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This study focuses on the triadic multilevel psychic distance (MPD) between the firm, target market and bridge-maker and its consequences for firm internationalization. Specifically, it spotlights the triadic psychic distance between firms, the levels of psychic distance in the target market (country and business) and the bridge-maker. Therefore, this study examines the triadic MPD among these three entities and its impact on firm internationalization.

This study uses qualitative and case study research approaches. It is based on 8 case companies and 24 internationalization cases. Secondary data were collected, and interviews with bridge-makers and industry experts were conducted.

The study found that MPD appeared in the triad. The MPD between firms and markets is related to country-specific differences and business difficulties. The MPD between the firm and the bridge-maker is based on the latter’s lack of knowledge vis-à-vis bridging the firm’s MPD. Finally, the MPD between bridge-makers and the market is based on the former’s lack of knowledge of the home country’s business difficulties.

This is the first study to develop and adopt a triadic multilevel psychic distance conceptualization that provides evidence for and sheds light on the triadic MPD and its effect on firm internationalization. This study identifies the reasons behind triadic MPD in connection to firm internationalization. Notably, firm internationalization is interdependent on the triadic MPD setting between the firm, bridge-maker and target market. It has theoretical value and contributes to the recent advancement in the understanding of MPD in international marketing literature.

This paper identifies how the operations of labour market intermediaries (LMIs) transform dyadic employment relationships into triadic ones. It reveals the change dynamics that LMIs engage in to bring about this transformation and that contribute to the projectification of work.

Drawing on an institutional-work lens and using interview data from both TempX, a German-based staffing service provider, and its client organizations, the analytical framework details the dynamics by which LMIs appropriate various HR tasks and different labour-market-organizing roles and thus create these triadic employment relationships.

TempX assumes a powerful position between its client organizations and workers by increasingly taking over HR tasks from its client organizations, alternating between profiting from market transactions and engaging as a buyer and seller of labour. This powerful position, gradually created through four distinct, sequential, institutional work dynamics, allows it to transform dyadic employment relationships into triadic ones and to promote project-based work.

By showing how LMIs capitalize on the multiple services they offer, and how they use these services to establish a powerful position in both the labour market and in their relations with client organizations, this paper contributes to research on how LMIs change their institutional environment. Second, by showing that LMIs switch between different labour-market organizing roles and HR tasks, this paper reveals how essential this switching is for LMIs to establish triadic employment relationships and to drive the projectification of work, and thus it also contributes to research on LMIs’ role in the projectification of work.

Despite IoT’s huge potential, enterprises’ ability to leverage it is their competitive advantage. Thus, competitive differentiation is primarily predicated on leveraging IoT toward customer needs. To examine the research gap, this study aims to explore the drivers of customer satisfaction and how they are affected by the interaction between IoT capabilities.

A mixed-method research framework is applied to assess the impact of IoT capabilities on customer satisfaction. Based on the theoretical underpinning of the resource-based view and dynamic capability, the study highlights the importance of IoT capabilities in active resource allocation and effective resource utilization. First, DEMATEL is used capture the interrelationship between IoT capabilities. Further, the impact of each IoT capabilities on customer satisfaction is studied using CoCoSo method.

The study highlights the importance of IoT capabilities in active resource allocation and effective resource utilization. The findings are enriched through the complementarity of resources in a dynamic business-to-business-to-customer (B2B2C) scenario. The authors expand the IoT capabilities from conventional business-to-business (B2B) or business-to-customer (B2C) scenario to tri-nodal B2B2C relationship triangle.

Based on the findings, the authors offer a business transformation strategy for firms in key areas of customer satisfaction by leveraging IoT. The study can help management prioritize and develop key IoT capabilities to meaningfully increase customer satisfaction metrics.

