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1 – 6 of 6Katharina Gilli, Nicole Lettner and Wolfgang Guettel
Business leaders are facing a change of role as digitalization continues to intensify in organizations. As technological change is bringing back supposedly old virtues of…
Abstract
Purpose
Business leaders are facing a change of role as digitalization continues to intensify in organizations. As technological change is bringing back supposedly old virtues of leadership, this study aims to explain the impact digital transformation has on leadership due to organizational size.
Design/methodology/approach
Cross-border study with experts from multinational enterprises (MNEs) in Austria and small and medium companies (SMEs) in Italy.
Findings
With increasing digitalization, leadership is becoming more important. In times of social distance, it is essential that leaders actively foster the management of relationships with their employees, manage social processes in their teams and shape change processes. This requires a bundle of skills consisting of effective leadership skills, strong change management skills and conceptual digitization skills.
Practical implications
Digital transformation is not mainly about implementing new technologies; it is about developing an appropriate strategy in which people are key. Organizations regardless of size need to recognize that digital transformation requires not less, but even more active shaping of the relationships between leaders and their team members. Consequently, they need active leaders who drive, communicate and implement technological change. As leadership and change require time, resources and, above all, attention, executive selection and qualification are critical for the broad integration of digitalization ideas into an organization.
Originality/value
People, not technology, drive digital transformation, and organizations require leaders, not necessarily technological specialists, to manage the complex changes that comprise an organization’s digital transformation. Technical and methodological skills can be substituted with the use of new technologies, but leaders’ interactional, social, strategic and conceptual skills are gaining in importance.
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Jestine Philip, Katharina Gilli and Michael Knappstein
Even with the recognized impact organizational leaders have on the outcome of digital transformation (DT), a comprehensive scholarly understanding of the competencies that leaders…
Abstract
Purpose
Even with the recognized impact organizational leaders have on the outcome of digital transformation (DT), a comprehensive scholarly understanding of the competencies that leaders must possess to lead a DT to success is lacking.
Design/methodology/approach
To derive and list the competencies considered by experts as necessary for managing DT, the authors recruited 18 international senior managers with relevant experience and applied the Delphi method to survey the managers. Upon the completion of three survey rounds and the authors modifying the response list until consensus was reached, 39 items were shortlisted as constituting key competencies for managing DT. Furthermore, the authors engaged in inductive theorizing to derive propositional statements using these findings.
Findings
The practitioners agreed on visionary thinking, agility, understanding the value of data, data-driven decision-making, knowledge of strategy and accepting change as the most important requirements for managing DT. Through inductive theorizing, the authors further derived that the seven discovered clusters fell into two broader competencies – behavioral and strategic – and that each behavioral competency would have varying importance depending on the country and industry that the organization operates in.
Research limitations/implications
As is typical for Delphi studies that involve multiple survey rounds, the study participant response rate was moderate. The implications of this study, in finding that a variety of leadership competencies are needed to ensure successful DT, validate prior research that people, not technology, drive DT.
Practical implications
This study helps mitigate assumptions that successful DT processes are only possible by hiring technological experts, as doing so highlights the importance of behavioral leadership competencies.
Originality/value
The study is one of the first to interlink digital leadership with DT by inductively theorizing behavioral and strategic competencies. The authors also establish that contexts are vital in determining which aspects of leadership competencies are deemed most important in driving DT.
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Martina Bauer and Katharina J. Auer‐Srnka
This research seeks to provide a historical review of the life cycle concept in marketing. The paper aims to show the development of traditional life cycle models and links to the…
Abstract
Purpose
This research seeks to provide a historical review of the life cycle concept in marketing. The paper aims to show the development of traditional life cycle models and links to the life course perspective.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors relate to life events and transitions in consumers' life trajectories, life status, role transitions, and role identities as determinants of consumer behavior. The paper reveals future research potential in the field. Essentially, the authors demonstrate the need for life cycle models grounded on empirical data and discuss related methodological issues.
Findings
This paper provides a temporal systematization of theoretical and empirical life cycle research. The major outcome is an outline of conceptual and methodological research directions that enable researchers to follow the life course perspective and to derive empirically grounded life cycle models.
