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1 – 10 of over 25000Mengyi Zhu, Yuan Sun, Anand Jeyaraj and Jie Hao
This study aims to explore whether and how task characteristics affect employee agility in the context of enterprise social media (ESM).
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore whether and how task characteristics affect employee agility in the context of enterprise social media (ESM).
Design/methodology/approach
Adopting the social network ties perspective, this study examines how task characteristics (i.e. task complexity, task interdependence and task non-routineness) affect employee agility by promoting their social network ties (i.e. instrumental ties and expressive ties) and how ESM visibility moderates their relationships. Data gathered from 341 ESM users in workplaces were analyzed using Smart-PLS 3.2.
Findings
First, task complexity, task interdependence and task non-routineness have positive effects on instrumental and expressive ties, which in turn influences agility; Second, instrumental ties have a stronger effect on employee agility relative to expressive ties; Finally, ESM visibility positively moderates the effects of task complexity and task non-routineness on social network ties.
Practical implications
The findings provide guidance for organizational managers on how to use task characteristics and ESM to improve employee agility, as well as insights for social media designers to optimize ESM functions to improve agility.
Originality/value
This study provides empirical evidence to explain the roles of task characteristics and social network ties in influencing employee agility, thus clarifying the inconsistent findings in extant research. The moderating effects of ESM visibility on the relationships between task characteristics and social network ties are also examined, thus providing further insights on the positive role of ESM in organizations.
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Visibility is the need of the hour for each organization involved in the supply chain, and scholars have made few previous efforts to understand patterns driving visibility in…
Abstract
Purpose
Visibility is the need of the hour for each organization involved in the supply chain, and scholars have made few previous efforts to understand patterns driving visibility in transportation platforms. However, many companies have not been able to achieve sufficient levels of practical implementation across the supply chain. Therefore, this study focuses on exploring, why the real-time visibility transportation platforms fail to operationalize.
Design/methodology/approach
This study utilizes action research as a methodology for pragmatism to understand supply chain professionals' viewpoint regarding the operationalization of real-time visibility. The research addresses a complex transportation network of a fast-moving consumer goods company. Wherein, both a greater need for visibility and improvements are also more challenging.
Findings
Tensions amongst complementors, the platform owner, and the Control Tower of a focal company explain the different impacts of freight forwarders and own fleet carriers on shipment compliance. Integrating subcontractors is a cost-intensive practice for complementors that increases asymmetry and reduces co-created value. The willingness of freight forwarders to exert control contributes to tension competition versus collaboration.
Research limitations/implications
The model identifies the dynamics that explain how managers can navigate the tension over time by controlling contradictory loops driving shipment compliance. Findings can help managers develop plans, conduct pilots, and collaborate to unlock value from real-time visibility. The research findings can be informative for the European Union bodies and help work out a policy that reduces the asymmetry of benefits and contribute to the more sustainable development of digital industrial platforms.
Originality/value
The contribution lies in (1) providing a study of the factors affecting achieving real-time visibility, (2) distinguishing complementors (3) identifying tensions amongst complementors and platform owner as critical for successful platform deployment, (4) conceptualizing a pattern of behavior emerging amongst the platform partners and (5) outlining avenues for future research.
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According to extensive analysis, employee agility is influenced by teamwork, coordination and the organizational environment. However, less consideration has been given to the…
Abstract
Purpose
According to extensive analysis, employee agility is influenced by teamwork, coordination and the organizational environment. However, less consideration has been given to the role of work stressors (challenge, hindrance) in influencing employee agility. To address this research gap, this study sheds light on how the use of enterprise social media (ESM) for social and work purposes influences employee agility through work stressors.
Design/methodology/approach
This research also explores how ESM visibility enhances the interaction between work stressors and employee agility by using primary data obtained from Chinese workers. A total of 377 entries were analyzed using AMOS 24.10 tools. All the hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling (SEM).
Findings
The findings revealed that ESM use (social and work) negatively impacts challenge and hindrance work stressors. The results also reflect that challenge stressors have a significant impact on employee agility, whereas hindrance stressors are negatively related to it. Furthermore, the outcome also indicated that increased ESM visibility reinforces the connection between challenge stressors and employee agility. However, ESM visibility did not indicate a significant moderating impact on the link between hindrance stressors and employee agility.
Originality/value
This study describes how ESM usage effects agility of stressed employees. This research also explores how ESM visibility improves the interaction between work stressors and employee agility. The study results contribute to growing research on social media and employee agility and suggest several points of guidance for managers.
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Pedro Lafargue, Michael Rogerson, Glenn C. Parry and Joel Allainguillaume
This paper examines the potential of “biomarkers” to provide immutable identification for food products (chocolate), providing traceability and visibility in the supply chain from…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper examines the potential of “biomarkers” to provide immutable identification for food products (chocolate), providing traceability and visibility in the supply chain from retail product back to farm.
