Search results

Organizations are fast adopting new technologies such as automation, analytics and artificial intelligence, collectively called intelligent automation, to drive digital transformation. When adopting intelligent automation, there is a need to understand the success factors of these new technologies and adapt agile software development (ASD) practices to meet customer expectations. The purpose of this paper is to explore the success factors of intelligent automation and create a framework for managers and practitioners to meet dynamic business demands. Total interpretive structural modeling (TISM) framework is a suitable approach to integrate quantitative measurement with qualitative semi-structured interviews capturing the context of the individual organization environment.

This paper identified agility factors and their interrelationships using a TISM framework. TISM results were validated using a one-tailed t-test to confirm the interrelationships between factors. Furthermore, the agility index of a case project organization was assessed using a graph-theoretic approach (GTA) to identify both the triggering factors for agility success and improvement proposals.

Results showed that leadership vision, organization structure and program methodology were driving factors. The TISM model was validated statistically and the agility index of the intelligent automation case project organization was calculated to be79.5%. Here, a GTA was applied and the triggering factors for improvement of the agility index were identified.

The limitations of the study are described along with the opportunities for future research as the field evolves through the rapid innovation of technology and products.

The increasing role of digital transformation in enterprise strategy and operations requires practitioners to understand how ASD practices must be planned, measured and/or improved over time through the implementation of automation, analytics and artificial intelligence programs. The TISM digraph provides a framework of hierarchical structure to organize the influencing factors, which assists in achieving organizational goals. This study highlights the driving factors which contribute to the success of intelligent automation projects and project organizations.

This is a first attempt to analyze the interrelationships among agility factors in intelligent automation projects (IAP) using TISM and the assessment of the agility index of a case IAP organization using a GTA.

The total defence (TD) concept constitutes a joint endeavour between the military forces and civil defence structures within a TD state. Logistics is essential for such joint collaboration to work; however, the mismatch between military and civil defence logistics structures poses challenges for such joint collaboration. The purpose of this paper is to identify logistics concept areas within the TD framework that allow for military and civil defence collaborations from a logistics operations perspective.

Pattern-matching analysis is used to compare patterns found in the investigated case with those prescribed from the literature and predicted to occur. The study seeks to identify logistics concepts within TD from the literature and from the events describing the Swedish response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Pattern matching thus allows for the reconciliation of logistics concepts from the literature to descriptions of how the response was handled, albeit under a TD framework.

Findings show quite distinct foci between the theoretical and observational realms in terms of logistics applications. While the theoretical realm identifies four main logistics concepts, the observational realm identifies five logistics conceptual themes. This goes on to show an incongruence between the military and civil parts of the TD.

This study provides basis for further research into the applications and management of logistics activity within TD and emergency response.

Logistics applications within TD have not, until now, received much attention in the literature. Given this knowledge gap, this study is of original value.

The purpose of this study is to investigate a framework for knowledge retention to support business continuity in cross-border mergers of the telecommunications industry in Lesotho.

This study applied a qualitative case study, with data collected through interviews from a purposively selected sample of staff members who held managerial positions. Information in this study was partially extracted from the PhD thesis of Dr Tseole ET supervised by Prof Ngulube P at the University of South Africa completed in 2021.

The study discovered that a considerable amount of knowledge may have been lost because employees who either left the organisation or those who were apparently forced to resign during the process had left without any proper knowledge retention arrangements.

The framework proposed in this study may be used in framing future studies as a theoretical framework. The study also provides new literature for review and discussion of background in future related studies.

The framework provided in the study may be used as a benchmark in the knowledge management industry and/or organisations for policy development or improvements and implementation of knowledge retention strategies.

Through recommendations and framework provided by this study, organisations will be able to improve their services to their sphere of influence in the surrounding communities. So, community will be receiving an improved and good service at all the times.

A framework for facilitating knowledge retention in the cross-border mergers of the telecommunications industry is therefore proposed and the researchers believe it will be helpful to the organisation for improving knowledge retention going forward, particularly in the merger process.

This study examines the interconnected effects of formal, informal, environmental and skill-based institutional barriers on firm performance. The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) region has implemented various reforms and policy initiatives to support small businesses yet are unsuccessful as formal institutional framework and governance remains a challenge.

