Search results
1 – 10 of over 1000Huimin Li, Boxin Dai, Yongchao Cao, Limin Su and Feng Li
Trust is the glue that holds cooperative relationships together and often exists in an asymmetric manner. The purpose of this study is to explore how to mitigate the issue of…
Abstract
Purpose
Trust is the glue that holds cooperative relationships together and often exists in an asymmetric manner. The purpose of this study is to explore how to mitigate the issue of losses or increased transaction costs caused by opportunistic behavior in a soft environment where trust asymmetry is quite common and difficult to avoid.
Design/methodology/approach
This study focuses on examining asymmetric trust between the government and the private sector in public-private partnership (PPP) projects. Drawing upon both project realities and relevant literature, the primary conditional variables influencing asymmetric trust are identified. These variables encompass power perception asymmetry, information asymmetry, interaction behavior, risk perception differences and government-side control. Subsequently, through the use of a survey questionnaire, binary-matched data from both the government and the private sector are collected. The study employs fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to conduct a configurational analysis, aiming to investigate the causal pathways that trigger asymmetric trust.
Findings
No single conditional variable is a necessary condition for the emergence of trust asymmetry. The pathways leading to a high degree of trust asymmetry can be categorized into two types: those dominated by power perception and those involving a combination of multiple factors. Differences in power perception play a crucial role in the occurrence of high trust asymmetry, yet the influence of other conditional variables in triggering trust asymmetry should not be overlooked.
Originality/value
The findings can contribute to advancing the study of trust relationships in the field of Chinese PPP projects. Furthermore, they hold practical value in facilitating the enhancement of trust relationships between the government and the private sector.
Details
Keywords
Charles Kirschbaum and Luiz Ojima Sakuda
The purpose of the article is to explore the perceptions of Brazilian game developers about the power relations between them and the sponsors of digital game platforms. It also…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of the article is to explore the perceptions of Brazilian game developers about the power relations between them and the sponsors of digital game platforms. It also aims to identify forms of collective action that developers can use to counteract the asymmetry of power.
Design/methodology/approach
The research employed an abductive approach, seeking empirical evidence that would challenge consolidated theory. To achieve this, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 25 Brazilian developers. The data were analyzed qualitatively using NVivo software. The aim was to resolve theoretical ambiguities identified in the literature review and to explore unexpected findings.
Findings
The study explores Brazilian game developers' perceptions through interviews, revealing their experiences within the industry’s concentrated structure and their use of collective action to navigate power dynamics.
Research limitations/implications
The study's focus on Brazil limits the generalizability of its findings to the broader game development industry.
Practical implications
The study suggests Brazilian game devs can leverage collective action to counteract power imbalance with platforms, collaborate through events and projects and facilitate internationalization of their games.
Social implications
The study suggests collective action could empower developers to challenge platform dominance and foster a stronger community among Brazilian game developers.
Originality/value
The article’s value lies in examining Brazilian devs' experiences within their specific industry context and highlighting collective action as a potential strategy for developers.
Details
Keywords
Heba F. Zaher and Gilberto Marquez-Illescas
This paper aims to examine the existing literature on firms’ power through the lens of the supply chain and highlights some gaps that could be covered by future research.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the existing literature on firms’ power through the lens of the supply chain and highlights some gaps that could be covered by future research.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses a systematic framework-based review combining the insights of the antecedents, decisions and outcomes (ADO) and theories, contexts and methods (TCM) frameworks. The review was carried out using a sample of 108 articles published between 1984 and 2022 in 25 prestigious journals.
Findings
The ADO framework maps out the state of the art of the antecedents of power (i.e. sources and types of firm power), the decision to use power and the effect that exercising power over other firms may have on firm performance and the quality of inter-firm relationships. In addition, this framework highlights factors that mediate or moderate the decision to exercise power and the factors that mediate or moderate the outcomes of exercising power or power asymmetry. The TCM framework provides insights into the theories, contexts (i.e. countries, industries, level of analysis and sources of data) and methods used by the existing literature. The content analysis using the aforementioned frameworks provides the basis to elaborate propositions for future research on power in the supply chain from the perspective of gender differences.
