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Temporary, part-time, and contract workers face a myriad of challenges as they seek to navigate the complex labor market landscape. Working Partnerships Staffing Service (WPSS), a project initiated by one of the most prominent labor councils in the U.S., sought to create a new type of labor market institution – one that could empower contingent workers by innovatively linking job placement with training, benefits, and membership-based services. However, like other social movement organizations that endeavor to combine advocacy and income generation, structural pressures led WPSS to conform in important ways to the dominant private-sector staffing-industry model. I argue that WPSS's response to these pressures ultimately constrained their ability to successfully innovate. Analyzing the challenges facing new worker-centered institutions, this case study presents important insights on “next generation” union initiatives aimed at better positioning workers in the flexible economy.

The majority of job demands-resources (JD-R) research has focused on identifying the job demands, job resources, and personal resources that influence engagement. The purpose of this paper is to assess the significance of proposed associations between organizationally focused resources, organizational engagement climate, and engagement.

The authors tested a model proposing that six specific organizational resources would have positive associations with organizational engagement climate, and positive direct and indirect associations with job resources and employee engagement. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modeling (SEM) were conducted on cross-sectional survey data provided by 1,578 employees working in a range of different organizations.

The CFA and SEM analyses yielded good fit to the data. As proposed, all six organizational resources were positively associated with organizational engagement climate. Four were positively associated with job resources, and two were positively associated with engagement. Organizational engagement climate was positively associated with job resources and employee engagement. Significant indirect relationships were also observed.

Despite self-reported data and a cross-sectional design, tests of common method variance did not suggest substantive method effects. Overall, the results contribute new insights about what may influence engagement, and highlight the importance of organizational engagement climate as a motivational construct.

The research offers up potentially useful measures of six organizational resources and a measure of organizational engagement climate that can complement and broaden the current focus on job-level diagnostics. As such, targeted management action and survey feedback processes can be used to identify processes to build sustainable organizational engagement capability.

No previous research has identified a comprehensive set of organizational resources, operationalized organizational engagement climate, or examined their relationships within a JD-R context. The results suggest that the JD-R can perhaps usefully be extended to include more organizationally focused constructs.

The measurement of both marketing culture and behaviour provides the opportunity to gain more insight into the overall market focus of organisations. This article seeks to determine the market orientation and marketing culture of all staff within organisations, to ascertain to what extent other members of an organisation support or create barriers to the successful implementation of the marketing concept. This paper will provide a brief overview of the existing literature in the field of market orientation and marketing culture. After detailing the research design and methodology, a summary developed from 11 focus group sessions – consisting of all staff in one public library service in Victoria, Australia – is presented. The findings indicate that while all areas within this organisation are committed to marketing, there are various interpretations of marketing and how it should be implemented. In addition, the research finds a number of factors that could be instrumental in the successful implementation of the marketing concept in public libraries.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the value of Blockchain technology as a solution to creating and preserving trustworthy digital records, presenting some of the limitations, risks and opportunities of the approach.

The methodological approach involves using the requirements embedded in records management and digital preservation standards, specifically ISO 15,489, ARMA’s Generally Accepted Recordkeeping Principles, ISO 14,721 and ISO 16,363, as a general evaluative framework for a risk-based assessment of a specific proposed implementation of Blockchain technology for a land registry system in a developing country.

The results of the analysis suggest that Blockchain technology can be used to address issues associated with information integrity in the present and near term, assuming proper security architecture and infrastructure management controls. It does not, however, guarantee reliability of information in the first place, and would have several limitations as a long-term solution for maintaining trustworthy digital records.

This paper contributes an original analysis of the application of Blockchain technology for recordkeeping.

The purpose of this paper is to show how the viable system model (VSM) and de Sitter's design theory can complement each other in the context of the diagnosis and design of viable organizations.

Key concepts from Beer's model and de Sitter's design theory are introduced and analyzed in order to show how they relate.

The VSM provides insight into the related systems necessary and sufficient for viability. As such, it specifies criteria supporting the diagnosis and design of organizational infrastructures, i.e. of organizational structures, HR systems, and technology. However, it does not explicitly conceptualize and provide a detailed heuristic for the design of organizational structures. De Sitter's theory fills in this gap.

The paper illustrates how, based on a rudimentary model of organizational viability, de Sitter's design theory positively addresses the question of how to diagnose and design organizational structures that add to the viability of organizations.

