Search results

This study evaluated the enhancement of information sharing practices with third party logistics service providers (3PLs) in a supply chain solutions company that provides transport and warehousing software in Johannesburg, South Africa.

A mixed methods case study was conducted to investigate the problem. Both strands of quantitative and qualitative data were given equal priority. Three rounds of primary data were sequentially collected, analysed and triangulated. An online questionnaire was distributed to a sampling frame of seventeen companies which were randomly selected from the population. Three company executives were purposively sampled to participate in a focus group interview. Data from an open-ended questionnaire were used to explain and validate the findings from clients and executives who participated in the two preceding rounds of data collection.

It was found that information sharing improves the collaboration of channel members, increases competitive advantage and ultimately leads to better customer service. The improvement of relationships and continuous technological upgrades are recommended for improving visibility of information and effectiveness in the management of supply chains.

This study is limited by the characteristics of the case study methodology. Case study research suffers from restricted generalisability, problems with cross-checking and the risk of bias and subjectivity. This implies that the results of this case study may not be generalised to the overall population. The selection of a mixed methods design was intended to curb the limitations that are inherent to this study.

This study was limited to a few respondents and participants, which raises concerns about both the statistical power and the generalisability of the results. However, the results provide useful insights into some of the information sharing practices in the industry.

The value of the study contributes to the supply chain's dependence on 3PLs for value creation and the reliance on technology to share information amongst channel members. This study highlights a need for organisations to build collaborative relationships with 3PLs and continuously update technological infrastructure in order to meet supply chain network goals.

While companies worldwide are largely comprised of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), a significant amount of management accounting (MA) research focuses on larger organisations, thus leaving MA practice in SMEs relatively under-researched. This paper aims to examine MA adoption (MAA) and its interfaces with MA challenges and business performance from a small business perspective.

A sample of 502 small businesses is investigated with an embedded mixed methods research design comprised of qualitative content analysis, factor analysis and analysis of variance.

Up to 78% of small businesses are facing MA challenges that stem from organisation, systems, personnel and/or resources. Based on the present findings, MA challenges do motivate small businesses to at least consider investing in MAA as small businesses facing challenges are more likely to acquire systems and services than those reporting no issues at all. Hence, small business managers seem to not only recognise where their challenges lie, but also seek ways to improve the situation through MAA. The analysis also reveals that companies with the highest MA know-how have the best average solvency, suggesting that small businesses indeed benefit from MAA. Interestingly, the performance at medium levels of know-how declines while investments increase, revealing a “decreasing solvency phenomenon”. Potential explanations are, e.g. the MA not fitting the company’s exact needs, or information usability and use being limited by poor MA understanding.

The originality of the research lies in exploring the interfaces between MA challenges, MAA and small business performance using distinctive embedded mixed methods research design.

Although brand risk management (BRM) is widely acknowledged as critical concern of business leaders, there exists little empirical evidence regarding what activities firms could do to make their brand secured in the increasingly competitive market. Moreover, previous studies find out the important role of innovation stimulus in firm performance, but little attention is paid on how firm's innovation stimulates the firm's brand security. This study aims at exploring the impacts of BRM activities on brand security with the innovation stimulus as a moderator.

Mixed method is applied in conducting this research. In the qualitative research, an interview with managers of 20 large-size foodstuff companies in Vietnam is conducted to obtain insights into their understanding BRM activities and brand security as well as the role of innovation stimulus in managing brand risk and developing measurements for new constructs. In the quantitative research, a sample of 258 respondents is collected for the tests of reliability and validity as well as all hypotheses using SPSS software.

The authors’ findings show that the level of implementation of BRM activities influences the brand security with the moderating effect of innovation stimulus. Specifically, four dimensions of BRM activities including: strategy, personnel, processes and investment have direct, positive and significant impact on brand security. Innovation stimulus including innovation in leadership and innovation in knowledge management could serve as a moderating variable.