Research limitations/implications
This systematic literature review offers a comprehensive guide for researchers to understand the antecedents, decisions and outcomes of firm power in the supply chain, as well as the TCM used in the literature. The content analysis using frameworks provides a road map to investigate the proposed factors that might moderate the decision to exercise power and the outcome of exercising power or power asymmetry from the perspective of gender differences. In addition, based on content analysis, the authors make propositions about TCM that could be applied in future research.
Practical implications
From a practical perspective, this systematic literature review may help managers to better understand the sources and consequences of their firm’s power. This would allow managers to make better decisions when negotiating with their supply chain parties, which could potentially lead to better performance for their firms and the whole supply chain.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to conduct a comprehensive systematic literature review of the different dimensions of firms’ power in the supply chain.
Details
Keywords
Abhinandan Chatterjee, Pradip Bala, Shruti Gedam, Sanchita Paul and Nishant Goyal
Depression is a mental health problem characterized by a persistent sense of sadness and loss of interest. EEG signals are regarded as the most appropriate instruments for…
Abstract
Purpose
Depression is a mental health problem characterized by a persistent sense of sadness and loss of interest. EEG signals are regarded as the most appropriate instruments for diagnosing depression because they reflect the operating status of the human brain. The purpose of this study is the early detection of depression among people using EEG signals.
Design/methodology/approach
(i) Artifacts are removed by filtering and linear and non-linear features are extracted; (ii) feature scaling is done using a standard scalar while principal component analysis (PCA) is used for feature reduction; (iii) the linear, non-linear and combination of both (only for those whose accuracy is highest) are taken for further analysis where some ML and DL classifiers are applied for the classification of depression; and (iv) in this study, total 15 distinct ML and DL methods, including KNN, SVM, bagging SVM, RF, GB, Extreme Gradient Boosting, MNB, Adaboost, Bagging RF, BootAgg, Gaussian NB, RNN, 1DCNN, RBFNN and LSTM, that have been effectively utilized as classifiers to handle a variety of real-world issues.
Findings
1. Among all, alpha, alpha asymmetry, gamma and gamma asymmetry give the best results in linear features, while RWE, DFA, CD and AE give the best results in non-linear feature. 2. In the linear features, gamma and alpha asymmetry have given 99.98% accuracy for Bagging RF, while gamma asymmetry has given 99.98% accuracy for BootAgg. 3. For non-linear features, it has been shown 99.84% of accuracy for RWE and DFA in RF, 99.97% accuracy for DFA in XGBoost and 99.94% accuracy for RWE in BootAgg. 4. By using DL, in linear features, gamma asymmetry has given more than 96% accuracy in RNN and 91% accuracy in LSTM and for non-linear features, 89% accuracy has been achieved for CD and AE in LSTM. 5. By combining linear and non-linear features, the highest accuracy was achieved in Bagging RF (98.50%) gamma asymmetry + RWE. In DL, Alpha + RWE, Gamma asymmetry + CD and gamma asymmetry + RWE have achieved 98% accuracy in LSTM.
Originality/value
A novel dataset was collected from the Central Institute of Psychiatry (CIP), Ranchi which was recorded using a 128-channels whereas major previous studies used fewer channels; the details of the study participants are summarized and a model is developed for statistical analysis using N-way ANOVA; artifacts are removed by high and low pass filtering of epoch data followed by re-referencing and independent component analysis for noise removal; linear features, namely, band power and interhemispheric asymmetry and non-linear features, namely, relative wavelet energy, wavelet entropy, Approximate entropy, sample entropy, detrended fluctuation analysis and correlation dimension are extracted; this model utilizes Epoch (213,072) for 5 s EEG data, which allows the model to train for longer, thereby increasing the efficiency of classifiers. Features scaling is done using a standard scalar rather than normalization because it helps increase the accuracy of the models (especially for deep learning algorithms) while PCA is used for feature reduction; the linear, non-linear and combination of both features are taken for extensive analysis in conjunction with ML and DL classifiers for the classification of depression. The combination of linear and non-linear features (only for those whose accuracy is highest) is used for the best detection results.
