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Rising operational costs and software sustainment concerns have driven the Air Force to move to newer technology to ensure that the Air Force Standard Base Supply System (SBSS) can continue to provide affordable and sustainable mission support in the years to come. This paper aims to summarize the successful software modernization effort the Air Force undertook to achieve that objective.

The paper describes the preliminary system updates that were required to isolate the SBSS software from all internal and external system and user interfaces in preparation for the subsequent successful code roll effort. Once the legacy SBSS component was fully isolated, the SBSS software modernization objective was achieved via a “code roll” conversion of the SBSS software from legacy COBOL to Java code, and movement of the integrated logistics system-supply application from a proprietary information technology (IT) platform to an open IT operating environment.

The SBSS system modernization yielded immediate and significant IT operational cost reductions and provided an important foundation for achieving Air Force logistics system consolidation and cloud computing objectives going forward.

The SBSS modernization experience should be useful in assisting similar data system software modernization efforts.

This paper aims to discuss unethical behaviors that small real estate agencies encounter in real estate brokerage practices, the factors that give rise to a trust issue and the potential of legal arrangements for offering a solution. Small real estate agencies, almost the only actor in the real estate brokerage industry until the late twentieth century, still strive to survive despite the globalized market, large corporations increasingly dominating the market, the increasing informality and the real estate portals offering certain brokerage services online. While all these developments put pressure on small real estate agencies, the industry’s unethical behaviors diminish their reliability. Despite the efforts to overcome this issue through legal arrangements, the extent to which these regulations will be successful is still a matter of intense debate.

In total, 85 small real estate agencies operating in Istanbul, Turkey, were posed semi-structured open-ended questions and asked to provide an opinion about the unethical behaviors they face and the potential of a legal arrangement to solve those problems. In the second stage, three focus group interviews were held with representatives from large real estate brokerage companies to make a comparison and they were also posed similar questions. The answers were evaluated using content analysis.

It was found that the unethical behaviors in the real estate industry could mainly be evaluated in two categories, i.e. those stemming from structural problems of the industry and those stemming from problems related to service delivery and that a legal arrangement could only solve the first category.

The research is limited to small real estate agencies that operate in Istanbul, the heart of the Turkish economy and the biggest city of the country where intensive efforts are spent to integrate into the global order.

It is considered that categorization of the causes of problems encountered by the numerous small real estate agencies that struggle to survive in the market and an analysis of the root causes of unethical behaviors in the industry and a discussion on potential solutions that may be brought bylaws will contribute to the literature.

While strategic outsourcing decisions are crafted by senior executives, they are executed by middle managers and staff who may not share the vision or enthusiasm of their senior leadership team. The purpose of this paper is to provide a deep understanding of the effects of outsourcing on one of those stakeholder groups – the client project managers – responsible for the implementation of outsourcing strategies, and to identify practices to better empower and enable them.

Interviews with 67 client project managers in 25 organizations responsible for integrating suppliers into project teams.

Client project managers report 27 effects of outsourcing on their roles, including six positive effects and 21 negative effects.

Senior executives who implemented the following practices had more success with their outsourcing decisions: provide enough resources to implement the sourcing strategy, be willing to change internal work practices, build social capital with key supplier executives and seek independent assessment of sourcing strategy effectiveness.

The paper presents an original framework to categorize the effects of outsourcing on client project managers. The framework addresses six areas of concern: organizational support, project planning, knowledge transfer, process standards, managing work and managing people. The paper identifies four practices senior executives use to align and empower their employees to deliver the expected business benefits from strategic outsourcing decisions.

In a dynamic and uncertain business environment, with increasingly intense competition and vibrant globalisation, there is a growing demand by healthcare businesses for both internal and external information, to analyse patients’ information quickly and efficiently, which has led healthcare organisations to embrace customer relationship management (CRM) systems. Data quality and data integration issues facilitate the achievement of CRM business objectives. Data quality is the state of completeness, validity, consistency, timeliness and accuracy that makes data appropriate for CRM business exploitation. A good integration strategy begins with a thorough data assessment study, and relies upon the quality of these data. A framework is proposed for evaluating the quality and integration of patient data for CRM applications in the health care sector. Even though this framework is in an early stage of development, it intends to present existing solutions for evaluating the above issues.

Considering the emergence of Live Streaming Shopping (LSS) in Europe and the scant academic coverage it has attracted in terms of characterization, this study's aim is twofold: (1) explore how both consumers and retailers assess the distinctive attributes of LSS in order to identify its characteristics as a new form of commerce, or even retail format, and (2) analyze the motivations of both consumers and retailers for choosing it.

A hybrid literature review – bibliometric and structured – summarizes the body of research available on LSS. Considering the research gap and the authors' two research questions, a qualitative methodology was adopted. This incorporates three primary data sets, collected in France from LSS experts, retail managers and consumers over 18 months.

LSS is a new online retail format, to be added to the range of existing options as it exhibits a typical retailing mix that is substantially different from other formats. From the retailer's perspective, three main motivations are identified while for the consumer, a total of seven motivations to participate in LSS sessions emerged. This new online format appears to be part of the continuum reflecting omnichannel integration.

Once the LSS literature has been further developed, the bibliometric review could be repeated to better map the field within contemporary research.

Today's retailers cannot ignore LSS: it is a multifaceted hybrid format and touchpoint that is part of an omnichannel strategy and through which both quantitative and qualitative objectives can be achieved.

This paper (1) structures the emerging literature on LSS by developing the first hybrid literature review on the topic; (2) substantiates what characterizes LSS as a retail format from the consumer and retailer perspectives and a retail touchpoint in the consumer's omnichannel journey; and (3) proposes a definition of LSS and a research agenda.