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Digital transformation of organizations has major implications for required skills and competencies of the workforce, both as a prerequisite for implementation, and, as a consequence of the transformation. The purpose of this study is to analyze required skills and competencies for digital transformation using the context of robotic process automation (RPA) as an example.

This study is based on an explorative, thematic coding analysis of 119 job advertisements related to RPA. The data was collected from major online job platforms, qualitatively coded and subsequently analyzed quantitatively.

The research highlights the general importance of specific skills and competencies for digital transformation and shows a gap between available skills and required skills. Moreover, it is concluded that reskilling the existing workforce might be difficult. Many emerging positions can be found in the consulting sector, which raises questions about the permanent vs temporary nature of the requirements, as well as the difficulty of acquiring the required knowledge.

This paper contributes to knowledge by providing new empirical findings and a novel perspective to the ongoing discussion of digital skills, employment effects and reskilling demands of the existing workforce owing to recent technological developments and automation in the overall context of digital transformation.

In this chapter, the author explains the three components of Trilogy of Taoist Leadership – responsible business, responsible management and responsible leadership. The concepts of business, management and leadership are defined from multiple angles, including an etymological perspective. The historical origins and evolution of these three areas are explored to provide a comprehensive understanding. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the interconnections among the trilogy's components and illustrates how the trilogy can contribute to the development of sustainable organizations.

Drawing on the socioemotional selectivity theory and the volunteerism literature, this study aims to examine the influence of empathy, altruism and opportunity recognition, on social entrepreneurial intentions (SEI) of people who have retired from a full-time career. Furthermore, the study examines whether the above-mentioned relationships are mediated by moral obligation.

A set of hypotheses is tested by applying partial least squares structural equation modelling on a survey sample of 227 retirees in Oman, who had participated in an entrepreneurial leadership training after retirement. Using SmartPLS software, the path model is tested through bootstrapping.

The findings suggest that altruism and opportunity recognition do not have a direct relationship with SEI, however, they are significant only when mediated through moral obligation. Nevertheless, empathy has a significant direct association with SEI, and an indirect relationship through moral obligation.

The findings of this study demonstrate that to develop intentions to indulge in social entrepreneurship, among retirees who are approaching their senior years, the focus should be on driving their sense of moral obligation to society. Hence, policymakers and authorities connected to social wellbeing goals can fine-tune their initiatives, such as training, by emphasizing on moral obligation to address social issues through social entrepreneurship.

The novelty of this study is twofold. Firstly, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, it seems to be among the first empirical study that is at the crossroads of the senior entrepreneurship and the social entrepreneurship literature. Secondly, this study fills a gap in the extant literature by deploying the socioemotional selectivity theory to examine the antecedents of SEI of people who have retired from full-time employment in their early to late senior years.

Strategic decisions leaders make involving organizational changes such as mergers and acquisitions (M&A), divestitures, and downsizing, which can influence and/or interact with other organizational factors. For example, within the context of M&A, changes impact financial performance, firm behaviors, and organizational culture. In addition, strategic decisions for these types of change can also interrelate with other more intrapersonal factors, including both leaders’ and employees’ health and well-being. Employee stress, also referred to as “merger syndrome,” outlines individual negative impacts of the changes including, but not limited to, cynicism and distrust, change wariness, and burnout, all accumulating to psychological effects including increases in detachment to work, stress, and sick leave. In this chapter, the authors outline the different impacts M&A phases have on stress and well-being and how they interrelate with the strategic decisions leaders make. The authors also outline future research opportunities and practical implications for how leaders and employees could better manage future major changes such as M&A activities.

The purpose of this study, 3-aminopyridine, 8-aminoquinoline and some new synthesized 2-aminobenzothiazoles were diazotized with nitrosyl sulfuric acid and subsequently coupled with 5-chloro-8-hydroxy quinoline to synthesize the corresponding heteroarylazo dyes 6–13.

The structures of dyes were characterized by mass, Fourier transform infra red, ¹H proton nuclear magnetic resonance and ultra violet-visible spectroscopic techniques. Absorption spectra of the dyes were measured in acetic acid, ethanol, chloroform, acetonitrile, dimethyl formamide and dimethyl sulfoxide and correlated with the nature of the solvents and substituents. The effects of varying pH on the absorption wavelengths of the azo dyes were also studied. In addition, the acidity constants (pKa) of the dyes were determined using the spectrophotometric method in an ethanol-water mixture (80:20, v/v) at 20–23°C. Besides, density functional theory (DFT) calculations were carried out to compare the energies of proposed azo and hydrazone tautomers of the dyes.

The results showed that the withdrawing chloro groups on the diazo moiety have significant influence (red shift) on the electron absorption spectra of these dyes. In addition, introducing electron withdrawing chloro groups into the benzothiazoles moiety increased the acidic character of dyes.

