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The adoption of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) has some peculiarities that may depend on the combined effect of size and the competitive environment. The purpose of this paper is to use a contingency approach to explore how SMEs develop organizational capabilities through ICT investments in response to environmental conditions.

A survey on 284 SMEs in Italy was conducted and data were analyzed with regression models for testing seven hypotheses on the environmental influence on the development of ICT-based capabilities and the role played by firm size.

The results show that the environment influences the development of such capabilities in a different way, depending on size. Within munificent environments, ICT-based capabilities are more diffused among larger SMEs, whereas under environmental complexity, this pattern is inverted, with larger SMEs exhibiting a more limited deployment of ICT in support of both their internally and externally oriented processes. Under environmental dynamism medium-sized firms tend to develop more internally oriented ICT capabilities, but fail in reporting superior capabilities for managing external relationships.

This paper contributes to understand the relationship between the environment and ICT investments in SMEs. Since the combined effect of size and the competitive environment may influence considerably the ICT investments in SMEs, this study investigates the organizational responses with respect to how SMEs use ICT to address their external environment. This focus provides a contribution to understand the challenges that SMEs are facing in the current technological and market environment, where changes in the ICT paradigm raise the level of complexity and dynamism and bring changes in competition levels that leave few resources for growth to SMEs.

The purpose of this study is to identify the specific skills and abilities within the broad category of data analytics that current business professionals believe are most important for accounting graduates. Data analytics knowledge is clearly important, but this category is broad. Therefore, this study identifies the specific skills and abilities that are most important for accounting graduates so that faculty can create classroom materials most beneficial for the future accounting graduates. In 2013, the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business developed new standards for accounting programs, including standard A7, related to information technology and analytics. The intent of the standard clearly focuses on increasing the level of technology and analytics studied within the accounting curriculum. However, the specific details and methods for achieving the intent of A7 remain an open question. This chapter uses prior research focused on business analytics education to identify potential analytic skills, tools, techniques, and management issues of concern within the accounting profession. A survey of 342 accounting professionals identifies suggested areas of analytic competencies for accounting graduates. Specifically, the authors find preferences for skills related to data interpretation and communication over any individual technical skills or statistical knowledge. These skills suggest a role for accountants as intermediaries who may need to translate analytic activities into business language. Post hoc, the authors examine the survey results for differences based on respondent characteristics. Interestingly, female respondents report lower beliefs about the importance of analytic skills. The authors also find some differences when examining different demographics within the respondents.

Literature on small and medium enterprises (SMEs) has so far produced limited evidence on how these firms pursue their organizational flexibility with information and communication technology (ICT) and ad hoc work practices. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the extant literature by focusing on how SMEs use flexible work practices that provide latitude with respect to when employees work, where they work and via which communication medium. Specifically, the authors analyze how such practices are related to the conditions that SMEs face in reference to their competitive environment and their patterns of ICT usage.

A survey was conducted on 304 Italian SMEs, with the aim of identifying the contextual dimensions where flexible work is chosen and the different typologies of flexible work implemented by companies.

Flexible work in SMEs is chosen for different reasons associated to different conditions in the competitive environments and in ICT usage where SMEs operate. In general, SMEs use flexible work when they are more capable of improving their external orientation toward suppliers, customers, and the entrance in new markets with ICT. This duality is more likely in the competitive environments where external orientation and information processing is more needed, namely, environments that are uncertain and complex for product and breadth of the geographical complexity (scope) covered.

In this paper, the authors offer an analysis on the contextual characterizations of flexible work practices. Future studies should disentangle more in depth the ways these characterizations are related to different ICT usages.

In uncertain and complex environments, SMEs should increase their external information processing with ICT and organizational practices that support the latitude of employees involved in boundary spanning with respect to where, when, and how they work.

This paper offers an interpretation of flexible work as an organizational mechanism used to cope with uncertain and complex environments where more external orientation is needed. This paper also shows that there are four different typologies of flexible work implemented by companies, namely, flexible work for cheaper input costs, flexible work for operational drivers, flexible work for strategic drivers, and flexible work for individual motivations, and that in some cases the conditions under which they are chosen are different.

Given the implementation of a new Certified Public Accountant (CPA) licensure exam and the CPA Evolution Model Curriculum, accounting educators must integrate more advanced skills in their coursework. We illustrate how a commonly-used project in accounting classes, which teaches technical accounting content, can address skills and competencies identified by the Pathways Commission and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and, as a result, enhance skills all business school graduates need in the workplace.

We incorporate a financial statement analysis research project under a group work format in three levels of financial accounting classes. Using both quantitative and qualitative analysis, we evaluate changes in student perceptions of skills and competencies important for business graduates.

We find students perceive improvement in critical thinking, problem-solving, the ability to work with other people, their understanding of the course material, and data analysis abilities after completion of the project. We also find statistically significant increases pre-to post-project in student perceptions of their knowledge, confidence, competence, and enthusiasm with respect to accounting material.

We provide an example of how educators can align a commonly-used project with the CPA Evolution Model Curriculum, yet still meet the needs of non-accounting majors and prepare all students for future business careers. Group work has been studied and similar financial statement analysis projects have been implemented in the classroom for years. We contribute by not only extending and updating this research, but also by re-evaluating a project to determine whether it meets the shifting needs of a rapidly changing profession. By doing so, we answer recent researchers’ call for research in higher education that addresses employability and workplace skills.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between knowledge management (KM) processes and supply chain performance, with information technology/information system (IT/IS) support, supply chain integration, and supply chain strategy as moderators.

