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1 – 10 of 284
Open Access
Article
Publication date: 30 September 2022

Valentina Cucino, Nicola Del Sarto, Giulio Ferrigno, Andrea Mario Cuore Piccaluga and Alberto Di Minin

This study investigates the role of “soft” factors of total quality management – in terms of empowerment and engagement of employees – in facilitating or hindering organizational…

Abstract

Purpose

This study investigates the role of “soft” factors of total quality management – in terms of empowerment and engagement of employees – in facilitating or hindering organizational performance of the university technology transfer offices.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors developed an Ordinary Least Squares (OLS), multiple regression model to test if empowerment and engagement affect organizational performance of the university technology transfer offices.

Findings

The authors found that “soft” factors of total quality management – in terms of empowerment and engagement – facilitate the improvement of organizational performance in university technology transfer offices.

Practical implications

The authors’ analysis shows that soft total quality management practices create the conditions for improving organizational performance. This study provides practical implications by showing that, in the evaluation of the technology transfer office, not only the “hard” variables (e.g. number of employees and employee experience) but also the “soft” one (e.g. empowerment and engagement) matter. Therefore, university technology transfer managers or university technology transfer delegates should take actions to promote not only empowering employees but also create a climate conducive to employees' engagement in the university technology transfer offices.

Originality/value

With regards to the differences in organizational performances of university technology transfer offices, several studies have focused their attention on technology transfer professionals in technology transfer offices, but only a few of them have examined the “soft side” of total quality management. Thus, this study examines the organizational goals of technology transfer offices through “soft” factors of total quality management in terms of empowerment and engagement employees.

Details

The TQM Journal, vol. 36 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1754-2731

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 14 April 2020

Joshua Siegel and Willemijn van Dolen

Volunteers at child helplines play an important role in providing support for children, so keeping them satisfied during encounters is crucial to continue helping children. The…

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Abstract

Purpose

Volunteers at child helplines play an important role in providing support for children, so keeping them satisfied during encounters is crucial to continue helping children. The purpose of this study is to understand how children’s perceptions of instrumental and emotional support (partner effects) influence volunteer encounter satisfaction, and whether this effect is moderated by a volunteer’s previous encounter experience and levels of interpersonal and service-offering adaptiveness.

Design/methodology/approach

The sample consisted of 377 dyads of 116 volunteers and 377 children from online service encounters at a child helpline. Questionnaires were used to measure satisfaction, support and volunteer adaptiveness. A multilevel model was estimated to test the hypothesized moderation effects.

Findings

This study revealed that the instrumental support partner effect positively influenced volunteer encounter satisfaction. This relationship was stronger when the previous encounter was less satisfying or for volunteers with higher interpersonal, but not higher service-offering, adaptiveness. Negative effects on the relationship between the emotional support partner effect and volunteer encounter satisfaction were found after a less satisfying previous encounter or for volunteers with higher interpersonal adaptiveness.

Originality/value

This study contributes to the services and volunteerism literature by providing a unique perspective on the interpersonal influence between volunteers and children during service encounters. In the context of child helplines, this paper illustrates how volunteer encounter satisfaction is a function of the intricate interplay between children’s perceptions of the service encounter and volunteers’ perceptions of previous experiences and their adaptiveness.

Details

Journal of Services Marketing, vol. 34 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0887-6045

Keywords

Open Access
Book part
Publication date: 23 September 2022

Henri Schildt

Digital technologies have fundamentally changed organizations, industries, and even the society. Although institutional theory provides rich array of perspectives to both the…

Abstract

Digital technologies have fundamentally changed organizations, industries, and even the society. Although institutional theory provides rich array of perspectives to both the content and dynamics of such changes, research at the intersection of institutional scholarship and digitalization has remained scarce. In this essay, I draw on the institutional logics perspective to elaborate digitalization as involving a new set of interconnected managerial beliefs and norms, organizational practices, and diverse material and social structures that together complement and challenge the established logics in organizations and institutional fields. I draw attention to two central organizing principles in the logic of digitalization: the pursuit of digital omniscience – the efforts to represent and conceive the world through digital data – and digital omnipotence – the efforts to bring activities inside and outside organizations under the control of information systems. I conclude the essay by elaborating how the institutional logics perspective can help understand organization-level efforts to leverage digitalization by incumbent corporations and new digital-native companies.