Building on the dynamic capabilities and resource-based view of the firm, an integrated decision-making research model is proposed. In addition, this study investigates the product and service capabilities unlocked using IoT capabilities. This work can be considered one of the leading attempts to improve customer satisfaction using IoT capabilities from traditional dyadic (B2B or B2C) structure to triadic (B2B2C) framework.

The study aims to propose a triadic interaction model to assess the effect of customer–customer (C2C), employee–customer and robot–customer interactions on customer voluntary performance in the context of smart dining.

An explanatory sequential mixed methods design was used. First, a quantitative study surveyed Foodom patrons to assess the impact of triadic interactions on customer voluntary performance. The mediating role of trust and social support and the moderating effect of the need to belong were also explored. A post hoc study (Study 2) analyzed online comments to validate and complement the survey findings.

While all interactions promote social support, the C2C interactions significantly correlate with customer trust. Moreover, customer voluntary performance is influenced by both customer trust and social support, while the need to belong remains as a moderator. Findings from Study 2 consolidate and enrich the relationships identified in Study 1.

This research reveals that patrons in smart dining still value interactions with employees and other diners. It enriches the stream of work on interaction quality by illuminating how different types of interactions could co-create value for customers, subsequently fostering voluntary behavior in smart dining contexts.

This research explores how patrons perceive interactions with robots in smart hospitality, highlighting their impact on trust and social support. It also sheds light on how interactions among robots, employees and customers influence customer voluntary performance, emphasizing the role of the need to belong in moderating relationships in this setting.

This study aims to examine the relationship between knowledge management and career development in an era characterized by high levels of youth unemployment and a demand for specialized skills. Despite the increasing transition to a knowledge-based economy, there is a significant gap between young people’s skills and career readiness, necessitating an in-depth analysis of the role of knowledge management at the individual, organizational and national levels.

The authors conducted a qualitative study using the theory-context-characteristics-methodology approach based on a systematic literature review. The authors created an ecological framework for reflecting on knowledge management and career development, arguing for a multidisciplinary approach that invites collaboration across sectors to generate innovative and reliable solutions.

This study presents a comprehensive review of the existing literature and trends, noting the need for more focus on the interplay between knowledge management and career development. It emphasizes the need for businesses to promote the acquisition, storage, diffusion and application of knowledge and its circulation and exchange to create international business human capital.

The findings may help multinational corporations develop managerial training programs and recruitment strategies, given the demand for advanced knowledge-based skills in the modern workspace. The study also discusses the influences of education, experience and job skills on business managers’ performance, guiding the future recruitment of talents.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this review is among the first to assess the triadic relationship between knowledge management, career development and the global unemployment crisis. The proposed multidisciplinary approach seeks to break down existing silos, thus fostering a more comprehensive understanding of how to address these ongoing global concerns.

This study aims to contribute to the understanding of the innovation environment of a developing nation through the Triple Helix model, revealing the existing inter-relationships between the three Helixes of Academia–Industry–Government. It sets out to find out the relationship and impact of the three Helixes on the most crucial stage of the innovation process: the commercialisation of patents, and to ascertain if there is a varying impact determined by patent ownership.

This cross-sectional study uses the survey method based on the views expressed by 220 Sri Lankan registered patent holders and categorised by organisational and individual ownership. The sample is drawn from the database of the National Intellectual Property Office of Sri Lanka and patents registered through the Patent Cooperation Treaty, extracted from the World Intellectual Property Organisation Patent Scope database. The survey was carried out in 2019 and limited to patents registered during the period 2010–2014.

The empirical findings indicate weak inter-relationship between Academia support, Industry support and patent commercial success, while the support of the Government Helix is non-significant in the commercial stage. The findings also indicate two different support standards existing in each Helix for the two ownership groups.

The study is limited to a five-year window in a relatively early period in the country’s innovation policy development. The study model is also limited by the non-inclusion of mediators such as government-backed affiliated agencies and academia technical transfer offices which if incorporated would improve the study model and be more reflective of the actual environment and their role as change agents bridging the transition to a hybrid Triple Helix.

