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Business Model Innovation is increasingly created by an ecosystem of related companies. This paper aims to investigate the transition of a manufacturing ecosystem toward electric vehicles from a business model perspective.

The authors investigate an automotive manufacturing ecosystem that is in transition toward electric and electrified vehicles, conducting semi-structured interviews with 46 informants from 27 ecosystem members.

The results reveal that the actions of several ecosystem members are driven by regulations relating to emissions. Novel requirements regarding components and complementary offers necessitate the entry of actors from other industries and the formation of new ecosystem members. While the newly emerged ecosystem has roots in an established ecosystem, it relies on new value offers. Further, the findings highlight the importance of ecosystem governance, while the necessary degree of change in the members' business models depends on their roles and positions in the ecosystem. Therefore, upstream suppliers of components must perform business model adaptation, whereas downstream providers must perform more complex business model innovation.

The paper is among the first to investigate an entire manufacturing ecosystem and analyze its transition toward electric vehicles and the implications for business model innovation.

This study aims to explore some perceptions related to the suggestion that external auditors will be replaced by audit technologies that use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to make audit judgements when performing the financial statement audits. Digital transformation is revitalising the technologies used by external auditors and their firms; thus, the authors seek to understand what challenges this creates for the auditing profession in Vietnam.

Through the theoretical lens of new institutionalism theory, this study uses a qualitative approach involving 20 semi-structured interviews conducted with external auditors in Vietnam during 2022. This sample includes the global Big Four, global mid-tier and smaller local Vietnamese audit firms.

The findings indicate that there is resistance or disagreement with the suggestion that in the future audit technologies using AI tools can replace humans (external auditors). The role of external auditors in the professional services sector will gradually be changed by audit technologies; however, external auditors are unlikely to be replaced by audit technologies that use AI tools based on the responses of the participants. Strict institutional rules that exist in Vietnam would prevent the replacement of (human) external auditors. In the future, external auditors may take on new roles as consultants, with unique skills in classifying and processing data for decision-making processes; however, they will not be completely replaced by technology in the audit space.

This study has limitations that it is based on the data collection from a single developing country, Vietnam; therefore, the generalisability of the findings is limited to Vietnam. Also, the authors sought insights into the future of external audits in Vietnam.

This study highlights the changing role of auditors and institutions. Thus, policymakers, external auditors and auditees in other developing countries would find the findings helpful.

This study provides new perspectives, particularly from local Vietnamese firms, about audit practices that emerge due to high-level technological advancements and then embed themselves into existing audit practices in an emerging economy. Prior studies tended to focus on the global Big Four firms, thus this study contributes by sharing the perceptions of the smaller practitioners also.

This paper aims to examine how and why consumers respond to chief executive officer (CEO) activism on social media. The authors developed a conceptual model that proposes impression management as a mechanism for consumer response to CEO activism.

In Study 1a, the authors examined 83,259 tweets from 90 CEOs and compared consumer responses between controversial and noncontroversial tweets. In Study 1b, the authors replicated the analysis, using a machine-learning topic modeling approach. In Studies 2 and 3, the authors used experimental designs to test the theoretical mechanism.

On average, consumers tend to respond more to CEO posts dealing with noncontroversial issues. Consumers’ relative reluctance to like and share controversial posts is motivated by fear of rejection. However, CEO fame reverses this effect. Consumers are more likely to engage in controversial activist threads by popular CEOs. This effect holds for consumers high (vs low) in public self-consciousness. CEO fame serves as a “shield” behind which consumers protect their online image.

The study focused on Twitter (aka “X”) in the USA. Future research may replicate the study in other social media platforms and countries. The authors introduce “shielding” – liking and sharing content authored by a recognizable source – as a tactic for impression management on social media.

Famous CEOs should speak up about controversial issues on social media because their voice helps consumers engage more in such conversations.

This paper offers a theoretical framework to understand consumer reactions to CEO activism.

Operational excellence (OpEx) is a proven philosophy focusing on continuous improvement in processes and systems for superior performance and efficiency. It plays a crucial role in the energy sector, acting as a catalyst for safety, customer satisfaction, sustainability and competitiveness. This research aims to assess OpEx methodologies in Oman’s energy sector, examining methods, approaches, motivations and sustainability.

This study applies qualitative analysis methodology, involving interviews with 18 industry experts, from the energy sector in a sizeable energy country.

The analysis revealed a growing demand, particularly, in the oil and gas industry, driven by emerging business needs. Qualitative data analysis has identified 10 themes such as implemented methodologies, motivation drivers, deployment approaches, sustainability factors, benefits and challenges. Additionally, new themes emerged, including influencers to start OpEx, resource requirements, enablers for successful OpEx and systems.

This research was limited to Oman and the findings drawn from Omani energy companies may have limited applicability to energy companies in other regions. Therefore, if these findings were to be used, the validation of the findings in relation to other countries should be conducted, to ensure the validity of the context and outcome.

These findings contribute to understanding OpEx dynamics in the Omani energy sector, offering valuable insights for effective utilisation and organisational goal achievement. Furthermore, the study offers valuable insights on how to effectively employ OpEx initiatives in the energy sector to achieve their goals and create value. It addresses the lack of knowledge, offers a framework for successful OpEx implementation, bridges the theory-practice gap and provides insights for optimal utilisation.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first empirical study on assessing OpEx methodologies in the energy sector, and therefore it serves as a foundation for many future studies. The study provides a theoretical foundation for the OpEx methodologies in terms of organisational readiness for successful OpEx implementation.

The paper reviews existing literature on South Asian ecosystem-based disaster risk reduction (DRR) and identifies how community participation can be used to plan and implement ecosystem-based DRR approaches.

