Search results

The contribution of the present case lies in the critical view that every business actor should exercise – be it general manager, middle management, supervisor or executive – when building a strong organizational culture in corrupt political environments.

The purpose of this case study is to explore the dilemma in which Marcelo Odebrecht, once CEO of Odebrecht, found/determined whether to continue with the business model established by the founders of Odebrecht or take a new path for the organization. After exploring the corrupt acts of Odebrecht and the scope of Operation Lava Jato, the reader can reflect on the importance of organizational culture (according to the three levels proposed by Schein) in the face of the emergence of corruption. By generating discussions about organizational culture, business ethics, political culture and corruption, the organizational culture of Odebrecht is problematized in relation to its real behavior.

Students of administration, business and international business undergraduates and graduates, as well as members of senior management in companies in the infrastructure sector. Also, given the plurality of possible readings, it is recommended that the case also be used in courses or specializations in organizational psychology, organizational sociology or organizational anthropology.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.

CSS 5: International Business.

This study aims to explore the digital divide between students living in metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas in the Antioquia region of Colombia. This is achieved by collecting data about student interactions from the Moodle learning management system (LMS), and subsequently applying supervised machine learning models to infer the gap between students in metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas.

This work uses the well-established Cross-Industry Standard Process for Data Mining methodology, which comprises six phases, viz., problem understanding, data understanding, data preparation, modelling, evaluation and implementation. In this case, student data was collected from the Moodle platform from the Antioquia campus of the UNAD distance learning university.

The digital divide is evident in the classification model when observing differences in variables such as the number of accesses to the LMS, the total time spent and the number of distinct IP addresses used, as well as the number of system modification events.

This study provides conclusions regarding the problems students in virtual education may face as a result of the digital divide in Colombia which have become increasingly visible since the implementation of machine learning methodologies on LMS such as Moodle. However, these practices may be replicated in any virtual educational context and furthermore be extended to enable personalisation of various aspects of the Moodle platform to meet the individual needs of students.

The paper aims to present what is known from the school principals who participated in the International Successful School Principalship Project (ISSPP) in Mexico. The paper reviews 14 publications (5 articles, 5 conference papers and 4 books) on successful school principals in Mexico that were published between 2009 and 2021 as part of the ISSPP. The papers were analysed using a conceptual framework consisting of perceived qualities of the principal, school organisation, suitability of teachers and principals, educational materials and methods and educational infrastructure.

A scoping study review methodology was used to explore publications and conference proceedings on ISSPP research on Mexican principals and schools in order to answer the question: What do we know about successful school principals in the Mexican context? Conference papers, journal articles, book chapters and books formed the knowledge base for the review.

As a result of the analysis across the five analysis categories it was found that the principals emphasised improving the educational quality of their schools and understood this as the basic criterion to judge their leadership success. Principals were central to school success and a nested model was produced to show how the successful school is built from the core of the principal, as a socio-emotional skills role model, to a culture of continuous improvement. The model included principal socio-emotional skills, school organisation, continuous improvement of teaching and principal practices and having appropriate educational materials, methods and infrastructure.

The ISSPP has produced a large amount of research. The paper is the first review of the substantial contribution from ISSPP research in Mexico. The model produced from the review adds to the several models produced in the ISSPP.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of institutional changes in Bolivia (2005-2016) in the power structures within the headquarters (HQs) of a Brazilian energy multinational corporation (MNC) and its subsidiaries in Bolivia.

This investigation is informed by a postcolonial South–South perspective. The Brazilian and Bolivian managers were interviewed and drawing techniques were used to unveil hidden power relationships. To achieve the multilayered objective, a Lukesian power framework was integrated into the analysis.

Traces of a postcolonial relationship between Brazil and Bolivia were found, even though Brazil never colonized Bolivia. The power structure within this MNC’s HQ and subsidiaries reflects a postcolonial relationship: local staff members see the Brazilian MNC as the holder of power of resources, process and meaning. Finally, despite its colonizing role, Brazil is depicted as a savior, not an exploiter. Much to the authors’ surprise, the institutional changes in Bolivia – the nationalization of its oil and gas reserves and the declaration of a plurinational state – have not affected the power relationships within the Brazilian MNC.

The contribution to postcolonial investigations within the international business field was carried out in different ways: a review of EMNC literature was conducted in the study for a South–South postcolonial perspective; empirical data from a case within South America were added; a Lukesian power perspective was integrated into the analysis; and finally, drawing techniques were used to unveil hidden power relations.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the mediator role that knowledge sharing plays between organisational culture, organisational structure, and technology infrastructure and process improvement in a knowledge management context in manufacturing enterprises operating in the food, beverage and textile industry.

An empirical study is conducted with a sample of 200 food, beverage and textile companies. Data are obtained by means of a survey questionnaire applied to general managers in each of the sample firms. The impact of the factors organisational culture, organisational structure and technology infrastructure on process improvement via knowledge sharing is assessed. Structural equation modelling and maximum likelihood estimation are applied to find the direction and strength of the relationships.

The main findings indicate the significant relationships between knowledge sharing and process improvement, between organisational culture and knowledge sharing, and between organisational structure and knowledge sharing. The relationship between technology infrastructure and knowledge sharing is found not to be significant.

The findings of the present study are limited to the food, beverage and textile industry. Future research could incorporate data from other manufacturing sectors or service companies.

