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The intricate and unpredictable nature arising in higher education institutions (HEIs) implementing technology-driven change for e-learning environments demands a much closer examination of individuals’ interpretations and interactions as they undergo these changes. Through a micro-foundational lens, this study aims to examine the micro-level inhibitors and supporting factors of individual’s readiness for change by investigating technology-driven change in HEIs.

A two-phased research design using grounded theory methodology was used to collect and analyse data incorporated within a single-case study in an HEI. Data was collected using semi-structured interviews with 22 participants, followed by a focus group with eight participants centered on factors affecting their readiness for change during technology-driven change in e-learning environments. The data analysis followed an iterative constant comparative approach and its three-phased coding process: open, axial and selective coding.

This study revealed that staff with little awareness of the organisations expectations towards a technology-driven change or who are poorly communicated with can exhibit higher resistance and lower individual readiness for change. While macro-level factors of organisational structure can contribute to the success or failure of technology-driven change, the fundamental features related to individuals’ readiness for change are integral to understanding the micro-level causal behaviours underlying these macro-level phenomena.

The dominant model of change is often focused on drivers that are centered on examining macro-level constructs rather than individuals who are facing the change. This study presents theories on readiness for change and offers a micro-foundational view to bring new perspectives into the current literature on how individual-level micro-foundations enhance understanding of technological change in HEIs.

In the last few years, the size of Linked Open Data (LOD) describing artworks, in general or domain-specific Knowledge Graphs (KGs), is gradually increasing. This provides (art-)historians and Cultural Heritage professionals with a wealth of information to explore. Specifically, structured data about iconographical and iconological (icon) aspects, i.e. information about the subjects, concepts and meanings of artworks, are extremely valuable for the state-of-the-art of computational tools, e.g. content recognition through computer vision. Nevertheless, a data quality evaluation for art domains, fundamental for data reuse, is still missing. The purpose of this study is filling this gap with an overview of art-historical data quality in current KGs with a focus on the icon aspects.

This study’s analyses are based on established KG evaluation methodologies, adapted to the domain by addressing requirements from art historians’ theories. The authors first select several KGs according to Semantic Web principles. Then, the authors evaluate (1) their structures’ suitability to describe icon information through quantitative and qualitative assessment and (2) their content, qualitatively assessed in terms of correctness and completeness.

This study’s results reveal several issues on the current expression of icon information in KGs. The content evaluation shows that these domain-specific statements are generally correct but often not complete. The incompleteness is confirmed by the structure evaluation, which highlights the unsuitability of the KG schemas to describe icon information with the required granularity.

The main contribution of this work is an overview of the actual landscape of the icon information expressed in LOD. Therefore, it is valuable to cultural institutions by providing them a first domain-specific data quality evaluation. Since this study’s results suggest that the selected domain information is underrepresented in Semantic Web datasets, the authors highlight the need for the creation and fostering of such information to provide a more thorough art-historical dimension to LOD.

In developing countries such as India, start-ups play an essential role in “industrial output,” “Gross Domestic Product ” and “employment creation.” Evidence suggests that pandemics have risen over the last century due to rising global travel and assimilation, urbanization, alterations in land use, and significantly larger exploitation of the natural environment. These trends are likely to continue and intensify. These pandemic episodes affect businesses, especially start-ups. Supplier selection is among the vital critical elements that start-ups must include in start-ups' strategy procedures during the pandemic episodes. This study's focus is to “identify,” “analyze,” and “categorize” the factors affecting supplier selection in start-ups during frequent pandemic episodes like coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

Through “literature review” and “experts' opinion” from various start-ups in India, ten affecting factors were identified. Total Interpretative Structural Modeling (TISM) and Cross-Impact Matrix Multiplication Applied to Classification (MICMAC) were employed to analyze the interrelationship among the factors affecting the supplier selection on start-ups during frequent pandemic episodes, and these factors were ranked as “autonomous,” “independent,” “linkage,” and “dependent” factors.

The findings show that “performance history,” “service levels,” “technical capability,” and “financial stability” are the most critical factors affecting the supplier selection on start-ups during frequent pandemic episodes. The next importance should be safety and environmental concern” and “quality.”

The factors affecting supplier selection on start-ups during frequent pandemic episodes are the current focus of this study. This study is mainly performed on Indian start-ups and can be extended to other countries.

The start-ups can rely on this study to clearly understand the factors affecting the supplier selection on start-ups during frequent pandemic episodes.