The authors employ a sample of 3,515 small and medium enterprises (SMEs) from the ECOWAS and a two-stage instrumental variable approach to control for endogeneity. Additionally, the authors check for robustness using various measures of firm performance such as profitability, productivity and export intensity.

The authors confirm that formal institutions are insignificant for firm profitability and productivity, whilst reducing informal, environmental and skill-based institutional barriers are associated with firm performance. However, when barriers to informal, environmental and skill-based institutions are at the lowest, formal institutions are associated with firm performance.

The major limitation lies in the policy implications. Informal institutions come into play when formal institutions are weak. However, informal practices must be addressed in the form of formal enforcement. This leads to a conundrum.

Policymakers should continue to market-supporting institutions and a conducive business environment to complement the formal institutional framework.

This study provides new empirical evidence on how institutional quality affects firm performance by examining whether other institutional factors, such as the informal, environmental and skill-based institutional barriers, can moderate this effect.

This paper aim to take the ship shaft stern bearing as the research object, and studies the influence of journal axial vibration on bearing dynamic characteristics under different misaligned angles and rotation speeds.

Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and harmonic excitation method were used to build bearing unstable lubrication model, and the dynamic mesh technology was used in calculation.

The results indicate that journal axial vibration has a significant effect on bearing dynamic characteristics, like maximum oil film pressure, bearing stiffness and damping coefficients, and the effect is positively correlated with journal misaligned angle. The effect of shaft rotation speed and journal axial vibration on bearing dynamics characteristics are independent; they have no coupling. Bearing axial stiffness is mainly affected by the journal axial displacement, bearing axial damping is mainly affected by journal axial velocity and they are positively correlated with the misaligned angle. The influence of rotational speed on bearing axial stiffness and axial damping is not obvious.

This paper establishes the bearing dynamic model by CFD and harmonic excitation method with consideration of cavitation effect and analyzing the influence of journal axial vibration on the dynamic characteristics. The results are benefit to the design of ship propulsion shaft and the selection of stern bearing. Also, they are of great significance to improve the operation stability of the shaft bearing system and the vitality of the ship.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/ILT-11-2022-0337/

One pertinent dynamic phenomenon in supply chains is the amplification of order variance, i.e. the bullwhip effect. Its continued significance is underscored in contemporary empirical research. While numerous publications have pinpointed various causes of the bullwhip effect, there remains a gap in their systematic consolidation. The purpose of this paper is to compile a comprehensive list of the causes of the bullwhip effect from existing literature and categorize them appropriately.

This study conducts a systematic literature review to offer a comprehensive overview of bullwhip effect causes addressed in the existing literature. The identified causes are categorized using a qualitative content analysis approach.

The study shows the diversity of the causes of the bullwhip effect and their interdependencies. In addition, this study demonstrates that, at the highest level of aggregation, causes of the bullwhip effect can be classified into four main categories: causes inherent in the system structure, causes related to uncertainty, causes related to misaligned incentives and causes related to inadequate cognition of the situation.

The work provides an extensive overview and categorization of bullwhip effect causes, offering valuable insights for both researchers and practitioners seeking a deeper understanding of this phenomenon. In addition, it underscores managerial implications and highlights future research opportunities.

This study aims to study research on franchise chain performance that has focused on franchisors’ efforts to align their interests with those of franchisees to address partner uncertainty. In contrast, the question of what a franchisor should do to address another type of uncertainty and task uncertainty remains understudied. The authors suggest a franchisor’s coordination as a key means of alleviating task uncertainty and ongoing support and plural form as two mechanisms of coordination. The authors also posit that aligned interests between the franchisor and the franchisee improve, whereas one-sided interest impedes, chain performance. Furthermore, providing greater ongoing support or deploying plural form amplifies the positive effect of aligned interests on chain performance.

The authors relied on secondary data to test the hypotheses. The authors collected data for analysis from Bond’s franchisee guide and Nation’s Restaurant News restaurant database. They also tested the framework by analyzing 17-year, panel data of 71 restaurant chains operating in the USA and Canada using system generalized method of moments.

Results show that aligning interests does improve chain performance, but that the positive effect is amplified when aligned interests are matched with a chain’s provision of ongoing support or use of plural form.

