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This article describes advances in the study of knowledge transfer (KT) in project-based organizations (PBOs). Project management offices (PMOs) have both a moderation role and a mediation role to play in KT between projects. In order to improve KT between projects, this paper explores the mediation role of the PMO in the transfer of knowledge with different levels of articulability. The aim is to improve the usability of transferred knowledge.

The case study method was used to investigate KT in five-divisional PMOs within a multinational engineering and project management PBO. Fifteen semi-structured interviews were conducted and the results were analysed using ATLAS.Ti (a computer-aided qualitative data analysis software).

The findings show that it is the way in which the PMO structures knowledge management (KM) infrastructure and processes, which determines the success of its mediation role in the transfer of tacit and explicit knowledge between projects. The articulability of knowledge influences the PMO's mediation role and the PMO's mediation role in turn improves the usability of knowledge, thereby creating a conducive environment for a competitive advantage.

This study offers a framework to assist scholars and practitioners to understand the mediation role of the PMO in the transfer of knowledge with different levels of articulability within the projects environment. Such understanding can improve the usability of transferred knowledge, thereby creating a competitive edge for a PBO. The study shows that the PMO can be used as an instrument for KT between projects, a theme that was not found in literature. The paper thus offers new empirical information.

Information and communications technology (ICT) offers enormous opportunities for individuals, businesses and society. The application of ICT is equally important to economic and non-economic activities. Researchers have increasingly focused on the adoption and use of ICT by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) as the economic development of a country is largely dependent on them. Following the success of ICT utilisation in SMEs in developed countries, many developing countries are looking to utilise the potential of the technology to develop SMEs. Past studies have shown that the contribution of ICT to the performance of SMEs is not clear and certain. Thus, it is crucial to determine the effectiveness of ICT in generating firm performance since this has implications for SMEs’ expenditure on the technology. This research examines the diffusion of ICT among SMEs with respect to the typical stages from innovation adoption to post-adoption, by analysing the actual usage of ICT and value creation. The mediating effects of integration and utilisation on SME performance are also studied. Grounded in the innovation diffusion literature, institutional theory and resource-based theory, this study has developed a comprehensive integrated research model focused on the research objectives. Following a positivist research paradigm, this study employs a mixed-method research approach. A preliminary conceptual framework is developed through an extensive literature review and is refined by results from an in-depth field study. During the field study, a total of 11 SME owners or decision-makers were interviewed. The recorded interviews were transcribed and analysed using NVivo 10 to refine the model to develop the research hypotheses. The final research model is composed of 30 first-order and five higher-order constructs which involve both reflective and formative measures. Partial least squares-based structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) is employed to test the theoretical model with a cross-sectional data set of 282 SMEs in Bangladesh. Survey data were collected using a structured questionnaire issued to SMEs selected by applying a stratified random sampling technique. The structural equation modelling utilises a two-step procedure of data analysis. Prior to estimating the structural model, the measurement model is examined for construct validity of the study variables (i.e. convergent and discriminant validity).

The estimates show cognitive evaluation as an important antecedent for expectation which is shaped primarily by the entrepreneurs’ beliefs (perception) and also influenced by the owners’ innovativeness and culture. Culture further influences expectation. The study finds that facilitating condition, environmental pressure and country readiness are important antecedents of expectation and ICT use. The results also reveal that integration and the degree of ICT utilisation significantly affect SMEs’ performance. Surprisingly, the findings do not reveal any significant impact of ICT usage on performance which apparently suggests the possibility of the ICT productivity paradox. However, the analysis finally proves the non-existence of the paradox by demonstrating the mediating role of ICT integration and degree of utilisation explain the influence of information technology (IT) usage on firm performance which is consistent with the resource-based theory. The results suggest that the use of ICT can enhance SMEs’ performance if the technology is integrated and properly utilised. SME owners or managers, interested stakeholders and policy makers may follow the study’s outcomes and focus on ICT integration and degree of utilisation with a view to attaining superior organisational performance.

