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The purpose of this paper is to increase the knowledge of real estate firms’ capabilities to innovate and, consequently, their capacity to absorb new innovations and benefit from digital technologies in an ecosystem context.

The results are based on 32 interviews with representatives of Swedish real estate owners, real estate owner industry associations and suppliers of digital technology to real estate owners. The data are interpreted using theories on absorptive capacity (i.e. the capacity to absorb new innovations), innovation capabilities and innovation ecosystems.

The real estate owners, technology suppliers and real estate owner industry associations have expanded their innovation capabilities and reshaped their innovation ecosystem by initiating a number of different digitalization activities; for example, the development of new IT systems, digital platforms, services and business models. The absorptive capacity has been improved as the organizations have changed routines and structures related to innovation, and they have taken on new roles related to digitalization and innovation, making them better able to absorb new innovations. Also, this paper identifies several drivers and obstacles to digitalization in the real estate sector.

The increased capabilities related to digitalization can lead to better absorptive capacity on an individual firm level, which can contribute to the overall development of these firms in a longer-term. Also, new capabilities may lead to better absorptive capacity in the real estate sector at large, as firms may benefit from each other’s capabilities through collaboration. The limitations are that this study does not interview tenants or facility management firms and that the findings represent the context of the Swedish real estate market.

This paper investigates innovation capabilities, absorptive capacity and innovation ecosystems of real estate owners, their technology suppliers and real estate owner industry associations on the organizational level and on the sector level, into which there is little previous research. Also, this paper highlights the novelty of digitalization as a phenomenon in the sector.

Testing business processes is crucial to assess the compliance of business process models with requirements. Automating this task optimizes testing efforts and reduces human error while also providing improvement insights for the business process modeling activity. The primary purposes of this paper are to conduct a literature review of Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) testing and formal verification and to propose the Business Process Evaluation and Research Framework for Enhancement and Continuous Testing (bPERFECT) framework, which aims to guide business process testing (BPT) research and implementation. Secondary objectives include (1) eliciting the existing types of testing, (2) evaluating their impact on efficiency and (3) assessing the formal verification techniques that complement testing.

The methodology used is based on Kitchenham's (2004) original procedures for conducting systematic literature reviews.

Results of this study indicate that three distinct business process model testing types can be found in the literature: black/gray-box, regression and integration. Testing and verification approaches differ in aspects such as awareness of test data, coverage criteria and auxiliary representations used. However, most solutions pose notable hindrances, such as BPMN element limitations, that lead to limited practicality.

The databases selected in the review protocol may have excluded relevant studies on this topic. More databases and gray literature could also be considered for inclusion in this review.

Three main originality aspects are identified in this study as follows: (1) the classification of process model testing types, (2) the future trends foreseen for BPMN model testing and verification and (3) the bPERFECT framework for testing business processes.

The purpose of this paper is to comprehensively examine the influence of formal and informal institutional differences on enterprise investment margin, mode and result.

This paper is based on 2,440 micro samples of large-scale outbound investment from 609 Chinese enterprises from the years 2005 to 2016.

The study has found that formal institutional differences have little impact on investment scale, but significantly affect investment diversification. In order to avoid the management risks brought by formal institutional differences, enterprises tend to a full ownership structure. However, the choice between greenfield investment and cross-border mergers and acquisitions is not affected by formal institutional differences. In contrast, the impact of informal institutional differences is more extensive. Both formal and informal institutional differences significantly increase the probability of investment failure. Further research found that the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) bridges the formal institutional differences.

The study concludes that developing the BRI, especially cultural exchanges with countries alongside the Belt and Road, will help enterprises to “go global” faster and better.

This paper aims to argue that Economics is not a neutral science.

Post-structuralist perspective of Lyotard (1984), alongside the Pragmatics of Searle (1979) and Travis (1981) are useful for analyzing enunciations in mainstream Economics.

Economists use illocutionary acts expressed in formal language to achieve perlocutionary effects. Because of the importance attached to objectivity in mainstream Economics, the use of artificial languages is preferred to natural language. However, formal language is preferred regarding its perlocutionary effects on economists' community.

This paper puts together the Continental and the Analytical Philosophy and show, in an original manner, how their intersections and how they can be useful to better understand the epistemology of Economics.

The purpose of this article is to promote an innovative approach to education development projects by the application of business modelling tools and methods.

The proposed method is based on tools and methods from the business modelling area, such as stakeholder mapping, SWOT analysis, business modelling canvas and scenario analysis. The applicability of the approach is illustrated by a case study conducted on an engineering programme, where qualitative and quantitative data were gathered through interviews, surveys and workshops.

Utilising business modelling tools for development projects in higher education gives several benefits: (1) knowledge-informed decision making; the methods require good understanding of the current situation as well as possible strategies to be applied, that is data gathering is necessary before decision making; (2) structured decision making by applying a step-by-step approach for the development project; (3) including different stakeholder's perspectives in order to gain a holistic understanding and avoid sub optimisation.

The approach promotes innovation and action driven development rather than a bureaucratic and metric based improvement process. Tools and models from the business area have previously been applied for educational development. However, a holistic business modelling approach for educational development has not yet been applied.

This paper aims to introduce a crowd-based method for theorizing. The purpose is not to achieve a scientific theory. On the contrary, the purpose is to achieve a model that may challenge current scientific theories or lead research in new phenomena.

