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The purpose of this study is to provide more insight in the ways key users act as knowledge managers and boundary spanners during the enterprise resource planning (ERP) system usage phase. Despite the recognized importance of key users during the implementation phase of an ERP system, little is known about their role in the ERP usage phase.

To provide rich insight in the boundary-spanning mechanisms utilized by key users to share knowledge, a qualitative approach was applied. In this study, “abductive” theme coding for 58 interviews with key users, end-users and managers has been used. This paper found six mechanisms and characterized them as “crossing” structural, social or cognitive boundaries.

Six boundary-spanning mechanisms have been distinguished which have been applied by key users to overcome several knowledge management issues. Subsequently, these mechanisms lead to a model which describes three different roles that key users may fulfill to efficiently share and transfer knowledge during the ERP usage phase.

Knowledge barriers during an ERP implementation and their accompanying six boundary-crossing mechanisms have been distinguished.

The recognition of the essential role that key users can fulfill during the usage phase of an ERP system is an important implication. Management has to take into account that tasks and responsibilities of key users have to be clear from the start and they may cautiously select employees who are suited to become key users.

The main contribution is the importance of the impact of key users on the effectivity of knowledge management during the ERP usage phase.

The purpose of this study is to explore the extent to which teamwork (developed either during an initial training phase or during a subsequent deployment phase) is influenced by the nature of the team’s environment (extreme vs non-extreme) and the extent to which teamwork is one of the explaining mechanisms for team performance.

Data was collected from 60 teams at 2 time-points: training phase in The Netherlands or Germany and deployment phase (in locations such as Afghanistan and Bosnia-Herzegovina).

This study’s results indicate that when teams consider working in extreme environments, they develop higher levels of teamwork as compared to teams expecting to work in non-extreme environments. These differences remain stable also during the deployment phase, such that teams operating in extreme environments will continue to have higher levels of teamwork as compared to teams operating in non-extreme environments.

With this study, the authors contribute to the teamwork quality research stream by empirically studying how teamwork quality develops in unique military contexts such as extreme environments. Studies in such contexts are relatively rare.

Crisis management entails among other things developing organizational systems that are capable of reacting to unpredictable and different types of crises. It also involves designing cohesive operational elements to deal with the local dynamics of an actual crisis situation. This challenge of responsiveness – where organizations simultaneously need to react to change demands of different task environments – has hardly been investigated in management theory. The purpose of this paper is to initiate to shed more light on this blind spot.

Modular organizing and organizational sensing are introduced as key drivers of organizational responsiveness. Based on a large-scale survey among 1,200 senior officers the study investigates how these two variables have influenced the responsiveness of the Netherlands armed forces for crisis response deployment.

The findings indicate that the level of modularization is an important facilitator of organizational responsiveness. Organizational systems that are made up of semi-autonomous work groups are in a better position to simultaneously live up to the change demands of different environmental levels than organizations that follow a fine-grained modularization approach.

It uses the military crisis response organization as an exemplary case for project-based organzations in general to take advantage of.

From the perspective of value chains, the purpose of this paper is to analyse the organization of stabilization and reconstruction operations, most notably in Afghanistan, with the intention to improve the way the beneficiaries are involved.

Case study: the paper first develops a theoretical framework that draws upon value chain literature. To gather empirical data fieldwork was done within the Dutch provincial reconstruction team (PRT) in Afghanistan. Methods that were used include interviews, participatory observation and desk study.

In the value chain process six steps are identified: early warning, file and analysis, appraisal/qualification, assignment/management, execution and evaluation. Different categories of personnel (military, reservists, civilians) bring with them different backgrounds. This led to different opinions on who can be considered as the customer of the value chain. Moreover, personnel received different signals in the early warning step as to what needed to be done. From there on, different values and perspectives developed during the sequence of the various stages in the value chain that were not easily aligned. The formal structure of the work activities in the PRT was clear but did not match with the everyday reality. This showed another, much more fuzzy picture. Many mutual contacts were needed to overcome the coordination problems, but that required considerable additional efforts.

The paper applies value chain literature to stabilization and reconstruction operations and focuses on the customers. It uses unique data and demonstrates the usefulness of a multidisciplinary approach.

Rural women entrepreneurship has been a domain attracting academicians and governments. This paper aims to to annotate existing literature in order to find a nexus between rural women and entrepreneurship using a systematic literature review and bibliometric analysis. Further, it has a certain scope and direction of existing research by critically analysing the work published in the domain of rural women entrepreneurship.

Out of 213 documents, 192 were published during last 20 years till October 2020 in Scopus journals that were downloaded using the keywords “Women Entrepreneurship” OR “Female Entrepreneurs” OR “Women Entrepreneurs” OR “Female Entrepreneurship” AND rural were accepted for further processing. VOS-Viewer software has been used to present bibliometric analysis. A thematic analysis of top 10 papers and 26 open access papers has also been done.

It was found that research interest in the said domain gained momentum in the last decade only. India is the top country that is publishing maximum papers; the United Kingdom has the maximum citations. The existing studies have focussed on factors influencing entrepreneurship, impact of gender and role of government schemes in fostering entrepreneurship. It is recommended that future studies may explore few inadequately explored grey areas including impact of entrepreneurial education, microcredit and information technology on rural women entrepreneurship.

This literature review article contributes to the existing literature by identifying the scope and direction of the existing literature. Further, it helps in identifying the least explored areas that can be taken up for the conduct of future research.