This study urges concerned business enterprises and government to look at the environmental and cultural factors with a view to achieving ICT usage success in terms of enhanced firm performance. In particular, improving organisational practices and procedures by eliminating the traditional power distance inside organisations and implementing necessary rules and regulations are important actions for managing environmental and cultural uncertainties. The application of a Bengali user interface may help to ensure the productivity of ICT use by SMEs in Bangladesh. Establishing a favourable national technology infrastructure and legal environment may contribute positively to improving the overall situation. This study also suggests some changes and modifications in the country’s existing policies and strategies. The government and policy makers should undertake mass promotional programs to disseminate information about the various uses of computers and their contribution in developing better organisational performance. Organising specialised training programs for SME capacity building may succeed in attaining the motivation for SMEs to use ICT. Ensuring easy access to the technology by providing loans, grants and subsidies is important. Various stakeholders, partners and related organisations should come forward to support government policies and priorities in order to ensure the productive use of ICT among SMEs which finally will help to foster Bangladesh’s economic development.

The purpose of this paper is to understand how higher education institutions (HEIs) in developing countries can migrate their physical administrative work environment to a virtual platform to improve information management.

The paper employs an interpretive case study approach and a combined lens of activity and agency theories to understand how a developing country HEI attempted to improve its information management by migrating from a physical to a virtual administrative work environment.

The findings show how contradictions caused by role conflicts, administrative staff’s fear of elimination and external consultants’ limited understanding of administrative rules and procedures can hamper work environment virtualisation. Such challenges should be resolved in order to achieve a successful virtual work environment that supports timely and accurate information management.

The study is limited by its single case perspective in one developing country. However, future studies can compare the experiences of HEIs from developed and developing countries in order to account for contextual differences.

The study provides practitioners with insight into how to address conflicts between employees (as potential users) and external consultants during virtual system development and implementation. In particular, role conflict, fear of eliminating some administrative staff and consultants’ limited understanding of administrative work procedures should be resolved for successful work environment virtualisation.

The study is the first attempt to offer rich insight into the challenges associated with administrative work environment virtualisation for improved information management in HEIs, through the principal-agent relationship.

This study examines the relationship between employees' perceptions of informational fairness and project performance. Furthermore, it examines if this relationship is sequentially mediated by (1) knowledge sharing and role clarity and (2) communication openness and role clarity.

Data are collected from 302 full-time employees of seven project-based construction organizations in Pakistan. Data are analyzed through variance-based structural equation modeling technique and the Preacher and Hayes' bootstrapping procedure.

Results indicate that project employees' perceptions of informational fairness positively predict project performance. Moreover, this relationship is sequentially mediated by (1) communication openness and role clarity and (2) knowledge sharing and role clarity.

This study provides further insights on the informational fairness and project performance relationship by examining their underlying mechanisms. It draws on the much ignored context of Pakistan, and offers some implications for managers and researchers with regard to how behavioral factors may further enhance project performance.

Citizens are substantial stakeholders in every e-government system, thus their willingness to use and ability to access the system are critical. Unequal access and information and communication technology usage, which is known as digital divide, however has been identified as one of the major obstacles to the implementation of e-government system. As digital divide inhibits citizen’s acceptance to e-government, it should be overcome despite the lack of deep theoretical understanding on this issue. This research aimed to investigate the digital divide and its direct impact on e-government system success of local governments in Indonesia as well as indirect impact through the mediation role of trust. In order to get a comprehensive understanding of digital divide, this study introduced a new type of digital divide, the innovativeness divide.

The research problems were approached by applying two-stage sequential mixed method research approach comprising of both qualitative and quantitative studies. In the first phase, an initial research model was proposed based on a literature review. Semi-structured interview with 12 users of e-government systems was then conducted to explore and enhance this initial research model. Data collected in this phase were analyzed with a two-stage content analysis approach and the initial model was then amended based on the findings. As a result, a comprehensive research model with 16 hypotheses was proposed for examination in the second phase.