Gopal Kumar, Zach G. Zacharia and Mohit Goswami
Drawing on the relational view and contingency theories, this study explores supply chain relationship conditions' roles in interrelationships between environmental, social and…
Abstract
Purpose
Drawing on the relational view and contingency theories, this study explores supply chain relationship conditions' roles in interrelationships between environmental, social and supply chain performance (SCP), i.e. triple bottom line (TBL).
Design/methodology/approach
The data from industries and structural equation modeling (SEM) were used to validate the proposed model. Interviews with industry experts were conducted to further understand the findings.
Findings
The authors find that relationship conditions, such as inventory information sharing, dependency, opportunistic behavior and conflicts, moderate TBL linkages. Interestingly, power asymmetry does not moderate the linkages. Social performance mediates between environmental and SCP. This indirect effect is stronger than the effect of environmental performance on SCP.
Originality/value
This research is perhaps the first to bring a much-needed nuanced view on the importance of relationship conditions for TBL performance linkages. The research further underlines the importance of social performance in an emerging economy.
Details
Keywords
Gabriele Suder, Bo Meng and Gao Yuning
In international business (IB), the discussion of COVID-19-related global value chain (GVC) models driving resilience has taken momentum since May 2020. The purpose of this study…
Abstract
Purpose
In international business (IB), the discussion of COVID-19-related global value chain (GVC) models driving resilience has taken momentum since May 2020. The purpose of this study is to uncover insights that the pandemic provided as a unique research opportunity, holistically, revealing the significant role of non-lead firms in GVC outcomes and resilience. This allows to extend theory as the authors critically identify impact criteria and assess interdependence and valence, thus progressing the traditional (pre-pandemic) IB view of GVC governance and orchestration.
Design/methodology/approach
This study opts for an integrative review to help create a much-needed extension of IB theory by means of a critical perspective on GVC theory. The authors examine the extant body of IB literature as the relevant stock of collective IB knowledge prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic, uncovering contributions – with a focus on the role of non-lead firms in orchestration and resilience – that allows to clarify what was not evident pre-pandemic. With this, the authors move the theory from its efficiency focus to a better recognition of the interdependencies of power and profit outcomes stemming from asymmetries of interrelationships. By design, the authors focus on the unique research period of the pandemic and orchestration complexities along the development of configurational arguments beyond simple correlations (Fiss, 2011), revealing key dependencies as key themes. The authors highlight further research avenues following Snyder (2019) that are called upon to strengthen that understanding and that helps extend theory.
Findings
This research provides a critical perspective on the application of the traditional IB views for GVC governance (designed for efficiency, cost and proximity to markets with pre-dominance for just in time), which has shifted during the pandemic to accommodate for adaptation and adjustment to resilience and just in case considerations. The holistic review reveals not only the key country- and multinational enterprise (MNE)-dependencies with residual impact determining the balance between just-in-time and just-in-case. Also, the authors advance the understanding of the (un)balance of the traditional GVC – focused on just-in-case rather than just-in-time through a lead and non-lead GVC participation and power lens yet rarely observed. The authors find that governance should not be construed as “management” such that it resolves into decisions undertaken in lead firms for execution in subordinate GVC participants. Autonomy allows to subsidiary units by MNE lead firms and/or exercised by (mainly, innovative) non-subsidiary GVC participant firms, is uncovered as a key driver in this. Greater delegation capacity appears to help provide resilience to loss in profit, with a recognition that there may be a dynamic trade-off between power and profit. In addition, the authors are able to identify correlations with innovation, demand elasticity, digital uptake, investment and other, that the authors trust will set the scene for additional research deepening and extending the findings.
Research limitations/implications
Integrative literature reviews include a problem formulation (i.e. that is limited to published topics around an emerging theme) and are hence very focused in nature and approach. This applies to this paper. Data analysis in this method is not typically using statistical methods in contrast to meta-analyses. Also, the authors limit the sample to a relatively short time period with 33 publications analysed, purposefully focusing on the most prompt and “acute” insights into GVCs during the pandemic.
