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Multinational business deliver value via multiple sites with similar operational capacities. The age of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) delivers significant opportunities for the deployment of digital tools for business optimization. Therefore, this study aims to study the Industry 4.0 implementation for multinationals.

The key objective of this research is multi-site systems integration using a reproducible, modular and standardized “Cyber Physical System (CPS) as-a-Service”.

A best practice reference architecture is adopted to guide the design and delivery of a pioneering CPS multi-site deployment. The CPS deployed is a cloud-based platform adopted to enable all manufacturing areas within a multinational energy and petrochemical company. A methodology is developed to quantify the system environmental and sustainability benefits focusing on reduced carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions and energy consumption. These results demonstrate the benefits of standardization, replication and digital enablement for multinational businesses.

The research illustrates the ability to design a single system, reproducible for multiple sites. This research also illustrates the beneficial impact of system reuse due to reduced environmental impact from lower CO₂ emissions and energy consumption. The paper assists organizations in deploying complex systems while addressing multinational systems implementation constraints and standardization.

Given the continuing need to study service marketing adaptations that emerged in the wake of Covid-19, this paper aims to look at the formation and evolution of purchase groups (PGs) that arose in Indian gated communities during the pandemic and have continued functioning in the post-pandemic marketplace. Not only did these groups act as much-needed interstitial markets during a time of significant external disruption, but they also served as sites of value co-creation, with consumers collaborating with each other and with service providers.

Using a phenomenological research approach, the authors conducted 22 in-depth interviews with Indian consumers and small service providers to gather accounts of how PGs started and evolved with time. Subsequent data coding and analyses are conducted with NVivo 12.

Using the service ecosystem perspective, the authors illustrate seven distinct themes that capture the nuances of the formation and evolution of PGs. These consist of entrepreneurality, collectivity, and fluidity at the service ecosystem level, hybridity and transactionality at the servicescape level, and mutuality and permeability at the service encounter level.

This study provides an empirical and theoretically grounded account of a long-term service marketing adaptation that has persisted in the post-pandemic marketplace. This helps us address recent calls for such research while also adding to the work on value co-creation in collective consumption contexts and extant discourse on service ecosystems.

This paper presents a new conceptualization of digital service anchored in a coconstitutive ontology of digital “x” phenomena, illuminating the pivotal role of the digital qualifier in the service context. Our objective is to provide a theoretically grounded conceptualization of digital service and its impact on the nature of the value cocreation process that characterizes digital phenomena.

Drawing from scholarly works on digital phenomena and fundamental principles of service-dominant logic, this paper delineates the essence of digital service based on the interplay between digitization and digitalization as well as the operational dynamics of generativity and its constitutive dimensions (architecture, community, governance).

The paper defines digital service as a sociotechnical process of value cocreation, where participants dynamically architect, govern and leverage digital resources. This perspective highlights the organic development of digital service and the prevalence of decentralized control mechanisms. It also underscores how the intersection between generativity’s dimensions—architecture, community and governance—shapes the dynamic evolution and outcomes of digital services.

Our conceptual framework sheds light on our understanding of digital service, offering a foundation to further explore its nature and implications for research and practice, which we illustrate using the case of ChatGPT.

This study aims to examine the effect of application architecture and application efficiency on the intention to continue using Islamic bank with data security as a moderator. The investigation was situated within the framework of a hacker attack that compromised the security of customer data at one of Indonesia’s largest Islamic bank.

A survey questionnaire method was used, and the sample population comprised users of Islamic bank in Indonesia. The respondents were then selected purposively with the criteria of individuals who were using mobile banking services. Furthermore, data collection in this study was carried out by distributing questionnaires online. To validate the questionnaire, consultation and validation were conducted by engaging four experts and conducting a pilot study. Hypothesis testing was performed using the structural equation modeling method based on partial least squares.

The results of the partial least square structural model assessment showed that application efficiency and data security positively influenced the intention to continue using Islamic bank, while application architecture had no effect. Furthermore, data security could not moderate the relationship between application architecture and efficiency toward the intention to continue using Islamic bank.