Drawing on the knowledge-based view, a theoretical framework is developed consisting of six KM processes: knowledge creation, knowledge capture, knowledge organization, knowledge storage, knowledge dissemination, and knowledge application, and the performance of supply chain is evaluated in terms of four Supply Chain Operations Reference (SCOR) process elements: Plan, Source, Make, and Delivery. Structural equation modeling is employed using a sample of 78 Iranian manufacturers in mechanical and engineering industry.

Empirical results show that KM processes have a significant impact on supply chain performance which is positively moderated by IT/IS support and supply chain integration. While the moderating effect of IT/IS support is found to be considerably stronger, the relationship between KM processes and supply chain performance is not significantly different in lean and agile supply chains.

Since the sample for this study is small and drawn only from manufacturing companies in mechanical and engineering industry, it would be important to conduct further empirical studies with larger samples from a wider range of industries to improve and strengthen our analyses and provide more conclusive and generalizable results.

Through empirical study, a better understanding of the impact of KM processes on supply chain performance and the moderating role of IT/IS support and supply chain integration can be gained.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the contextual conditions under which mobile forms of work are chosen by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and the most relevant tensions that these firms should be able to face in order to be successful in the adoption of these forms of work.

A survey analysis on 304 SMEs and an analysis of a collection of case studies were conducted to answer to the following research questions: what is the role of contextual conditions in shaping the way firms develop and use their mobile forms of work? Which tensions do SMEs need to manage when adopt a particular mobile form of work?

In this paper, the authors found that SMEs choose different mobile forms of work according to the conditions under which they operate. For example, SMEs that adopt mobile forms of work for operational reasons are more capable of using IT to improve their external orientation. Moreover, the analysis of the configurations of mobile forms of work led to classify in a systematic way the managerial and organizational tensions, and to identify which tensions need to be managed in each mobile work configuration. For example, firms that adopt mobile work given individual employee requests need to manage human resource management tensions.

Future research should analyse in depth the jobs that are frequently engaged in mobility and the operational and strategic reasons of their mobility. Moreover, future research should analyse more in-depth companies’ capability of managing tensions discussed in this paper.

Managers should understand that mobile work is an essential element in the organizational strategy of SMEs, since it is a way to manage more effectively externally oriented business processes. Also policy makers should provide financial support for programmes aimed at promoting the importance of mobile forms of work, since they allow achieving different objectives and saving. Further, demand-oriented policies and experiences about mobile work adoption should be shared.

The authors found scant empirical evidence on understanding the contextual conditions under which SMEs choose different mobile forms of work, and the most relevant tensions that SMEs should deal with when they decide for the adoption of a particular mobile work configuration. The value of this paper consists in filling this research gap.

The paper aims to investigate how customer satisfaction can be achieved in the context of digital platform services, its influence on electronic word of mouth (eWOM) and how such relationships can be moderated by perceived technological innovativeness (PTI).

The research framework was developed and empirically tested using an online survey and analysed using structural equation modelling (SEM). Data were gathered from 501 Uber customers in London, UK.

The study recognises and confirms that trust and cost saving enhanced customer satisfaction in Uber mobility services, which has a positive impact on eWOM. There are other findings regarding users who share rides vs those who do not share. Furthermore, it has been found that PTI moderates the relationship between customer satisfaction and eWOM.

The research draws on collaborative consumption literature and contributes to the antecedents of customer satisfaction in digital economy literature: trust, environmental impact, cost saving and utility. The study offers an empirical validation of the role of PTI in enhancing eWOM. The paper breaks new ground for a better understanding of how PTI can moderate the influence of customer satisfaction and eWOM in digital platforms.

The purpose of this paper is to aggregate previous research that adopts the resource‐based view (RBV) to examine whether information technology (IT) and organizational resources have significant effect on firm performance.

A framework that includes direct and indirect‐effect models is proposed. A meta‐analysis was conducted on 42 published empirical studies to examine how different factors in the RBV affect firm performance.

First, it was found that the mediated model that includes organizational capabilities as mediators between organizational resources and firm performance can better explain the value of IT than the direct‐effect model without organizational capabilities. Second, technology resources can improve efficiency performance but may not enhance financial performance directly. Third, internal capabilities affect performance but it is external capabilities that affect financial performance.

The limitation of meta‐analysis is that findings are based on prior research conducted on different sources at different times. This may cause observation biases. Nonetheless, the large sample size can also increase the robust of the findings.

The findings indicate that companies should focus on how IT resources can be used to enhance their capabilities, which will result in better performance.

The findings provide strong evidence that IT has contributed to both financial performance and organizational efficiency through strengthening organizational capabilities. The IT has been effectively used so far and the suspected productivity paradox does not exist.

The paper contributes to information management by increasing the theoretical and practical understanding of how IT resources affect organizational capabilities and firm performance. The findings provide valuable guidelines for future research on IT investment and firm performance.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the dimensions of e-service quality, its effects on e-satisfaction and e-trust and its impact on behavioural and attitudinal loyalty in Jordanian youth users of online retailing.

The scale proposed in this study has been specifically constructed using the four models most recognised for measuring e-service quality: E-S-QUAL, WebQual, eTransQual and eTailQ. The dimensions used in this study are efficiency, privacy, reliability, emotional benefit and customer service. The research model was statistically tested by students in Jordan, using Amazon.com.

It is found that privacy, reliability, emotional benefit and customer service are important elements to measure the e-service quality, but efficiency is not. E-trust was found to be an antecedent of e-satisfaction, and behavioural loyalty an antecedent of attitudinal loyalty.

The contribution of this study is thus the investigation of the causal relationship between the e-service quality dimensions, e-satisfaction, e-trust, behavioural loyalty and attitudinal loyalty, where it is necessary to consider the subject in more depth and to examine e-service quality dimensions based on a proposed model constructed from the four most common models.