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Although crowd logistics (CL) is a promising digital solution, its future development remains uncertain. This paper aims to suggest multiple possible futures of CL in terms of business relationships and value co-creation between manufacturers and digital platforms.

This paper offers a systemic and multistakeholder approach related to the field of strategic foresight, based on the scenario method. The scenarios construction involved 22 participants (practitioners, academic researchers and foresight experts).

Four scenarios emerged from the strategic foresight study. For each scenario, the configuration, diffusion and coordination of CL – as well as the balance of power between manufacturers, digital platforms and customers – are specified.

The foresight analysis reveals not one certain future, but multiple potential business configurations and research avenues related to the development of CL.

The adopted multistakeholders perspective, including macro factors, regarding CL allows business-to-business (B2B) managers to rethink its potential. Managers can use the scenarios to consider multiple types of coordination with digital platforms and its implication for value co-creation.

This paper provides insights into social changes that may constitute drivers and consequences of the development of CL and identifies two forms of coupling that may drive the development of CL: regulation–social transformation and technology–environment.

This research contributes to IMP research on B2B relationships in digital contexts, by showing that CL presents an opportunity for the co-creation of distribution value in a B2B environment.

The purpose of this paper is to deal with business-to-business distribution, with a strong focus on the relationships developed by a distributor with its customers and its producers.

This paper is based on an in-depth analysis of a wholesaler specialized in fresh fruit and vegetable distribution. Data were gathered on the basis of 18 in-depth interviews. An additional important work of second-order data analysis was also conducted (sector analyses; statistics; companies’ Web sites).

This paper qualifies the different stages a wholesaler goes through in the relationships with its suppliers on the one side and its customers on the other. This work also identifies the nature of the impact of one type of relationship (wholesalers/producers) on the other (wholesalers/customers).

The findings allow distribution firms to view distribution channels as places where they can have some latitude to find new positions other than the ones imposed by producers.

This research uses different concepts connected with triadic settings (dynamics, triggers and interconnectedness) and integrates them to provide a new perspective on how a business-to-business distributor can take a position in a distribution channel.

The purpose of this paper is to devise recommendations for firms to formulate modes of value capture for their product innovations, ex ante. More specifically, the research question is: how can innovators try to maximize, ex ante, the appropriation of the rent they can derive from their innovating projects?

A theoretical framework is developed and proposed to assess modes of value capture of product innovations and two illustrations are provided to show how the framework can work in practice for innovation projects.

This paper presents a practitioner's view based on the development of an original concept of rent configuration and appropriable rent.

In terms of research limitations, the possible endogeneity of intellectual property protection and the timing of were not considered.

The framework allows a set of predictions regarding modes of value capture for product innovators.

The paper's contribution lies in the proposal of an integrative framework based on the concept of rent configuration, separating analytically three dimensions of innovation value, namely volume, profit and duration. This concept allows the authors to present a richer set of recommendations in comparison to previous frameworks, in order to avoid adopting the form of a yes/no decision tree that tends to over simplify the issues at stake. The authors also contemplate not only erosion effects, but also amplification effects on the rent, which constitutes another contribution of this paper.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of the symmetrical disposition of information items displayed on the front of product packaging on perceived complexity, perceptual fluency, aesthetic evaluation and product purchase intention.

A sample of 104 participants was exposed to fast-moving consumer goods packaging. A within-subject design experiment was carried out to assess the influence of the symmetrical disposition of information items displayed on the front of the packaging. ANOVA and a PROCESS procedure to assess mediation (Hayes, 2013) examined the relationships among the factors influenced by symmetry.

This study found that the symmetrical disposition of information items around the vertical axis (mirror symmetry) decreased visual complexity and highlighted an “indirect-only mediation” of visual complexity on the aesthetic evaluation of the packaging through processing fluency. This research also highlighted the fact that packaging aesthetic evaluation had a positive influence on purchase intention.