This study provides practical guidance for general managers who wish to implement process improvement programmes.

Several authors have noted that there are few research studies concerning the interaction between each phase of knowledge management and total quality management practices. This study is interested in knowledge sharing and its impact on process improvement in a knowledge management context.

This paper aims to explore the drivers of employee motivation to facilitate value co-creation. Specifically, it enhances the understanding of social and contextual elements that contribute towards the co-creation of value.

Embracing an interpretive paradigm, the study draws on 57 in-depth interviews together with participant observation field notes. The data were analysed using thematic analysis.

The findings identify six key drivers that motivate employees to facilitate value co-creation: rewards and recognition, opportunities for life-long learning, interpersonal engagement, role responsibility and accountability, organisational vision and social purpose.

This study is undertaken within a traditional organisation setting. Other organisational contexts such as working from home should also be considered. Second, this study focused on the individual relational orientations of employees. Also, there is an opportunity to explore the collective orientation of employees.

Drawing on service-dominant logic (S-D logic) as a theoretical lens, this study adopts and adapts Lindenberg and Steg’s (2013) goal-framing theory to conceptualise six drivers of employee motivation to facilitate value co-creation within three-goal frames that leads to in-role and extra-role job performance.

Women with little-to-no English continue to have poor birth outcomes and low service user satisfaction. When language support services are used it enhances the relationship between the midwife and the woman, improves outcomes and ensures safer practice. However, this study has shown a reluctance to use professional interpreter services by midwives. This study aims to understand the experiences of midwives using language support services.

A maximum variation purposive sampling strategy was used to recruit midwives (N = 12) to a qualitative, semi-structured interview study. Data were analysed using thematic analysis.

Four themes were generated from the data analysis with a central organising concept of “Navigating Care Without Language”. These themes were: “Continuity as Key”, “Facilitating Tools”, “Networks of Support” and “Innovative Planning”. Each of these themes had between three and four sub-themes. It was found midwives are keen to support women with language barriers. However, support can be difficult due to the unavailability of equipment and resources; lack of continuity (of interpreter and midwife); inability to plan for the acute care of women who require interpreter services; and the system not being accessible enough to women who require language support services, thus causing them to fall through the net.

Continuity of carer appears to be a protective factor due to the flexibility, relationship and continuum of support. This study will aid the development of education for undergraduate, post-graduate and practising midwives. It will also inform policymakers working to improve the service offered to women who speak little-to-no English.

The objectives of this research are to analyze the sociodemographic and personality profiles most related to good academic time management among 845 students from different faculties at the University de Barcelona (UB) and to identify the explanatory factors of effective academic time management.

Poor time management is a common behavior among university students and an explanatory factor for academic failure. A sociodemographic questionnaire, the Procrastination Assessment Scale-Student (PASS), the Academic Time Management (ATM), the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI-18) and the Big Five Inventory-10 (BFI-10) were administered.

The results reveal that female students, education majors and those with high academic performance show better time management than the rest of the student body. Additionally, students who have better academic time management are also more neurotic, more open to experience, more responsible and less prone to procrastination. The factors established as explanatory of good academic time management are neuroticism, openness to experience and low procrastination.

The implications of the results for promoting academic time management in university studies through specific actions are discussed.

This paper aims to focus on research regarding organizational learning (OL) and knowledge management (KM), and to specifically investigate whether OL has been conceptually absorbed by KM.

This study is based on 16,185 articles from the Scopus and ISI Web of Science databases, using VantagePoint 10.0 software. The method used in this study is a systematic literature review covering KM and OL publications from the 1970s, when the OL field started to grow, up to 2016.

Nuclear processes of OL, creation and acquisition of knowledge, have been conceptually absorbed by KM literature in the past years.

Only two databases have been considered, Scopus and ISI Web of Science, because of their academic prestige. However, these databases include a large number of articles on KM and OL. Search terms used could exclude some relevant terms, although all major descriptive terms have been included.

This paper identifies thematic clusters in KM and OL, evolution of both fields, most cited authors and representative journals by topic.

This is the first paper to jointly analyse the evolution of KM and OL. This paper shows a conceptual absorption of OL into KM, which may enrich academic discussion and also provide some clarity to the conceptualization of these two fields.

The complexity of the firm’s external environment, with its constant changes, forces managers to develop novel strategies that can meet new strategic needs. The purpose of this study is to examine the role of reward systems (RSs) in strategic management, as well as their relationship to learning and entrepreneurial orientation (EO), commonly referred to as the driving force behind growth, competitive advantages (CAs) and improved performance. It also focuses on the study of the relationship between EO and business performance (BP), the introduction and testing of the possible antecedents of this relationship and potential mediating factors.

A conceptual model was tested on a sample of 1,190 Portuguese firms using a structural equation model.

It is shown for the first time that learning orientation (LO) is an antecedent of the RSs and, subsequently, of EO. Additionally, the CAs of differentiation and cost leadership play a mediating role in the relationship between EO and BP. Furthermore, RSs are also a driving force behind both CAs.

This study makes several empirical and theoretical contributions, addressing the gap in the literature about the role of RSs in strategic management. It tests the relationship between LO and the firm’s performance by taking the mediating effects of RSs, EO and CAs into account. Additionally, we discuss LO as an antecedent strategic variable of human resources practices, in particular, RSs. Finally, we broaden the scope of our research by examining these issues in the context of Portuguese SMEs from different industries.