The study findings capture the inter-relationships of the Triple Helix existing in a developing country at the most crucial stage of the innovation process. It helps policymakers identify the gaps in each Helix that stands wanting and take measures to rectify them by creating a more favourable National Innovation System. An innovative environment that will facilitate patent holders achieve higher technological transfers and commercial success rates.

The findings disclosure of two different support standards existing in each Helix for the two patent ownership groups poses a challenge for policymakers and challenges the core objective of increasing the commercial success of patents granted. The findings strengthen the need for a more robust support system to be put in place that would empower and facilitate the individual patent owner to increase the share of economic value arising from this underutilised patent group.

This study contributes by furthering the Triple Helix model in a social context and micro-setting by operationalising the theoretical practices. The study also gives insight into each Helix’s interaction and contribution during the most crucial stage of innovation management in a developing economy and its impact on the two categories of patent ownership which is scarce.

As consumer debt can substantially impair subjective well-being, it is crucial for research to gain insights into how consumers can be motivated to improve financial planning. This paper aims to investigate how frontline employees in financial services can help consumers regulate their financial planning behaviors and how financial service providers can effectively support their frontline employees in this effort through leadership and organizational climate.

We incorporate regulatory focus theory and conservation of resource theory to develop a conceptual model that we test in a triadic study with a unique dataset collected from consumers, frontline employees, and managers in the banking sector.

We find that frontline employees must pay attention to the details of consumers’ needs and customize the service to those needs to trigger consumer promotion focus and stimulate consumers’ financial planning behaviors. Moreover, our results emphasize that the organization must act as an integrated entity. Thus, a manager’s servant leadership and an organizational climate of customer stewardship are crucial for frontline employees to transform consumers’ financial planning behaviors.

The study highlights frontline employees’ key role in motivating consumer financial planning behavior, offering a new perspective in transformative service research on enhancing financial well-being.

The findings provide financial service providers with actionable implications for enhancing consumers’ financial planning. This benefits both consumers and financial institutions, as customers with greater spending power can buy more financial products.

This study advances transformative service research on consumer financial planning behavior, which has largely focused on consumer-related or society-level variables, by exploring the role of frontline employees and organizational support in terms of leadership and climate.

The paper aims to illuminate the platform created by a cluster organization to facilitate its internationalization and thereby enhance its regional innovation system partners' competitiveness by providing access to global value chains and boosting innovativeness.

The study draws upon the interaction approach, focusing on the interaction process, interaction partners, relationship atmosphere, and relationship environment. A qualitative study was conducted at Future Position X, a Swedish cluster organization. A total of 58 interviews were conducted, including 48 face-to-face in-depth interviews between 2017 and 2019 with six key informants at FPX, representatives from 28 SMEs, ten members of regional innovation systems to which FPX belongs, and four process leaders of regional and local networks, in addition to online interviews with ten members of the regional innovation systems conducted via Microsoft Teams in March 2021. The time span of the study provides a longitudinal perspective.

The FPX cluster collaborates with actors in the quadruple helix, maintaining a mindset that has led to a number of new partner agreements in the global arena to secure the resources and expertise necessary for cluster activities, and thereby ensuring firms in FPX networks access to platforms for international expansion. Internationalization thus expands the cluster's knowledge base beyond the traditional environment of its member firms.

Very few innovations arise from the isolated work of a lone genius. Instead, most innovation is achieved through complex, interactive, iterative and cumulative learning processes in which a variety of actors are involved. The FPX cluster organization's internationalization platform is therefore vital to the internationalization of its partners since cluster actors lack the time, resources, knowledge, experience, and networks required to break into international markets singlehandedly.

This study suggests that, for practitioners and researchers alike, the growing importance and relevance of the regional innovation system cannot be overemphasized. It also holds policy and societal implications in that FPX's global network helps regional SMEs to internationalize, in addition to inspiring international firms to establish operations in the Gävleborg region, thereby helping to strengthen the overall GIS environment. Internationalization also expands the FPX cluster's knowledge base beyond the traditional environment of its firms, an example of this being the construction start of a Microsoft data centre in the region in 2020.