The findings of the current study have contributed to BRM literature by highlighting the importance of the implementation of BRM activities and the key role of innovation stimulus in ensuring the brand security, on which previous studies have paid little attention. The study suggests some guidance for firms about how to improve the innovation stimulus in enhancing the effectiveness of BRM activities and, as a result, increasing the brand security of the firm.

This paper aims to propose a liquidity management solution for Islamic financial institutions (IFIs) that concurs with sustainable development and financial stability.

The study is a qualitative research. It uses the exploratory research methodology, specifically the content analysis approach, to gather primary data and identify and interpret relevant secondary data and Sharīʿah concepts. The purpose is to develop a liquidity management solution for IFIs. The proposal is based on the Unleveraged Green Investment Trust (UGIT) model, which is consistent with Basel III regulatory requirements. In developing the UGIT model, the exploratory research was complemented by a case study to examine the UGIT solution for the particular case of renewable energy.

The model demonstrates how financial innovation can meet both financial stability and sustainable development objectives, thereby achieving the spirit of Islamic finance. The structure further highlights the importance of regulatory and fiscal frameworks to enhance liquidity management and investor appeal for green financial instruments.

This study suggests a structure of UGIT to enable IFIs to meet their liquidity management needs while promoting sustainable development.

This paper aims to study the extent of use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the modern organization; to comprehend the changing nature of future jobs in the context of application of AI; and to study the impact of AI on the economy of the country with special reference to the job market. Given the critical scenario of labor intensive Indian economy, the paper intends to show how AI shall affect rather coexist with human intelligence or labor.

The research on implementation of AI in different industries and its effect on job market are at a nascent stage. There is a dearth of literature. Hence, this study followed a qualitative approach to have a better understanding of the research questions as Bhattacherjee (2012) confirms that employing an interpretive paradigm (qualitative analysis as the analysis of data, e.g. data from interview transcripts) is the more productive way to study social order and that it is achieved through “subjective interpretation of participants involved, such as by interviewing different participants and reconciling differences among their responses using their own subjective perspectives”. Sample selection: The selection technique utilized is purposive sampling. The respondents in this research are the general managers and HRs from different companies. A total of 14 senior professionals from various sectors were approached for the interview out of which seven people gave their consent to take interview. Seven senior HR professionals, mainly general managers and HRs from various sectors viz. oil and gas sector, manufacturing, healthcare, construction, media, power and energy and retail were interviewed to understand how they are using AI in their respective fields. Inclusion Criteria: (1) Generally, the people covered under the research are from the decision-making level of their companies so they are in a position to give strategic perspective as well as day to day implication of implementation of AI. (2) Respondents have adequate knowledge of the respective industry to which they belong. (3) Respondents have reasonable industry of dealing with Human Resource Management and national economy as a whole assessment tool and its administration procedures. A narrative approach was adopted to have a better understanding of the research questions and comprehend their views regarding implementation of AI in their respective companies. A semi structured open ended interview was administered to steer the discussion around the research questions. The respondents were interviewed over the phone and each respondent shared their stories. Analysis of data: The narrations were then transcribed by online transcriber website otter.ai.com. The common keywords as prescribed by the website are as: AI, strategy, learning and implementation. The extracts of the discussions are noted in the next segment of the paper. As and when required this research also used secondary data from the journals, literature available in the websites to understand the implementation of AI globally.

A country where the government itself admits 90% of its workforce belongs to informal sector and conspicuously exits a multi-faceted stark digital divide (Huberman, 2001; DiMaggio et al., 2001; Guillen, 2006; Servon, 2002) wherein gap of digital divide is significant between the rural and urban India (Dasgupta et al., 2002; Nath, 2001; Singh, 2007; Mahajan, 2003; Dutta, 2003) talking of educating, applying and implementing AI seems to be “ a distant dream” but an “ambiguous ambition ”

Prior to implementation of AI that India has to ensure, the basic hygiene factors of informal sector labor force like social security, 2008, low wages and lack of legal protection, unpaid overtime and occupational health problems, poor bargaining power, working without leave under coercion, child care issues and health ailments(for which mere legislation or statutarization is just a formality executed than taking real action) to take the majority of Indian workforce to attain the motivational factor to acquire the knowledge and skill of AI and to implement it.