This study extends knowledge on package design by showing that the elements on which the producer can act (in this case, symmetry on the front of packaging) have an influence on the consumer’s evaluation of the product and intention to purchase.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between virtual meeting participation and wellbeing. Based on the conservation of resources theory, we hypothesize that participation in more virtual meetings is associated with both negative and positive wellbeing indicators.

An online survey was sent to 3,530 employees across five Belgian universities in April 2020. Useful data from 814 respondents was collected and analyzed to test the hypothesized relationships.

The authors find support for their hypotheses, namely that participating in more virtual meetings is associated not only with negative wellbeing indicators (workload, stress and fatigue) but also with a positive wellbeing indicator, namely work influence.

Given the unique work-from-home context during the pandemic, the generalizability of our findings may be limited. Nevertheless, this study contributes to the literature on Meeting Science and Virtual Work, as it is the first study to empirically relate virtual meetings to wellbeing indicators, including a positive one.

As virtual meetings and work-from-home are expected to remain prevalent, understanding wellbeing implications is of high managerial importance. Their findings can be useful for (HR) managers who develop flexible work policies for a post-pandemic world.

The findings draw attention to the importance of maintaining a healthy balance between productivity and wellbeing in creating a sustainable work(-from-home) context.

The COVID-19 lockdown provided a unique opportunity to obtain insight on the relationship between virtual meetings and wellbeing at an unprecedented scale.

Identifies five features which distinguish the millennial generation (or Generation Y), focusing on young people aged 18 to 24: intimacy, loyalty, awareness, balance, and risk. Examines each of these: intimacy refers to the reliance of millennials on mobile phones and the internet to initiate as well as maintain friendships; loyalty is to friends rather than to mainstream corporate culture; awareness is of the manipulation that much traditional advertising involves; balance is of “unsocial” hours into a 24 hour culture; and risk reflects the fact that millennials are not free agents but are subject to change such as the dotcom bubble burst. Relates these features to advertising concerns such as brand loyalty, advertising to brand aware and cynical millennials, “cause‐branding” (ie linking brands with worthy causes), and globalism.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the precarious nature of creative industries (CIs) work in Australia, Canada and the Netherlands, with a focus on job security, initial and on-going training and education, and access to benefits and protection.

The paper reports from a largely qualitative study featuring an in-depth survey answered by 752 creative workers in the three locations.

Survey data identified common themes including an increase in non-standard forms of employment and the persistence of precarious work across the career lifespan; criticism of initial education and training with particular reference to business skills; the need for and challenges of life-long professional learning; and lack of awareness about and access to benefits and protection. Respondents also reported multiple roles across and beyond the CIs.

The presence of common themes suggests avenues for future, targeted creative workforce research and signals the need for change and action by CIs educators, policy makers and representative organizations such as trade unions.

While precarious labour is common across the CIs and has attracted the attention of researchers worldwide, a lack of comparative studies has made it difficult to identify themes or issues that are common across multiple locations.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how managers deal with religious diversity in secular organizations in France.

In total, 28 semi-structured in-depth interviews with managers in France were conducted, transcribed and analyzed.

The findings reveal three distinct strategies. First, the authors identified a “flexibility within the rules” strategy in which managers try to accommodate religious practices by making allowances, create mutual understanding and trust. Second, a “separation strategy” emerged in which managers keep work and religion clearly separated. Those managers expressed a strong adherence to rules and perceived the implementation of allowances difficult not only for their own organization but also in light of third parties with whom they worked. Third, the findings reveal a “common-ground” strategy in which managers stressed the communalities between individual workers, downplayed their differences and sought to create a strong corporate culture to which all employees could relate.

The expression of religious beliefs in the workplace is increasing. However, little is known about how managers deal with the perceived clash of secularism and the presence of different religions in the workplace. Implications for managers such as taking into account perceptions of justice, practical issues as well as the importance of communication and education are discussed.

Religion is a deep-level and understudied aspect of diversity management that deserves more attention given the increase in religious diversity in the workplace.