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Information and communications technology (ICT) offers enormous opportunities for individuals, businesses and society. The application of ICT is equally important to economic and non-economic activities. Researchers have increasingly focused on the adoption and use of ICT by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) as the economic development of a country is largely dependent on them. Following the success of ICT utilisation in SMEs in developed countries, many developing countries are looking to utilise the potential of the technology to develop SMEs. Past studies have shown that the contribution of ICT to the performance of SMEs is not clear and certain. Thus, it is crucial to determine the effectiveness of ICT in generating firm performance since this has implications for SMEs’ expenditure on the technology. This research examines the diffusion of ICT among SMEs with respect to the typical stages from innovation adoption to post-adoption, by analysing the actual usage of ICT and value creation. The mediating effects of integration and utilisation on SME performance are also studied. Grounded in the innovation diffusion literature, institutional theory and resource-based theory, this study has developed a comprehensive integrated research model focused on the research objectives. Following a positivist research paradigm, this study employs a mixed-method research approach. A preliminary conceptual framework is developed through an extensive literature review and is refined by results from an in-depth field study. During the field study, a total of 11 SME owners or decision-makers were interviewed. The recorded interviews were transcribed and analysed using NVivo 10 to refine the model to develop the research hypotheses. The final research model is composed of 30 first-order and five higher-order constructs which involve both reflective and formative measures. Partial least squares-based structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) is employed to test the theoretical model with a cross-sectional data set of 282 SMEs in Bangladesh. Survey data were collected using a structured questionnaire issued to SMEs selected by applying a stratified random sampling technique. The structural equation modelling utilises a two-step procedure of data analysis. Prior to estimating the structural model, the measurement model is examined for construct validity of the study variables (i.e. convergent and discriminant validity).

The estimates show cognitive evaluation as an important antecedent for expectation which is shaped primarily by the entrepreneurs’ beliefs (perception) and also influenced by the owners’ innovativeness and culture. Culture further influences expectation. The study finds that facilitating condition, environmental pressure and country readiness are important antecedents of expectation and ICT use. The results also reveal that integration and the degree of ICT utilisation significantly affect SMEs’ performance. Surprisingly, the findings do not reveal any significant impact of ICT usage on performance which apparently suggests the possibility of the ICT productivity paradox. However, the analysis finally proves the non-existence of the paradox by demonstrating the mediating role of ICT integration and degree of utilisation explain the influence of information technology (IT) usage on firm performance which is consistent with the resource-based theory. The results suggest that the use of ICT can enhance SMEs’ performance if the technology is integrated and properly utilised. SME owners or managers, interested stakeholders and policy makers may follow the study’s outcomes and focus on ICT integration and degree of utilisation with a view to attaining superior organisational performance.

This study urges concerned business enterprises and government to look at the environmental and cultural factors with a view to achieving ICT usage success in terms of enhanced firm performance. In particular, improving organisational practices and procedures by eliminating the traditional power distance inside organisations and implementing necessary rules and regulations are important actions for managing environmental and cultural uncertainties. The application of a Bengali user interface may help to ensure the productivity of ICT use by SMEs in Bangladesh. Establishing a favourable national technology infrastructure and legal environment may contribute positively to improving the overall situation. This study also suggests some changes and modifications in the country’s existing policies and strategies. The government and policy makers should undertake mass promotional programs to disseminate information about the various uses of computers and their contribution in developing better organisational performance. Organising specialised training programs for SME capacity building may succeed in attaining the motivation for SMEs to use ICT. Ensuring easy access to the technology by providing loans, grants and subsidies is important. Various stakeholders, partners and related organisations should come forward to support government policies and priorities in order to ensure the productive use of ICT among SMEs which finally will help to foster Bangladesh’s economic development.

The purpose of this paper is to propose and to test a model that illustrates the impact of technology anxiety on the intention to use a self-service technology (SST) in public. The study includes two context variables that are relevant in public settings: perceived crowding and perceived time pressure.

A cross-sectional survey was conducted to reflect individual perceptions and intentions when initially using a self-checkout. The proposed relationships and interaction effects were examined using structural equation modeling.

The analysis confirms the core relationships of the model (technology self-efficacy→technology anxiety→perceived ease of use→ intention to use) and yields three important results. First, technology anxiety has a direct negative effect on intention to use, which is greater than the indirect effect through the reduction of ease of use. Second, perceived crowding reinforces the negative effect of technology anxiety. Third, when perceived crowding coincides with perceived time pressure, technology anxiety almost completely inhibits the intention to use the SST in public.

Technology anxiety is examined as the only antecedent of perceived ease of use.

Initial encounters to public self-service technologies should be provided in servicescapes that avoid or at least reduce perceptions of crowding and time pressure.

The approach highlights the impact of technology anxiety on the acceptance of self-service technologies used in public by considering two context variables that are salient in public settings: perceived crowding and perceived time pressure.

