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This paper aims to present a comprehensive theoretical framework that seeks to explore the impact of cultural, legal and social factors within the external environment on the relationship between women on corporate boards and firm performance. By investigating these boundary conditions, the paper aims to shed light on how these pressures influence the aforementioned relationship.

To build the sample of companies, the authors selected companies listed on the stock exchanges of countries that represent a diverse range of institutional contexts. These contexts encompass countries with individualistic cultures, collectivist cultures, environments with mandatory gender quotas, environments without gender quotas, contexts with substantial progress toward gender equality and contexts with limited progress in achieving gender equality. To test the hypotheses, the authors used linear regression analysis as a primary analytical approach. Furthermore, they used the propensity score matching technique to address potential issues of reverse causality and unobserved heterogeneity.

The findings indicate that the positive influence of a critical mass of women on corporate boards on firm performance is contingent upon the institutional context. Specifically, the authors observed that this relationship is strengthened in institutional contexts characterized by an individualistic culture, whereas it is not as pronounced in collectivist cultural contexts. Furthermore, this research provides compelling evidence that the presence of a critical mass of women on boards leads to enhanced firm performance in institutional settings where gender quotas are not binding, as opposed to settings where such quotas are enforced. Lastly, the results demonstrate that the presence of a critical mass of women on boards is associated with improved firm performance in institutional settings characterized by low progress in achieving gender equality. However, the authors did not observe the same effect in institutional contexts that have made significant strides toward gender equality.

This research offers a unique perspective by investigating the relationship between women’s presence on corporate boards and firm performance across different institutional contexts. In this investigation, the authors recognize that gender diversity on corporate boards is not a one-size-fits-all solution and that its effects can be shaped by the unique institutional contexts in which companies operate.

Security assurance evaluation (SAE) is a well-established approach for assessing the effectiveness of security measures in systems. However, one aspect that is often overlooked in these evaluations is the assurance context in which they are conducted. This paper aims to explore the role of assurance context in system SAEs and proposes a conceptual model to integrate the assurance context into the evaluation process.

The conceptual model highlights the interrelationships between the various elements of the assurance context, including system boundaries, stakeholders, security concerns, regulatory compliance and assurance assumptions and regulatory compliance.

By introducing the proposed conceptual model, this research provides a framework for incorporating the assurance context into SAEs and offers insights into how it can influence the evaluation outcomes.

By delving into the concept of assurance context, this research seeks to shed light on how it influences the scope, methodologies and outcomes of assurance evaluations, ultimately enabling organizations to strengthen their system security postures and mitigate risks effectively.

This study aims to explore how managers exercise agency in strategic investment decisions (SIDs) by drawing on their knowledgeability of the strategic context. Specifically, the authors address the role of position–practice relations and irresistible causal forces in this conduct.

The authors examine SID-making (SIDM) practices in four case organisations operating in highly competitive markets, conducting interviews with managers at various levels and analysing company documents. Drawing on strong structuration theory, the authors show how managerial decision makers draw upon their knowledge of organisational context when exercising agency in SIDs.

The authors provide insights into how SIDM behaviour, specifically agents’ conduct, is shaped by a combination of position–practice relations and the agents’ comprehension of their organisation’s context.

The authors extend the SIDM literature by surfacing the issue of how actors’ conjuncturally-specific knowledge of external structures shapes the general dispositions they draw on in exercising agency in practice.

The authors extend the SIDM literature by surfacing the issue of how actors’ conjuncturally-specific knowledge of external structures shapes the general dispositions they draw on in exercising agency in practice. Particularly, the authors contribute to this literature by identifying irresistible causal forces and illuminating why actors might not resist in SIDM processes, despite having the potential to do so.

The application of artificial intelligence chatbots is an emerging trend in educational technology studies for its multi-faceted advantages. However, the existing studies rarely take a perspective of educational technology application to evaluate the application of chatbots to educational contexts. This study aims to bridge the research gap by taking an educational perspective to review the existing literature on artificial intelligence chatbots.

This study combines bibliometric analysis and citation network analysis: a bibliometric analysis through visualization of keyword, authors, organizations and countries and a citation network analysis based on literature clustering.

Educational applications of chatbots are still rising in post-COVID-19 learning environments. Popular research issues on this topic include technological advancements, students’ perception of chatbots and effectiveness of chatbots in different educational contexts. Originating from similar technological and theoretical foundations, chatbots are primarily applied to language education, educational services (such as information counseling and automated grading), health-care education and medical training. Diversifying application contexts demonstrate specific purposes for using chatbots in education but are confronted with some common challenges. Multi-faceted factors can influence the effectiveness and acceptance of chatbots in education. This study provides an extended framework to facilitate extending artificial intelligence chatbot applications in education.