The results of this study suggested that Islamic banking practitioners must prioritize the enhancement of digital banking services, with a specific focus on improving application efficiency and ensuring robust data security. These two dimensions were critical determinants influencing the intention to continue using Islamic bank.

This study addressed the issue of data security as a moderator, particularly in the context of hacker attacks targeting a major Islamic bank in Indonesia. Furthermore, this current report expounded on the study conducted by Mir et al. (2022) by introducing novel dimensions to the e-service quality of internet banking.

The architectural profession faces an increasingly complex ethical landscape. In recent decades, the ethical foundations for architecture – formally defined in professional codes of conduct and reflected in regulatory frameworks – have expanded to incorporate imperatives derived from environmental and social responsibilities. The present research examines how these expanding ethical expectations are reflected in, and supported by, recent research about architectural ethics.

Analysis is based on a systematic review of recent research (2002–2023) focussing on ethical values and associated behaviours in the architectural profession. The review identifies 37 research articles (from a starting set of 2,483 articles), which are analysed empirically and then qualitatively to draw out views around three types of ethical behaviour. The paper then discusses how these findings align thematically with the evolving ethical needs of architectural practitioners (as defined in the professional codes of ethics and conduct of the RIBA in the UK, AIA in Australia and the AIA in the USA).

While business ethics remains the focus of past research, there has been a rise in research about ethics and social and environmental factors. The content of professional codes reflects this shift, setting the conditions for architects to aspire to increased expectations of environmental and social responsibility.

This article undertakes the first systematic review of recent research about architectural ethics and its alignment with the content of contemporary professional codes. Organised thematically, recent research about ethical values and associated behaviours can offer guidance for the evolving ethical needs of architects.

Despite the relevance of how enterprise architecture (EA) contributes to organizational performance in contemporary digital technology-driven strategic renewal, little is known about the position of EA artifacts. Therefore, this study aims to build an integrative model of EA artifact-enabled EA value supplemented with a research agenda to enhance our understanding further.

This study leveraged grounded theory techniques and a systematic review approach to develop the integrative model and research agenda.

We inductively build a model of the position of EA artifacts in EA value creation. Additionally, we elaborate a research agenda that proposes (1) an investigation of the role of an EA practice in successful strategic change, (2) an examination of how to manage EA practice value generation and (3) longitudinal research to gain insight into the evolution of value creation by EA practices.

This study presents a model of EA artifact-enabled EA value, thereby contributing to our understanding of the mechanisms, inhibitors and success factors associated with EA value. Following our model, the proposed research agenda contains future research areas to help us better understand the mechanisms and interrelatedness of EA practices in highly dynamic environments.

Presently, existing electric car sharing platforms are based on a centralized architecture which are faced with inadequate trust and pricing issues as these platforms requires an intermediary to maintain users’ data and handle transactions between participants. Therefore, this article aims to develop a decentralized peer-to-peer electric car sharing prototype framework that offers trustable and cost transparency.

This study employs a systematic review and data were collected from the literature and existing technical report documents after which content analysis is carried out to identify current problems and state-of-the-art electric car sharing. A use case scenario was then presented to preliminarily validate and show how the developed prototype framework addresses the trust-lessness in electric car sharing via distributed ledger technologies (DLTs).

Findings from this study present a use case scenario that depicts how businesses can design and implement a distributed peer-to-peer electric car sharing platforms based on IOTA technology, smart contracts and IOTA eWallet. Main findings from this study unlock the tremendous potential of DLT to foster sustainable road transportation. By employing a token-based approach this study enables electric car sharing that promotes sustainable road transportation.

Practically the developed decentralized prototype framework provides improved cost transparency and fairness guarantees as it is not based on a centralized price management system. The DLT based decentralized prototype framework aids to orchestrate the incentivize monetization and rewarding mechanisms among participants that share their electric cars enabling them to collaborate towards lessening CO₂ emissions.

The findings advocate that electric vehicle sharing has become an essential component of sustainable road transportation by increasing electric car utilization and decreasing the number of vehicles on the road.

The key novelty of the article is introducing a decentralized prototype framework to be employed to develop an electric car sharing solution without a central control or governance, which improves cost transparency. As compared to prior centralized platforms, the prototype framework employs IOTA technology smart contracts and IOTA eWallet to improve mobility related services.