In the second phase, quantitative method was applied. A questionnaire was developed based on findings in the first phase. A pilot study was conducted to refine the questionnaire, which was then distributed in a national survey resulting in 237 useable responses. Data collected in this phase were analyzed using Partial Least Square based Structural Equation Modeling.

The results of quantitative analysis confirmed 13 hypotheses. All direct influences of the variables of digital divide on e-government system success were supported. The mediating effects of trust in e-government in the relationship between capability divide and e-government system success as well as in the relationship between innovativeness divide and e-government system success were supported, but was rejected in the relationship between access divide and e-government system success. Furthermore, the results supported the moderating effects of demographic variables of age, residential place, and education.

This research has both theoretical and practical contributions. The study contributes to the developments of literature on digital divide and e-government by providing a more comprehensive framework, and also to the implementation of e-government by local governments and the improvement of e-government Readiness Index of Indonesia.

Smart card-based E-payment systems are receiving increasing attention as the number of implementations is witnessed on the rise globally. Understanding of user adoption behavior of E-payment systems that employ smart card technology becomes a research area that is of particular value and interest to both IS researchers and professionals. However, research interest focuses mostly on why a smart card-based E-payment system results in a failure or how the system could have grown into a success. This signals the fact that researchers have not had much opportunity to critically review a smart card-based E-payment system that has gained wide support and overcome the hurdle of critical mass adoption. The Octopus in Hong Kong has provided a rare opportunity for investigating smart card-based E-payment system because of its unprecedented success. This research seeks to thoroughly analyze the Octopus from technology adoption behavior perspectives.

Cultural impacts on adoption behavior are one of the key areas that this research posits to investigate. Since the present research is conducted in Hong Kong where a majority of population is Chinese ethnicity and yet is westernized in a number of aspects, assuming that users in Hong Kong are characterized by eastern or western culture is less useful. Explicit cultural characteristics at individual level are tapped into here instead of applying generalization of cultural beliefs to users to more accurately reflect cultural bias. In this vein, the technology acceptance model (TAM) is adapted, extended, and tested for its applicability cross-culturally in Hong Kong on the Octopus. Four cultural dimensions developed by Hofstede are included in this study, namely uncertainty avoidance, masculinity, individualism, and Confucian Dynamism (long-term orientation), to explore their influence on usage behavior through the mediation of perceived usefulness.

TAM is also integrated with the innovation diffusion theory (IDT) to borrow two constructs in relation to innovative characteristics, namely relative advantage and compatibility, in order to enhance the explanatory power of the proposed research model. Besides, the normative accountability of the research model is strengthened by embracing two social influences, namely subjective norm and image. As the last antecedent to perceived usefulness, prior experience serves to bring in the time variation factor to allow level of prior experience to exert both direct and moderating effects on perceived usefulness.

The resulting research model is analyzed by partial least squares (PLS)-based Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) approach. The research findings reveal that all cultural dimensions demonstrate direct effect on perceived usefulness though the influence of uncertainty avoidance is found marginally significant. Other constructs on innovative characteristics and social influences are validated to be significant as hypothesized. Prior experience does indeed significantly moderate the two influences that perceived usefulness receives from relative advantage and compatibility, respectively. The research model has demonstrated convincing explanatory power and so may be employed for further studies in other contexts. In particular, cultural effects play a key role in contributing to the uniqueness of the model, enabling it to be an effective tool to help critically understand increasingly internationalized IS system development and implementation efforts. This research also suggests several practical implications in view of the findings that could better inform managerial decisions for designing, implementing, or promoting smart card-based E-payment system.

Based on a survey study of 138 software buyers in Turkey, this study examines conditional indirect effects of requirements uncertainty on supplier opportunism where buyer dependence, a proxy for relation-specific investments, undertakes a mediator role. The authors consider a two-level moderation effect of trust and contract in buyer–supplier relationships throughout the software project lifecycle.

