Search results

While innovative service systems may create substantial value for certain stakeholders, they often destroy value for others. This value paradox frequently leads to unsustainable service systems. The purpose of this paper is to explore the use of multiple theories to pinpoint and explain these value paradoxes, build a framework allowing potentially more sustainable value configuration of service systems and develop an agenda for future research. The framework is illustrated with examples from the hospitality industry.

The paper draws on prevalent theories and approaches, including service-dominant logic, business modeling, transaction cost economics, stakeholder theory, configuration theory and set theory, to develop a value configuration framework.

In a service system, the configuration of resources and relationships between these resources (i.e. the set of value propositions for various stakeholders of the system) determines which stakeholders will gain and which will lose and to what extent. For that reason, insight into the range of possible service configurations – or business models – will help decision makers consider the effects on various stakeholders, and, where possible, set their priorities right and make their businesses more sustainable. The research produces a rich research agenda.

Examples from hospitality allow an in-depth examination of a range of dynamic configurational and technological innovations, but some idiosyncratic characteristics of the context may impede the wider applicability of the conceptual framework. Future research could complement this work by studying other service sectors.

The paper aims to provide decision makers in the service industry with a conceptual tool to explore, diagnose and, if needed, adjust the value configuration of their service operations. In practice, this tool may help explicate the service system configuration, thus helping managers determine their organizations’ desired positioning in terms of value creation and destruction, and to choose strategic directions by adapting configurations.

Legislation and regulations are being adapted to various new service configurations. This paper attempts to – at least conceptually – distinguish different service configurations, allowing policy makers to identify the value trade-offs between stakeholders, including society at large.

Previous research focused primarily on value creation by innovative services and business models. Value creation for one stakeholder, however, could lead to value destruction for another. Taking this paradox into consideration may result in more open service ecosystems that explicitly consider sustainability and value implications in multiple dimensions and for a broader group of stakeholders.

This paper is the fourth part of the effort to resolve the following two problems that urgently need an answer: how can an appropriate theoretical foundation be chosen for modern mathematics and computer science? And, under what interpretations can modern mathematics and the theory of computer science be kept as completely as possible?

The paper is a conceptual discussion.

The paper lays out the set theoretical foundation for the mathematical system of potential infinities.

This work is the non‐logical axiomatic part of the mathematical system of potential infinities: the axiomatic set theoretic system. At the end, the problem of consistency of this axiomatic set theory is discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to explore different types of packaging paradoxes and the reasons for their existence in food supply chains.

The research uses a multiple case study approach with rich empirical data from seven leading companies in Swedish food supply chains. The research uses coding and a paradox theory lens to analyse packaging paradoxes, both within and between companies in a supply chain.

The paper provides a novel theoretical lens which uses comprehensive empirical data to identify and categorise four types of packaging paradoxes on two system levels in food supply chains. It presents detailed descriptions of, and underlying reasons for, the paradoxes. It also discusses strategies required to manage packaging paradoxes.

Future research should confirm and extend the findings in this study by incorporating data from companies in other countries. It should cover the importance of paradoxes, their impact on company performance and innovation, and how different paradoxes are related to each other. It should also investigate strategies to manage paradoxes further.

The findings should help companies acknowledge and identify management principles for packaging paradoxes in food supply chains.

It is the first study which systematically explores packaging paradoxes in food supply chains. The study offers a new approach to understand the complexity of packaging decisions in food supply chains. It contributes to the packaging logistics literature by extending theoretical knowledge about conflicts of interest related to packaging. The management discussion offers initial insights into management of packaging paradoxes and directions for future research.

In fact, this research seeks to understand, on the one hand, the nature of defensive reactions and, on the other hand, the strategies mobilised by actors to deal with paradoxes of identity.

The authors mobilise a qualitative methodology based on three contrasting longitudinal case studies, several sequences of non-participant observations, semi-structured interviews and secondary data.

The results show, on the one hand, close professional identities despite different organisations and, on the other hand, different reactions and strategies for managing paradoxes of identity despite the proximity of professional identities.

Beyond the singularity of the paradoxes of identity studied, the research invites the authors to develop spaces for discussion.

Through the identification and investigation of the organisational paradoxes in lean, the purpose of this paper is to deepen the understanding of lean implementation intricacies, and contribute to sustaining lean in companies.

