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Discusses, from an information system perspective, the gradual negotiation process involved in the resolution of the initiative dilemma of action research. Posits that the initiative dilemma is characterized by the researcher facing the decision of taking the initiative of defining an opportunity for generating knowledge first then trying to find client organizations, or leaving this to client organizations and tackling problems proposed by them. The first option may lead to the definition of research projects that do not meet the interests of client organizations, while the second may lead to irrelevant research topics. Proposes a preliminary explanatory model of this negotiation process and highlights the differing and often conflicting views of researchers and organizations. Discusses failure types that may result from this negotiation process and how to avoid them.

Process‐focused improvement groups form the change dynamic in two world‐class paradigms of change management – TQM and BPR. This paper outlines a research project that implemented and studied three occurrences of asynchronous groupware supported process improvement groups in a New Zealand tertiary education institution. Research data was collected during and after group discussions using discussion transcripts, participant observation, and structured and unstructured interviews of the participants. This paper reports the general success and failure factors that were developed from the material collected.

The purpose of this research is to discuss a variety of empirical findings suggesting that surprise is positively related with enhanced memory recall. This opens the door for the assumption that surprising stimuli can be used in a controlled way to enhance learning.

A predictive model based on a Darwinian interpretation of this phenomenon is proposed. The model is coined CLEBS, which stands for “computer‐based learning enhanced by surprise”.

A discussion on how the model can be tested is provided in the context of a finance‐oriented Web‐based learning task, where subjects learn about investment instruments such as stocks and bonds.

Important implications are discussed, including possible applications in a variety of areas of interest to organizations in general.

There is considerable debate among academics and business practitioners on the value of the use of social networking by organizational members. Some, fearing presenteeism (i.e. being at the workplace but working below peak capacity), claim that the use of social networking sites by organizational members is a waste of time, while others believe it leads to improvements in job performance, partly due to employees’ successful efforts to balance work‐life realms. This paper aims to inform this debate by examining the use of social networking sites by organizational members and its effect on job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and job performance.

The exploratory study is based on a survey of 193 employees, focusing on the following constructs: social networking site use intensity, perceived job satisfaction, perceived organizational commitment, and job performance. The authors’ proposed model was evaluated using variance‐based structural equation modeling (SEM), a latent variable‐based multivariate technique enabling concurrent estimation of structural and measurement models under nonparametric assumptions. This study used WarpPLS 2.0 to assess both the measurement and the structural model.

The results show that social networking site use intensity has a significant positive effect on job performance through the mediation of job satisfaction, and that this mediating effect is itself mediated – in a nested way – via organizational commitment. The findings suggest that social networking site use, rather than causing presenteeism, may be a new way through which employees balance their work‐life realms, in turn benefitting their organizations.Originality/value – To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to analyze, in an integrated way, the relationship between those theoretical constructs.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the interdependence among dimensions of sustainability, i.e. economic, social and environmental performance, this study focuses on leading states of the Indian leather Industry.

This study followed exploratory research where partial least square (PLS) based structural equation modeling has been used. The states have been selected based on judgmental sampling. The study used unit level data for the leading states of Indian leather Industry − namely, Tamil Nadu (TN), West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh. The study has used Annual Survey of Industry data from 2007-2008 to 2011-2012. The proposed hypotheses have been tested using WarpPLS 5.0 software.

The structural equation analysis of unit-wise leather industry data supports a significant bi-directional negative relationship between social performance and economic performance among all the selected states. In contrast, the relationship between economic performance and environmental performance, as expected and supported by many existing theories, has shown a bidirectional positive relationship. However, the relationship between social and environmental performance has shown quite mysterious and mixed trends. TN has depicted significantly negative coefficients, which could be attributed to higher pressure for environmental compliance that might have led to a trade-off between the two to gain cost competitiveness.

Unavailability of data for many critical indicators is the biggest limitation of this study.

The sustainability framework proposed in this work is an original contribution of authors to the existing literature. Moreover, this study on the Indian leather industry fills the gap and resolves the mystery of interconnection among the dimensions of sustainability.

After expressing an initial disquiet about the nature of many studies that are published using structural equation modelling (SEM), a rationale for using the technique is provided. Given the advantages provided by the technique, the differences between covariance-based and partial least squares techniques are briefly described. The argument progresses by indicating assumptions behind the techniques and what it is that referees require before being able to properly referee the paper. Some issues are fundamental to survey-based materials and include the requirement to distinguish between importance and discriminatory power, and the over-dependency on cross-sectional analysis when making claims of generalisation. Other issues of scale creation and sample size are touched upon. This paper finishes by suggesting a checklist for referees who are asked to review papers using SEM.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the combined roles that perceived usefulness (PU), perceived ease of use, perceived security and hedonic motivation play on the adoption of e-banking. It also aims to determine the ability of hedonic motivation to transfer the effect of other determinants of e-banking adoption.

In order to empirically test the conceptual model of this study, data were collected from the users of e-banking in Nigeria. A total of 266 questionnaires were analyzed using partial least square structural equation modeling.

The empirical results revealed a significant and positive relationship between PU, perceived security and e-banking adoption. The same result was found to be applicable to the relationship between PU, perceived ease of use, perceived security and hedonic motivation. However, support was not found for the relationship between perceived ease of use and adoption of e-banking. Hedonic motivation plays a mediating role between PU, perceived security and e-banking adoption. The study did not find a mediating effect of hedonic motivation between perceived ease of use and e-banking adoption.

The results of this study provide insights for banking practitioners to know which aspect of e-banking to improve and to aid with policies that will increase adoption. Furthermore, improvements in hedonic motivation will also significantly increase adoption of e-banking.

This study is one of the pioneer studies that tests the mediating influence of hedonic motivation.