Research limitations/implications
Providing chronological literature compilations and an evolutionary review of life cycle research, the authors identify future research directions. To encourage empirical development of the concept, the article also refers to the related methodological literature.
Practical implications
Both marketing thought and practitioners benefit from the insights presented. Marketing managers may better address consumers' changing needs over their lifetime, strengthen customer loyalty and reduce brand switching, thereby enhancing customer lifetime value.
Originality/value
This paper adds to the study of the consumer life cycle by providing a comprehensive anthology of life cycle research from 1910 to 2010. It shows major research streams and reveals future research potential in marketing.
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Michaela Quintus, Kathrin Mayr, Katharina Maria Hofer and Yen Ting Chiu
Gaining and maintaining trust in e-commerce is crucial for online purchases. Specifically, understanding trust formation and its consequences in a cross-market online shopping…
Abstract
Purpose
Gaining and maintaining trust in e-commerce is crucial for online purchases. Specifically, understanding trust formation and its consequences in a cross-market online shopping context is important, as cross-market studies are scarce. Therefore, this study examines antecedents and consequences of consumer trust in online shopping (TOS) by comparing advanced and emerging markets.
Design/methodology/approach
To test the formulated hypotheses, data including 397 responses from Austria and 205 from Moldova are analysed. Using partial least squares (PLS) path modelling, implications for theory and practice in cross-market e-commerce are obtained.
Findings
Empirical findings show that company reputation, perceived security and website quality positively influence consumer TOS. TOS corresponds directly positively with purchase intentions (PI). Our research confirms the negative relationship between trust and perceived risk (PR) as well as that between PR and PI. Furthermore, a significant difference between Austria and Moldova regarding the influence of experience and perceived website quality (PWQ) on TOS is observed.
Originality/value
Our study fills research gaps concerning TOS within the context of cross-market e-commerce. It contributes theoretically and practically and reveals the importance of customer trust and risk reduction for online retailers within advanced and emerging markets in order to provoke online PI.
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The goal of this paper is to present the difference‐in‐differences approach as statistical methodology specifically to address the importance of identifying culture‐specific…
Abstract
The goal of this paper is to present the difference‐in‐differences approach as statistical methodology specifically to address the importance of identifying culture‐specific advertising strategies when targeting global market segments. In applying this methodology to advertising research, the study analyses German and Japanese magazine advertising targeting women in four dimensions: advertisement format, usage of models, male and female role portrayal and value appeals. Despite some apparent transnational similarities in advertising aimed at women, the difference‐in‐differences analysis reveals marked cross‐cultural differences in the way that marketers adapt their strategies in the women’s market. The results indicate that non‐traditional approaches in targeting women seem to be far more culturally specific than the traditional ones, and that the male role portrayal, which has not yet gained much attention in research, is the crucial element of non‐traditional approaches in the Japanese women’s magazine.
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Eleni Georganta, Katharina G. Kugler, Julia A.M. Reif and Felix C. Brodbeck
Several theoretical models have been developed to describe the process of successful team adaptation. Testing the models through empirical research is lacking. This study aims to…
Abstract
Purpose
Several theoretical models have been developed to describe the process of successful team adaptation. Testing the models through empirical research is lacking. This study aims to empirically examine the way teams adapt to unexpected or novel circumstances and investigate the four-phase team adaptation process (i.e. situation assessment → plan formulation → plan execution → team learning), as proposed by Rosen et al. (2011).
Design/methodology/approach
To test the positive relationship between the four team adaptation phases and their suggested sequence, a cross-sectional field study was conducted. Data were collected from 23 teams participating during an 8-week team project.
Findings
Results from random intercept models confirmed that the team adaptation process consisted of four phases that were positively related to each other. As expected, plan formulation mediated the positive relationship between situation assessment and plan execution. However, team learning was independently related to all three previous phases, and not only to situation assessment as theory suggests.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the present study is one of the first attempts to test the theoretical model of the team adaptation process presented by Rosen et al. (2011). Findings illustrated that the team adaptation process is not a simple four-phase sequence, but it constitutes four dynamic phases that are strongly interrelated to each other.
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