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Leadership has a decisive role in the success of all types of businesses and firms, including small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and the ethical behavior of leaders is a key component which brings a sense of respect, fulfillment, trustworthiness and acceptance among the employees, which later become visible in their job performance (JP). This study aims to check the immediate effect of ethical leadership (EL) on employee’s JP (EJP) and also explore the indirect mediating effect of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on this EL and EJP nexus.

Primary data was obtained from the employees of manufacturing SMEs of Northern Italy using a cross-sectional design from the end of 2019 to the start of 2020. This paper circulated 450 self-administered questionnaires using simple random sampling, and 202 (44.88%) valid questionnaires were returned. The PROCESS macro was performed using statistical package for social sciences to ensure whether or not EL affects EJP and is there any mediation effect of CSR present in this nexus.

The results indicate that EL has a strong positive connection with EJP and CSR. Interestingly, CSR positively influences EJP. Furthermore, the results also report the strong mediating effect of CSR in the nexus of EL and EJP.

This scholarly work seeks to contribute not only to the literature of EL and EJP but also enriches the understanding of this EL-EJP association by highlighting the indirect effect of mediating variable CSR in the SME sector.

Digital libraries are not only an assortment of information assets yet have turned into a digital community for correspondence, searching and electronic learning. Also, economically the investment in terms of money, time, energy and manpower associated with the development of effective digital library (DL) systems demands high utilization of these resources. This study aims to explore the factors that affect the utilization of digital libraries and may lead to users’ satisfaction and finally high exposure to information systems like digital libraries. However, these factors may work differently in different cultures. Considering this fact, DeLone and McLean’s IS success model (ISSM) is tested and expanded in a local academic context.

Following the quantitative research design, a total of 355 responses were collected through a questionnaire-based survey. Research scholars of the University of Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan were the reviewed population of this study. A two-stage stratified random sampling method was used to choose the sample. Structural equation modelling is used to find out the nature and extent of the relationship among studied variables.

The findings confirm that service quality is the strong predictor of DL system use, whereas overall users’ satisfaction mediates the relationship between the predictors (content and service quality) and the outcome variable (use).

This work done is the first main endeavour to use the “Information System Success” theories to intervene and mediate the effect of content, IQ, system quality and service quality on the use of DL in the local context.

This study aims to explore the relationships between strategic improvisation, organizational culture and higher education institutions (HEIs) performance. The dynamic nature of today’s environment, increased population and demand and budget cuts have created a lot of pressure on HEIs around the world. Hence, the need for effective human resource capable of providing advanced policies for efficiency and sustainability of these institutions.

A total of 229 questionnaires were filled and returned by academic leaders from HEIs in Kano state, Nigeria. The study used partial least squares path modelling to test the hypotheses postulated.

The major findings indicate that both strategic improvisation and organizational culture dimensions have direct relationship with HEIs performance. However, only innovative culture moderates the relationship between strategic improvisation and HEIs, while bureaucratic culture and supportive culture fail to support the proposed hypothesis.

More studies are needed to further validate the impact of strategic improvisation (SI) on other public sector performance. Also, future studies should use longitudinal approach to establish at which stage SI has more impact on performance. Also, future studies should identify the difference that exists between units, department and faculty leaders, as some are more likely to engage in SI due to the nature of their specialization.

It is obvious that HEIs performance is not only limited to organizational factors but also individual characteristics such as ability to improvise. Hence, HEIs should consider SI ability during employment to ensure efficiency, performance and sustainability. Moreover, organizational culture of HEIs needs to be updated and to be more flexible in accommodating new initiatives or failure to encourage display of such ability.

Previous studies especially in the for profit sector have demonstrated the role of SI and organizational culture on performance. Thus, the present study is one of the early studies in the non-profit sector, specifically the HEIs. Moreover, the inconsistent result of the previous findings necessitates the study to test the moderating effect of organizational culture.

This study aims to increase the understanding of the drivers of mobile shopping, by analyzing when and how two personality traits – value consciousness and shopping enjoyment – impact mobile shopping intention through usefulness and ease-of-use perceptions.

To test the conditioned indirect effects, path analysis is used.