The authors explicate why it is not enough to address the misaligned interests or lack of coordination alone; a chain manager needs to address both of these problems together. In addition, the authors explicate how two franchisee coordination mechanisms – ongoing support and plural form – help a chain augment the beneficial effect of aligning interests on chain performance. Without solving the twin problems of misaligned interests and coordination simultaneously, a chain is unlikely to achieve its full performance potential.

The need for robust governance standards in financial institutions requires no overemphasis. However, instances of governance failures have been a recurring global phenomenon. This paper examines the key elements of governance in financial institutions, evaluates reasons for failures and suggests ways to strengthen governance and prevent such failures.

The author follows a descriptive design and a behavioural approach to understand the governance issues in financial institutions.

The author identifies key elements of governance, and the potential reasons for failures and highlights that the structure of boards, thrust on the adoption of best practices and regulatory guidelines are necessary but not sufficient to ensure failsafe governance standards. The author emphasises the need for recognition of behavioural factors and a focus on continuous monitoring and red flagging of the conduct of key stakeholders by the third and fourth lines of defence. An effective whistle-blower policy, a clear focus on organisational culture and the subjugation of individuals to the systems can improve the robustness of the governance standards in financial institutions.

To the best of the author's knowledge and belief, the observations and suggestions made in the paper are original. The paper contributes by offering a nuanced perspective for strengthening governance in financial institutions.

Digital transformation misalignment refers to disparities in digital transformation levels between suppliers and buyers across the production and operation process. It has negatively affected supply chain stability. However, the existing research concerning the economic consequences has not been adequately addressed. Therefore, this paper aims to investigate whether such digital transformation misalignment increases supplier financial risk and to identify the factors influencing this relationship.

This paper examines binary combinations of suppliers and buyers listed on China’s A-share market between 2011 and 2021. This group constitutes a sample to empirically test the influence of digital transformation misalignment on the supplier’s financial risk, as well as the moderating effect of the geographical and organizational distances.

The paper’s findings demonstrate that digital transformation misalignment has indeed a significant increase in the supplier’s financial risk. Moreover, the impact is more intense when the geographical or organizational distance between the supplier and the buyer is relatively large.

The existing literature rarely explores the potential risks arising from digital transformation misalignment between supply chain partners. Therefore, this paper fills a notable gap as it is the first to study the impact of digital transformation misalignment on the supplier’s financial risk and the specific applied mechanisms. The contribution significantly improves the field of corporate digital transformation, particularly, within the context of supply chain management.

This paper aims to consider the potential implications of the layering of regulation in relation to hydraulic fracturing (fracking) at the borders between the nations of the UK.

This paper uses a qualitative research method grounded in particular in legal geography to examine the existing approaches to regulating hydraulic fracturing and identify the places and their features that are constructed as a result of their intersection at the borders of the nations comprising the UK.

The current regulatory framework concerning hydraulic fracturing risks restricts the places in which the practice can occur in such a manner as to potentially cause greater environmental harm should the process be used. The regulations governing the process are not aligned in relation to the surface and subsurface aspects of the process to enable their management, once operational, as a singularly constructed place of extraction. Strong regulation at the surface can have the effect of influencing placement of the site only in relation to the place at which the resource sought reaches the surface, whilst having little to no impact on the environmental harms, which will result at the subsurface or relative to other potential surface site positions, and potentially even increasing them.

This paper is limited by uncertainty as to the future use of hydraulic fracturing to extract oil and gas within the UK. The issues raised within it would also be applicable to other extractive industries where a surface site might be placed within a radius of the subsurface point of extraction, rather than having to be located at a fixed point relative to that in the subsurface. This paper therefore raises concerns that might be explored more generally in relation to the regulation of the place of resource extraction, particularly at legal borders between jurisdictions, and the impact of regulation, which does not account for the misalignment of regulation of spaces above and below the surface that form a single place at which extraction occurs.

This paper considers the potential impacts of misaligned positions held by nations in the UK in relation to environmentally harmful practices undertaken by extractive industries, which are highlighted by an analysis of the extant regulatory framework for hydraulic fracturing.

Whilst the potential for cross internal border extraction of gas within the UK via hydraulic fracturing and the regulatory consequences of this has been highlighted in academic literature, this paper examines the implications of regulation for the least environmentally harmful placement of the process.