FPX is financed through taxation and grant funding. By initiating projects, creating relationships and building collaborations, FPX thus contributes to collaboration between business, academia and the public sector. FPX also contributes to knowledge development of new technology by creating meeting places and networks around digital issues, such as GIS, AI, the IoT and blockchain technology.

While earlier research has concentrated on endogenous gaps critical to cluster dynamics, comparatively little attention has been paid to exogenous gaps, i.e. linkages between regional clusters and innovation partners elsewhere in the world. This study showcases the richness of interactions in the cluster against the background of wider, global innovation interactions. Future research should examine other vital questions that remain unanswered, e.g. by measuring and exploring the extent to which regional innovation systems can contribute to long-term economic growth for society.

This study aims to explore academic women’s silence from the perspective of social cognitive theory (Bandura, 1986), by examining the triadic influences of the individual, environment and behaviour, which impacts their silence. The study examines how women use personal, proxy and collective agency (Bandura, 2018) to reduce silence.

Interviewing 22 academics (20 women, 2 men) at a leading Polish university, this study used the Gioia et al. (2013) method to analyse the interviews, creating first- and second-order codes and final aggregated concepts.

This study finds, from an environmental perspective, that societal-level gendering, which is underpinned by critical social factors and institutional logics that are part of Poland’s culture promoting gender stereotypes and family values influences women’s silence. There is clear evidence for the regression of women’s rights, which compounds women’s silence. These societal-level factors influence a hierarchical, bureaucratic organizational structure, alongside gender segregation. From an individual perspective, reasons for silence include socialization, fear, women’s lack of power, inequality and self-silencing to mitigate harassment or discrimination. Collective agency was a strongly mentioned theme to help reduce silence, which includes implementing training and development initiatives, creating a safe platform to voice concerns, structural transformation and cultural change.

This study contributes to literature regarding women’s silence by exploring reasons for silence through the lens of Bandura’s social cognitive theory and agentic perspective, which demonstrates how silence could be reduced through collective action, in the understudied context of Poland, which highlights how country context intersects with organizational context and individual experience, influencing women’s silence.

The purpose of this study is to define and investigate the governance requirements of supply chain finance (SCF).

A qualitative analysis of 849 news articles published in UK newspapers (2000–2022) using the Gioia method.

SCF governance relies on developing capacities for reflexive scrutiny at two stages: (1) prior to entering into an SCF relationship and (2) during its operation. Based on the notion of SCF as a complex adaptive system, we theorise SCF governance requirements as a dual-layered semipermeable boundary. The semipermeability of the two layers allows for a dynamic exchange between the SCF system and its environment. The first layer is the capacity to selectively enable or control the entry and access of certain actors and practices into the SCF system. The second layer is a capacity for ongoing scrutiny of the SCF operation and its development. Further, we identify five aspects of governance to be enabled, i.e. enhancing adaptability, building confidence, improving efficiency, advancing technology and promoting transparency; and four aspects to be controlled, i.e. preventing abuse of power, curbing fraud risk, constraining operational risk and restricting risky extensions to SCF practices.

Our dynamic framework can guide supply chain (SC) members in making decisions about whether to participate, or continue to operate, in an SCF relationship. Moreover, the findings have implications for policymakers and authorities who oversee entry/access and the involvement of SCF providers, particularly, fintech firms.

The study contributes to both the SC and governance literature by providing a systematic analysis of what SCF governance has to accomplish. Our novel contribution lies in its analysis of SCF governance based on a complex adaptive system approach, which expands the existing literature where SCF is described in rather static terms. More specifically, it suggests a need for a dynamic duality of SCF governance through the semipermeable boundary that selectively enables and controls certain SCF actors and practices.