The synthesized 7-hetroarylazo-5-chloro-8-hydroxy quinoline dyes are new members in the 8-hydroxyquinoline azo dyes family, where very few details regarding the synthesis of such dyes are reported before in the literature. They are unique in terms of synthesis, spectral properties and DFT calculations.

This study aims to descriptively identify and refine the role of emotional intelligence (EI) in the retail banking employee–customer contact context, and prescriptively use this knowledge to develop a framework for improving true customer service without excess organizational cost, in Lebanon.

The research adopts the classical interpretive/constructivist ontology and the interpretivism/constructivism epistemology, and it rests on a tripod of methodological foundations. The first leg is the theoretical work that sets the extant scientific ground for the empirical work to develop. The second incorporates the main (qualitative) empirical tools, i.e. 40 interviews with customers and HR managers (NVivo-analyzed), plus a critical incident technique study. The third includes the supportive tools of secondary data and an expert panel composed of industry and scholarly specialists.

EI was empirically shown to modulate the levels of customer satisfaction and to hold a critical role in the company–customer interface, albeit one that is currently and unjustly both undervalued and ineffectively controlled. The findings identify the key factors and exhibited behavioral attributes of EI within the customer service process, and they integrate all into a comprehensive framework of both scholarly and executive worth.

This study provides distinct theoretical elucidations and conceptualization that have identified and interrelated the relevant works on the subject; empirically refines the variables involved in the EI context of retail banking customer service; and culminates in the form of the proposed framework that incorporates and interrelates the findings into an empirical-data-based composition of both scholarly and executive orientation and worth.

Telemedicine, similarly to social media, accelerates information exchange, enriches information, provides better access to information and, furthermore, has an impact on mobilizing resources in business-to-business relationships. This paper aims to contribute to the understanding of the changes brought about by telemedicine, as a new technology, in patient routes.

This case study method was applied to examine five health-care protocols through their patient routes (series of activities) with and without telemedicine technology. The ARA model was applied to examine the changes telemedicine engendered in relation to activities, resources and actors. The strategy of visual mapping was applied for the comparative analysis.

The analyzed cases show that the new resources applied through telemedicine technology modified the number and substance of relevant activities and the set and role of actors who were involved. The quantity or the availability of output information increased in patient routes when new resources were added by telemedicine technology. When technology change occurred, any change in data or information systems – the two building blocks of information – could result in new or modified activities. If data that is used or produced while undertaking an activity change simultaneously along with the information system used for encrypting this data, then this “joint change” will certainly entail some kind of change in the set of activities, resources or actors that are involved. If not, then the activities continued the same as with the face-to-face protocol (without the new technology).

The novelty of the paper is that the results highlight the role of information in the extent of change in interactions induced by new technology. Findings about such changes show how information influenced by activities, resources and actors can help decision-makers in relation to the use of telemedicine.

Drawing on the social presence theory, this study aims to explore how supplier–customer social media interactions influence supplier observers’ trust in the customers and what mechanisms contribute to variation in trust experience.

A total of 36 semi-structured interviews were conducted with Chinese suppliers using WeChat for business-to-business interactions. Data were analyzed in three steps: open coding, axial coding and selective coding.

Findings reveal that varied trust is based not only on the categories of social presence of interaction – whether social presence is embedded in informative interactions – but also on the perceived selectivity in social presence. Observer suppliers who experience selectivity during social and affective interactions create a perception of hidden information and an unhealthy relationship atmosphere, and report a sense of emotional vulnerability, thus eroding cognitive and affective trust.

The findings contribute new understandings to social presence theory by exploring the social presence of interactions in a supplier–supplier–customer triad and offer valuable insights into business-to-business social media literature by adopting a suppliers’ viewpoint to unpack the mechanisms of how social presence of interaction positively and negatively influences suppliers’ trust and behavioral responses.

The purpose of the present study is to investigate the extent to which female and male university students from low-income countries express different entrepreneurial intentions. Specifically, the study empirically tests whether the anticipated financial returns to entrepreneurship versus salaried employment, or the perceived barriers to entrepreneurship exert a stronger influence on the relationship between gender and entrepreneurial intentions.

To test the relationship of anticipated rewards versus barriers to entrepreneurship on gender and entrepreneurial intention, the study uses new data from a field survey in Sierra Leone and employs multiple mediation analyses.

The authors find that the relationship between gender and entrepreneurial intentions operates through the mediator of perceptions of the financial returns to entrepreneurship but not perceived barriers to entrepreneurship.

The authors study intent, not behavior, acknowledging that cognitive intent is a powerful predictor of later behavior. Implications for future research on entrepreneurship in the African context are discussed.

The results from this study can be applied to both pedagogic and business settings in the field of entrepreneurship, with concrete implications for policymakers.

Results suggest that the gender gap in entrepreneurial intentions (EI) for science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM)- and business-educated students in Sierra Leone is predominantly influenced by anticipated financial returns to occupational choices, as opposed to perceived barriers to entrepreneurship, a more frequently studied antecedent to EI.