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Open Access
Article
Publication date: 17 April 2024

Stefan Mann

The paper intends to show why farms as we know them today may soon be a thing of the past and that organisational behaviour research has an important contribution to make in…

Abstract

Purpose

The paper intends to show why farms as we know them today may soon be a thing of the past and that organisational behaviour research has an important contribution to make in assisting the upcoming transformation.

Design/methodology/approach

Two strains of literature are reviewed and then synthesised: the literature on robots replacing humans in agricultural production and the literature on vertical integration that shifts decisions to agribusiness. Then the potential contribution of organisational behaviour research is outlined.

Findings

It is shown how the farm is likely to lose both roles for which their geographic entity is important: making decisions and carrying out production. This requires contributions from organisational behaviour research in the realms of decision designs and social systems.

Social implications

It can be anticipated that the most profitable strategy for farmland owners in the future will be collaboration with contractors. Farms as organisations, are increasingly losing their importance. This not only has grave social implications for farmworkers and landowners but also for scholars in organisational behaviour research.

Originality/value

The paper challenges an organisational unit that is so familiar to us that it is rarely questioned.

Details

International Journal of Organization Theory & Behavior, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1093-4537

Keywords

Open Access
Book part
Publication date: 14 December 2023

Lorenz Holler

Family constitutions are relatively new to the law of family companies, although there might have been forerunners in the history of entrepreneur families. The practical…

Abstract

Family constitutions are relatively new to the law of family companies, although there might have been forerunners in the history of entrepreneur families. The practical importance and the proliferation of family constitutions in German family companies are increasing, along with the discussion of family constitutions in legal literature. This new instrument of family governance is not law driven but business driven, it has been designed by business advisors. Its analysis and classification are still at the very beginning in academic research and practice. Even though family constitutions are generally deemed to be without any legal effect and not legally binding, from a legal point of view, this assumption is at least highly questionable.

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 25 December 2023

N. Orkun Baycik and Shimon Gowda

This article aims to understand where industry is in terms of digitalizing their operations, what features of this transformation are essential for practitioners, and what…

1394

Abstract

Purpose

This article aims to understand where industry is in terms of digitalizing their operations, what features of this transformation are essential for practitioners, and what barriers they are facing during their journey. In addition, the authors aim to provide recommendations for organization to start their digital transformation.

Design/methodology/approach

Through literature review, the authors summarize the emerging tools and technologies in operations and supply chains to inform the practitioners. Then, the authors use surveys conducted on 183 operations and supply chain professionals, and use statistical tools to examine the association between variables of the data set. The authors present real-life case studies to explain important steps of a digital transformation project.

Findings

The survey results indicate that real-time monitoring and data analytics are viewed as the most important and needed tools for organizations. High cost, lack of stakeholder buy-in and lack of successful business use cases are major barriers for companies when starting a digital transformation.

Practical implications

The authors provide recommendations for practitioners based on the survey responses, and outline that starting small, focusing on stakeholder buy-in and implementation of software are the three key steps for a successful transformation journey.

Originality/value

Main contributions of this article are to understand practitioner perspectives in digitalization and provide guidelines for organizations to follow when transforming their operations. This research closes the gap between academic research and practice by collaborating with operations and supply chain professionals.

Details

Digital Transformation and Society, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2755-0761

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 14 March 2024

Marcel Peppel, Stefan Spinler and Matthias Winkenbach

The e-commerce boom presents new challenges for last-mile delivery (LMD), which may be mitigated by new delivery technologies. This paper evaluates the impact of mobile parcel…

Abstract

Purpose

The e-commerce boom presents new challenges for last-mile delivery (LMD), which may be mitigated by new delivery technologies. This paper evaluates the impact of mobile parcel lockers (MPL) on costs and CO2 equivalent (CO2e) emissions in existing LMD networks, which include home delivery and shipments to stationary parcel lockers.

Design/methodology/approach

To describe customers’ preferences, we design a multinomial logit model based on recipients’ travel distance to pick-up locations and availability at home. Based on route cost estimation, we define the operating costs for MPLs. We devise a mathematical model with binary decision variables to optimize the location of MPLs.