The literature review methodology involved several stages. Firstly, the research objective was determined. Secondly keywords for the literature search were determined. Scopus, Google Scholar, JSTOR and AUT online library were utilized for the literature search. After the search, the literature was screened. The study design, methodology, results and limitations were identified and documented. After data extraction, the literature was analyzed. The patterns, trends and inconsistencies in the literature were identified based on the research question. Later the gaps, controversies and future research needs were identified. Then, a comprehensive and structured literature review that summarizes the relevant literature, synthesizes the findings and provides a critical evaluation of the literature was documented. After writing the document, it was reviewed and edited to ensure its clarity, accuracy and coherence.

The paper identifies four different themes recurrently emerging in literature on the importance of community participation in ecosystem-based DRR in South Asia. The themes are local community participation in ecosystem-based DRR governance, knowledge production, livelihood enhancement and increased public acceptance.

The paper also illustrates the challenges in integrating community participation with the dominant physical scientific approaches ecosystem-based DRR and proposes a five-element framework to facilitate the integration.

The authors analyse six actively traded VIX Exchange Traded Products (ETPs) including 1x long, −1x inverse and 2x leveraged products. The authors assess their impact on the VIX Futures index benchmark.

Long-run causal relations between daily price movements in ETPs and futures are established, and the impact of rebalancing activity of leveraged and inverse ETPs evidenced through causal relations in the last 30 min of daily trading.

High frequency lead lag relations are observed, demonstrating opportunities for arbitrage, although these tend to be short-lived and only material in times of market dislocation.

The causal relations between VXX and VIX Futures are well established with leads and lags generally found to be short-lived and arbitrage relations holding. The authors go further to capture 1x long, −1x inverse as well as 2x leveraged ETNs and the corresponding ETFs, to give a broad representation across the ETP market. The authors establish causal relations between inverse and leveraged products where causal relations are not yet documented.

The worldwide imposition of lockdown measures to control the 2020 coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak has shifted most executive communications with external stakeholders online, resulting in quick responses from stakeholders. This study aims to understand how presentational styles exhibited in online communication induce immediate audience responses and empirically test the effectiveness of reactive impression management tactics.

The authors analyze presentational styles using MP3 files containing executive utterances during earnings call conferences held by S&P 100-listed firms after June 2020, the quarter after the World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic on March 11, 2020. Using timestamps, the authors link each utterance to a 1-minute interval change in the ask/bid prices of the stocks that occurs a minute after the corresponding utterance begins.

Exhibiting an informational presentation style in earnings calls leads to positive and immediate audience responses. Managers tend to increase their reliance on promotional presentation styles rather than on informational ones when quarterly earnings exceed market forecasts.

Drawing on organizational genre theory, this research identifies the discrepancy between the presentation styles that audiences positively respond to and those that managers tend to exhibit in earnings calls and provides a reactive impression management typology for immediate responses from online audiences.

As Australians experience more fierce and frequent natural disasters, there are urgent calls for businesses to meaningfully respond to climate change. Australian financial and professional services employees occupy an ambiguous space as climate mitigation measures have different economic implications for their clients. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how Australian professionals experience climate change and respond to the issue within their workplace.

This mixed methods study applies a systems thinking framework to investigate: how do professionals’ experiences of the issue of climate change and the workplace influence their cognitions, emotions and behaviour? And in particular, what psychosocial antecedents precede voicing climate concern?

Firstly, a survey of professionals (N = 206) found social norms, perceived behavioural control and biospheric values, but not attitudes, significantly predicted prohibitive green voice. Middle managers were significantly likely to voice climate concern, whereas senior managers were significantly likely to express climate scepticism. Ten professionals were then interviewed to gain a contextualised understanding of these trends. Interpretive phenomenological analysis identified five interrelated themes: (1) active identity management, (2) understanding climate change is escalating, (3) workplace shapes climate change response, (4) frustration and alienation and (5) belief that corporations prioritise profit.

Findings are discussed in relation to how employees may both embody and adapt their organisations. These results have implications for understandings of workplace meaningfulness and organisational risk governance.

Based on the resource-based view (RBV) theory, this study examines how supply chain digitalisation affects firms’ performance by enabling firms to build supply chain agility and innovation capability.

Drawing from the dataset of 271 firms in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), we used structural equation modelling to validate the models. Mediation and moderation analyses were performed to test the research hypotheses.

The results suggest a positive correlation between supply chain digitalisation and a company’s performance, fully mediated by both supply chain agility and innovation capability. The interplay between supply chain agility and innovation capability has the potential to result in unfavourable outcomes for a firm’s performance. These results provide valuable insights into supply chain management during digital transformation.

The study advances the extant research on the antecedents of a firm’s performance by incorporating supply chain digitalisation and mediating mechanisms of supply chain agility and innovation capability that serve as a conduit between supply chain digitalisation and a firm’s performance based on RBV.

Demonstrate proof-of-concept for conducting NFL Draft trades on a blockchain network using smart contracts.

Using Ethereum smart contracts, the authors model several types of draft trades between teams. An example scenario is used to demonstrate contract interaction and draft results.

The authors show the feasibility of conducting draft-day trades using smart contracts. The entire negotiation process, including side deals, can be conducted digitally.

Further work is required to incorporate the full-scale depth required to integrate the draft trading process into a decentralized user platform and experience.

Cutting time for the trade negotiation process buys decision time for team decision-makers. Gains are also made with accuracy and cost.

Full-scale adoption may find resistance due to the level of fan involvement; the draft has evolved into an interactive experience for both fans and teams.

This research demonstrates the new application of smart contracts in the inter-section of sports management and blockchain technology.