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To provide guidelines in the form of a procedural model for e‐government‐indicated business process reengineering (BPR) projects in public administrations.

A range of recently published works, which aim to provide practical advice for process‐oriented e‐government projects, were analysed. Additionally, experiences from several practical e‐government projects were taken into account. The procedural model developed was then tested and evaluated.

There is a lack of process orientation in public administrations. Additionally, existing processes are regularly not applicable to e‐government. Therefore, e‐government projects in practice are not always able to fully implement transactional processes. Part of the value potentially added by e‐government is hence not exploited. One of the main reasons for the lack of process orientation is that there are few BPR methodologies applied and verified in public administrations.

The procedural model has not been tested for all different political and administrative systems. Certain national characteristics might lead to additional adaptations of the model which have been suggested.

The procedural model is very useful and has been validated in several practical projects.

This paper fulfils an identified need for BPR methodologies in public administrations, especially in the move towards e‐government.

Business process management (BPM) is a key concept in information systems (IS) research that helps to connect business strategy with the use of technology in an organization. Contemporary BPM research is no longer only about methods, procedures, or tools for managing or modeling processes but about assessing and developing BPM capability in organizations. For this purpose, a vast collection of maturity models has been designed by practitioners and scholars alike. Such models are used to assess the status quo and benchmark it against other organizations, and, most important, to guide the development of BPM capability. With this study, the paper challenges the maturity model perspective of such development models.

In this study, methods of qualitative IS research are employed to address the research objectives.

The paper shows that maturity model-based guidance would be inadequate. Instead, other concept-external factors resulting from organizational and environmental characteristics appear to be important indicators. The theory discussion introduces alternative takes on BPM capability development, lays out implications for BPM practice, and presents potentially fruitful paths for future research in the area of BPM capability development.

This paper challenges the current perspectives and contributes a new direction for conceptualizing BPM capability development.

Business process management (BPM) networks have become an important theme in both research and practice. Drawing from governance theory, this paper seeks to provide a theoretical understanding of BPM networks and introduce three types of BPM governance: market, network, and hierarchy. Subsequently, it aims to study the impact of BPM maturity, organization size, and financial stress (independent variables) on the three types of BPM governance (dependent variable).

After a thorough literature analysis a quantitative study is conducted. Comprehensive data of 538 local public administration in Germany and Japan is comparatively studied by means of a PLS (model and multi group) analysis.

The empirical study provides evidence for the significant dependence of BPM governance on contextual variables: the configuration of the BPM network relies on the BPM maturity and the perceived financial stress. Also, such dependence does vary between the two countries. Higher financial stress leads to more higher network sourcing in Germany and to higher market sourcing in Japan, respectively.

This study suggests that the role of process managers changes over time. In immature organizations, process managers appear to work alone and struggle for resources. However, once organizations start to mature, the role changes to that of an “orchestrator of different actors.” Process managers in future public organizations (assuming a positive development of capabilities), both in Asian and European settings, must be able to collaborate with actors from different governance mechanisms.

First, the paper provides a governance‐theory based understanding of BPM networks. It introduces market‐type, network‐type, and hierarchy‐type BPM governance and thereby provides greater conceptual and theoretical clarity of this important phenomenon. So far, this research area has been under‐theorized. Second, the paper provides a theory that explains BPM network governance. Here, relevant contextual variables are taken into account, including the BPM maturity of an organization. Third, the paper contributes comprehensive empirical insights into BPM networks structures, governance mechanisms, and their dependence on contextual variables (especially the BPM maturity of an organization). Fourth, it provides an ample comparative theory‐based analysis of BPM networks in two different countries. Such an endeavor, as to the author's best knowledge, has not yet been undertaken so far.

The purpose of this paper is to determine whether consumers’ attitude toward sporting goods retailers depends on who engages in corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities and where CSR takes place. The study aims to replicate previous findings on football teams (Kulczycki and Koenigstorfer, 2016) for for-profit sporting goods retailers by looking at how organization size and proximity of the supported cause to the retailers’ headquarters interact with consumers’ motive attributions for CSR (philanthropic vs profit).

In total, 200 participants took part in the experimental study. The study applied a between-participant design manipulating both the proximity of the supported social cause (local vs distant CSR) and the size of the organization (small- vs large-sized organization) and measured perceived motives for CSR as independent variables. Attitude toward retailers was the dependent variable.

The results of regression analyses showed that perceived philanthropic motives increased attitude toward retailers. This relationship became stronger for large-sized sporting goods retailers, in particular when they engaged in CSR activities at distant locations. For small-sized retailers, the proximity of CSR did not impact on the relationship between motive attribution and attitude toward the retailer.

Large-sized retailers are encouraged to take particular care that consumers perceive CSR activities as philanthropy-driven, especially when supporting social causes at distant locations.

The study replicates previous findings and shows that not only for sports teams, but also for sporting good retailers, CSR can increase consumer attitudes even when the consumer population at the organization headquarters’ location does not directly benefit from CSR.

This paper aims to shed light on the emerging position of companies taking stances on sociopolitical issues and the impact this has on consumers.

