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The purpose of this paper is to present a formal framework of vulnerability to climate change, to address the conceptual confusion around vulnerability and related concepts.

The framework was developed using the method of formalisation – making structure explicit. While mathematics as a precise and general language revealed common structures in a large number of vulnerability definitions and assessments, the framework is here presented by diagrams for a non‐mathematical audience.

Vulnerability, in ordinary language, is a measure of possible future harm. Scientific vulnerability definitions from the fields of climate change, poverty, and natural hazards share and refine this structure. While theoretical definitions remain vague, operational definitions, that is, methodologies for assessing vulnerability, occur in three distinct types: evaluate harm for projected future evolutions, evaluate the current capacity to reduce harm, or combine the two. The framework identifies a lack of systematic relationship between theoretical and operational definitions.

While much conceptual literature tries to clarify vulnerability, formalisation is a new method in this interdisciplinary field. The resulting framework is an analytical tool which supports clear communication: it helps when making assumptions explicit. The mismatch between theoretical and operational definitions is not made explicit in previous work.

Purpose – Stryker's identity theory has impacted sociological social psychology for a half century and still inspires an active research agenda. To date, however, its terms and arguments have not been analyzed closely. Our purpose with this project was to conduct such an analysis.

Design/Methodology/Approach – We provide a detailed rationale for our analytic method that entails an objective examination of a theory's clarity, parsimony, precision, and other essential scientific qualities. It is applied using procedures that, among other functions, check terms for clarity and consistency of usage, and ensure that key arguments are logically valid.

Findings – The analysis revealed significant gaps and ambiguities in the core theory. We offered a series of recommendations designed to supply missing logical elements, clarify definitions, and streamline the terminological system. We sought to remain true to the original theory's purposes while further strengthening its coherence, transparency, and overall utility.

Practical Implications – Kurt Lewin's famous maxim applies well here: “Nothing is so practical as a good theory.” To the extent that a body of research is claimed to be theory-driven, gaps and ambiguities throw into question the results of empirical tests and applications that ostensibly are backed by the theory. Without theoretical support, findings are neither meaningful nor generalizable.

Social Implications – A logically sound and semantically transparent identity theory will have the greatest chance for making real differences in society via practical applications.

Originality/Value of the Chapter – We offer a straightforward method to ensure meaningfulness and integrity in social science theories. Such analyses are rare, but we hope that their utility for theory-driven research programs such as identity theory's is evident.

Research on employee non-/compliance to information security policies suffers from inconsistent results and there is an ongoing discussion about the dominating survey research methodology and its potential effect on these results. This study aims to add to this discussion by investigating discrepancies between what the authors claim to measure (theoretical properties of variables) and what they actually measure (respondents’ interpretations of the operationalized variables). This study asks: How well do respondents’ interpretations of variables correspond to their theoretical definitions? What are the characteristics of any discrepancies between variable definitions and respondent interpretations?

This study is based on in-depth interviews with 17 respondents from the Swedish public sector to understand how they interpret questionnaire measurement items operationalizing the variables Perceived Severity from Protection Motivation Theory and Attitude from Theory of Planned Behavior.

The authors found that respondents’ interpretations in many cases differ substantially from the theoretical definitions. Overall, the authors found four principal ways in which respondents interpreted measurement items – referred to as property contextualization, extension, alteration and oscillation – each implying more or less (dis)alignment with the intended theoretical properties of the two variables examined.

The qualitative method used proved vital to better understand respondents’ interpretations which, in turn, is key for improving self-reporting measurement instruments. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is a first step toward understanding how precise and uniform definitions of variables’ theoretical properties can be operationalized into effective measurement items.

Scholars in the field of higher education take many approaches to apply theory in empirical research. However, this wide array of theoretical applications has prompted confusion among scholars who seek to integrate and understand how theory is situated in higher education research. This chapter explores the conceptualization, application, and visibility of theory in higher education research by presenting discourse from field leaders and discussing methodological definitions of theory, theoretical frameworks, and conceptual frameworks. Additionally, we conducted a summative content analysis of 239 empirical articles from the Review of Higher Education over a 10-year period, with the goal of understanding how theories were framed and applied in a subset of research. We conclude by reiterating the importance of theory in the study of higher education and providing strategies for effective theory application.

Addresses the UK accounting definition of an asset from a practical, theoretical and critical perspective. It suggests that it is a flawed definition in need of change. The accounting definition (UK and US) recognises assets arising from a “transaction or event”, a basis which, inter alia, is inadequate for the task of recognising often hugely valuable, internally created assets, such as brands, software and research patents. As providers of financial information to management, the accounting profession has a duty to account for all the tangible and intangible assets of a business. However, as this paper shows, there are many practical circumstances in which it fails in this task.

The purpose of this paper is to gather the current definitions of supply chain management in practical and analytical usage, to develop standards for assessing definitions and to apply these standards to the most readily available definitions of the term.

