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This study aims to investigate why and how shared service centres (SSCs) are implemented as well as how they affect audit firm practice and audit quality.

In this qualitative study guided by the theoretical framework of institutional theory, the authors conducted 25 semi-structured interviews in seven European countries, including 16 interviews with audit partners from Big 4 firms, 6 with audit team members, 2 with interviewees from second-tier audit firms and 1 with a member of an oversight body.

The authors show that the central rationale for audit firms to implement SSCs is economic rather than external legitimacy. The authors find that SSC implementation has substantial effects on audit practices, particularly those related to standardisation, coordination and monitoring activities. The authors also highlight the potential impacts on audit quality.

By exploring the motivation for and effects of SSC implementation amongst audit firms, the authors offer insights into the best practices related to subsequent change processes and audit quality.

Despite similarities, research across family business and business advising forwards contradictory conclusions when considering family business advising. The authors seek to integrate these literature and in doing so uncover both the hurdles facing family business advisors attempting to adapt tools developed in corporate advising to the family business context as well as the potential for greater integration of these streams in ways that contribute to both family business and advising research and practice.

Primary data were collected both in the form of a survey questionnaire and website marketing content. In the survey, 47 family business advisors evaluated the distinctiveness of their family business clients across structural, cognitive and relational social capital dimensions. Motivated by unexpected findings, a content analysis of advisor websites uncovered specific marketing themes that illustrate the divides between family business advising and scholarship.

Family business advisors reliably acknowledge structural and cognitive social capital as preeminently characterizing the distinctiveness of their family business clients. Expanding on this, the authors’ findings suggest that the urgency signaled in advisor marketing via their websites may inspire tactics misaligned with the long-term time horizon typically characterizing family businesses strategy.

The few family business advising studies that exist predominantly consider post-hoc evaluation of advising by family business clients. The primary data the authors collect are unique in the literature in that the data detail how family business advisors perceive and engage with potential clients.

Based on the perspective of knowledge management capability, this paper aims to reveal the internal mechanism of the digital empowerment of mobile social platforms to improve the operational performance of Chinese traditional retail enterprises. Such improvements have crucial theoretical value and practical implications for Chinese traditional retail enterprises to achieve transformation and sustainable development.

This study applied the typical analysis method, selected China’s leading mobile social platform, WeChat, as a typical case, and observed and analyzed the public data of the traditional retail industry and social platforms and interviews with relevant enterprises. On this basis, this study used the inductive and deductive methods of qualitative research to conduct an in-depth analysis of the mechanism by which WeChat’s digital empowerment improves the operational performance of Chinese traditional retail enterprises. It also discussed the critical role and path knowledge management capabilities play in this mechanism.

This research demonstrated that mobile social platforms empower Chinese traditional retail enterprises to build diversified digital channels, enhance the knowledge acquisition capability of enterprises and thus improve their performance; empower Chinese traditional retail enterprises to build digital community networks, enhance the knowledge diffusion capability of enterprises and thus improve their performance; and empower Chinese traditional retail enterprises to integrate online and offline businesses, enhance the knowledge integration capability of enterprises and thus improve their performance.

This study clarifies the internal mechanism of how the digital empowerment of mobile social platforms can improve the performance of Chinese traditional retail enterprises. This mechanism implies that knowledge management capabilities (knowledge acquisition, diffusion and integration capability) are the underlying logic for Chinese traditional retail enterprises to achieve higher performance levels. This has important practical implications for managers of Chinese traditional retail enterprises to leverage the digital infrastructure of mobile social platforms to achieve the sustainable development of enterprises.

This study provides an in-depth analysis of how the traditional retail industry uses digital social platforms to improve operational performance from the perspective of knowledge management capabilities, which can further promote the theoretical research and practical development of digitalization and knowledge management. At the same time, this study explored the research on the operational performance of Chinese traditional retail enterprises from the perspective of knowledge management capabilities and expanded the research on knowledge management in related fields. The authors have initially sorted out the impact of knowledge management capabilities on the operational performance of Chinese traditional retail enterprises in the digital era. This will help better understand the role and function of knowledge management in strategic transformation and expand the application of knowledge management theory.

