Search results

The paper aims to contribute to a better understanding of the drivers for the use of Industry 4.0 technologies by investigating (1) what motivates companies to consider using I4 technologies and (2) what enables (or hinders) the intention to use I4 technologies to translate into their actual use.

The study uses survey data collected from a sample of export-oriented manufacturing companies with more than 10 employees. Final analysis is conducted on 124 companies.

The results show that companies are proactively approaching I4. Only efficiency motives and expected competitive advantage have a positive effect on the intention to use I4 technologies, which in turn positively influences their actual use. The external, legitimacy-based, motives do not play a significant role in explaining the intention to use. With respect to I4 technology enablers, employee competency positively moderates and availability of finance negatively moderates the relationship between intention to use and actual use.

The work extends the existing knowledge base on I4 technology drivers in companies that are not major global trendsetters but are heavily embedded in the value chains of companies from the most industrially developed economies. The study is limited to manufacturing companies in a small European economy and should be retested in other contexts.

The study can help managers implement I4 technologies in their companies more successfully.

We take a novel research approach by proposing a framework that clearly distinguishes between motives and enablers for the use of I4 technologies.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the productivity improvement potentials from maintenance planning practices in manufacturing companies. In particular, the paper aims at understanding the connection between machine criticality assessment and maintenance prioritization in industrial practice, as well as providing the improvement potentials.

An explanatory mixed method research design was used in this study. Data from literature analysis, a web-based questionnaire survey, and semi-structured interviews were gathered and triangulated. Additionally, simulation experimentation was used to evaluate the productivity potential.

The connection between machine criticality and maintenance prioritization is assessed in an industrial set-up. The empirical findings show that maintenance prioritization is not based on machine criticality, as criticality assessment is non-factual, static, and lacks system view. It is with respect to these finding that the ways to increase system productivity and future directions are charted.

In addition to the empirical results showing productivity improvement potentials, the paper emphasizes on the need for a systems view for solving maintenance problems, i.e. solving maintenance problems for the whole factory. This contribution is equally important for both industry and academics, as the maintenance organization needs to solve this problem with the help of the right decision support.

This paper aims to derive criteria for a strategic selection of learning management system (LMS) after making an analysis of the feedback data collected from learners and academic counselors in open and distance learning (ODL) to evaluate their perceptions. This analysis hints at the need to implement a learning management system (LMS) in ODL. Selecting an appropriate LMS can prove to be a strategic approach for ODL in achieving self-reliance and competitiveness.

Research design includes qualitative design intended to discuss the features, advantages and attributes of different popular LMSs and compare them. In addition, the quantitative design (a questionnaire-based online feedback) to analyze the perceptions of the learners and academic counselors in order to know their e-learning needs has also been used. Results have been exhibited in tabular/graphical formats for easy comprehension and enhanced understanding.

Findings of the study suggest that availability of plethora of LMSs in the market, which also include open source (OS) LMSs, makes the decision- making as regards selection of an appropriate LMS strategically crucial requiring adequate consideration of every aspect such as cost, quality, usage, capacity, budget and most importantly priorities and objectives.

This study will help educational administrators and decision-makers in ODL for building a quality civilized life and empowered society by removing the constraints related to financial problems, disabilities, time, geographical conditions and many others in bringing education to the doorstep of every willing learner. The technical details of LMS, however, were intentionally kept simplified to achieve the objective and provide easy comprehensibility for the reader with little technical background, which might be a limitation of this study.

This study highlights that ODL has tasted success with optimum exploitation of different technological advancements in its transformational expedition from conventional learning to innovative e-learning and to the newest adaptive e-learning system. The huge potential of LMS, in providing learners and educators in ODL with an effective web-based learning system incorporating almost all the academic activities, has attracted organizations for using it not only for imparting education to learners but also for providing appropriate trainings to their human resources.

HealthPathways is an online decision support portal, primarily aimed at General Practitioners (GPs), that provides easy to access and up to date clinical, referral and resource pathways. It is free to access, with the intent of providing the right care, at the right place, at the right time. This case study focuses on the experience and learnings of a HealthPathways program in metropolitan Sydney during the COVID-19 pandemic. It reviews the team's program management responses and looks at key factors that have facilitated the spread and scale of HealthPathways.