A survey-based empirical study was conducted, and conditional process analyses were run using PROCESS macro in SPSS. The present study tests a two-stage moderated mediation model in which competence-based trust with a detailed contract setting moderates the mediational path from requirements uncertainty to buyer dependence.

The data obtained from the buyer side in the Turkish software industry showed that a relationship in which the buyer is structurally dependent begins at a high level of trust. On the other hand, the authors found that contractual rigidity fosters supplier opportunism ex-post in evolving process of the relationship.

This study contributes to project management literature by testing a two-level moderation effect of governance and the mediator role of buyer dependence in the relationship between requirements uncertainty and supplier opportunism. Moving differently from the previous studies, this study integrates contributions of both economic perspectives, such as resource dependence theory and transaction cost analysis, and relational perspectives into the information processing view.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the different roles and natures of objects in organizational process. Furthermore, the concept of the mediation object is developed to understand how the objects help to structure interactions and collective activities over time.

The paper employs data from a case study (the Pupitre Virtuel) in order to highlight and illustrate the relevance of a process analysis of the roles and natures of objects.

The paper demonstrates that the roles and natures of objects evolve over time through controversies and compromises. On one hand, the evolution of interactions drives the evolution of the roles and natures of objects. On the other, the evolution of objects help the actors to structure their interactions and activities.

The paper argues that, rather than a static analysis, human‐object interaction needs to be understood and observed through a process analysis, taking into account the evolution of objects and interactions. This paper shows that mediation objects can play three roles – as carriers of controversies, of compromises, and of prescriptions – and that it can appear in one of three aspects – interpretable, modifiable, and non‐interpretable/non‐modifiable.

This paper aims to fill the gaps by conducting the first large n study examining the role of third parties in the emergence of river agreements in Asia and Africa during the time period 1948-2007. There is a growing literature on what explains agreements in river disputes. However, beyond individual case analysis, little systematic study has been done on the role of third parties in settling river disputes through agreement, in particular on the regions that are mostly affected by the global climate change.

Through utilising new data on the role of third parties in river disputes, this study shows that third party involvement in the conflict management of river disputes increases the likelihood of reaching river agreements.

The findings suggest that third parties use both diplomatic and economic means to increase the likelihood of emergence of river agreements, and both strategies are equally important to induce formalised cooperation.

Yet the present study covers only two regions, and it does not delve into a discussion of the conditions under which third party interventions are successful. Rather, these are aspects that need to be explored in the future.

Given the current uncertainty around security challenges resulting from climate change, and with predictions of future water wars, this research contributes to the understanding how to peacefully manage current and potential conflicts around transboundary waters.

This study is the first large n study examining the role of third parties in the emergence of river agreements in Asia and Africa.

This study aims to determine the effect of humble leadership on project success (PS). According to the authors, such an effect is mediated by team engagement and moderated by organizational culture. The direct and indirect effects of team engagement provided helpful insights. Moreover, organizational culture did not moderate the relationship. The authors’ objective is to contribute to the literature on project management (PM) and leadership of how team engagement plays a significant role in PS.

Data were collected from 317 employees working in Pakistan’s telecom sector projects. Five project-related telecom companies were the target population of this study, and the reason behind choosing the telecom sector for investigation is their valuable contribution to the revenue and technology introduction in the country. A time-lagged approach was selected for data collection to avoid the common method bias, which served the purpose. SPSS v23 and AMOS v23 were used for constructing structural equation modeling and path analysis to examine direct and indirect effects.

The results revealed that humble leadership is positively related to PS. Furthermore, team engagement mediated the relationship between humble leadership and PS, while there was no interaction effect.

The impact of team engagement was the primary topic of interest with humble leadership in this study. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no study has investigated team engagement in the project context. The authors tried to contribute to the PM literature.