The results indicate that both consumers’ value consciousness and shopping enjoyment have a positive indirect effect on mobile shopping intention. However, shopping enjoyment is related only through usefulness, whereas value consciousness is related via both usefulness and ease of use. The results also suggest the need to consider boundary conditions when examining the impact of personality traits.

Mobile retailers need to conduct market segmentation based on users’ personalities when trying to increase their customer base.

Despite the relevance of personality traits on individual behavior, studies on the effects that different aspects of personality have on the participation of individuals in mobile commerce are very scarce and show inconsistent results regarding their impact. Thus, this study tries to contribute to the mobile commerce research by analyzing the interplay between two customer characteristics and two mediating variables: ease-of-use and usefulness perceptions.

Esta investigación busca aumentar la comprensión de los antecedentes de las compras móviles, analizando cuándo y cómo dos rasgos de personalidad – conciencia de valor y disfrute por la compra – afectan a la intención de compra móvil a través de las percepciones de utilidad y facilidad de uso.

Para comprobar los efectos indirectos condicionados propuestos se emplea un análisis path.

Los resultados indican que tanto la conciencia de valor como el disfrute por la compra de los consumidores tienen un efecto indirecto positivo en la intención de compra móvil. Sin embargo, el disfrute por la compra se relaciona sólo a través de la utilidad, mientras que la conciencia de valor se relaciona tanto a través de la utilidad como de la facilidad de uso. Los resultados también sugieren la necesidad de considerar factores moderadores al examinar el impacto de los rasgos de personalidad.

Los minoristas a través del móvil que quieran aumentar su base de clientes necesitan segmentar el mercado en base a la personalidad de los usuarios.

A pesar de la relevancia que tienen los rasgos de personalidad en el comportamiento de los individuos, los estudios sobre los efectos de distintos aspectos de la personalidad sobre la participación de los individuos en el comercio móvil son muy escasos y muestran resultados inconsistentes. Así, este estudio intenta contribuir a la investigación sobre comercio móvil analizando la relación entre dos características del consumidor y dos variables mediadoras: las percepciones de facilidad de uso y utilidad.

This paper aims to conceptualize the digital behavior of startups and investigate the emerging behaviors about digital strategies of the Italian startup firms enrolled in the Startup Act policy initiative. Digital technologies were divided into intra- and inter-organizational digital infrastructures, and this categorization offers startups the opportunity to identify a set of enabling technologies that could be used to improve their digital strategies.

An empirical analysis has been conducted to investigate the degree of adoption of digital intra- and inter-organizational digital infrastructures in the entire population of 6,178 Italian firms listed in the Register of Innovative Startups.

The paper proposes a taxonomy bringing together four startup behaviors for adopting digital technologies: digital follower, technical influencer, social influencer and digital leader. From the perspective of policy makers, considering the financial efforts that public authorities are supporting in the last decade, implications are mainly concerned with policy measures aimed both to reinforce the overall adoption of digital technologies and to develop a balanced adoption of intra- and inter-organizational digital infrastructures.

Measures addressed to support female and foreign entrepreneurship could be useful to support a more dynamic and well-balanced cultural and racial contamination, thus improving the adoption of digital tools.

The purpose of this study is to describe and analyse the effect of a set of determinants on initial trust and behavioural intention to use financial robo-advisors (FRAs).

The theory of perceived risk and the behavioural finance paradigm were used to develop a conceptual model of retail investors’ initial trust in FRAs. Data collected from 554 young retail investors (YRIs) from Sweden and Malaysia were analysed using structural equation modelling.

The results of this study indicate that the amount of public information, social media information-seeking and a rational decision style are significantly related to initial trust in FRAs, which in turn is significantly and positively related to the behavioural intention to use this technology. However, none of the risks under study significantly affect the initial trust in FRAs.

Information is vital to inducing YRIs to rely on FRAs, so the more public and social media information is available, the higher their intention to use this technology. However, YRIs vary in decision style, and the results suggest implementing a more sophisticated system than the current “one-size-fits-all” approach to YRI behaviour.

The empirical-based model enhances the knowledge of the initial phase of trust-building, when YRIs lack sufficient experience of FRAs. By collecting data from two countries, the study’s novel conclusions may help in developing effective FRA services for the youth segment.