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 4 June 2021

Hyo-Chan Lee, Seyoung Park and Jong Mun Yoon

This study aims to generalize the following result of McDonald and Siegel (1986) on optimal investment: it is optimal for an investor to invest when project cash flows exceed a…

Abstract

This study aims to generalize the following result of McDonald and Siegel (1986) on optimal investment: it is optimal for an investor to invest when project cash flows exceed a certain threshold. This study presents other results that refine or extend this one by integrating timing flexibility and changes in cash flows with time-varying transition probabilities for regime switching. This study emphasizes that optimal thresholds are either overvalued or undervalued in the absence of time-varying transition probabilities. Accordingly, the stochastic nature of transition probabilities has important implications to the search for optimal timing of investment.

Details

Journal of Derivatives and Quantitative Studies: 선물연구, vol. 29 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1229-988X

Keywords

Open Access
Book part
Publication date: 2 October 2023

Saad Ghauri

This qualitative study explores how multinational enterprises (MNEs) approach sustainable innovation through the lens of innovation theory and doughnut economics. The study…

Abstract

This qualitative study explores how multinational enterprises (MNEs) approach sustainable innovation through the lens of innovation theory and doughnut economics. The study proposes a conceptual framework to evaluate the practices of businesses and the findings illustrate how sustainable innovation occurs within two MNEs. Based on interviews with professionals of two Swedish MNEs, responsible for sustainability, the study examines how sustainable innovations lead to the redesign of core business pillars and transforms the operating market for the MNE. Overall, this study makes a theoretical contribution by formulating an application of Raworth’s (2017) doughnut model to business strategy. It also provides practical insight into the dynamics of sustainable innovation, which aims to inform and inspire further progress in sustainable development by businesses and academia.

Details

Creating a Sustainable Competitive Position: Ethical Challenges for International Firms
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80455-252-0

Keywords

Open Access
Book part
Publication date: 23 September 2022

Ali Aslan Gümüsay, Mia Raynard, Oana Albu, Michael Etter and Thomas Roulet

Digital technologies, and the affordances they provide, can shape institutional processes in significant ways. In the last decade, social media and other digital platforms have…

Abstract

Digital technologies, and the affordances they provide, can shape institutional processes in significant ways. In the last decade, social media and other digital platforms have redefined civic engagement by enabling new ways of connecting, collaborating, and mobilizing. In this article, we examine how technological affordances can both enable and hinder institutional processes through visibilization – which we define as the enactment of technological features to foreground and give voice to particular perspectives and discourses while silencing others. We study such dynamics by examining #SchauHin, an activist campaign initiated in Germany to shine a spotlight on experiences of daily racism. Our findings show how actors and counter-actors differentially leveraged the technological features of two digital platforms to shape the campaign. Our study has implications for understanding the role of digital technologies in institutional processes as well as the interplay between affordances and visibility in efforts to deinstitutionalize discriminatory practices and institutions.

Details

Digital Transformation and Institutional Theory
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80262-222-5

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 23 January 2019

André Cherubini Alves, Bruno Fischer, Paola Rücker Schaeffer and Sérgio Queiroz

The purpose of this paper is to analyze this phenomenon and identify its determinants using data from Brazilian higher education institutions.

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to analyze this phenomenon and identify its determinants using data from Brazilian higher education institutions.

Design/methodology/approach

Based on a data set comprehending 2,230 university students from 70 different institutions across the country, the authors develop five Probit models to assess impacts related to individual traits and systemic conditions on five dependent dimensions: entrepreneurial activity, potential entrepreneurs, high-impact entrepreneurship, serial entrepreneurship and innovation-driven entrepreneurship.

Findings

The lack of significance in many of the variables included in estimations suggests that student entrepreneurship seems to be a rather random phenomenon in Brazil.

Research limitations/implications

Findings pose challenges for student entrepreneurship, as targets for intervention are not clear.

Originality/value

Over the past decades, universities have been receiving an increasing demand to go beyond their role of producing science and technology to explore its knowledge potential to produce novel commercial applications. However, while there is a growing interest in ways to foster scientific academic entrepreneurship, universities also serve as a positive environment for student entrepreneurship training, knowledge sharing, testing ideas and learning. So far, the importance of student entrepreneurship has received far less attention than it likely deserves.

Details

Innovation & Management Review, vol. 16 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2515-8961

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 13 November 2018

Pasi Heikkurinen

This article examines how responsibility and strategy can and should be connected in a business organization.

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Abstract

Purpose

This article examines how responsibility and strategy can and should be connected in a business organization.