There is no research regarding factors affecting supplier selection on start-ups during the COVID-19 emergencies. This research gap is filled by analyzing aspects linked to supplier selection in start-ups. This gap inspired the present study, which employs the “Total Interpretive Structural Modeling (TISM)” technique to uncover supplier selection determinants and investigate hierarchical interconnections among factors influencing/affecting supplier selection in start-ups during frequent pandemic episodes.

As a measure against plastic waste, Coca-Cola and Evian have begun introducing label-free plastic bottles. Food labels have long been recognized as an important marketing tool, but there is a lack of research on label-free products. To address this gap, this study examined the influence of label-free design on product attractiveness in the Japanese green tea market.

If existing products are used in an experiment, respondents would be subject to brand image bias. Hence, by mechanically combining the main design elements (cap shape, bottle style, decoration line, logo and label) with an orthogonal array, the conditions for bottles with and without labels are completely aligned. The authors conducted an online survey and applied the chi-square test to the attractiveness of 18 designs presented in random order.

Label-free designs were more attractive to consumers than labeled designs. The effect was higher among female, middle-aged and older adults; those with higher annual income and low-frequency purchasers.

Practitioners should adopt a label-free design that can satisfy both environmental considerations and customer value. It would be a formidable challenge to change the longstanding emphasis placed on label design, but this study demonstrates the value of doing so.

This is the first study in the package design literature on the advantages of label-free plastic bottles. The authors also applied an orthogonal array used for many years to optimize objective numerical values in marketing research.

The purpose of this research is to determine the competitive advantages of higher education institutions (HEIs) and create a new methodology to rank universities according to the competitive advantages.

The research determines the competitive advantages of HEIs by analysing expert opinions through a semi-structured interview form, matches codes and themes to performance indicators using Saldana's two-cycle coding methods, evaluates content validity through Lawshe and reveals the item weights of the ranking with analytical hierarchy process (AHP). Simple additive weighting (SAW) and Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity (TOPSIS) methods were used for ranking universities.

Seven dimensions stand out in regard to what should be considered while ranking HEIs: research and publication, education, management, infrastructure, financial resources, human resources and social and economic contribution. Under the 7 dimensions, 69 indicators were determined.

The research provides a scientific reference point where HEIs can compare themselves with other HEIs regarding where they are in the sector, especially in terms of competitive advantages.

Although there are many different ranking methods that rank universities in the national and international literature, almost all these methods are largely based on the outputs of the university such as the number of publications, the number of patents, the number of projects, etc. A framework which ranks universities by considering different aspects of the institution, such as management, human resources and financial resources, has not been developed yet. In this respect, this research aims to fill this gap in the literature.

This paper aims to present an approach to intercultural training (IT) in which course participants are informed about various approaches to differences between peoples. Pitfalls in communication are identified that are due to overgeneralization of incidental observations of behavior and to psychological mechanisms such as stereotyping, ethnocentrism and attribution. Effects of poor command of a second language and paralinguistic factors are also included.

Intercultural communication training or IT programs often over-generalize incidental observations and make attributions about broad differences between “us” and “others”. An approach to IT is described that challenges the way in which notions about “culture” and “cultures” tend to be used.

A training module based on the principles mentioned is described that was originally developed for military officers preparing for international peace-keeping and peace-building missions and later has been administered in various settings and countries.

An exit questionnaire and postmission interviews have suggested positive effects of the training, but more systematic evaluation research is needed.

Cross-cultural communication (3C) training is mostly about how other people differ from “us”. Better understanding may be gained with an approach that emphasizes how much humans everywhere are alike and that perceived differences can also be in the eye of the beholder.

Mutual understanding is critical to positive interaction. The approach to 3C training taken here explains how much humans everywhere are alike and puts manifest differences into perspective.

The training module builds on available knowledge, notably from cross-cultural psychology. Except for a questionnaire to demonstrate ethnocentrism, there is hardly new information. However, the approach arranges available knowledge in a way that is rather novel for the field of 3C training.

This study intends to recognize and prioritize the work-family balance (WFB) enablers for working sole mothers by employing total interpretive structural modelling (TISM) and “Matrice-d’impacts-croisés-multiplication-appliqués-à-un-classment” method (MICMAC).

This paper utilizes the integrated approach in two stages. In initial stage, strategic literature review and expert mining technique have been conducted to recognize and validate WFB enablers. In subsequent stage, TISM has been applied to observe the contextual relationships among WFB enablers in the direction to construct a TISM-based structural model. Furthermore, MICMAC technique has been employed to categorize the WFB enablers based on their driver and dependence power.