Design/methodology/approach
This research uses qualitative data collection, including fieldwork at cocoa farms and chocolate manufacturers in Ecuador and the Netherlands and semi-structured interviews with industry professionals to identify challenges and create a supply chain map from cocoa plant to retailer, validated by area experts. A library of biomarkers is created using DNA collected from fieldwork and the International Cocoa Quarantine Centre, holders of cocoa varieties from known locations around the world. Matching sample biomarkers with those in the library enables identification of origins of cocoa used in a product, even when it comes from multiple different sources and has been processed.
Findings
Supply chain mapping and interviews identify areas of the cocoa supply chain that lack the visibility required for management to guarantee sustainability and quality. A decoupling point, where smaller farms/traders’ goods are combined to create larger economic units, obscures product origins and limits visibility. These factors underpin a potential boundary condition to institutional theory in the industry’s fatalism to environmental and human abuses in the face of rising institutional pressures. Biomarkers reliably identify product origin, including specific farms and (fermentation) processing locations, providing visibility and facilitating control and trust when purchasing cocoa.
Research limitations/implications
The biomarker “meta-barcoding” of cocoa beans used in chocolate manufacturing accurately identifies the farm, production facility or cooperative, where a cocoa product came from. A controlled data set of biomarkers of registered locations is required for audit to link chocolate products to origin.
Practical implications
Where biomarkers can be produced from organic products, they offer a method for closing visibility gaps, enabling responsible sourcing. Labels (QR codes, barcodes, etc.) can be swapped and products tampered with, but biological markers reduce reliance on physical tags, diminishing the potential for fraud. Biomarkers identify product composition, pinpointing specific farm(s) of origin for cocoa in chocolate, allowing targeted audits of suppliers and identifying if cocoa of unknown origin is present. Labour and environmental abuses exist in many supply chains and enabling upstream visibility may help firms address these challenges.
Social implications
By describing a method for firms in cocoa supply chains to scientifically track their cocoa back to the farm level, the research shows that organizations can conduct social audits for child labour and environmental abuses at specific farms proven to be in their supply chains. This provides a method for delivering supply chain visibility (SCV) for firms serious about tackling such problems.
Originality/value
This paper provides one of the very first examples of biomarkers for agricultural SCV. An in-depth study of stakeholders from the cocoa and chocolate industry elucidates problematic areas in cocoa supply chains. Biomarkers provide a unique biological product identifier. Biomarkers can support efforts to address environmental and social sustainability issues such as child labour, modern slavery and deforestation by providing visibility into previously hidden areas of the supply chain.
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The purpose of this paper is to theoretically analyze and empirically test the business value of firm web visibility, including its relationship to advertising efficiency and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to theoretically analyze and empirically test the business value of firm web visibility, including its relationship to advertising efficiency and long-term financial performance (i.e. shareholder value).
Design/methodology/approach
A conceptual framework is established to analyze firm value of web visibility through its market effects. Hypotheses on the associations between firm web visibility and advertising efficiency and shareholder value are tested by cross-sectional analysis of 1,331 firms in six industries and four industry sectors. The authors control for several firm- and industry-level factors.
Findings
The results consistently support the two hypotheses, i.e., first, a positive and significant relationship between firm web visibility and advertising efficiency; and second, a positive and significant relationship between firm web visibility and shareholder value.
Practical implications
In addition to increasing web traffic, firm web visibility has business value and helps to enhance advertising efficiency and shareholder value. Managers can use the web references as a valuable tool for marketing success when the use of traditional advertising reaches saturation. Managers should actively monitor and use web visibility as a web management measure in practice.
Originality/value
This research provides convincing evidence to support both short-term and long-term business value of web visibility and suggests that web visibility be recognized and managed as a market-based asset.
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As China's economy begins to transform into a high-quality development, and under the national “carbon peak and carbon neutral” target, all sectors of society and industries need…
Abstract
Purpose
As China's economy begins to transform into a high-quality development, and under the national “carbon peak and carbon neutral” target, all sectors of society and industries need to transform to green development to varying degrees, coupled with the catalyst of epidemics and other factors, new development requirements are put forward for enterprises to better fulfill their climate risk disclosure behaviors. Thus, it is clear that improving corporate climate risk disclosure is of far-reaching significance to both countries and enterprises.
Design/methodology/approach
This study incorporates management science, psychology and other related knowledge fields, based on stakeholder theory and media dependency theory, and aims to improve the level of corporate compliance with climate risk disclosure, suggesting the influence of entrepreneurs' visibility on corporate climate risk disclosure; on this basis, the role of entrepreneurs' visibility and media attention on corporate climate risk disclosure is verified through an empirical model; finally, targeted and effective response strategies are proposed to improve corporate climate risk disclosure, set reasonable media attention and increase the effectiveness of entrepreneurs' visibility.