Design/methodology/approach

The article offers a review of the field by mapping previous studies according to their strategy and responsibility orientations and, consequently, identifies the classic perspective, as well as the major deficiencies and prevailing research gaps in the literature.

Findings

The article contributes to the field of strategic corporate responsibility by reframing the field with a contender perspective that challenges the classic view of strategy and responsibility amalgamation. Together, the classic and the contender perspectives are synthesized to form an integrative perspective that is more holistic than those currently available.

Originality/value

The article ends by calling for a reimagining of the relationship between corporate responsibility and strategy to find promising future research avenues and effective business practices suitable to meet the challenges of the twenty-first century.

Details

Journal of Global Responsibility, vol. 9 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2041-2568

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 21 June 2022

Sebastiano Cupertino, Gianluca Vitale and Paolo Taticchi

This paper aims to investigate possible interdependencies affecting short-term profitability between internal and process business aspects which can play a critical role in…

2103

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to investigate possible interdependencies affecting short-term profitability between internal and process business aspects which can play a critical role in sustainability operationalisation.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors adopted the panel data approach to perform a partial least square structural modelling equation analysis on a sample of 391 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) non-financial-listed companies, considering a timeframe of five years.

Findings

Corporate sustainability is a result of interplays between managerial commitment, strategy, slack resources’ exploitation, innovation, the sustainable management of internal production and procurement processes that managers can catalyse to foster short-term firms’ profitability.

Research limitations/implications

The study is focused on internal process business determinants of sustainability, and the analysis is limited to a short-term timeframe and on non-financial OECD-listed companies.

Practical implications

Managers searching for trade-offs between financial and non-financial performances should enhance their commitment towards sustainability by defining appropriate strategies suitable to employ mainly slack resources derived from core business activities enabling innovation processes, which, in turn, are able to foster sustainability of internal production and procurement processes.

Originality/value

The execution of sustainability is a complex process that needs to be investigated using a holistic approach net of endogeneity biases to better appreciate those interrelationships within multiple drivers determining the firm sustainable growth.

Details

International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, vol. 72 no. 10
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1741-0401

Keywords

Open Access
Book part
Publication date: 1 December 2022

Clemens Striebing

Purpose: The study elaborates the contextual conditions of the academic workplace in which gender, age, and nationality considerably influence the likelihood of…

Abstract

Purpose: The study elaborates the contextual conditions of the academic workplace in which gender, age, and nationality considerably influence the likelihood of self-categorization as being affected by workplace bullying. Furthermore, the intersectionality of these sociodemographic characteristics is examined.

Basic Design: The hypotheses underlying the study were mainly derived from the social role, social identity, and cultural distance theory, as well as from role congruity and relative deprivation theory. A survey data set of a large German research organization, the Max Planck Society, was used. A total of 3,272 cases of researchers and 2,995 cases of non-scientific employees were included in the analyses performed. For both groups of employees, binary logistic regression equations were constructed. the outcome of each equation is the estimated percentage of individuals who reported themselves as having experienced bullying at work occasionally or more frequently in the 12 months prior to the survey. The predictors are the demographic and organization-specific characteristics (hierarchical position, scientific field, administrative unit) of the respondents and selected interaction terms. Using regression equations, hypothetically relevant conditional marginal means and differences in regression parameters were calculated and compared by means of t-tests.

Results: In particular, the gender-related hypotheses of the study could be completely or conditionally verified. Accordingly, female scientific and non-scientific employees showed a higher bullying vulnerability in (almost) all contexts of the academic workplace. An increased bullying vulnerability was also found for foreign researchers. However, the patterns found here contradicted those that were hypothesized. Concerning the effect of age analyzed for non-scientific personnel, especially the age group 45–59 years showed a higher bullying probability, with the gender gap in bullying vulnerability being greatest for the youngest and oldest age groups in the sample.

Interpre4tation and Relevance: The results of the study especially support the social identity theory regarding gender. In the sample studied, women in minority positions have a higher vulnerability to bullying in their work fields, which is not the case for men. However, the influence of nationality on bullying vulnerability is more complex. The study points to the further development of cultural distance theory, whose hypotheses are only partly able to explain the results. The evidence for social role theory is primarily seen in the interaction of gender with age and hierarchical level. Accordingly, female early career researchers and young women (and women in the oldest age group) on the non-scientific staff presumably experience a masculine workplace. Thus, the results of the study contradict the role congruity theory.

Details

Diversity and Discrimination in Research Organizations
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80117-959-1

Keywords

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