The paper uses focus groups, interviews and consumer experiments in various countries, to provide insights as to why brands are taking sociopolitical stances.

Consumers expect brands to take a stance on sociopolitical issues. However, to be credible, a stance needs to be rooted in a long-term commitment that aligns with the brand’s strategy and values. Perceived authenticity is key.

Future studies should aim at broader generalizability and should address various industries.

Differentiating a brand through a sociopolitical stance requires a strategic approach. Brand managers need to identify which issues they should support, how to engage with them and the risks and opportunities involved.

While the impact of brands adopting a sociopolitical stance has been discussed in the mainstream media, there has been a lack of empirical evidence to support the arguments. The results of the four studies discussed in the paper provide insights and demonstrate the brand-related opportunities and risks of taking a sociopolitical stance.

Over the past 20 years, partial least squares (PLS) has become a popular method in marketing research. At the same time, several methodological studies have demonstrated problems with the technique but have had little impact on its use in marketing research practice. This study aims to present some of these criticisms in a reader-friendly way for non-methodologists.

Key critiques of PLS are summarized and demonstrated using existing data sets in easily replicated ways. Recommendations are made for assessing whether PLS is a useful method for a given research problem.

PLS is fundamentally just a way of constructing scale scores for regression. PLS provides no clear benefits for marketing researchers and has disadvantages that are features of the original design and cannot be solved within the PLS framework itself. Unweighted sums of item scores provide a more robust way of creating scale scores.

The findings strongly suggest that researchers abandon the use of PLS in typical marketing studies.

This paper provides concrete examples and techniques to practicing marketing and social science researchers regarding how to incorporate composites into their work, and how to make decisions regarding such.

This work presents a novel perspective on PLS critiques by showing how researchers can use their own data to assess whether PLS (or another composite method) can provide any advantage over simple sum scores. A composite equivalence index is introduced for this purpose.

Given the form of functional differentiation of modern society, a far-reaching coordination of functional systems as a dissolution of their heterarchical relationship to each other, as was apparently possible in the social “lockdown” during the corona pandemic, should have been extremely unlikely. The purpose of this study is to explain how this was nevertheless achieved.

From the perspective of systems theory, social action in principle does not present itself as a problem but as a solution to (latent) social problems. In the sociological analysis presented here, it is therefore precisely a matter of uncovering or pointing out those (changed) social structures in which a social “lockdown” appears as a solution.

The paper explains that with the emergence of social media through applications such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok, a new force is establishing itself at the level of society as a system. It is one that is characterized by being highly vulnerable to moral communication. A susceptibility to morality manifests, on the one hand, through an individual differentiation of society made possible by social media – for example, in the emerging Chinese social credit system – and, on the other hand, through the specific communicative structures of the social media themselves. It is argued that social media, in the form of a moral authority with a lasting effect on society as a whole, make a significant contribution to realizing the social “lockdown.”

The originality of the paper results from the fact that the emergence of a new social phenomenon (“lockdown”) is explained.

The purpose of this paper is to provide insights into the benefits of data‐driven services marketing and provide a conceptual framework for how to link traditional and new sources of customer data and their metrics. Linking data and metrics to strategic and tactical business insights and integrating a variety of metrics into a forward‐looking dashboard to measure marketing ROI and guide future marketing spend is explored.

A detailed synthesis of the literature is conducted and contemporary sources of marketing data are categorized into traditional, digital and neurophysiological. The benefits and drawbacks of each data type are described and advantages of integrating different sources of data are proposed.

The findings point to the importance and untapped potential of data in its ability to inform tactical and strategic marketing decisions. Future challenges, including top management support, ethical considerations and developing data and analytic capabilities, are discussed.

The results demonstrate the need for executive service marketing dashboards that include key metrics that are service‐relevant, complementary and forward‐looking, with proven linkages to business outcomes.

This paper provides a synthesis of data‐driven services marketing and the value of traditional and contemporary metrics. Since the true potential of data‐driven service management in a connected world is still largely unexplored, this paper also delineates fruitful avenues for future research.

This study aims to systematically review and conceptualise service-related research on refugees to identify gaps in the literature, derive future research avenues and stimulate interdisciplinary research and practice to improve well-being of refugees.

This study uses a systematic literature review (SLR) of 102 journal articles published or available online from 2010 to 2020.

Ten themes are identified across the three phases of the refugees’ service journey (entry, transition and exit). Most of the articles focus on the exit phase. One-third of the literature analyses refugees’ access and adaptation to health-care services. The dearth of research on other refugee services reflects the failure to attend to all aspects of service provision across all phases of the refugee service journey.

While the ten themes across the three phases require scholars’ and practitioners’ attention, different aspects of the SLR’s findings necessitate further investigation. To reinvigorate research and practice, and stimulate interdisciplinary collaboration, a novel Communities of Practice approach is suggested.

Practitioners and policymakers should place more focus on the entry and transition phases of the refugee service journey.

Lack of research and engagement with the first two phases of the refugee journey might come at the expense of refugees. More service support is needed to buffer the journey from homeland to host country.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this SLR on refugee-related services is the first of its kind from a service research perspective.