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An organization’s competitive advantage can be strengthened if they are able to identify highly creative individuals. In fact, organizational success in the 21st century may depend upon a firm’s ability to identify highly creative individuals who are able to develop novel and useful ideas, which are the outcome of creativity. The authors posit that Information Technology (IT) plays a significant role in creativity.

Applying the componential view of creativity, the authors propose the theoretically-derived concept of Individual IT Creativity (IITC). Utilizing a 5-phase methodology, the authors provide a theoretically-derived and rigorously-validated measure of IITC.

This study demonstrates that IITC is manifested in individuals who (1) possess IT expertise; (2) are motivated by IT tasks and (3) exhibit IT creativity-relevant processes. The authors then develop a scale to measure IITC and examine IITC within a broader nomological network.

This study facilitates the investigation of new streams of research into IITC, including new possible outcomes in addition to IT acceptance.

This study aims to explore what characteristics contribute to the definition of relevance in business-to-business (B2B) marketing research and how/why different strands of B2B marketing maintain or lose their relevance.

This study is conceptual. It adopts a performative-phenomenal standpoint for B2B marketing research and approaches relevance through the concept of episteme, which is considered pivotal for understanding this phenomenon.

This study proposes four axioms that define the characteristics of relevance in B2B marketing research and discusses their implications for scholars and practitioners. Consequently, an action plan for revitalizing B2B marketing research is developed, comprising learning and temporal dimensions, resulting in nine different relevance types.

The central argument put forward in this study is that different research strands of B2B marketing have deeply rooted epistemic underpinnings that influence their interpretation of relevance. Consequently, fostering dialogue between practitioners and scholars is considered necessary to sustain relevance in B2B marketing research. B2B scholars are urged to think beyond their subspecialized silos and acknowledge how the business environment and the various strands of B2B marketing congruently shape B2B marketing relevance, while also embracing research methods that bring them closer to business practice.

Marketing practitioners and academics continue to drift apart. This study puts forward three recommendations to bring marketing academics and practitioners closer together.

The study contributes to the B2B marketing literature by grappling with the theory-praxis gap and critically exploring what constitutes relevance in B2B marketing research.

This paper aims to explain how small- and medium-sized firms (SMEs) create information technology (IT) business value through blended IT outsourcing (ITO). The explanatory framework it proposes enables SMEs to replicate IT capability outcomes (i.e. enhance their economic, strategic and technological competences, namely, ITO success) by endorsing an ITO strategy catalyzed by IT vendor integration.

This study uses covariance-based structural equation modeling to test the proposed research model. Data are collected from 251 knowledge-intensive business SMEs located in Science and Technology Parks in Spain.

The results demonstrate empirically that SMEs can replicate IT capability benefits (i.e. enhance their non-IT competences) through blended ITO in which IT, conceptualized as a transversal supporting activity, is outsourced to an IT vendor while the value creation process remains with the buyer. The integration (i.e. process integration and information sharing) of an IT-proficient vendor catalyzes ITO success. More specifically, the results show that, although process integration is not directly related to competence enhancement, fosters information sharing, which directly facilitates ITO success. The results also show that IT vendor proficiency accounts for ex ante trust.

Managers should think of transformational ITO as a strategy to enhance firm competences. For blended ITO strategies to succeed, managers must have a comprehensive understanding of the business they run, as it is important to create conditions that foster inter-firm information sharing. To achieve these conditions, managers should take special care in selecting boundary spanners, who are the pivotal links in competence enhancement.

While most research focuses on ongoing trust (i.e. trust develops as ITO evolves), this study focuses on initial (i.e. ex ante) trust and analyzes IT vendor proficiency (expert, experienced and reputed) to examine trust as an antecedent of ITO. This study also draws on previous conceptualizations of vendor integration to develop and analyze a two-step integration model to explain how IT vendor integration (i.e. process integration and information sharing) catalyzes enhancement of the buyer’s non-IT competences. This study focuses on SMEs, which are often neglected in ITO studies.

The essence of blockchain governance is a far departure from the cryptocurrency or Bitcoin that has led to innovation and changing the outline of medical services. The major challenge in medical services is the lack of accessibility of medical services and lack of awareness. A large group of the population belonging to an ethnic minority has a high rate of complications, re-operation and graft rejection. To connect with a minority group and address privacy and safety issues, blockchain-based e-health-care services have massive potential in the medical industry, especially from the perspective of the social aspect.

The study proposed a framework that describes the complex interplay of different stated factors, including perceived ease of use, trust, perceived usefulness and perceived security and privacy. The paper uses structural equation modeling to understand the ethnic minority group’s readiness to adopt blockchain-based e-health-care services.

It was found that all the direct relationships between variables are supported by the findings and have a significant positive relationship with the adoption intention. The tested framework will help regulatory bodies and marketers to develop support health-care service mechanisms for ethnic minority groups by addressing their issues related to security and privacy.

Blockchain-based e-health-care services have massive potential in the medical industry, although, its actual diffusion has not been explored much, with particular reference to an ethnic minority group. This study will explore the diffusion of smart health-care services with respect to ethnic minority group.