This study aims to investigate and test the impact of competitive priorities, in terms of quality, speed, dependability, flexibility, cost and patient engagement, on patient satisfaction with healthcare services. It considers patients’ rather than managers’ points of view to collect responses about competitive priorities.

This research employed a cross-sectional survey design to analyze a sample of customers through an empirical study of 488 patients in Qatar’s healthcare service context.

The confirmatory factor analysis results show that competitive priorities and engagement positively and significantly impact patient satisfaction.

Researchers can use this methodology to explore the role of competitive priorities in different service contexts and sectors. The researchers conducted the study in Qatar; therefore, the results are not generalizable to all healthcare sectors. However, regardless of geographic location, the research approach can be used in healthcare.

Managers can employ the developed scales to diagnose competitive priorities and improve customer service experiences.

The paper is original as it suggests using competitive priorities as a measurement tool for predicting patient satisfaction compared to prior research that mostly measured competitive priorities based on internal perspectives (managers’ perspectives). Further, this paper is original because it depends on the external perspective (customers’ perspective) for the competitive priorities for measuring patient satisfaction.

This study employs Stein Rokkan's methodological approach to analyse state formation in the Greater Middle East. It develops a conceptual framework distinguishing colonial, populist and democratic pacts, suitable for analysis of state formation and nation-building through to the present period. The framework relies on historical institutionalism. The methodology, however, is Rokkan's. The initial conceptual analysis also specifies differences between European and the Middle Eastern state formation processes. It is followed by a brief and selective discussion of historical preconditions. Next, the method of plotting singular cases into conceptual-typological maps is applied to 20 cases in the Greater Middle East (including Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey). For reasons of space, the empirical analysis is limited to the colonial period (1870s to the end of World War 1). Three typologies are combined into one conceptual-typological map of this period. The vertical left-hand axis provides a composite typology that clarifies cultural-territorial preconditions. The horizontal axis specifies transformations of the region's agrarian class structures since the mid-19th century reforms. The right-hand vertical axis provides a four-layered typology of processes of external intervention. A final section presents selected comparative case reconstructions. To the authors' knowledge, this is the first time such a Rokkan-style conceptual-typological map has been constructed for a non-European region.

The purpose of this paper is to provide rich, qualitative insights around internal communication in strategic communication agencies, addressing the evolutions in expectations and best practices for agency leadership through COVID-19.

Qualitative interview study with 18 US-based leaders of public relations and advertising agencies to examine their experiences of leading and managing strategic communication teams during COVID-19.

Synthesized findings around changes in leadership values and important facets of ongoing internal crisis communication led to the development of the following five categories—Improvisation and Flexibility, Transparency and Trust, Ownership and Embodiment, Care and Empathy, Relationships and Resilience.

Using a high-value sample, the study is the first (to the best of the authors' knowledge) to focus on the crucial context of agencies and internal communication around COVID-19; diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI); and other pandemic-era challenges. It provides theoretical implications around ongoing, internal crisis communication and practical implications for agency leaders in crisis.

Shared leadership is an effective mechanism for managing project teams. Its performance-enhancing benefits have been demonstrated in many studies. Nonetheless, there is an obvious silence about how to promote shared leadership in Lean Six Sigma (LSS) project teams. To address this deficit, the purposes of this study are to investigate the influence of shared leadership on LSS project success and to explore how team psychological safety, project task complexity and project task interdependence influence shared leadership.

A multi-source, time-lagged survey design with a four-month interval was conducted. To do this, the authors collected data from 71 project teams (comprising 71 project managers and 352 project members) using LSS approaches in the manufacturing and service industries.

The findings show that shared leadership positively influences LSS project success. The authors also found that team psychological safety fosters the development of shared leadership and, more importantly, these effects are stronger when the tasks are more complex and more interdependent.

These findings advance our understanding of the factors that enable shared leadership and equip LSS project managers with practical techniques to improve shared leadership for the success of their projects.