Findings
This paper establishes a multiple regression model using A-share listed companies in China from 2016 to 2022 as the research sample, verifies the intrinsic association between entrepreneurial visibility and corporate climate risk climate disclosure through empirical analysis, and further examines the mediating role of media attention in the relationship between the two. The results show that entrepreneurs' visibility is positively related to the level of corporate climate risk disclosure, with media attention playing a part in mediating the relationship between the two. Increasing entrepreneurs' visibility is conducive to increasing the level of corporate climate risk disclosure. Therefore, it contributes to the dual incentive effect of reputation and compensation.
Originality/value
This study incorporates management science, psychology and other related knowledge fields, based on stakeholder theory and media dependency theory, and aims to improve the level of corporate compliance with climate risk disclosure, suggesting the influence of entrepreneurs' visibility on corporate climate risk disclosure; on this basis, the role of entrepreneurs' visibility and media attention on corporate climate risk disclosure is verified through an empirical model; finally, targeted and effective response strategies are proposed to improve corporate climate risk disclosure, set reasonable media attention and increase the effectiveness of entrepreneurs' visibility.
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The purpose of this paper is to explore the potential of open access institutional repositories (IR) in enhancing the global visibility and impact of Nigerian scholarly…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the potential of open access institutional repositories (IR) in enhancing the global visibility and impact of Nigerian scholarly publication.
Design/methodology/approach
This is a literature‐based opinion paper which examines the problem of open access IR in Nigeria providing pragmatic suggestions that would address the challenges of making Nigerian scholarly publications accessible internationally.
Findings
While the paper acknowledges several problems that impede the building of open access IR, it equally highlights some necessary requirements for the building of IR with a road map for the development of functional IR in Nigeria.
Practical implications
The proliferation of universities and other higher institutions that are in one way or the other engaged in research activities suggests that Nigeria would have generated a lot of research to facilitate speedy development. Available evidence shows that in recent years scholarly publications in Nigeria lack viable means of global dissemination, which has reduced the global visibility of many publications from the country. This paper focuses on the current situation in scholarly publications in Nigeria and examines the need for building of institutional open access repositories and its influence in the dissemination of scholarly research from the country to the international scholarly community.
Originality/value
The originality of the paper is purely the proposal for the building of IR in Nigeria which includes creation of awareness on IR, government sponsorship of IR, development of information and communication technology infrastructure, use of effective advocacy, submission of electronic theses and dissertations, and self‐archiving mandate. The paper concludes that open access IR are the most viable means of ensuring the global visibility and impact of Nigerian scholarship.
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Jane M. Russell, Shirley Ainsworth and Janet Díaz‐Aguilar
This paper aims to determine to what extent the scientific production and research activities of a group of National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) research institutes in…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to determine to what extent the scientific production and research activities of a group of National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) research institutes in the sciences, social sciences and humanities are visible on the internet with a view to identifying areas where web presence is not optimal so improvements can be made.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors do this by analysing the relevant information on their web sites and by comparing institutional listings of scientific production between 2005 and 2006, with papers reported in the international, multidisciplinary online services of the Web of Science and Scopus, as well as in Clase and Periódica which cover production in Latin American journals.
Findings
Results indicate general poor visibility of research activities and production in the institutional web sites with only limited access to full text articles. Web sites of the institutes in the sciences score better than those in the humanities and social sciences where book publication is an important research output. The official publication lists in the form of annual reports were found not to accurately represent production with additional papers attributed to the different institutions appearing in commercial databases. It is suggested that more effort should be directed towards improving the information content and access to research data on these institutional web sites, possibly through linkage to an UNAM repository.
Originality/value
This is the first study to critically examine the visibility of research on Mexican academic web sites for which a series of indicators related to the different categories of research information which would ideally be found on institutional pages were developed.
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Kun Wang, Weihua Zhang, Zhongxiang Feng and Cheng Wang
The purpose of this paper is to perform fine classification of road traffic visibility based on the characteristics of driving behavior under different visibility conditions.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to perform fine classification of road traffic visibility based on the characteristics of driving behavior under different visibility conditions.
Design/methodology/approach
A driving simulator experiment was conducted to collect data of speed and lane position. ANOVA was used to explore the difference in driving behavior under different visibility conditions.
Findings
The results show that only average speed is significantly different under different visibility conditions. With the visibility reducing, the average vehicle speed decreases. The road visibility conditions in a straight segment can be divided into five levels: less than 20, 20-30, 35-60, 60-140 and more than 140 m. The road visibility conditions in a curve segment can be also divided into four levels: less than 20, 20-30, 35-60 and more than 60 m.
Originality/value
A fine classification of road traffic visibility has been performed, and these classifications help to establish more accurate control measures to ensure road traffic safety under low-visibility conditions.
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