This paper describes a case study of theorizing by using a crowd-based method. The first section of the paper introduces what do the authors know about crowdsourcing, crowd science and the aggregation of non-expert views. The second section details the case study. The third section analyses the aggregation. Finally, the fourth section elaborates the conclusions, limitations and future research.

This document answers to what extent the crowd-based method produces similar results to theories tested and published by experts.

From a theoretical perspective, this study provides evidence to support the research agenda associated with crowd science. The main limitation of this study is that the crowded research models and the expert research models are compared in terms of the graph. Nevertheless, some academics may argue that theory building is about an academic heritage.

This paper exemplifies how to obtain an expert-level research model by aggregating the views of non-experts.

This study is particularly important for institutions with limited access to costly databases, labs and researchers.

Previous research suggested that a collective of individuals may help to conduct all the stages of a research endeavour. Nevertheless, a formal method for theorizing based on the aggregation of non-expert views does not exist. This paper provides the method and evidence of its practical implications.

The application of smart contract can greatly reduce transaction costs and improve transaction efficiency. The existing smart contract are expensive, single application scenario and inefficient. This paper aims to propose a new smart contract model to solve these problems.

By investigating the research history, models and platforms, this paper summarizes the shortcomings of existing smart contracts. Based on the content and architecture of traditional contract, a smart contract model with wider application scope is designed.

In this paper, several models are used to describe the operation mechanism of smart contracts. To facilitate computer execution, a decomposition method is proposed, which divides smart contracts into several sub-contracts. Then, the advantages and deployment methods of smart contract are discussed. On this basis, a specific example is given to illustrate how the application of smart contract will change our life.

Smart contract is gradually applied to more fields. In this paper, the structure and operation mechanism of smart contract system in reality are given, which will be beneficial to the application of smart contract to more complex systems.

The starting point for the considerations the authors make in this paper are the special features of family businesses in the area of management discussed in the literature. It has been established here that family businesses sometimes choose different organizational setups than nonfamily businesses. This has not yet been investigated for cybersecurity. In the context of cybersecurity, there has been little theoretical or empirical work addressing the question of whether the qualitative characteristics of family businesses have an impact on the understanding of cybersecurity and the organization of cyber risk defense in the companies. Based on theoretically founded hypotheses, a quantitative empirical study was conducted in German companies.

The article is based on a quantitative-empirical survey of 184 companies, the results of which were analyzed using statistical-empirical methods.

The article asked – based on the subjective perception of cybersecurity and cyber risks – to what extent family businesses are sensitized to the topic and what conclusions they draw from it. An interesting tension emerges: family businesses see their employees more as a security risk, but do less than nonfamily businesses in terms of both training and organizational establishment. Whether this is due to a lack of technical or managerial expertise, or whether family businesses simply think they can prevent cybersecurity with less formal methods such as trust, is open to conjecture, but cannot be demonstrated with the research approach taken here. Qualitative follow-up studies are needed here.

This paper represents the first quantitative survey on cybersecurity with a specific focus on family businesses. It shows tension between awareness, especially of risks emanating from employees, and organizational routines that have not been implemented or established.

Prefabricated products are continually entering the building construction market; yet, the decision to use prefabricated products in a construction project is based mostly on personal preferences and the evaluation of direct costs. Researchers and practitioners have debated appropriate measurement systems for evaluating the impacts of prefabricated products and for comparing them with conventional on-site construction practices. The more advanced, cost–benefit approach to evaluating prefabricated products often inspires controversy because it may generate inaccurate results when converting non-monetary effects into costs. As prefabrication may affect multiple organisations and product subsystems, the method used to decide on production methods should consider multiple direct and indirect impacts, including nonmonetary ones. Thus, this study aims to develop a multi-criteria method to evaluate both the monetary and non-monetary impacts of prefabrication solutions to facilitate decision-making on whether to use prefabricated products.

Drawing upon a literature review, this research suggests a multi-criteria method that combines the choosing-by-advantage approach with a cost–benefit analysis. The method was presented for validation in focus group discussions and tested in a case involving a prefabricated bathroom.

The analysis indicates that the method helps a project’s stakeholders communicate about the relative merits of prefabrication and conventional construction while facilitating the final decision of whether to use prefabrication.

This research contributes a method of evaluating the monetary and non-monetary impacts of prefabricated products. The research underlines the need to evaluate the diverse benefits and sacrifices that stakeholder face when considering production methods in construction.

This paper aims to introduce an information and communication technology (ICT) artifact that uses text mining to support the innovative and standardized assessment of professional competences within the validation of prior learning (VPL). Assessment means comparing identified and documented professional competences against a standard or reference point. The designed artifact is evaluated by matching a set of curriculum vitae (CV) scraped from LinkedIn against a comprehensive model of professional competence.

A design science approach informed the development and evaluation of the ICT artifact presented in this paper.

A proof of concept shows that the ICT artifact can support assessors within the validation of prior learning procedure. Rather the output of such an ICT artifact can be used to structure documentation in the validation process.

Evaluating the artifact shows that ICT support to assess documented learning outcomes is a promising endeavor but remains a challenge. Further research should work on standardized ways to document professional competences, ICT artifacts capture the semantic content of documents, and refine ontologies of theoretical models of professional competences.

Text mining methods to assess professional competences rely on large bodies of textual data, and thus a thoroughly built and large portfolio is necessary as input for this ICT artifact.

Following the recent call of European policymakers to develop standardized and ICT-based approaches for the assessment of professional competences, an ICT artifact that supports the automatized assessment of professional competences within the validation of prior learning is designed and evaluated.