Moral intensity is the degree of feeling we have about the consequences of moral choices, similar, for example, to those perceived for crimes, from petty larceny to murder. Moral intensity is thought to increase moral sensitivity and judgment. Because the accounting professions require members to respond to accounting fraud with more sensitivity and intensity, we examine this response in 220 professional accountants (mostly Certified Public Accountants) under a controlled experiment using two different cases. We examine the first three parts of the Rest (1986) model including ethical evaluation, judgment, and intention to act. We measure moral intensity in the accountant’s perception of overall harm and societal pressure. As in prior research, we find that the degree of moral intensity may be contextual. We find that the ethical evaluations may become affected by perceived overall harm, and whistleblowing intentions by perceived societal pressure. However, in both cases, the professional’s judgments are most affected by moral intensity. Consistent with prior research, whistleblowing intentions may involve many other mitigating variables, such as audit reporting or non-audit reporting limited by codes of conduct. These findings relate to the increasing attention paid by the SEC to finding accounting fraud.

This manuscript makes three important contributions to the existing literature. First, there are few studies in this area and Jones (1991) identifies that moral intensity is issue contingent; therefore, replication studies using different scenarios are needed. Second, Bailey, Scott, and Thoma (2010) have suggested that accounting ethics research has focused too narrowly on Component II of Rest’s Four-Component Model. None of the previous studies looked at all three steps in Rest’s Model; therefore, our manuscript provides an important contribution over the other previous studies. Third, our sample uses professionals and not students as surrogates for professionals.

Within a large telecommunications company, this study applied the Theory of Planned Behavior to understand managers’ intentions to improve their skills following peer/subordinate feedback. Survey responses from 127 managers who had just received their feedback results showed that three types of variables were associated with managers’ intentions to improve their skills. First, perceived favorable outcomes or benefits of improvement had differential relationships with intentions for on‐ and off‐the‐job strategies for improvement. Second, and independent of perceived benefits, perceived social pressures for improvement were associated with intentions to improve, illustrating that “voluntary” development behavior can be related to both perceived rewards (a pull) and social pressures (a push). Third, ratees’ perceived control over their own improvement was also related to intentions, illustrating the important role that this factor may play in development. In two subsequent waves of feedback, actual improvement in the managers’ peer/subordinate ratings following initial feedback was also examined in relation to intentions. Suggestions for future research are also offered.

This study aims to investigate the factors influencing the social responsibility performance of Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) megaprojects. Specifically, it examines the role of isomorphic pressures and the joint influence of perceived benefits and top management support on megaproject social responsibility performance (MSRP).

Drawing from institutional theory, social exchange theory, and top management literature, this study established a conceptual model featuring eleven hypotheses. Subsequently, a questionnaire survey was administered to collect data from 238 actively engaged participants in BRI megaprojects. Structural Equation Modelling was utilised to analyse the data.

The empirical findings indicate that mimetic and coercive pressures positively influence MSRP. Perceived benefits and top management support significantly enhance MSRP. Moreover, perceived benefits and top management support partially mediate the effects of coercive and mimetic pressures. However, when it comes to normative pressures, their impact on MSRP is solely channelled through the support of top management.

This study is one of the early endeavours to explore the factors influencing the social responsibility performance of BRI megaprojects. It sheds light on the interplay between external pressures and internal factors in shaping social responsibility efforts in these projects. These findings are of particular significance for BRI actors and stakeholders, offering guidance for enhancing social responsibility strategies within the context of BRI megaprojects.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate practicing auditors' beliefs regarding the effect of prior involvement on the occurrence of quality threatening behaviour (QTB) during an audit. The authors examine the extent to which auditors' beliefs about QTB are consistent with the theoretical framework of Kanodia et al., according to which prior involvement in audit work would increase the likelihood of auditors suppressing evidence inconsistent with earlier audit decisions.

The authors conduct an experiment in which auditors assess the likelihood of perceived reputation threats associated with encountering disconfirming evidence late in the audit, and the likelihood that such evidence will be suppressed.

Auditors participating in the study believe that prior involvement will induce a perception of personal reputation threats in an auditor encountering evidence inconsistent with the conclusions of earlier audit work. Participants perceive an auditor with prior involvement in the audit work to be more likely to suppress audit evidence than an auditor with no prior involvement; this effect is largely explained by the personal reputation threats believed to be induced by prior involvement.

The findings provide important information, from the perspective of practicing auditors, about a situational antecedent of QTB that is present on most audit engagements. Prior involvement is perceived by auditors to induce a conflict of interest in reporting troublesome evidence uncovered late in the audit. These perceptions suggest it is important to raise reviewers' awareness of the possibility of undesirable behavior in such situations. Potential limitations of the study relate to generalizability of the results under different levels of misstatement risk and under different environments in audit practice. Also, the authors do not measure auditors' actual behaviour, but their assessment of hypothetical situations and beliefs about others' actions. Future research can examine actual auditor behaviour in the presence of prior involvement.

