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1 – 10 of over 2000Chiara Luisa Cantù, Daniel Schepis, Roberto Minunno and Greg Morrison
This paper aims to investigate the role of relational governance in innovation platform development, specifically investigating the context of living labs.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate the role of relational governance in innovation platform development, specifically investigating the context of living labs.
Design/methodology/approach
Two longitudinal case studies are presented, derived from auto-ethnographic narratives, qualitative interviews and secondary documents, which cover the critical stages in the development of each living lab.
Findings
Empirical insights demonstrate the relevance of coordination activities based on joint planning and activities to support innovation platform development across different stages. The governance role of research actors as platform activators is also identified.
Practical implications
The paper offers a useful perspective for identifying collective goals between living lab actors and aligning joint activities across different stages of living lab development.
Social implications
The case provides insights into the challenges and opportunities for collaboration between academia, industry and users to support sustainable construction innovation.
Originality/value
A relational governance mode is identified, going beyond top down or bottom up approaches, which contributes a new understanding of how collective goals align within a relational space.
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Åsa Vidman and Annika Strömberg
Recruiting and retaining staff to work with elderly people in social care is a global issue. The quality of leadership is considered important because it influences employees’ job…
Abstract
Purpose
Recruiting and retaining staff to work with elderly people in social care is a global issue. The quality of leadership is considered important because it influences employees’ job satisfaction, job turnover and health. This paper aims to identify leadership that employees in residential elderly care facilities in Sweden consider as contributing towards a healthy work environment.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors interviewed 14 persons employed in facilities organized in different ways. The data from these interviews was analysed using qualitative content analysis..
Findings
The results showed that the employees felt that their health partly depended on the attributes that leaders possessed, what leaders do and how leaders do it. This study confirms that leadership influences the perception of a healthy workplace. It also shows that questions about leadership are complex.
Originality/value
Research about factors that increase health risks is wide-ranging; however, research that examines factors that promote health, especially how leadership influences employees’ well-being, is not as comprehensive.
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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.
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Gaia Bassani, Jan A. Pfister and Cristiana Cattaneo
The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of leadership in management accounting change processes and outcomes.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of leadership in management accounting change processes and outcomes.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper draws on an ethnographic study in a Southern European company and mobilizes leader–follower relations as a method theory to analyse the observations.
Findings
The findings show how a leadership dispute between two top managers can be amplified during the management accounting change process and percolate throughout an organization. The authors identify five contested areas where the role of accounting amplifies the leadership dispute by unfolding its reach to other organizational actors. The leadership dispute can shape and reinforce a fragmented organization, with some organizational members creating convergent leader–follower relations while others divert and fragment with an increased turnover. This amplification can lead to unexpected outcomes of the change process in terms of how and by whom accounting is performed.
Research limitations/implications
The authors propose the study of leadership and followership as an important but, to date, largely neglected theme in management accounting research.
Originality/value
In contrast to the prior management accounting literature, the paper departs from a leadership-centric and role-based approach and employs a co-constructionist and relational approach to leadership and followership to analyse management accounting change. In addition, it applies and extends Alvesson's (2019a) theory on “divergent relationalities” between the presumed leaders and followers. In doing so, the paper also adds to the leadership field by theorizing and integrating the situation of a leadership dispute in this novel theoretical framework.
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The purpose of this paper is to propose how a bottom-up creation of an ambidextrous organization can be enabled. By integrating research on “contextual ambidexterity” and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to propose how a bottom-up creation of an ambidextrous organization can be enabled. By integrating research on “contextual ambidexterity” and “individual and organizational capacity building”, an “innovation capacity building” framework is conceptualized that suggests how balance between exploration and exploitation can be maintained.
Design/methodology/approach
The study is conceptual. As no data are utilized, focus is on discussing the links between the two theoretical perspectives and the advantages of the proposed innovation capacity building framework.
Findings
The innovation capacity building framework discusses the influence, both positive and negative, of the local organizational context for ambidexterity, and the interactions required such as feedback between the management team and the employees so they together can build an ambidextrous working culture. A culture in which it is the individual employee that is responsible for switching between activities related to exploration and exploitation and where the management team empowers the employees to do so.
Originality/value
This study focuses on contextual ambidexterity and how contextual ambidexterity can be implemented as a way of working in contemporary organizations. The originality lies in the proposed framework and in the dedicated focus on “how” ambidexterity can be implemented in organizations.
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Significant resources of time, money and expertise are invested in leadership development programs, and networking is often cited as a benefit of participation in these programs…
Abstract
Significant resources of time, money and expertise are invested in leadership development programs, and networking is often cited as a benefit of participation in these programs. Previous research has traditionally focused on leadership as an individual attribute, but researchers and practitioners are increasingly recognizing leadership as a social process. Social capital has emerged as an important theme in leadership research, and networking and relationship-building are important steps in enhancing social capital. Based on this review of recent literature, I conclude that the relationship between social capital and leadership is well documented, but we have an incomplete understanding of the dynamic nature of this relationship, and lack sufficient evidence to support a causal assertion that one leads to the other. Researchers and practitioners should develop new leadership development program evaluation methods and designs, in the context of social capital, to answer these questions.
Rodrigo Rabetino, Marko Kohtamäki and Tuomas Huikkola
This paper studies the Digital Service Innovation (DSI) concept by systematically reviewing earlier studies from various scholarly communities. This study aims to recognize how…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper studies the Digital Service Innovation (DSI) concept by systematically reviewing earlier studies from various scholarly communities. This study aims to recognize how recent advances in DSI literature from different research streams complement and can be incorporated into the growing digital servitization literature to define better and understand DSI.