The AI and its adoption are still at their embryonic stage in Indian companies. With the adoption of such sophisticated technology, in one side, the organizations are dreaming of efficiency, higher productivity and better organizational performance whereas on the other side requirement of changing skill sets and decreasing manpower, creating fear among the mass, which results in hard resistance against the implementation process of AI. On the other hand, lack of expertise and high cost of adoption is also hindering AI to implement in the organizations. The adoption and implementation stage of AI vary from organization to organizations, as well as functions to functions. While the marketing departments of several organizations are using advanced level of AI, there, the HR departments are using AI at the very initial stage. But it is evident from the above discussions that adoption of AI in business functions is inevitable and only it is a matter of time. With the COVID-19 pandemic this has become the utmost necessity for many organizations, particularly who works across the globe. HR partners of the businesses are also adopting AI at a fast pace to do away with the mundane works and deliver efficient services to the stakeholders. It is understood from the discourse that the prerequisite for a successful implementation of AI across the industries throughout the country, needs a concerted effort from industries, academia and government.

The answer lies in Keynesian economics. The central tenet of which is government intervention rather investment to stabilize and progress the economy by way of spreading Internet connectivity, basic literacy and computer literacy, then only truly AI can be effective in a greater scale.

A study on application of artificial intelligence in the pandemic era from a wider perspective, this work is an empirical investigation into the benefits and limitations of artificial intelligence for human potential and labour -intensive pandemic ridden Indian economy.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the determinants of mutual funds’ performance at both a country level and a fund level in Vietnam.

The different types of funds with more than three-year operation are selected to remove outliers of the stock market boom from 2015 to 2018. The data set includes 54 mutual funds operating during the period from 2008 until November 2018.

The research finds that there is a positive relationship between macroeconomics and mutual funds’ performance. Furthermore, country-level governance such as regulation effectiveness, political stability, economic growth and financial development has a positive correlation with mutual funds’ performance. However, the impact of fund-level factors is diverse with the no significant impact of board size on mutual fund’s performance, while passive funds perform better than active funds in Vietnam.

The research results suggest that investors should pay attention to the types of funds and operating expense when making an investment decision in mutual funds. There are some recommendations for both government policy-makers and the mutual fund industry that are likely to facilitate the development of this field in Vietnam.

The research contributes to the understanding of what are the factors that should be considered when investing in mutual funds.

To meet customers' expectations on shorter lead times, high product availability, flexibility, and variation in delivery and return options, retailers have turned their attention to warehousing and are making big investments in technology. Currently, technology providers are pushing for smart warehousing, a new and under-researched phenomenon. This study aims to conceptualize the term and examine pathways toward implementing smart warehousing.

An exploratory survey was administered to 50 leading Swedish retailers in varying segments. A two-tailed t-test for equality of means was used to detect significant differences between current and future states.

The study found that future smart warehouses will be automated, autonomous, digital, and connected, but that retailers will follow different paths along this journey, driven by contextual trends, e.g. sales growth, wider product assortment, shorter lead-time offerings, and integration of brick-and-mortar and online stores. Interestingly, the study revealed that many of the retailers that aim to create smart warehouses in five years are not the retailers with the most developed technology today.

The paper operationalizes smart warehousing in two dimensions: degree of automation and degree of digitalization and connectivity of information platforms. Based on the findings, 16 theoretical propositions are put forth that, based on contextual factors, explain different pathways for retailers to implement smart warehousing.

The empirical insights and theoretical discussions provide practically useful guidance, including outlined trends, for selecting and benchmarking automation and complementary technologies in warehouse operations.

This paper conceptualizes and operationalizes smart warehousing – an original approach. It is also one of the first to investigate the technological transformation in retail warehousing empirically, explaining how and why retailers choose different pathways toward smart warehousing.