Findings

Our study demonstrates that integrating MPLs leads to additional cost savings of 8.7% and extra CO2e emissions savings of up to 5.4%. Our analysis of several regional clusters suggests that MPLs yield benefits in highly populous cities but may result in additional emissions in more rural areas where recipients drive longer distances to pick-ups.

Originality/value

This paper designs a suitable operating model for MPLs and demonstrates environmental and economic savings. Moreover, it adds recipients’ availability at home to receive parcels improving the accuracy of stochastic demand. In addition, MPLs are evaluated in the context of several regional clusters ranging from large cities to rural areas. Thus, we provide managerial guidance to logistics service providers how and where to deploy MPLs.

Details

International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0960-0035

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 10 February 2023

Zala Metelko and Jasna Maver

This study investigates how important the preprint arXiv is for Slovenian scientists, whether there are differences between scientific disciplines and the reputation of arXiv…

Abstract

Purpose

This study investigates how important the preprint arXiv is for Slovenian scientists, whether there are differences between scientific disciplines and the reputation of arXiv among Slovenian scientists. We are also interested in what advantages and disadvantages scientists see in using arXiv.

Design/methodology/approach

A voluntary sample of active researchers from the scientific fields covered by arXiv was used. Data were collected over 21 days in September 2021 using a 40-question online survey. In addition to descriptive statistics, nonparametric statistical methods such as Pearson's chi-squared test for independence, Kruskal-Wallis' H-test and Mann-Whitney's U-test were applied to the collected data.

Findings

Among Slovenian scientists there is a wide range of different users of arXiv. The authors note differences among scientific disciplines. Physicists and astronomers are the most engaged, followed by mathematicians. Researchers in computer science, electrical engineering and systems science seem to have recognized the benefits of the archive, but are still hesitant to use it. Researchers from the other scientific fields participated in the survey to a lesser extent, suggesting that arXiv is less popular in these scientific fields. For Slovenian scientists, the main advantages of arXiv are faster access to knowledge, open access, greater impact of scientists' work and the fact that publishing in the archive is free of charge. A negative aspect of using the archive is the frustration caused by the difficulties in assessing the credibility of articles.

Research limitations/implications

A voluntary sample was used, which attracted a larger number of researchers but has a higher risk of sampling bias.

Practical implications

The results are useful for international comparisons, but also provide bases and recommendations for institutional and national policies to evaluate researchers and their performance.

Originality/value

The results provide valuable insights into arXiv usage habits and the reasons for using or not using arXiv by Slovenian scientists. There is no comparable study conducted in Slovenia.

Details

Journal of Documentation, vol. 79 no. 7
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0022-0418

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 3 October 2023

Anna Sokolova, Polina Lobanova and Ilya Kuzminov

The purpose of the paper is to present an integrated methodology for identifying trends in a particular subject area based on a combination of advanced text mining and expert…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of the paper is to present an integrated methodology for identifying trends in a particular subject area based on a combination of advanced text mining and expert methods. The authors aim to test it in an area of clinical psychology and psychotherapy in 2010–2019.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors demonstrate the way of applying text-mining and the Word2Vec model to identify hot topics (HT) and emerging trends (ET) in clinical psychology and psychotherapy. The analysis of 11.3 million scientific publications in the Microsoft Academic Graph database revealed the most rapidly growing clinical psychology and psychotherapy terms – those with the largest increase in the number of publications reflecting real or potential trends.

Findings

The proposed approach allows one to identify HT and ET for the six thematic clusters related to mental disorders, symptoms, pharmacology, psychotherapy, treatment techniques and important psychological skills.

Practical implications

The developed methodology allows one to see the broad picture of the most dynamic research areas in the field of clinical psychology and psychotherapy in 2010–2019. For clinicians, who are often overwhelmed by practical work, this map of the current research can help identify the areas worthy of further attention to improve the effectiveness of their clinical work. This methodology might be applied for the identification of trends in any other subject area by taking into account its specificity.

Originality/value

The paper demonstrates the value of the advanced text-mining approach for understanding trends in a subject area. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, for the first time, text-mining and the Word2Vec model have been applied to identifying trends in the field of clinical psychology and psychotherapy.

Details

foresight, vol. 26 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1463-6689

Keywords

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