Design/methodology/approach
After systematically identifying 123 relevant articles, this study employed complementary methods, such as author bibliographic coupling, linguistic text mining/textual analysis and qualitative content analyses.
Findings
This paper first maps the intellectual structure and boundaries of the DSI-related communities and qualitatively assesses their characteristics. These communities are (1) Innovation for digital servitization, (2) Service innovation in the digital age and (3) Adoption of novel e-services enabled by information system development. Next, the composition of the DSI concept is examined and depicted to comprehend the notion's critical dimensions. The findings discuss the range of theories and methods in the existing research, including antecedents, processes and outcomes of DSI.
Originality/value
This study reviews, extends the understanding of origins and critically evaluates DSI-related research. Moreover, the paper redefines and clarifies the structure and boundaries of the DSI-concept. In doing so, it elaborates on the substance of DSI and identifies the essential themes for its understanding and conceptualization. Thus, the study helps the future development of the concept and allows knowledge accumulation by bridging adjacent research communities. It helps researchers and managers navigate the foggy emerging research landscape.
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Olga Dziubaniuk, Maria Ivanova-Gongne and Ekaterina Berdysheva
This study aims to explore the challenges and complexities of interaction in international stakeholder networks within the context of projects focused on the implementation of…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore the challenges and complexities of interaction in international stakeholder networks within the context of projects focused on the implementation of sustainable development goals (SDGs). In particular, it examines the challenges faced by stakeholders in a network from a developed country during interaction in the context of a developing country.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a qualitative approach, this study analyses interview data collected from the key managers of an international consulting company in charge of a water supply and sanitation project in Nepal. The primary data is triangulated with secondary data, such as project reports and related academic articles.
Findings
This study illustrates how interaction in international stakeholder networks affects and is interrelated with SDGs, as well as how aiming to achieve one specific goal can stimulate the implementation of other sustainable goals. Further, this research shows how project managers from a developed country had to adapt to the specifics of the developing country context and how their sustainability project influenced the well-being of local communities by improving environmental and social sustainability.
Research limitations/implications
The research suggests that challenges in stakeholder interaction may arise because of differences in process management methods used by the international stakeholders involved in the project and country-context specifics, such as corruption, imperfect national regulations, cultural specifics, effects of climate change, etc.
Originality/value
The paper contributes to the literature on international multi-stakeholder interaction between actors from developed and developing countries. Furthermore, it adds to the literature on stakeholder networking by highlighting the importance of engaging in a dialogue with local communities during the conceptualisation stages of both sustainability and SDG implementation because of diverging worldviews and practices.
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Amy V. Benstead, Linda C. Hendry and Mark Stevenson
The purpose of this paper is to investigate how horizontal collaboration aids organisations in responding to modern slavery legislation and in gaining a socially sustainable…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate how horizontal collaboration aids organisations in responding to modern slavery legislation and in gaining a socially sustainable competitive advantage.
Design/methodology/approach
Action research has been conducted in the textiles and fashion industry and a relational perspective adopted to interpret five collaborative initiatives taken to tackle modern slavery (e.g. joint training and supplier audits). The primary engagement has been with a multi-billion pound turnover company and its collaborations with 35 brands/retailers. A non-government organisation and a trade body have also participated.
Findings
Successful horizontal collaboration is dependent on both relational capital and effective (formal and informal) governance mechanisms. In collaborating, firms have generated relational rents and reduced costs creating a socially sustainable competitive advantage, as suggested by the relational perspective. Yet, limits to horizontal collaboration also exist.
Research limitations/implications
The focus is on one industry only, hence there is scope to extend the study to other industries or forms of collaboration taking place across industries.
Practical implications
Successful horizontal collaborative relationships rely on actors having a similar mindset and being able to decouple the commercial and sustainability agendas, especially when direct competitors are involved. Further, working with non-business actors can facilitate collaboration and provide knowledge and resources important for overcoming the uncertainty that is manifest when responding to new legislation.
Social implications
Social sustainability improvements aim to enhance ethical trade and benefit vulnerable workers.
Originality/value
Prior literature has focussed on vertical collaboration with few prior studies of horizontal collaboration, particularly in a socially sustainable supply chain context. Moreover, there has been limited research into modern slavery from a supply chain perspective. Both successful and unsuccessful initiatives are studied, providing insights into (in)effective collaboration.
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Ville Eloranta and Taija Turunen
The purpose of this paper is to analyze how the service infusion literature explains competitive advantage through services. The four strategic management theories – competitive…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to analyze how the service infusion literature explains competitive advantage through services. The four strategic management theories – competitive forces, the resource-based view, dynamic capabilities, and relational view – are applied in the analysis.
Design/methodology/approach
A systematic literature review analyzes the links between the service infusion and strategy literature.
Findings
The review reveals that although discussion of service infusion applies strategic management concepts, the stream lacks rigor with respect to construct definition and justification. Additionally, contextual variables are often missing. The result is an over-emphasis of contextually bound measures, such as technology, and focal actors.
Research limitations/implications
The growing trends toward social networks, co-specialization, actor dependency and shared resources encourage service infusion scholars to focus on network-related and relational capabilities, co-opetition, open business models, and relational rent extraction. Furthermore, service infusion research would benefit from considering strategy-based theoretical discussions, constructs, and constraints that would improve the scientific rigor, impact and contribution.
Originality/value
This paper represents a systematic attempt to link the service infusion literature with strategic management theories and thoroughly analyzes the knowledge gaps and possible misconceptions.
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