This paper analyzes a multidimensional model of organizational legitimacy, competencies, and resources in order to develop the linkage between institutional and resource-based perspectives by systematically detailing relationships among these factors and organizational viability. The underlying mechanisms of isomorphism and market partitioning serve as a point of departure by which the effects on organizational persistence of two sociocultural processes, cultural (constitutive) legitimation and sociopolitical (regulative) legitimation, are distinguished. Using data on 589 national self-help/mutual-aid organizations, this chapter explores how isomorphism and market partitioning foster legitimacy and promote organizational viability. Results show that the more differentiated an organization’s core competencies and resources, the greater the sociopolitical legitimacy; the more isomorphic an organization’s competencies and resources, the greater the cultural legitimacy. The latter isomorphic processes, however, do not promote greater organizational viability. In fact, while isomorphism legitimates with respect to cultural recognition, it is heterogeneity, not homogeneity, that promotes organizational survival.

In this paper we assess whether the balanced scorecard (BSC) supports the necessary functions for organizational viability. To this purpose, we use the viable system model (VSM) as a means to describe the functions required for organizational viability. Then we use the VSM as a template to assess whether and how the BSC supports these functions for organizational viability.

This paper aims to study the adoption of mobile technology in business and its determinants. A diagnostic tool for proper adoption of mobile technology is developed.

Grounded on the fit‐viability framework, the paper uses a multi‐case study via the fit and viability dimensions to examine the success or failure of mobile technology applications in business.

By drawing upon multiple streams of theory building, the paper is able to develop a set of measurement instruments to assess the fit and viability in adopting mobile technology. The findings demonstrate that the fit‐viability model (FVM) provides useful guidelines for enterprises in their decisions on whether to adopt a mobile technology.

First, the theoretical generalizability of the FVM needs to be more carefully observed in future studies. Second, the findings are exploratory and more extensive studies may be necessary.

Chief information officers and managers can use the developed instrument to measure the fitness and viability of implementing mobile technology in organizations. This should be able to increase the possibility of success.

This is one of the first papers to combine the fit and viability aspects and to empirically demonstrate the value of this two‐dimensional model.

This paper presents research into the use of the Viable Systems Model (VSM) in small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs). Research on the VSM has been focussed on large organisations. The purpose of this paper is to explore the usefulness of the VSM in diagnosing issues of viability in SMEs.

Case study research was undertaken in which semi structured diagnostic interviews took place with SMEs using the VSM as a diagnostic tool. The aim was to investigate whether the VSM would assist in diagnosing problems with viability and whether it could then prescribe and facilitate improvements in operations. Qualitative case study evidence is presented that shows the results of these interventions.

The paper reports some examples of operational problems that were exposed through the intervention process and shows some general conclusions to support the use of VSM for analysing operations and supporting small business viability. A number of “threats to viability” themes were apparent and these are discussed.

The semi‐structured interview protocol created for the research could be used to diagnose viability issues in other SMEs and thus is of practical relevance to other organisations.

The VSM originates from the theory of cybernetics which can be broadly defined as “the science of effective organisation”. Previous use of the model has focused upon the viability of large organisations; the applicability of the VSM in a small business operational context has received little attention. The paper demonstrates the benefits of the using the VSM to pinpoint problems that threaten SME viability.

This study uses the technology fit–viability theory to study the performance of one of the early pioneers of open government data (OGD) in Africa. The study aims to investigate the task and technology fit, as well as the economic, IT infrastructure and organisational viability as performance measures for the Ghana Open Government Data (GOGD) initiative.

The study adopted a qualitative approach by interviewing key actors within the GOGD ecosystem, namely, the OGD implementing body, data suppliers and data users. The results were compared with established OGD best practices and standards around the world.

The results suggest that Ghana’s OGD architecture appears far from meeting its fit and viability goals because of lacklustre performance attributed to the following factors: a complete lack of synergy among various stakeholder groups and actors in the GOGD ecosystem, a lack of sustainable financial support for the implementing body, a shortage of qualified staff for the GOGD project and partial neglect of GOGD as a consequence of the implementation of a new project called eTransform.

This research is limited to Ghana’s OGD initiative. Perhaps, a comparative study on the performance of other OGD initiatives in Africa and other developed countries will present another view of how OGD initiatives are performing across the globe. Again, the number of interviewees in the study may not be sufficient to generalise the results.

The study guides developing economies on how to examine national and international legal frameworks that have consequences on the usage of OGD at the national and sub-national levels. Besides, the study results will help implementing agencies and by extension government to be wary of the consequences of neglecting relevant stakeholders in the implementation process. The study also emphasizes on the need for developing economies to have sustainable funding and technical support for OGD implementation.

The study helps shape citizens’ understanding of what the government is doing pursuant to making data readily available for them. Because OGD spurs innovations, citizens’ continuous involvement is key in the process of realising government drive to be open and accountable to citizens through data.

This research is the first, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, to present a retrospective and prospective view of a country’s OGD implementation to ascertain the country’s fit and viability. More uniquely, this study will be the first, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, in assessing the performance of OGD setup in Africa.