Available data and experiences of two HealthPathways program managers were used to recount events and aspects influencing spread and scale.

The key factors for successful spread and scale are a coordinated response, the maturity of the HealthPathways program, having a single source of truth, high level governance, leadership, collaboration, flexible funding and ability to make local changes where required.

There are limited published articles on HealthPathways. The focus of spread and scale of HealthPathways during COVID-19 is unique.

Uncertainty management (UM) in projects has been a point of attention for researchers for many years. Research on UM has mainly been aimed at uncertainty analyses in the front-end and managing uncertainty in the construction phase. In contrast, UM components in the design phase have received less attention. This research aims to improve knowledge about the key components of UM in the design phase of large road projects.

This study adopted a literature review and case study. The literature review was used to identify relevant criteria for UM. These criteria helped to design the interview guide. Multiple case study research was conducted, and data were collected through document study and interviews with project stakeholders in two road projects. Each case's owners, contractors and consultants were interviewed individually.

The data analysis obtained helpful information on the involved parties, process and exploit tools and techniques during the design phase. Johansen's (2015) framework [(a) human and organisation, (b) process and (c) tools and techniques)] was completed and developed by identifying relevant criteria (such as risk averse or risk-taker, culture and documentation level) for each component. These criteria help to measure UM performance. The authors found that owners and contractors are major formal UM actors, not consultants. Empirical data showed the effectiveness of Web-based tools in UM.

The studied cases were Norwegian, and this study focussed on uncertainties in the project's design phase. Relevant criteria did not cover all the criteria for evaluating the performance of UM. Qualitative evaluation of criteria allows further quantitative analysis in the future.

This paper gave project owners and managers a better understanding of relevant criteria for measuring UM in the owners and managers' projects. The paper provides policy-makers with a deeper understanding of creating rigorous project criteria for UM during the design phase. This paper also provides a guideline for UM in road projects.

This research gives a holistic evaluation of UM by noticing relevant criteria and criteria's interconnection in the design phase.

New opportunities to nurture good ideas for innovation arise as firms use web-based ideation platforms for collective idea generation and development. What influences creative performance in firm-internal collective idea development is however not as well researched as idea generation and thus an important area of research is the feedback and commenting on ideas. More specifically, the purpose of this paper is to explore the role of feedback timeliness and knowledge overlap between feedback providers and ideas in collective firm-internal online idea development.

An empirical study has been performed, drawing on data collected from a Swedish multi-national company using a web-based system for collective firm-internal ideation. The investigation explicitly captures the effects on ideation performance played by idea development contributions, in terms of feedback timeliness and knowledge overlap between feedback providers and ideas.

The empirical results show that idea development is significantly influenced by feedback timeliness as well as by the knowledge overlap between feedback providers and ideas. Specifically, it is found that longer time to feedback and an increased knowledge overlap result in an increased likelihood of idea acceptance. However, beyond a certain point, the positive effects of a longer time to feedback and increased knowledge overlap decrease, resulting in curvilinear relationships with idea acceptance.

The results do not only shed new light on theory about collective idea development, but also provides management implications for collective firm-internal ideation. As the data used in the study has been collected in one single firm, care should be taken in generalizing the results to other domains.

The results inform managers that it is not always better to involve more individuals in these emergent and distributed ideation systems, but that it might be beneficial to take measures to exercise some control in terms of when distributed and diverse employees can freely join in and out, especially considering the diversity of ideas, comments and creators.

The results from the empirical study reveal the effects of feedback timeliness and knowledge overlap on idea development. This provides us with new insights on the complex dynamics at place in collective firm-internal idea development and offers implications for how we can fruitfully manage this process.

Industry 4.0 technologies are promising to increase manufacturing companies' performance through the new knowledge that such digital technologies allow to create and manage within the firm boundaries and through customer interactions. Despite the great attention on the Industry 4.0 adoption paths, little is known about the relationships with previous waves of digital technologies, namely, information and communication technologies (ICTs), and how different groups of both types of technologies link to knowledge and its related performances.

The study employed a quantitative research design using a survey method. Submitting the questionnaire to entrepreneurs, chief operation officers or managers in charge of the operational and technological processes of Italian manufacturing firms, 206 respondents stated that their firm has adopted at least one of the seven Industry 4.0 technologies investigated.

