aim of this paper is to study how student perceptions of DTI and technostress (TS) influence their perceived employability (PE). The role of TS as a mediator between DTI and PE has also been studied.

Stratified sampling technique has been used to obtain data from 305 students from 6 universities. The effect of DTI and TS on PE, and the role of TS as a mediator, has been examined using the partial least squares (PLS) structural equation modelling approach with SMART PLS 4.0. software. Predictive relevance of the model has been studied using PLSPredict.

Results indicate that TS completely mediates the relationship between DTI and PE. The model has medium predictive relevance.

Learning outcomes from Digitally Taylored programs can be improved with certain reforms that bring the human touch to online learning.

This study extends Taylorism literature by linking DTI to PE of students via technostress as a mediator.

The literature on the factors generating loyalty towards tourism destinations has seldom focussed its attention on relationship marketing, which has left a gap in the understanding of destination loyalty. This paper aims to examine the influence of relationship quality on rural destination loyalty, approaching this through the variables of trust, attachment and satisfaction.

This study used a quantitative methodology based on an on line survey conducted in Spain. The sample consisted of 464 tourists who participate in rural tourism. The analysis of the proposed model was carried out based on the partial least squares method.

The results confirm that the model has a substantial to moderate explanatory capacity for overall satisfaction and loyalty, in which overall satisfaction acts as a mediator between the variables that make up relationship quality in reference to loyalty.

The main limitations of this research arise from the scarcity of works which aim to understand relationship quality in tourism destinations. To broaden results, it should be applied in other tourism destinations, products, services and experiences.

Destination managers should give relationships a special role in their tourism development programmes in rural tourism contexts.

Rural tourism destinations and companies are generally small-sized organisations that need managerial tools. These can benefit from developing sustainable relationships.

The significant role played by relationship quality regarding destination loyalty is studied in detail in this model.

La literatura sobre los factores que generan lealtad a los destinos turísticos poco ha centrado su atención en el marketing relacional, lo que ha dejado un vacío en la comprensión de la lealtad al destino. Este artículo examina la influencia de la calidad relacional en la lealtad a los destinos rurales, a través de las variables confianza, apego y satisfacción.

Este estudio usa una metodología cuantitativa basada en una encuesta on line realizada en España. La muestra estaba formada por 464 turistas que practican turismo rural. El análisis del modelo propuesto fue llevado a cabo con el método partial least squares.

Los resultados confirman que el modelo tiene una capacidad explicativa sustancial-moderada para la satisfacción global y la lealtad, en la que la satisfacción global actúa como mediadora entre las variables que conforman la calidad relacional y la lealtad.

La principal limitación de esta investigación surge de la escasez de trabajos cuyo objetivo se centra en la comprensión de la calidad relacional en los destinos turísticos. Para ampliar los resultados, habría de aplicarse en otros destinos, productos, servicios y experiencias turísticas.

Los gestores de destinos deberían otorgar un papel especial a las relaciones en sus programas de desarrollo turístico en el medio rural.

Los destinos y empresas de turismo rural son por lo general organizaciones de pequeñas dimensiones que necesitan herramientas para la gestión. Ellas pueden beneficiarse del desarrollo de relaciones sostenibles.

El papel significativo que juega la calidad relacional con respecto a la lealtad al destino, estudiado en detalle en este modelo.

Marketing relacional, Calidad relacional, Lealtad, Destinos rurales, Partial least squares (PLS)

Artículo de investigación

The purpose of this paper is to understand the strategic management of a technology-enabled shift from a product-centric to a service-centric logic and to identify the sociotechnical dynamics underlying this transition. The study focuses on how manufacturers manage to create value in industrial markets through digital servitization.

An abductive research approach is used to investigate two manufacturing firms, and an interpretive framework is used as an analytical template. A cross-case analysis is conducted.

The case companies strategically managed sociotechnical processes of digitization to co-create value. Their service orientation delineates dissimilarity in terms of digital servitization. It reflects a viable ecosystem that moves toward datatization through adaptation in one case and a viable ecosystem that moves toward digitization through reconfiguration in the other case.

A theoretically grounded, empirically informed framework is proposed to detect transformational mechanisms to manage value co-creation in digitally servitized contexts, thus contributing to ecosystem viability.

This is the first study to adopt a system perspective such as the viable system approach combined with service-dominant logic to reconceptualize the overall sociotechnical processes and the underlying mechanisms leading to digitized value creation. In line with a systems view and a systematic process based on a transformative attitude toward digital servitization, the empirically informed framework identifies specific co-creation activities and recursive feedback loops.

The purpose of this paper is to structure existing research on knowledge management (KM) in small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to offer a comprehensive overview of research strands and topics in KM in SMEs to determine their evolution over time.

The paper, which is considered a follow-up literature review, is based on a systematic literature review that covers 180 scientific papers that were published since the review paper by Durst and Edvardsson in 2012 that covered 36 papers.

The findings of this review and those of the aforementioned review are brought together in the form of an overview that structures research on KM in SMEs based on themes that, in turn, allow the derivation of promising research directions and research questions aimed at structuring future research on KM in SMEs.

By combining the findings of this review with the findings from the review published in this journal in 2012, this paper offers, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, the most comprehensive literature review on KM in SMEs produced to date.