In December 1989, the Government of Kenya implemented cost sharing reforms in a substantial portion of public health facilities. In September 1990 the Government suspended registration fees for out‐patient treatments, but reintroduced them in April 1992 after a lapse of a 20‐month period. Assesses the effects of these policy changes on demand for out‐patient services using a small data set from a rural district in central Kenya. Finds that, although medical services are inelastic with respect to user charges, cost sharing led to a significant reduction in out‐patient attendance: demand for out‐patient care declined by about 40 per cent. Consistent with this finding, suspension of registration fees in 1990 is associated with a 30 per cent increase in attendance. This increase occurred despite the retention of fees for diagnostic services. By March 1991, seven months after the suspension of fees, service demand had recovered remarkably and was only about 20 per cent below its original level. Further, finds that patients are more sensitive to fees for diagnostic services than they are to registration fees.

Stakeholder theory (ST) argues that providing value to external stakeholders is the best way to ensure long-term business health. However, when the theory was formed, information technology (IT) played a small role in organizational operations and strategy. Although IT research recognizes stakeholders, the theoretical underpinnings of ST are rarely recognized within this context. The purpose of this paper is to remedy this issue by reviewing ST through the lens of technology adoption and training and presenting propositions for business alignment and organizational success.

This paper conducted a comprehensive literature review to examine all extant research at the intersection of ST, IT and information systems (IS). A total of 25 papers were retained, published between 1993 and 2016, using multiple sources for search.

Too little IT research has recognized the theoretical foundations of ST. These theoretical foundations have the potential to expand the focus of research and practice to recognize the wider impacts of technological developments. A total of six propositions are presented to highlight the need for a greater focus on external stakeholders throughout all stages of IS design, development and implementation to improve the performance of IT-related projects and IT-business units.

The paper addresses the research gap by integrating ST with IT and IS, providing theory-based recommendations to improve their functions within organizations. A review of all extant research at the intersection of these topics is provided.

This study aims to identify the influence exerted by the performance of human resources (HR) through effectiveness and efficiency in the success of business projects in Mexico.

The methodological design was quantitative, explanatory, observational and transversal, where a sample of 502 was used. A structural equation model (SEM) was developed using the statistical software AMOS v25 to test the hypothesis. SPSS v25 was used for data analysis. Regarding the goodness and fit indices of the SEM, χ² = 388.83/df = 143; χ²/df = 2.71; p < 0.001; GFI = 0.92; AGFI = 0.91; CFI = 0.96; TLI = 0.95; NFI = 0.94; IFI = 0.96; RMSEA = 0.05; RMR = 0.04; SRMR = 0.03, which turned out to be acceptable.

Through the results obtained through the SEM, it is shown that there is a positive and significant relationship between the performance of HR through their effectiveness (r = 0.65, p < 0.01) and efficiency (r = 0.64, p < 0.01) with respect to the success of the business projects. Likewise, the effectiveness of HR has a positive and significant influence on the efficiency (ß₂ = 0.46; p < 0.001) and the success of business projects (ß₃ = 0.89; p < 0.001) in Mexico. In the same way, efficiency positively and significantly influences the success of enterprises (ß₄ = 0.35; p < 0.001) in Mexico.

In this research, only the performance of the HR was assessed through efficiency and effectiveness as one of the variables that intervene in the development of the business project, and that is one of the main factors of analysis to achieve the success of the enterprise. In this sense, the results are limited to the extent that the findings can be generalized to business projects that are developed in different entities such as universities, incubators and other instances that promote the development of business projects and thereby guarantee success. In this sense, it is considered to carry out more research regarding these variables and others that can study the phenomenon and generate new scientific research.

HR performance is considered as one of the main factors that allow the success of business projects. However, some practical limitations are determined by the vision, strategies, as well as the orientation that entities such as universities, and incubators, among other organizations, determine to develop the business project and thus guarantee its success. Other practical implications lie in the leadership that the entrepreneur exercises in his/her work team and collaborators to generate synergy between them considering culture and identity, as well as the commitment to the business project.

The findings are relevant and of great value because they support entrepreneurship models, giving an alternative focus in the study to achieve success, specifically in the state of Guanajuato, which represents one of the main states that have with a greater number of ventures focused on the automotive, food, leather and footwear cluster, among other SMEs that promote business projects and is one of the main states of the Mexican Republic that contributes to the economic development of the region as well as the nation. Likewise, the study is relevant because there is currently not enough research focused on the variables analyzed on the success of business projects in the Mexican context.

Considered a strong method for exploratory investigations, case study research has become part of the mainstream approach, particularly in the field of humanitarian logistics (HL) and supply chain management. Nevertheless, similar to other logistics and SCM-related fields, rigor is not at its best. The purpose of this paper is to propose a framework for crafting case study research in HL, based on an analysis of published case study-based research.

The study classifies and compares the use of case studies in HL research, based on criteria developed from the methodology literature including purpose, type and volume of data, and type of analysis.

While case studies become more frequent, the results point out a lack of rigor, particularly regarding chain of evidence and the use of frameworks for case study rationale and analysis.

The study proposes a framework for case study design, based on four “check questions” that can help researchers to go through the process of crafting a case study.

The study provides practitioners with more understanding of case studies in HL research, which they can use when calling for or evaluating such studies in their organizations.

This paper offers an initial framework for conducting case studies in HL.