The primary objective of this article is to examine current procurement, inventory control and management practices in modern healthcare, with a particular focus on the procurement and management of surgical supplies in a prominent public, highly specialized healthcare sector.

This study was conducted in three phases. In Phase 1, the study team interacted with various hospital management stakeholders, including the surgical hospital store, examined the current procurement process and identified challenges. Phase 2 focused on selecting items for a detailed study and collected the qualitative and quantitative details of the store department of the healthcare sector chosen. A detailed study analyzed revenue, output/demand, inventory levels, etc. In Phase 3, a decision-making framework is proposed, and inventory control systems are redesigned and demonstrated for the selected items.

It was observed that the demand for many surgical items had increased significantly over the years due to an increase in disposable/disposable items, while inventories fluctuated widely. Maximum inventory levels varied between 50 and 75%. Storage and availability were important issues for the hospital. It is assumed the hospital adopts the proposed inventory control system. In this case, the benefits can be a saving of 62% of the maximum inventory, 20% of the average stock in the system and optimal use of storage space, improving the performance and productivity of the hospital.

This study can help the healthcare sector administration to develop better systems for the procurement and delivery of common surgical items and efficient resource allocation. It can help provide adequate training to store staff. This study can help improve management/procurement policies, ordering and delivery systems, better service levels, and inventory control of items in the hospital business context. This study can serve as a pilot study to further investigate the overall hospital operations.

This study can help the healthcare sector administration develop better systems for procuring and delivering common surgical items and efficient resource allocation. It can help provide adequate training to store staff. This study can help improve management/procurement policies, ordering and delivery systems, better service levels and inventory control of items in the hospital business context. This study can serve as a pilot study to further investigate the overall hospital operations.

This study is an early attempt to develop a decision framework and inventory control system from the perspective of healthcare inventory management. The gaps identified in real hospital scenarios are investigated, and theoretically based-inventory management strategies are applied and proposed.

In this study, the deployment of an integrated Quality Function Deployment (QFD) decision framework is presented to help cities design targeted strategies to become “smart”. Arguably smart cities leverage advanced technologies to enhance their smartness to improve everyday urban life. To this end, a QFD – Analytic Hierarchy Process – Analytic Network Process (QFD-AHP-ANP) framework is proposed to deliver guidance for selecting the appropriate mix of smart technologies based on the specific smart needs of each city.

The AHP and ANP methods are incorporated into QFD to enhance its methodological robustness in formulating the decision problem. AHP accurately captures and translates the “Voice of the Experts” into prioritized “Smart City” dimensions, while establishing inter-relationships between these dimensions and “Smart City Technologies”. Meanwhile, ANP explores tradeoffs among the technologies, enabling well-informed decisions. The framework’s effectiveness is evaluated through an illustrative application in the city of Thessaloniki.

Applying the framework to this real-world context confirms its practicality and utility, demonstrating its ability to particularize local, social, political, environmental and economic trends through the resulting mix of technologies in smart urban development strategies.

The importance of this study lies in several aspects. Firstly, it introduces a novel QFD decision framework tailored for smart city strategic planning. Secondly, it contributes to the operationalization of the smart city concept by providing guidance for cities to effectively adopt smart technologies. Finally, this study represents a new field of application for QFD, expanding its scope beyond its traditional domains.

This empirical paper investigates how entrepreneurial firms change their business models in the context of internationalization by identifying different forms of business model innovation (BMI) and exploring the interrelationship between BMI and internationalization.

Based on the dynamic states approach of entrepreneurship (Levie and Lichtenstein, 2010), this paper analyses primary and secondary data from nine European firms following a multiple case study approach.

This paper presents four patterns of radical change and eight types of incremental adaption with-in business models in the context of internationalization. We describe these BMI patterns and types, and we also show how they contribute to increasing involvement in international business activities and the internationalization-related triggers that might cause them.

This paper contributes to a better understanding of the BMI process in the course of internationalization. It also highlights the complex interrelationship between BMI and internationalization by building on a progressive theoretical approach.