The findings of the study highlight the positive relationship between ICT and Industry 4.0 technologies in terms of both intensity and groups of technologies (Web-based, Management and Manufacturing ICT; Operation, Customization and Data-processing 4.0), and how technologies affect knowledge-related performances in terms of products and processes, job-learning, product-related services and customer involvement.

This study is one of the first attempts to link groups of ICT to groups of Industry 4.0 technologies and to explore the effects in terms of knowledge-related performances as a measure of technology use. The study shows strong path dependency among ICT, Industry 4.0 and knowledge performance, enriching the literature on technological innovation and knowledge management.

This study aims to explore how an accessibility database (AD) has been developed and implemented as a tool for facility managers to evaluate and increase the accessibility of public facilities.

Eight participants were strategically sampled for semi-structured interviews, and documents on the AD were gathered. The Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR) was used for a directed content analysis of the data. The CFIR domains used for the analysis were: intervention characteristics, outer setting, inner setting, characteristics of individuals and process.

The development and implementation of the AD demonstrated the complexity in assessing and planning for increased accessibility. The communication and iterative processes within the inner as well as with the outer setting was an important part of the development and implementation, as well as anchoring each step locally, regionally and nationally, within public authorities and disability organizations.

The assessments of environmental barriers and the results reported in the AD can serve as a guide for identification of accessibility issues. However, singular identified barriers were reported as a fragmentation of the building regulations, and thereby when retrofitting is carried out, experts who have the competence to suggest solutions based on the entirety need to be involved to reach the goals of increased accessibility and countering of exclusion and discrimination.

By structuring the implementation process by means of the CFIR, facilitators and barriers of using an AD as a basis for retrofitting were revealed. The practical challenges outlined in assessing and increasing accessibility can guide facility managers when considering actions to increase accessibility.

Although businesses continue to take up artificial intelligence (AI), concerns remain that companies are not realising the full value of their investments. The study aims to provide insights into how AI creates business value by investigating the mediating role of Business Process Management (BPM) capabilities.

The integrative model of IT Business Value was contextualised, and structural equation modelling was applied to validate the proposed serial multiple mediation model using a sample of 448 organisations based in the EU.

The results validate the proposed serial multiple mediation model according to which AI adoption increases organisational performance through decision-making and business process performance. Process automation, organisational learning and process innovation are significant complementary partial mediators, thereby shedding light on how AI creates business value.

In pursuing a complex nomological framework, multiple perspectives on realising business value from AI investments were incorporated. Several moderators presenting complementary organisational resources (e.g. culture, digital maturity, BPM maturity) could be included to identify behaviour in more complex relationships. The ethical and moral issues surrounding AI and its use could also be examined.

The provided insights can help guide organisations towards the most promising AI activities of process automation with AI-enabled decision-making, organisational learning and process innovation to yield business value.

While previous research assumed a moderated relationship, this study extends the growing literature on AI business value by empirically investigating a comprehensive nomological network that links AI adoption to organisational performance in a BPM setting.

Despite its significance, research on how attribute framing affects ordering decisions in dual sourcing remains insufficient. Hence, this study investigated the effects of attribute framing in a sourcing task involving certain and uncertain qualities of two suppliers and analysed the role of attention with respect to suppliers' information in framing effects.

The impacts of attribute framing on sourcing decisions were demonstrated in two online between-subject (2 × 2 factorial) experimental studies involving professional samples. Study 2 was an eye-tracking experiment.

In Study 1 (N = 251), participants presented with a “high-quality” rather than a “low-quality” frame made different sourcing decisions, opting for larger percentage of order(s) from a supplier under the “high-quality” frame. This pattern holds true for suppliers who differ in risk. This finding was replicated in Study 2 (N = 129). Attention asymmetry related to the information on supplier quality contributes to this effect. Attention directed towards information regarding the supplier's quality under a positive frame mediated the relationship between attribute framing and sourcing decisions.

Highlighting the positive attributes of a risky supplier is essential when ordering from the risky supplier is an optimal decision. It is advantageous for suppliers to highlight positive rather than negative attributes when describing the quality of their components against others.

This is the first study to examine the effect of attention on the relationship between attribute framing and dual sourcing. This presents a new behavioural perspective wherein managers' attention to information plays a vital role.