The purpose of this paper is to know which growth-impeding constraints are perceived to act upon operations of small- to medium-sized (SME) companies by their owner-managers and to recommend transitionary paths to elevate constraints and increase contribution levels made by SMEs’ operations. To do so, this research has been primarily founded upon Hayes et al.’s (2005) operations contribution model for differentiating between different levels of operations’ contribution, and secondarily on the theory of constraints philosophy to explain the perceptions of constraints found at each level – current and future.

An open-ended survey and a series of group workshops have gathered new empirical data about these perceptions, which were coded using the relational content analysis to identify a parsimonious set of perceptual growth-impeding constraint categories. The most popular transitions were identified and a correlation of frequency rank orders between “perceived current” and “perceived future” constraints categories was calculated, and likely transitionary paths for growth are discussed. Three SME case studies were documented in related action research to contextualise survey findings.

The most popular transition was from “neutral” to “leading”. A lack of people capability was perceived to be the most commonly reported growth-impeding constraint category, followed by a combined lack of process competence and product and service innovation, further followed by a lack of skills in information technology automation. In addition, a new conceptual model has been generated inductively to address shortcomings found in the original operations contribution model (Hayes et al., 2005) during its application to UK SMEs. The new model is referred to in this paper as the “Operations Growth Rocket”.

This research only used data from UK SMEs.

This work should help SME owner-managers to overcome growth-impeding constraints that act upon their operations and assist them to develop more effective actions and paths to increase the contribution levels made by their operations. This in turn should support growth of their organisations. Findings will also inform teaching about more effective operations management in SMEs.

This work should help UK SMEs to grow, which in turn will strengthen the UK economy.

A novel approach and new data from 208 SMEs modify a classical operations contribution model (Hayes et al., 2005). This is achieved by considering transitionary paths to be meta-categories continua abstracted from constraint categories combined with case data for moving towards higher levels of operations contribution, rather than using discrete growth-impeding and growth-constraining “levels”. This research has inductively generated a new version of the classical contribution model that should be more suitable for stimulating growth in (UK) SMEs.

This paper aims to adopt a practice-theory, “site ontology” perspective to understand how venture capitalists (VCs) add value to their portfolio companies (PCs).

The empirical research involves a field ethnographic study of a VC firm in Dubai, focused on revealing what constitutes value and what VCs do to add this value to their PCs.

Value adding is a profoundly social, embedded process interconnected with other ecosystem actors, investment practices and organizations. The value adding threads of VC activity are part of a holistic configuration of practices that span the investment lifecycle and different levels within the firm.

This research contributes a rich account of the social, symbolic nature of VC activity, depicting the everyday activities that comprise value adding practices. It is among the first to introduce practice theory to the VC context and open up a new conversation about its social ontology.

Inspite of the attention resilience receives in relation to public policy and public management, very few studies have analysed the internal mechanics of public sector organisations to see what is producing their resilience. Considering management control systems (MCSs) as the drivers of organisational change, this paper aims to explore their role as determinants of resilience in the public sector. The paper attempts to open the black box of organisational functioning focusing on one complex component.

This paper adopted a qualitative approach for this longitudinal case study. This paper used a mix of primary and secondary sources in terms of direct observation, semi-structured interviews and internal document analysis. This paper used a framework drawing on Barbera et al. (2017) and management control’s constraining and facilitating concepts to explore how anticipatory and coping capacities of resilience are supported and reinforced by MCSs.

Findings suggest that MCSs support adaptive behaviour and assist decision-making by providing knowledge and ready-to-use answers to cope with external shocks. However, this is found in case of the adoption of facilitating MCSs, which empower managers and employees and are based on stewardship roles. In such a context, MCSs played an essential role in shaping anticipatory and coping capacities. At the same time, financial shocks fostered the investment in MCSs, cyclically strengthening or developing new anticipatory and coping capacities.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is one of the first attempting to identify how facilitating MCSs, as a driver of organisational change, can make an organisation more resilient. It shows how resilience capacities are generated and strengthened via MCSs.