Practical implications
The traditional GVC governance model is designed for efficiency, cost and proximity to markets with pre-dominance for just in time. The authors reveal dependencies that are instrumental to better understand lead and non-lead interaction and relative autonomy, with a focus on residual impact determining the balance between just-in-time and just-in-case that, if in the sought equilibrium and agile, can allow alignment with context and this resilience. This paper specifically provides practical insights and visualization that highlights stages/“ripple” effects and their impact and the questions to ask as stakeholders look for GVC resilience. This includes, int.al., firms and their role as strategic agents, prompting participants through the learnings from exogenous shock to realign their strategies, redistributed manufacturing of production across subsidiary and non-subsidiary non-lead firms, greater competition and hence power for suppliers leveraging resilience and innovation, greater understanding of localization and regionalization of production of essential supplies, interaction with governments, and of investment impacts abroad especially to secure GVC participation.
Social implications
The insights provided through this extension of theory with its literature review reveal the importance of aligning IB research into GVCs to factors that became visible through alternative or unusual settings, as they have the power to reveal the limitations of traditional views. In this case, a mainly efficiency-led, just-in-time focused GVC governance model is reviewed through the literature that emanated during the pandemic, with a critical perspective, which helped uncover and underline the complexities and evolution of GVC governance, providing fundamental support to solutioning the continuing global supply chain challenges that started as a result of the pandemic and are yet again accelerated by the Ukraine and Middle Eastern wars and its impact with, int.al., concerns over possible severe global food, labour/migration and resources crises. IB holds a social responsibility to help identify critical challenges from the disciplinary perspective and help advance resilience for social benefit.
Originality/value
This paper supports the original IB theory development by extending GVC theory into the lead – non-lead dynamics that may, under certain conditions, provide a “Resilience wall” for GVCs. The value created through insights stemming from a unique period of time for GVC is significant. It allows us thus also to pave the way to an emerging and critical research adaption looking into equilibrium, nuancing demand elasticity, better understanding trade and investment impacts along GVCs and more. By examining views on the sources of pandemic risks in a possibly unique setting, the authors offer added value from extant IB research insights by combining them, revealing the importance for GVCs to investigate not only key dependencies between the exogenous shock, i.e. context, and the impacts assessed through this literature but to further use their inherent value to create a framework for further conceptualization and extension of the traditional IB view on GVC governance. This work illustrates the urgency and importance for IB to take a timely and possibly more critical approach to the investigation of governance models that have, to date, shown some significant limitations.
Details
Keywords
Arpita Agnihotri, Carolyn M. Callahan and Saurabh Bhattacharya
Leveraging Emerson’s theory of power and motivated reasoning, this study aims to explore how the net power of an individual and actual, instead of perceived, vulnerability results…
Abstract
Purpose
Leveraging Emerson’s theory of power and motivated reasoning, this study aims to explore how the net power of an individual and actual, instead of perceived, vulnerability results in asymmetric trust and distrust development in a dyadic relationship.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on extant literature and gaps in the literature, this conceptual paper hypothesises and proposes trust formation based on power dynamics and vulnerability.
Findings
This research extends the knowledge base by exploring the role of actual vulnerability over perceived vulnerability in trust formation and distrust formation.
Research limitations/implications
The research propositions imply that the dyadic trust formation process is not rational, and trust itself is not symmetrical but asymmetrical. The net power possessed by one individual over the other drives trust. Net power balance determines the actual vulnerability of the focal individual, and then the individual, through motivated reasoning, trusts or distrusts another individual. Scholars, going forward, could explore how trust formation varies at group and firm levels.
Originality/value
Extant literature has not explored the role of power imbalance in determining actual (versus perceived) vulnerability that influences trust formation between parties. The conceptual paper fills this gap.