The authors have to acknowledge that this study is subjected to some limitations. First, the literature search was based on the core collection on Web of Science, which did not include some existing studies. Second, this bibliometric analysis only included studies published in English. Third, due to the limitation in technological expertise, the authors could not comprehensively interpret the implications of some studies reporting technological advancements. However, this study intended to establish its research significance by summarizing and evaluating the effectiveness of artificial intelligence chatbots from an educational perspective.

This study identifies the publication trends of artificial intelligence chatbots in educational contexts. It bridges the research gap caused by previous neglection of treating educational contexts as an interconnected whole which can demonstrate its characteristics. It identifies the major application contexts of artificial intelligence chatbots in education and encouraged further extending of applications. It also proposes an extended framework to consider that covers three critical components of technological integration in education when future researchers and instructors apply artificial intelligence chatbots to new educational contexts.

This article aims to explore the potential of feminist phenomenology as a conceptual framework for advancing women’s entrepreneurship research and the suitability of interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) to the proposed framework.

The article critically examines the current state of women’s entrepreneurship research regarding the institutional context and highlights the benefits of a shift towards feminist phenomenology.

The prevailing disembodied and gender-neutral portrayal of entrepreneurship has resulted in an equivocal understanding of women’s entrepreneurship and perpetuated a male-biased discourse within research and practice. By adopting a feminist phenomenological approach, this article argues for the importance of considering the ontological dimensions of lived experiences of situatedness, intersubjectivity, intentionality and temporality in analysing women entrepreneurs’ agency within gendered institutional contexts. It also demonstrates that feminist phenomenology could broaden the current scope of IPA regarding the embodied dimension of language.

The adoption of feminist phenomenology and IPA presents new avenues for research that go beyond the traditional cognitive approach in entrepreneurship, contributing to theory and practice. The proposed conceptual framework also has some limitations that provide opportunities for future research, such as a phenomenological intersectional approach and arts-based methods.

The article contributes to a new research agenda in women’s entrepreneurship research by offering a feminist phenomenological framework that focuses on the embodied dimension of entrepreneurship through the integration of IPA and conceptual metaphor theory (CMT).

By providing an overview of the existing knowledge on public governance in the context of Construction 4.0, this review serves as a valuable resource for researchers, policymakers and practitioners interested in understanding the current state of public governance in the context of Construction 4.0 and identifying avenues for future research and practical implementation.

This article presents a systematic and comprehensive review of the academic literature on public governance in the context of Construction 4.0. To ensure a systematic and rigorous selection of source material, the study adopts the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines.

By examining a wide range of scholarly works, the review identifies and discusses eight recurring themes that are crucial for understanding the role of public governance in Construction 4.0. These themes include policy and regulation, infrastructure and investment, skill development and education, digital inclusion and access, collaboration and partnerships, data governance and privacy, interactions with environmental and societal goals and the impact of Construction 4.0 on public governance itself. The review highlights a significant disparity between the normative debates on the importance of public governance in Construction 4.0 and the empirical knowledge available regarding its practical implementation. While the literature emphasizes the need for effective governance mechanisms to address the challenges and opportunities presented by Construction 4.0, there is a notable lack of empirical research examining the actual implementation and outcomes of public governance strategies.

This is the first systematic review of academic literature on public governance in the context of Construction 4.0.

This systematic literature review investigates the contribution of design thinking (DT) as a process and tool to drive innovation in a sustainable built environment (SBE) and develops a new model for sustainability research integrating DT and future thinking approaches toward achieving a unified DT and foresight notion for future research and applications.

This review was based on the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) statement. Open-access English articles published between 2000 and 2022 identified using the EBSCOhost, Emerald Insight, DOJA, JSTOR, Scopus and Taylor and Francis database searches were reviewed. The review framework deploys a previously proposed modified Ansoff matrix with an integrated innovation matrix to identify and analyze the challenges and opportunities for innovation growth in SBE. Additionally, a citation analysis was conducted to explore the impact of DT for innovation in SBE, and a proposed framework based on design by drawing on foresight theory was developed.

Research on DT for innovation in SBE faces the challenge of unanticipated impacts. According to the average number of citations per document, innovation associated with new solutions within a new context seems to become highly influential. Additionally, research gaps exist in the integration of foresight and DT into sustainability research to identify new contexts and solutions to SBE. A model of foresight design thinking (FDT) is proposed to guide future research and support the practical application of DT in sustainability.