Case study based on semi-structured interviews with participants in lean conversion from three companies in Denmark. The companies come from different business sectors: public transport, healthcare and finance.

This study identifies three types of organisational paradoxes in lean: organising, performing and belonging. The study also points to a range managerial responses used for dealing with the three paradoxes and facilitating lean transformation.

This is a theory development paper which increases the understanding regarding the role of the organisational paradoxes in facilitating or hindering lean transformation.

The study generates insights which help managers identify and deal with the individual motivations for opposing lean practices, and thus facilitates lean transformation.

This study adds clarity to the process of managing lean implementation by identifying three different motivations for people to oppose lean transformation. The study also recommends managerial actions for dealing with each situation.

The purpose of this paper is to explore sustainability paradoxes in sharing economy initiatives by focusing on logistics management in last-mile logistics.

In this exploratory study, a total of 10 case studies were conducted in three categories of companies: anti-waste platforms, food delivery platforms and bicycle delivery companies. Twenty-seven face-to-face interviews with founders and/or managers and contractors (couriers, logistics service providers or volunteers) were the primary source of data collection. The heterogeneity of the sample enabled the authors to build an understanding of sustainability paradoxes in the logistics of sharing economy initiatives.

The findings indicate how logistics management impacts the sustainability of sharing economy initiatives in last-mile delivery. The authors identify seven paradoxical tensions (five of them social) generated by the contradictions between the organizations' promised environmental and social values and the impacts of their operations.

This exploratory research is based on a qualitative study of 10 cases and 27 interviews from heterogeneous samples; further empirical research is needed to ensure generalization.

The paper increases the understanding of environmental and social paradoxical tensions and awareness of logistics challenges.

The paper helps identify ways to reconcile promised values and impacts generated by sharing economy initiatives while managing last-mile delivery.

The results enrich the literature about the paradoxes in sharing economy initiatives by providing illustrations in last-mile logistics and exposing the underlying challenges for sharing economy logistics actors.

This paper aims to look at how organisational partnerships balance knowledge exploration and exploitation in contexts that are rife with paradoxes. It draws on paradox theory to examine the partnership’s response to the explore-exploit relationship.

A multiple interpretive case study was used to examine international partnerships in three African countries. These partnerships were between international (Northern-based) non-governmental organisations and local African non-governmental organisations.

The research finds that within the partnership, knowledge exploration and exploitation exist as a duality rather than a dualism. This is supported by the acceptance and confrontation of paradoxes of performing and belonging. However, macro-level paradoxes of organising linked to power, culture and epistemologies inhibit further effective confrontation of the explore-exploit paradox.

The findings can help managers working in international development organisations to understand how learning is enabled and constrained in partnership-based programmes.

The study provides a novel contribution to knowledge management by applying the paradox perspective to the explore-exploit relationship. This paper extends previous work by drawing on the levels and repertoires present in the paradox perspective to understand how knowledge exploration and exploitation can be mutually reinforcing and can exist as a duality.

The objective of this study is to investigate to what extent advertising appeals in Hong Kong and Korea are different, and whether the differences between the two countries can be attributed to the differences in nations' cultural characteristics. Hypotheses are drawn in relation to the two dimensions of Hofstede's framework – uncertainty avoidance and masculinity/femininity.

A sample of 803 prime‐time television commercials from the two countries was analyzed using Cheng and Schweitzer's classification of advertising appeals.

The results show that femininity is an important variable for explaining differences in advertising between Hong Kong and Korea. Both Hong Kong and Korean advertising show no difference in values of high uncertainty avoidance, although an appeal of high uncertainty avoidance was used more often in Korean advertising. However, values of low uncertainty avoidance are more prevalent in television commercials in Korea, a country of high uncertainty avoidance, than Hong Kong, a country of low uncertainty avoidance. It is also found that the correlation between product categories and cultural values is society‐based.

This study reveals that Hofstede's framework does explain cross‐cultural differences between Hong Kong and Korea and provides empirical evidences for the impact of value paradoxes on advertising in both countries, suggesting that Hofstede's framework and the value paradoxes provide a possible theory for testing the relationship of the society and its advertising content within a culture as well as across cultures.