The paper provides evidence on auditors' beliefs about the effects on QTB of prior involvement, a factor that has not been previously studied in this line of research. The authors show that auditors' beliefs about QTB are consistent with Kanodia et al.'s theoretical framework. The study is the first to measure auditors' assessments of perceived reputation threats and to show their mediating effect on the predicted behavior of audit professionals.

This study argues that the effect of perceived organizational culture on the formation of security-related subjective norms and the level of compliance pressure will vary based on how the employees perceive their organization's cultural values. These perceptions reflect on the assumptions and principles that organizations use to guide their security-related behaviors. To make these arguments, we adopt the competing values model (CVM), which is a model used to understand the range of organizational values and resulting cultural archetypes.

This study conducted a survey of working professionals in the banking and higher education industries and used partial least squares (PLS)-structural equation model (SEM) to analyze the data. In a series of post hoc analyses, we ran a set of multi-group analyses to compare the perceived organizational cultural effects between the working professionals in both industries.

Our study reveals that perceived organizational cultures in favor of stability and control promoted more positive security-related behaviors. However, the different effects were more pronounced when comparing the effects between the working professionals in both industries.

This study is one of the few that examines which cultural archetypes are more effective at fostering positive security behaviors. These findings suggest that we should be cautious about generalizing the effects of organizational culture on security-related actions across different contexts and industries.

Drawing on role theory, the purpose of this paper is to investigate a curvilinear relationship between employee’s perceived overall time pressure and creativity. Apart from this, it explores a three-way interaction of perceived time pressure, satisfaction with work-family balance (SWFB), and leader-member exchange (LMX) on creativity.

The paper reports a quantitative study of 251 employees from a European company. An online survey was used to collect data. The proposed hypotheses were tested using moderated hierarchical regression analysis.

Results demonstrate a U-shaped curvilinear relationship between perceived time pressure and creativity. Results further confirm the proposed three-way interaction of perceived time pressure, SWFB, and LMX as joint predictors of creativity.

The cross-sectional research design limits the ability to demonstrate causality. Moreover, the data were collected from a single source causing concern for common method bias. Nonetheless, recent research suggests that common method bias cannot create an artificial interaction effect.

This study is one of the rare attempts to examine a curvilinear relationship between perceived time pressure and creativity. Moreover, it contributes to the work-family literature by providing the first empirical examination of the linkage between SWFB and creativity. Furthermore, the authors find a three-way interaction between time pressure, SWFB and LMX, and creativity. These findings broaden our understanding of how personal and contextual factors interact to foster creativity.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of the fraud triangle, Machiavellianism, academic misconduct and corporate social responsibility (CSR) proclivity of students.

The present study surveyed 471 university students. The study was cross-sectional and employed structural equation modelling in statistical modelling.

The study provides evidence that perceived opportunity to cheat in examinations is the single most important factor accounting for significant variations in rationalization and academic misconduct. Similarly, low Machiavellians significantly get inclined to CSR ideals. The fraud triangle alone accounts for 36 per cent of the variations in academic misconduct, hence the error variance is 64 per cent of academic misconduct itself. This error variance increases to 78 per cent when a combination of perceived opportunity, rationalization, Machiavellianism is considered. Moreover, both Machiavellianism and academic misconduct account for 17 per cent of variations in students’ proclivity to CSR ideals.

Results imply that creating a setting that significantly increases a student's anticipated negative affect from academic misconduct, or effectively impedes rationalization ex ante, might prevent some students from academic misconduct in the first place and then they will become good African corporate citizens. Nevertheless, although the unit of analysis was students, these were from a single university – something akin to a case study. The quantitative results should therefore be interpreted with this shortcoming in mind.

This paper contributes to the search for predictors of academic misconduct in the African setting and as a corollary, for a theory explaining academic misconduct. Those students perceiving opportunity to cheat in examinations are also able to rationalize and hence engage in academic misconduct. This rationalization is enhanced or reduced through Machiavellianism.

This study aims to explore the dual-path effects of challenge (CTP) and hindrance time pressure (HTP) on knowledge sharing, which provides theoretical reference for knowledge teams to carry out knowledge sharing smoothly.

This study collected two waves of data and surveyed 416 employees in China. Regression analysis, bootstrapping and structure equitation modeling was adopted to test the hypotheses.

CTP has a positive impact on employee knowledge sharing, while HTP has a negative impact on employee knowledge sharing. Self-efficacy plays a mediating role between CTP and knowledge sharing, and emotional exhaustion plays a mediating role between HTP and knowledge sharing. The perceived organizational support can moderate the relationship between CTP and self-efficacy and between HTP and emotional exhaustion.

This study explains the reasons for the academic controversy about the effect of time pressure, enhances the scholars’ attention and understanding of the dual-path mechanism between time pressure and knowledge sharing and augments the theoretical research of time pressure and knowledge sharing.