This study extends the theory of shared leadership to the context of LSS project management and is among the first, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, to theoretically propose and empirically validate how to promote shared leadership in LSS project teams.

The various quality improvement (QI) frameworks and maturity models described in the health services literature consider some aspects of QI while excluding others. This paper aims to present a concerted attempt to create a quality improvement maturity model (QIMM) derived from holistic principles underlying the successful implementation of system-wide QI programmes.

A hybrid methodology involving a systematic review (Phase 1) of over 270 empirical research articles and books developed the basis for the proposed QIMM. It was followed by expert interviews to refine the core constructs and ground the proposed QIMM in contemporary QI practice (Phase 2). The experts included academics in two academic conferences and 59 QI managers from the New Zealand health-care system. In-depth interviews were conducted with QI managers to ascertain their views on the QIMM and its applicability in their respective health organisations (HOs).

The QIMM consists of four dimensions of organisational maturity, namely, strategic, process, supply chain and philosophical maturity. These dimensions progress through six stages, namely, identification, ad-hoc, formal, process-driven, optimised enterprise and finally a way of life. The application of the QIMM by the QI managers revealed that the scope of QI and the breadth of the principles adopted by the QI managers and their HOs in New Zealand is limited.

The importance of QI in health systems cannot be overstated. The proposed QIMM can help HOs diagnose their current state and provide a guide to action achieving a desirable state of quality improvement maturity. This QIMM avoids reliance on any single QI methodology. HOs – using the QIMM – should retain full control over the process of selecting any QI methodology or may even cherry-pick principles to suit their needs as long as they understand and appreciate the true nature and scope of quality overstated. The proposed QIMM can help HOs diagnose their current state and provide a guide to action achieving a desirable state of quality improvement maturity. This QIMM avoids reliance on any single QI methodology. HOs – using the QIMM – should retain full control over the process of selecting any QI methodology or may even cherry-pick principles to suit their needs as long as they understand and appreciate the true nature and scope of quality.

This paper contributes new knowledge by presenting a maturity model with an integrated set of quality principles for HOs and their extended supply networks.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of what (service) experience is and examine it using three distinct perspectives: customer experience (CX), employee experience (EX) and human experience (HX).

The present conceptualization blends the marketing and organizational behavior/human resources management (OB/HRM) disciplines to clarify and reflect over the meaning of (service) experience. The marketing discipline illuminates the concept of CX, whereas the OB/HRM discipline illuminates the concept of EX. The concept of HX, which transcends CX and EX, is examined in light of its recent development in service research. For each of the three concepts, key themes are identified, and future research directions are proposed.

Because the goal that individuals seek to achieve depends on the role they are enacting, each of the three perspectives on experience (CX, EX and HX) should have a different focal point. CX requires to focus on the process of solving customer goals. EX necessitates to think in terms of organizational context and job content that support employees. Finally, the focus of HX should be on well-being via enhanced gratification, and reduced violation, of basic human needs.

This paper offers an interdisciplinary perspective on (service) experience and simultaneously addresses CX, EX and HX in order to reconcile the different perspectives on experience in service research.

This article investigates the practical implementation of the ecosystem approach in different branches of public management within an urban context. It explores how ecosystem thinking is introduced, disseminated and applied in a local government organization.

We utilize a qualitative case study methodology, relying on official documents and expert interviews. Our study focuses on the city of Espoo, Finland, which has actively embraced ecosystem thinking as a fundamental framework for its organizational development for almost a decade.

The case of Espoo highlights elements that have not been commonly attributed to the ecosystem approach in the public sector. These elements include (1) the significance of complementary services, (2) the existence of both collaborative and competitive relationships among actors in public service ecosystems and (3) the utilization of digital platforms for resource orchestration. Our study also emphasizes the need for an incremental adoption of ecosystem thinking in organizational contexts to enable its successful implementation.

The study provides valuable insights into the introduction and dissemination of ecosystem thinking in public management. It also further develops previously developed hypotheses regarding public service ecosystems.