In this research, the authors gathered the current definitions of supply chain management in practical and analytical usage from journals, textbooks, universities, and industry associations and online.

The research ends with proposed definitions for consideration. Discussion and areas for future research are included.

Involved organizations, supply chain management programs in higher education, and professional and certifying organizations in the field need to meet and work together to research consensus on the final definition of the field, realizing that definitions can evolve, but also recognizing that a starting point is needed in this rapidly growing area.

The authors argue, quite simply, that a consensus definition of supply chain management is unlikely as long as we continue offering and accepting definitions that are technically unsound. Many of the current definitions violate several principles of good definitions. For these reasons, they are either empty, too restrictive, or too expansive. Until we come across or develop a definition that overcomes these limitations and agree on it, then we will still search for “the” definition without finding it. The field will become more crowded with definitions, but less certain, and progress will be restricted.

Theoreticians, researchers, and practitioners in a discipline require key terms in a field to share a nominal definition and prefer to have a shared real or essential definition. Yet in supply chain management, we find no such shared definition, real or nominal. Even the Council of Supply Chain Management Professional offers its definition with the caveat: “The supply chain management (SCM) profession has continued to change and evolve to fit the needs of the growing global supply chain. With the supply chain covering a broad range of disciplines, the definition of what is a supply chain can be unclear” (CSCMP, 2016).

Supply chain management (SCM) emerged in the early 1980s as a result of the rapidly changing and challenging business environments in many industries. SCM is a consequence of the increased necessity for holistic considerations in, between and across companies’ business activities and resources in and between marketing channels, in order to improve the overall performance towards the ultimate consumer in the marketplace. SCM’s generic theoretical foundations are derived from time‐, functional‐, and relationship‐dependencies in, between and across companies’ business activities in marketing channels. There are major similarities and minor differences in the theoretical boundaries between SCM and Alderson’s interpretation of a functionalist theory of marketing. The author argues that the theoretical origin of SCM is derived from, and underpinned by, a part of this functionalist theory of marketing. Furthermore, there is a need for a generic re‐definition and expansion of the theoretical boundaries of SCM towards the incorporation of horizontal dependencies between marketing channels in the marketplace.

There is a critical need to understand current talent development (TD) practices as well as developing a contemporary paradigm that will support a radically different future for TD. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the existing literature on TD, explore the fundamental role of TD in organizations and identify gaps for future directions.

The paper reviews the literature on TD.

Following themes are identified in selected TD articles: varied TD definitions, theoretical perspective for investigating TD, TD practices and effects and implications on training and development. The literature review identifies two levels of TD practices: organizational level and individual level.

The field of TD is rapidly changing because of the accelerating integration of technology and information into daily work environment. There is a critical need to understand current TD practices as well as to develop a contemporary paradigm that will support a radically different future for TD. Scope and boundaries of TD need to be set, so that practitioners can apply the right practice at the right time.

The paper presents the conceptual boundaries of TD in the current existing literature and identifies the gaps.

The purpose of this paper is to provide clarity to the concept of innovation and its various definitions.

The article reviews the innovation literature and proposes that innovation has been conceptualized either from a process or from an outcome perspective. Also, the authors show that there is a substantive difference between innovation seen in the traditional innovation literature and innovation as conceived in the knowledge management literature.

The paper proposes a general framework to categorize the existing views of innovation and show that innovation as an outcome has not been clearly defined from a knowledge perspective. To address this gap, the authors develop a new definition of an innovation outcome based on knowledge elements.

The research lays the groundwork for more comprehensive methods of measuring innovation and innovativeness, which is particularly useful for the study of service innovation.

The framework and definition expand the ability of managers to measure and understand the key factors of innovation.

The research contributes to the literature by developing a comprehensive knowledge‐based, outcome‐oriented definition of innovation.

The purpose of this paper is to systematically review existing research on organizational change capabilities (OCC), which remains fragmented. This study aims to fill gaps in the literature by scientifically discussing contributions and highlighting the main issues with previous research findings regarding the dimensions that comprise them, as well as the antecedents and consequences of OCC.

This paper searched all research that studied OCC and published from 2005 to 2020. In total, 48 studies out of 249, found on Scopus and EBSCO-host, were included in the review.

This research found that OCC is a complex concept and that it has many definitions and dimensions. The findings also suggest that existing research has found that a number of organizational and individual factors are antecedents of OCC and have consequences for organizational outcomes.

This review was only conducted on scientific publications from two article databases. Future research should search other databases on OCC as the broad concept may provide additional insights.

Literature on OCC is limited, and there is still no generally accepted definition of OCC, the different perspectives and measurement dimensions. On the other hand, for academics and practitioners, this study provides a comprehensive, critical systematization of the limited OCC academic literature. This study also offers opportunities for further research to address the limitations of empirical testing of OCC constructs, antecedents and consequences of the various theories and methodologies.