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This paper aims to propose an approach to examining the long-term impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on business, which presents a unique opportunity to study a hitherto-unavailable business scenario.

A conceptual framework is suggested to study the ability of a service firm to make adaptations to pandemic conditions based on the nature of its services: namely, the act of production and the type of recipient and the predisposed ability of the customer to accept the service firm’s adaptations to social distancing restrictions. Under this framework, it is demonstrated that service adaptations made due to COVID-19 business restrictions and the customers’ acceptance of them determine whether these changes are likely to become permanent.

A classification scheme is developed to determine four classes of service firms’ adaptations to their normal course of business made under pandemic conditions and suggestions given on how to project which adaptations may persist beyond the pandemic and why.

A conceptual framework grounded on Lovelock classification to present projections needs to be empirically tested.

Managerial insights based on the study and suggestions for research on what business practices are most likely to be permanently changed in a post-pandemic world for services are offered.

Using two of Lovelock’s dimensions pertaining to the nature of production and delivery of the service, four categories are proposed based on two characteristics: service adaptability and customer acceptance. The Technology Acceptance Model 2 (TAM2) model is extended to predict service adaptations, which are most likely to become permanent in a post-pandemic world.

The American Sociological Association Communication, Information Technology, and Media Sociology (CITAMS) section has long been concerned with the processes by which social connectedness and solidarity are created in a technology-rich, digitized society. In this chapter, the role of temporal symmetry in facilitating social synchronicity and digital connectedness is explored. Unity through simultaneity, which develops when spatially separated people focus on the same things at the same time, was conceptualized by sociologist Eviatar Zerubavel in a largely pre-digital age (1981) and coined as temporal symmetry. The concept has great relevance for the digital era and helps to explain why social media and digital technology have become so popular, consequential, and, indeed, indispensable in modern everyday life. The chapter explains how temporal symmetry is generated via digital technology in such activities as the viewing of live-streamed events, texting, and synchronous social media use. It examines how the temporal coordination of individuals’ streams of thought and internal rhythms can result in interpersonal similarity, like-mindedness, shared identities, and social synchronicity. Finally, it discusses the impact of these phenomena on digital connectedness, social life, and society in a digital age, contributing to the body of research CITAMS is committed to developing in helping the academy and the general public understand the impact of communication, information technology, and media on people’s techno-social lives.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an understanding of process improvement team member perceptions regarding the effectiveness of asynchronous e‐collaboration.

A field‐based, two‐phase canonical action research study was conducted at two different sites. Data were obtained from observations and interviews of all team members. Media synchronicity theory was utilized to hypothesize the interplay of media capabilities, task communication processes, and team functions.

Eight primarily virtual teams solved complex problems and provided feedback on the effectiveness of various communications media. The results support media synchronicity theory.

Media synchronicity theory provides an alternative explanation for studies both supporting and contradicting media richness theory. The teams in this study were newly formed. Further investigation of established teams and other contexts is warranted.

For complex problem‐solving tasks performed by newly formed teams, communications media with low synchronicity (e.g. listserv, e‐mail, bulletin board) may be appropriate for conveyance of information; whereas media with high synchronicity (e.g. face‐to‐face, telephone) may be more desirable for convergence on shared meaning.

As geographic, temporal, and cost constraints move organizations toward virtual team work for increasingly complex tasks, research is warranted on effective utilization of available communication technology for solving business problems without face‐to‐face communication. This research paper examines the issue through an emerging theoretical lens, media synchronicity theory, and suggests a new proposition.

Digital communication technologies have become ubiquitous for various firm processes related to international business (IB) and global strategy. However, IB and strategy scholars lack an encompassing and theory-based typology of these technologies that facilitates analysis and discussion of their uses and effects. Likewise, managers have a large choice of technologies at their disposal making it difficult to determine what technology to use in different IB areas. This paper aims to develop a typology of digital communication technologies based on the synchronicity and interactivity of these technologies and capture their fundamental social and temporal dimensions. This results in four ideal types: broadcasting, corresponding, aggregating and collaborating technologies.

This is a conceptual paper incorporating theoretical perspectives to theorize about four ideal types of digital communication technologies. A subsequent empirical test of this typology has been provided in the appendix.

The authors discuss how the typology might be applied in IB decisions and some of the contingencies that impact this choice. Building on that, the authors develop directions for future research to increase their understanding of the use of digital communication technologies to help improve IB functions. Overall, the authors suggest future research explores contingencies about where and when different types of digital communication technologies should be used. Finally, the authors provide implication of having a unified typology for both academics and managers.

The authors offer a robust framework for thinking about and capturing different types of digital communication technologies that can be applied by researchers and used by managers when making decisions related to IB. The authors also provide some initial testing of the typology with a three-country study design helping to determine its validity.

Longer life expectancy brings a new phenomenon: senior entrepreneurship. Whereas starting a business involves investing energy, time, money or other types of resources, ageing is somewhat incompatible with these terms. Research on the impact of time perception on the entrepreneurial process is rather scarce. Considering the lack of knowledge related to the impact of time perception on the entrepreneurship process, this study aims to answer the following research question: how does temporal perception influence the entrepreneurial process?

Senior entrepreneurs are the most relevant category of individuals from which the impact of time perception could be observed, as they are objectively closer to the end of their careers than younger entrepreneurs. Therefore, longitudinal research was conducted by interviewing five senior entrepreneurs at 4-year intervals.

Results show that there are two types of temporal perception in entrepreneurship: temporal perception of the entrepreneur's career and temporal perception of the enterprise's development. When these two-time perspectives are not synchronized with the entrepreneur's vision, the entrepreneur develops strategies for seeking to re-establish synchronicity between the temporal perspective (TP) of their entrepreneurial career and that of the business development. The senior entrepreneur is distinguished from a traditional entrepreneur by a limited TP of their entrepreneurial career combined with the notions of bridge employment and generativity.