This study aims to explore the impact of supply chain governance (SCG) on supply chain resilience (SCR) in China, as well as the mediating role of supply chain finance (SCF) and the moderating role of digital technology adoption (DTA).

Based on resource orchestration theory (ROT), this paper constructs a theoretical model to examine the influence of SCG on SCR. Employing data collected from 312 Chinese firms, multiple regression is conducted to test the theoretical hypotheses.

The results indicate that both relational governance (RG) and contractual governance (CG) significantly enhance SCR and SCF. In addition, SCF plays a mediating role in the relationship between SCG and SCR. The study also finds that DTA has a positive moderating effect on the relationship between SCG and SCF.

First, based on ROT, this paper clarifies the nuanced driving effects of RG and CG on SCR. Second, SCF is introduced as an intermediary process between SCG and SCR, which reveals the inner mechanisms between SCG and SCR. Moreover, this study contributes to investigating the contingent role of DTA in the relationship between SCG and SCF.

Many organizations struggle to utilize security-as-a-service (SecaaS) advantages effectively, thus challenging the assumption that adopting the SecaaS model will necessarily lead to post-adoption satisfaction. This research paper draws on the organizational mindfulness theory and investigates the factors that lead to satisfaction with SecaaS.

The key informant-based survey approach was employed to collect data from 215 organizations that were using the SecaaS model. PLS was used for data analysis.

Organizations with greater extents of internal security resources report higher satisfaction levels with SecaaS, thanks to the mediating effect of organizational mindfulness, and that organizations with extensive and mature security auditing were especially well-positioned to experience satisfaction with SecaaS.

This research provides new theoretical insights into the conditions under which organizations' post-adoption satisfaction with the SecaaS model is shaped by investigating the role of internal security resources and organizational mindfulness.

This study examines how project uncertainties (environmental uncertainty and participant uncertainty) affect guanxi and contractual governance and assesses the mediating role of guanxi governance between project uncertainty and contractual governance.

Data were collected in two stages from Chinese contractors. First, in-depth interviews were conducted with nine construction engineering project practitioners in different contracts as a pilot for questionnaire designing. Second, a cross-sectional questionnaire survey was conducted with professionals and practitioners of construction enterprises to collect primary data. Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to test seven hypotheses based on data collected from 198 respondents.

Project environmental uncertainty promotes the use of guanxi governance, while project participant uncertainty hinders it; the relationship between both types of uncertainty and contractual governance is the same as with guanxi governance. Furthermore, guanxi governance promotes contractual governance and partially mediates project environmental uncertainty and contractual governance and a complete mediating role between project participant uncertainty and contractual governance.

As the interviewed samples are mainly from China, the study should be replicated using large representative samples from East Asian countries, such as Japan and South Korea, to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the influence of guanxi governance. Further, while the internal consistency reliability and convergent validity of the questionnaire data in this study align with the standards, a larger sample size would improve the reliability and validity of the research results and better represent the overall work situation of contractors, owners and public policymakers.

The results provide insights into project governance research and have implications for construction practitioners in deploying governance-related resources.

By reviewing the literature, this paper explores the current priorities and future directions of alliance post-formation dynamics research.

This paper collects and analyzes empirical studies on alliance post-formation dynamics that were published between 1990 and 2021.

Current research on alliance post-formation dynamics can be structured as antecedents and outcomes of dynamics and their moderating effects. Among these topics, antecedents of dynamics have been addressed in a large body of research encompassing diverse theoretical mechanisms and levels of analysis. However, there remain debates regarding the outcomes of alliances post-formation dynamics.

First, this paper enriches the theoretical plurality of the field by integrating the antecedents and outcomes of dynamics and their moderating effects. Second, this paper proposes a new scholarly perspective – “alliance dynamic capabilities” – to address the “disruption vs adaption” debates regarding the outcomes of alliance post-formation dynamics in current research. Third, this paper presents several promising future research directions with the aim to advancing the literature on alliance post-formation dynamics.

Customers' co-design behavior is an important source of knowledge for product innovation. Firms can regulate the focus of information interaction with customers to set goals and motivate their co-design behavior. Drawing on regulatory fit theory and construal level theory, the authors build a research model to study whether the fit between the regulatory focus of firms' task invitations (promotion focus vs prevention focus) and their feedback focus (self-focused vs other-focused) can enhance co-design behavior by improving customers' experiences (perceived meaning, active discovery and perceived empowerment).

The authors conducted two online between-subjects experiments to validate the proposed research model.

The two online experiments reveal that customers' experiences are enhanced when the feedback focus is congruent with the regulatory focus of the firm's task invitations. Specifically, self-focused feedback has a stronger positive effect on customers' experiences in the prevention focus context. Other-focused feedback has a stronger positive effect on customers' experiences in the promotion focus context. Moreover, customers' experience significantly and positively affects co-design behavior (i.e. co-design effort and knowledge contribution).

This work provides theoretical and practical implications for firms to improve the effectiveness of information interaction with their customers and eventually ensure the sustainability of co-design.