This paper has identified novel 13 key enablers of WFB among working sole mothers and constructed a unique TISM-based hierarchical model. Moreover, WFB enablers have been categorized into four clusters using MICMAC analysis. In the developed TISM model, working sole mother-related WFB personal enablers are primarily at the upper level, family-related WFB enablers are in the center and work-related WFB enablers are in the lowest level.

The developed framework on WFB enablers among working sole mothers can provide a resolution to difficulties faced by sole mothers in managing WFB by providing a pathway to enhance their performance by improving the organizational effectiveness through improving WFB policies.

Based on the best of authors' awareness, this study first incorporates the TISM-MICMAC technique to recognize and prioritize the WFB enablers for working sole mothers.

This paper aims to investigate how the technical logics of a World Bank-led performance management reform interacted with the social, political and historical logics within a developing country (DC) regulatory organisation. The institutional environment both within and outside the organisation was considered to understand the performance management reform experience.

An interview-based, longitudinal, qualitative case study approach was used to locate accounting in its technical, social and political space. A large regulatory organisation in Bangladesh was investigated as a case study to reveal how traditional organisational practices and public sector norms mediated a performance management reform. Informed by the institutional logics (IL) and economies of worth perspectives, interviews were used to locate IL at macro-level and associated organisational actors’ strategic responses that ultimately shaped the implementation of a performance management system (PMS).

This paper reveals how accounting, as a social and political practice, influences accountability reform within a regulatory organisation. It provides an account of both the processes and resultant practices of an accounting reform initiative. While a consultative and transparent performance management process was intended to enhance accountability, it challenged the traditional organisational authority structure and culture. The new PMS retained, modified and adjusted a number of its characteristics over time. These adjustments reflected an amalgamation of the influence of institutional pressures from powerful constituents and the ability of the local agents (managers) in negotiating and mediating the institutionalisation of a new PMS.

The findings of this paper carry major implications for policy makers, particularly with respect to the design of future reform programs on PMS.

This paper offers a theoretical mapping of IL and its organisation-level interpretations and practices. Thus, the authors locate power and influence at field and firm levels. The findings of this study reflect historical, political and cultural backgrounds of the case study organisation and how these contextual forces were active in shaping the meaning of reform logics. Though the institutional environment and agents were unique to the case study organisation, this research offers a “process generalisation” that reveals how a best practice PMS was translated and transformed by the traditional organisational practices in a DC regulatory context.

The purpose of this study is to provide a textual approach to quantify the perception of uncertainty from management side and investigate how firms manage their overseas investment dynamics when perceiving an increase in economic policy uncertainty (EPU).

Using a textual analysis approach, the study evaluates firm-level perception of EPU. Based on the data from China's listed firms between 2007 and 2018, it examines the association between firm-level perception of EPU and overseas investment using probit model and fixed effects regression with robust standard error adjusted for heteroscedasticity and clustered by firm.

The study finds that the level of EPU perceived by individual firms is heterogeneous. Moreover, it finds that firm-level perception of EPU is positively associated with firms' overseas investment. When perceiving an increase in EPU, firms are more likely to invest abroad and their overseas investment is more diverse. Further analysis shows that the positive association between firm-level perception of EPU and overseas investment is weaker in firms with higher financing cost, investment irreversibility and management incentive but stronger in firms with more intensive industry competition. However, it does not find significant difference in the impact of firm-level perception of EPU on overseas investment of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and non-state-owned enterprises (non-SOEs). The results are robust to using alternative measures of primary variables and to endogeneity concerns.

First, although the data on outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) at the national and provincial levels are comprehensive, the data on OFDI at the firm level are still relatively scarce. As the firm-level OFDI data become available, future study could be extended to OFDI flow. Second, future study could use other information disclosed by firms to evaluate their perception of EPU from host countries and examine the impact of bilateral EPU on overseas investment. Third, by evaluating firm-level perception of uncertainty in terms of a particular type of economic policies, such as fiscal policy, monetary policy, trade policy and foreign investment policy, future study could probe the sources of EPU affecting firms' overseas investment.

First, although uncertainty increases the volatility of firms' investment activities, firms can recognize and seize investment opportunities in an uncertain economic environment and make profits through resource integration. Second, as the association between firm-level perception of EPU and overseas investment depends on firm and industry characteristics, firms with higher financing cost, investment irreversibility and management incentive should be more cautious when making overseas investment decisions during uncertainty times. Third, governments should increase the transparency and the stability of their economic policies to help firms plan their investment policies.

The study extends the literature related to EPU measurement by constructing a firm-level perception index of EPU based on firms' annual reports using a textual analysis approach. Moreover, it sheds some light on the mechanism of how firms modulate their overseas investment activities under uncertainty.