The number of cases under study did not allow us to examine every possible type of situation. The sampling of the cases under study did not offer great diversity in terms of gender, as the study had only men. However, the range of ages at startup, from 50 to 65 years, provides greater diversity, as does the range of business segments that included the service, manufacturing and retail food industries.

Entrepreneurs with a limited career time perspective correspond to senior entrepreneurs, while others who have an open career prospect, regardless of their age, correspond to any other form of an entrepreneur. This study has also been able to identify that an entrepreneur who realizes their limited entrepreneurial career horizon and perceives a temporal purpose of their company in the service of the involved parties tends to plan the entrepreneurial exit phase.

Enabled by pronounced advancement in technology, branded apps have dramatically changed how consumers communicate with brands. However, despite the proliferation of mobile apps, brands are struggling to engage users. Without engagement, a mobile app is unable to attract continued usage and brands are unable to establish relationships with consumers. Grounded in construal level theory, this study aims to adopt a fresh perspective to examine the determinants of psychological distance, which plays a key role in branded app engagement.

An online survey with valid data from 396 app users of UberEats, Foodpanda, 7-11 and FamilyMart in Taiwan was conducted.

Perceived synchronicity, localization, homophily, ease of use and design aesthetics are the key determinants that drive branded app engagement, which, in turn, facilitates continuous app usage intention, a positive brand attitude and brand loyalty.

This study contributes to the literature by revealing the five determinants of psychological distance that exert impacts on the establishment of branded app engagement. This research provides valuable findings that practitioners can emphasize to drive branded app engagement.

Synchronicity was coined by Jung in 1955 to refer to the meaningful and acausal, or chance, correlation between an inner and outer event. Insofar as creativity is dependent upon chance for novelty, then creativity and synchronicity may have a supportive relationship. This paper uses narrative to explore the role of paradox in meaning, in chance, and in creativity. The nature of synchronicity, the relationship between synchronicity and creativity, and the implications of this relationship for management are discussed. Such implications include encouraging multiple points of view, understanding the role of emotion in creativity, allowing for movement across metaphorical and physical boundaries, honoring the body, and maintaining a lightness (with humor zand joy) with which to adapt to inevitable “accidents”.

Marketing researchers currently lack a systematic and empirical understanding of digital social viewing strategies. Drawing on social impact theory, this study aims to investigate if and how firm-initiated digital social viewing strategies (livestreaming vs pre-recorded) influence consumer viewing experiences and consequential behavioral intentions.

A scenario-based experiment was conducted with 462 participants. The study involved social viewing strategies in a new product launch context. Data were analyzed using structural equation modeling.

This study demonstrates that social influence cues (social presence and synchronicity) inherent in a livestreaming strategy induce a more authentic consumer viewing experience than a pre-recorded strategy, which in turn increases consumers’ searching and subscribing intention. However, a company’s social viewing strategy does not moderate the effect of search and subscribe intention on purchase intention.

This study extends the application of social impact theory by showing that social presence and synchronicity impact authentic consumer viewing experiences, which influence consumers’ searching, subscribing and purchasing intention.

This study validates the importance of using social viewing as a viable digital marketing strategy for practitioners. The paper provides marketers ways to increase consumer purchase intention via livestreaming marketing content, particularly for new products.

This study extends the traditional research on social viewing into the realm of digital social viewing. It is among the first to delineate the advantages of both livestreaming and pre-recorded social viewing approaches.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how visual aesthetic referents used in branding can help foster a transnational imagined community (TIC). The authors use brands embedded with Middle Eastern visual aesthetics as a research context. As such, the study aims to examine how Middle Eastern non-figurative art is used by non-Middle Eastern brands to foster an imagined Middle Easternness.

Through a critical visual analysis, the authors apply a visual social semiotic approach to Middle Eastern art canons to better understand the dimensions of transnational imagined communities.

The study finds and discusses six sub-dimensions of Middle Easternness, which compose two overarching dimensions of TIC, namely, temporal and spatial. These sub-dimensions provide brand managers and designers with six different ways to foster transnational imagined communities through the use of visual aesthetic referents in branding.

This research identifies the specific visual sub-dimensions of brands that enable transnational communities to be imagined.

Understanding the visual aesthetic sub-dimensions in this study provides brand managers with practical tools that can help develop referents that foster transnational imagined communities in brand building to achieve competitive advantage and reach a transnational segment.

Prior studies have primarily focussed on how visual aesthetics help in understanding issues related to national identity. In contrast, this paper examines the use of visual aesthetics in branding from a transnational perspective.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the features and tendency of cost indices in the global construction setting.

Data from 22 countries/regions are collected and analyzed using maximum variance formulation and Kendall rank correlation coefficient.

It is found that global construction cost indexes (CCIs) have commonly maintained a steady increase for decades, and the CCIs synchronize with each other. Overall synchronicity and synchronicity of different countries pairs have increased with time significantly.

The major limitation, however, is the availability of data: only 22 regions/countries are examined, the distribution of these regions/countries is imbalanced between different continents and various indices are adopted around the world, of which statistical methods are not same.

The implication is that a better perception of CCIs enables contractors to have a robust estimation for bidding prices and to improve the efficiency of construction projects management. The research findings also provide a useful reference for those countries that have not established construction cost indices databases to forecast the tendency of domestic construction industries.

This paper contributes to the overall body of knowledge by presenting the co-movement of global CCIs and measuring the changes of CCI synchronicity with time and in different countries pairs.