This analysis was limited by the selection criteria as only certain keywords were used and English-only articles were selected. Future research should consider the use of DT for innovation in SBE using various important keywords, which would improve research findings and expand the contribution of DT to SBE.

The FDT model offers a new holistic framework for the iterative process of reframing and reperception, focusing on divergent and convergent thinking with the goal of contributing to SBE practices.

The integrated framework of DT and foresight can contribute to the study and development of sustainable innovation and a strategic shift toward a sustainable society.

The integration of DT, foresight and sustainability can broaden the horizons of sustainability research by systematically addressing future challenges related to SBE, which can be translated into feasible and innovative solutions. Thus, the FDT model complements the application of DT in sustainable innovation in this research field.

Despite the significance of a gender-diverse workforce, there is a lack of comprehensive review of gender diversity and women's career advancement literature. Moreover, past literature focuses on women-on-board and other subsets based on outcomes like firm financial and non-financial performance, corporate social performance and board interlocks. The purpose of this study is to examine the research on gender diversity and women's career advancement through an analysis of 143 articles published during past decade. Theoretical frameworks, contexts and constructs-based contribution to scholarship were reviewed. The authors attempt to highlight key theories, constructs and contexts and provide direction for future research.

A comprehensive systematic literature review of 143 articles spanning January 2008–March 2023 about gender diversity and women’s career advancement was conducted.

Majority of the past studies have focused on women on board and top management team, and most of them have been conducted in the context of the USA and China. There is no specific industry which has been covered extensively. Resource dependency, resource-based views and agency theories are the primary theoretical frameworks used in the past studies. Furthermore, these findings suggest the scope to further focus on women’s retention and career growth initiatives, especially at levels other than top levels, for a stronger leadership pipeline.

This study has been conducted with a focused analysis of the context, constructs and theoretical frameworks, enabling future researchers to decide how and where to focus, to now strengthen retention of women.

This study focuses on HR practices that foster employee engagement during Covid-19. Companies in transition economies are particularly vulnerable to crisis and downsizing and other recessionary practices are frequently used.

Drawing on the model of caring human resource management, we utilise interviews with human resource representatives of 10 banks in the transition economy of Bosnia and Herzegovina. We analyse the banks at two different times to demonstrate how and why companies adapt their HR practices.

Our findings show a changing mindset in the deployment of highly context-specific HR practices. Strengthening company culture through a sense of community and communication ensure stability and continuity in work. Rather than layoffs, flexible work has become standard.

By highlighting the interplay between HR practices and employee engagement, we contribute to the discussion on engagement in exceptional circumstances and challenging settings and demonstrate how caring responsibilities “migrate” into HR practices in the professional context of a transition economy.

We propose a context-specific “protective caring approach” to foster employee engagement during crises.

The purpose of this study is shed light on the underlying forces behind entrepreneurship within a regional innovation system (RIS) in a remote rural region. The authors examine the following questions: Which are the main underlying forces behind the entrepreneurial process in a rural RIS characterized by traditionally low-tech, small-scale businesses? How can the development of a low-tech regional innovation system be conceptualized?

The design of the study is based on entrepreneurship theory. Data analysis followed practices used in phenomenography, a research approach used to analyse and identify commonalities and variations in populations' perceptions of a certain phenomenon. Data are composed using semi-structured interviews and a database composed of company information of all firms in the population.

A proactive mobilization of regional stakeholders and resources can be an important driving force behind the entrepreneurial process and generation of a rural RIS. Innovation can be generated within low-tech industries turning the rural context into an asset. An RIS in a remote rural context can be initiated and orchestrated by regional authorities, but knowledge brokering and orchestration can also be managed by networks of small-scale businesses brought together by mutual benefit and common interests.

Regional innovation systems theory is most often used to study high-tech industries. But by combining regional innovation systems with rural entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship context theory is a fruitful avenue to understand the role of rural entrepreneurship in regional development, even in remote and peripheral regions. Innovation does not need to entail high-tech international environments; it can appear as the result of efforts in low-tech industries in rural and remote environments. The authors’ findings need to be scrutinized; therefore, the authors call for more research on regional innovation systems in rural environments.

It is possible for regional authorities to orchestrate a development process through the actions of a strong regional agent but also by supporting the creation of networks of small businesses that are built on trust and common interests.

This study contributes to the literature with a new perspective to the study of entrepreneurship and of regional innovation systems. Entrepreneurship research with focus on rural contexts most often highlight limits to entrepreneurship and see entrepreneurship as “just running a business”. A perspective that starts from innovation and innovative behaviour, despite the rural context and embedded resources, helps to generate new knowledge that can enrich the understanding of entrepreneurship and also be the foundation for more precise business development policies in rural settings.