Details
Keywords
Ayobami Adetoyinbo and Dagmar Mithöfer
Effective and flexible organizational models have become an avenue for driving smallholder competitiveness in the agricultural sector. However, little is understood about the…
Abstract
Purpose
Effective and flexible organizational models have become an avenue for driving smallholder competitiveness in the agricultural sector. However, little is understood about the processes by which resource-constrained actors deploy their organizational networks to generate and retain value in rapidly changing agrifood environments. This study examines the moderating effects of business contingencies on the interplay between organizational relationships and the resource-based performance of small-scale farmers in a developing country.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors propose a novel conceptual framework grounded in the relational view, netchain and contingency theories. Cross-sectional data obtained from 330 maize farmers in rural Zambia were analyzed using variance-based structural equation modeling, which involves mediation-moderation analysis.
Findings
The results show that all relational networks – vertical, horizontal and lateral – positively mediate the effects farm resources and social capital have on farmers' performance. However, these effects change depending on the predominant agency situations. Specifically, asymmetric power from customers and reputable competitors weakens the positive effect of closer horizontal relationships on business performance, while the positive effect of tighter informal vertical relationships on farmers' performance weakens under conditions of high affective trust. Moreover, the gender-based multigroup analyses highlight variations in the contingent relational view of men- and women-headed households.
Research limitations/implications
The study relies on cross-sectional data from one agribusiness sector in Zambia, thus generalizations should be cautious.
Originality/value
The uniqueness of this study lies in the proposed theoretical framework and new empirical insights, which extend the scope of the relational view to small-scale farming households in developing countries.
Details
Keywords
Lamia Rouached, Faten Loukil and Yasmine Boughzala
This paper aims to understand how support organizations promote the structuring of the agricultural value chain through partnerships and capacity building of the various links in…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to understand how support organizations promote the structuring of the agricultural value chain through partnerships and capacity building of the various links in the chain.
Design/methodology/approach
The study is exploratory and qualitative, based on ten semi-structured interviews with the main public support organizations related to the date sector in Tunisia.
Findings
The results showed that the support organizations of the Tunisian date sector do not share the same vision of the priorities to be strengthened to promote the export of dates in Tunisia.
Research limitations/implications
Reviewing the coordination mechanisms between the support organizations is important in order to improve the governance of the value chain and to reinforce the capacity of the operators in the date value chain.
Originality/value
Public support organizations are important actors in agricultural value chains as these organizations implement agricultural policies. Assessing these organizations' contribution to capacity building of chain links is an innovative approach to detecting organizational dysfunction in agricultural value chains in developing countries.
Details
Keywords
Annette Markham and Riccardo Pronzato
This paper aims to explore how critical digital and data literacies are facilitated by testing different methods in the classroom, with the ambition to find a pedagogical…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore how critical digital and data literacies are facilitated by testing different methods in the classroom, with the ambition to find a pedagogical framework for prompting sustained critical literacies.
Design/methodology/approach
This contribution draws on a 10-year set of critical pedagogy experiments conducted in Denmark, USA and Italy, and engaging more than 1,500 young adults. Multi-method pedagogical design trains students to conduct self-oriented guided autoethnography, situational analysis, allegorical mapping, and critical infrastructure analysis.
Findings
The techniques of guided autoethnography for facilitating sustained data literacy rely on inviting multiple iterations of self-analysis through sequential prompts, whereby students move through stages of observation, critical thinking, critical theory-informed critique around the lived experience of hegemonic data and artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructures.
Research limitations/implications
Critical digital/data literacy researchers should continue to test models for building sustained critique that not only facilitate changes in behavior over time but also facilitate citizen social science, whereby participants use these autoethnographic techniques with friends and families to build locally relevant critique of the hegemonic power of data/AI infrastructures.
Originality/value
The proposed literacy model adopts a critical theory stance and shows the value of using multiple modes of intervention at micro and macro levels to prompt self-analysis and meta-level reflexivity for learners. This framework places critical theory at the center of the pedagogy to spark more radical stances, which is contended to be an essential step in moving students from attitudinal change to behavioral change.
Details