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This paper identifies exigent factors that enable and constrain trust building in a science-based innovation ecosystem.

Set in the Northeast England, this study adopts a processual sensemaking approach to thematically analyse interviews with a diverse range of participants in six science-based SMEs.

The findings provide a unique exposition of trust building in an innovation ecosystem across geographic and platform relationships. In doing so, the findings highlight factors outside of contractual agreements that enable or constrain trust building in an innovation ecosystem.

Limitations centred on subjectivity in the use of thematic analysis, sample bias and size. Sampling limitations were mitigated through the research design and analysis.

The findings provide unique insights into understanding the exigent factors that enable or constrain trust building in a science-based innovation ecosystem.

The study identifies five exigent factors that constrain or enable trust building in science-based SMEs' innovation ecosystem at a micro-level – building network relationships, degree of novelty, protection of innovations, propensity for adding value, propensity for risk.

The purpose of this systematic narrative review is to discourse on vision and organizational performance. By analysing work-life and organization studies journals, the authors respond to a call to view the process of visioning more holistically.

The methodological approach is a discourse-oriented qualitative content analysis. The authors explore visioning through an epistemological lens, which emphasizes both the connections and differences between “traditional” philosophical approaches.

The findings show how the different interpretations of vision and related concepts are tied to the following themes: clarity, causality, embodiment and sensory experiences and actionability.

Through the frameworks of scientific realism and relativism, the authors illustrate novel insights into the ways in which visioning occupies a place in knowledge management.

Recent research into communities of practice (CoPs) has focused on large organizations, suggesting they can be constructed for the purposes of knowledge acquisition and innovation. The present study found that, for science-based SMEs, CoPs are more likely to emerge unplanned to support incremental innovation in the form of problem-solving activities. This paper aims to discuss these points.

Deploying a social constructionist research methodology, thematic template analysis was used to analyze 25 in-depth interviews conducted with a range of employees in six science-based SMEs.

Both intra and inter-organizational CoPs were leveraged for a variety of purposes, including knowledge acquisition and the enhancement of the organizations' ability to generate innovative solutions.

Whilst there is no claim for the representativeness of the sample in relation to the wider population of science-based firms, the paper offers new material and theorizing in a domain which has been dominated to date by a focus upon large organizations and a managerialist orientation.

A contextualized framework for the construction of CoPs in science-based SMEs has been developed from the findings of this study.

The role of CoPs in science-based SMEs and the factors that influence their success or failure have been neglected to date, and thus have received little attention in the literature. Yet CoPs, as we found, can contribute to knowledge acquisition and innovation.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the behaviour response of computer users when either phishing e‐mails or genuine e‐mails arrive in their inbox. The paper describes how this research was conducted and presents and discusses the findings.

This study was a scenario‐based role‐play experiment that involved the development of a web‐based questionnaire that was only accessible by invited participants when they attended a one‐hour, facilitated session in a computer laboratory.

The findings indicate that overall, genuine e‐mails were managed better than phishing e‐mails. However, informed participants managed phishing e‐mails better than not‐informed participants. Other findings show how familiarity with computers, cognitive impulsivity and personality traits affect behavioural responses to both types of e‐mail.

This study does not claim to evaluate actual susceptibility to phishing emails. The subjects were University students and therefore the conclusions are not necessarily representative of the general population of e‐mail users.

The outcomes of this research would assist management in their endeavours to improve computer user behaviour and, as a result, help to mitigate risks to their organisational information systems.

The literature review indicates that this paper addresses a genuine gap in the research.

The aim of this paper is, first, to discuss how the risk perceptions of computer end‐users may be influenced by improving the process of risk communication by embedding symbols and graphics within information security messages. The second aim is to describe some pilot study research that the authors have conducted in an attempt to ascertain whether the embedding of symbols and graphics within information security messages achieves a shift in the risk perceptions of computer end‐users.

Two pilot studies were undertaken. The objective of each study was to establish whether the embedding of a relevant graphic relating to some known aspect of information security, when placed inside an information security message, would have any influence on the information security risk perceptions of any individual to whom the message was being communicated. In both studies, the method of eliciting a response from each participant involved the use of a type of semantic differential (SD) grid.

On completing an analysis of the responses to the SD grid survey for both studies, no statistically significant differences were detected between the groups with respect to any of the six relevant scales. Nevertheless, it seems that the differences were large enough for the present authors to be convinced that the SD measures used are an appropriate survey technique for future studies in a workplace environment.

The research subjects (i.e. survey participants) for both pilot studies were students of the University of South Australia. There are many ways in which information risk communication could be made more effective and this paper only attempts to show how graphics and symbols could be used to convey risk messages more effectively. This paper does not in any way attempt to provide any “silver‐bullet” solutions for management in terms of what they can do towards managing information risk.

The ultimate objective of this research is to subsequently advise management on how they can communicate information risk simply and more effectively to achieve the final outcome, i.e. the mitigation of actual risks.

It is believed that, if the effectiveness of the various forms of risk communication within an organisation can be increased, then the general perception of the risks to the information systems will be more realistic.

The end-user has frequently been identified as the weakest link; however, motivated by the fact that different users react differently to the same stimuli, identifying the reasons behind variations in security behavior and why certain users could be “at risk” more than others is a step toward protecting and defending users against security attacks. This paper aims to explore the effect of personality trait variations (through the Big Five Inventory [BFI]) on users’ risk level of their intended security behaviors. In addition, age, gender, service usage and information technology (IT) proficiency are analyzed to identify what role and impact they have on behavior.

The authors developed a quantitative-oriented survey that was implemented online. The bi-variate Pearson two-tailed correlation was used to analyze survey responses.

The results obtained by analyzing 538 survey responses suggest that personality traits do play a significant role in affecting users’ security behavior risk levels. Furthermore, the results suggest that BFI score of a trait has a significant effect as users’ online personality is linked to their offline personality, especially in the conscientiousness personality trait. Additionally, this effect was stronger when personality was correlated with the factors of IT proficiency, gender, age and online activity.

The contributions of this paper are two-fold. First, with the aid of a large population sample, end-users’ security practice is assessed from multiple domains, and relationships were found between end-users’ risk-taking behavior and nine user-centric factors. Second, based upon these findings, the predictive ability for these user-centric factors were evaluated to determine the level of risk a user is subject to from an individual behavior perspective. Of 28 behaviors, 11 were found to have a 60 per cent or greater predictive ability, with the highest classification of 92 per cent for several behaviors. This provides a basis for organizations to use behavioral intent alongside personality traits and demographics to understand and, therefore, manage the human aspects of risk.

This study examines employees' learning preferences in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) at different life-cycle stages.

The study has two phases. Phase I classified a sample of 30 Hong Kong SMEs into three different life-cycle stages (inception, high growth or maturity). Phase II then explored/compared their employees' learning practices in terms of importance using a mixed-method design through an online learning questionnaire followed by face-to-face semi-structured interviews.

Based on a list of 32 learning practices common to SME workplaces, the study identified how SME employees perceive the importance of a learning practice. The top 5 and the bottom 5 learning practices in SMEs across life-cycle stages are presented to promote best interests for SME executives.

While SME learning is highly varied, this study sheds light on some traceable context about it as an SME grows. Similar studies with additional SMEs, including SMEs in other locations, are encouraged to strengthen the findings.

The findings help SME executives understand what learning practices are most important (or least important) for their employees, given the life-cycle stage of the firm. Aligning a business with employees' learning preferences in a timely fashion is a managerial decision to be made for driving organizational effectiveness.

It is among the first studies connecting employee learning in SMEs and organizational life cycle to address a critical but missing inquiry.