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This paper aims to examine whether firms meeting or just beating an earnings benchmark engage in tone management in earnings conference calls to complement earnings management in the UK context. It also investigates whether the audience tone in beating or just meeting earnings fails to predict future performance.

This study was performed using a sample of non-financial UK firms listed in the FTSE 350 index over the period 2010–2015.

The findings show that firms that exercise more earnings management to meet or just beat earnings are positively associated with the abnormal tone during earnings conference calls. The outcomes also reveal that the audience’s tone of firms meeting or just beating an earnings benchmark fails to predict future performance. This confirms the effectiveness of the tone management in managing the perception of audience.

This study highlights the need for increased accountability by firms on earnings conference call. It also supports academics and practitioners in understanding the management discretion used in reporting and communication during the earnings conference call. Overall, the results of this study are beneficial for regulators, policymakers and professionals, regarding confirming the need for the earnings conference calls to be regulated.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that examines the association between earnings management and tone management in the UK earnings conference calls. It adds to the existing literature by examining the self-serving behaviour of managerial tone during earnings conference calls within a sitting in which meeting or just beating a benchmark is used. Unlike several studies that explain the behaviour of tone as a signalling strategy, this study reveals that the tendency of impression management behaviour can explain the tone management.

The purpose of this paper is to determine how we ought to distinguish between reference and readers' advisory (RA) service, given the latter’s turn toward a whole collection approach. In other words, the paper answers this question: If both reference and RA librarians aim to meet patrons’ information needs and may theoretically do so using the same materials, then how are we to differentiate the two services conceptually?

In this conceptual paper, we posit that we can distinguish between RA and reference using Louise Rosenblatt’s theory of the aesthetic transaction. With this theory in hand, we can redefine the service distinction in terms of the stance – aesthetic or efferent – that the patron expects to take toward the material they seek.

On our account, the reader’s desired stance becomes a kind of hermeneutical lens through which a library worker may productively evaluate plausible pathways and materials. An aesthetic lens is characteristic of RA; it makes features of potential aesthetic transactions between a particular reader and a particular text (or genre or author’s oeuvre) salient.

The proposed account constitutes a novel application of Rosenblattian response theory, one that grounds and refines the going view that RA’s proper focus is on supporting a particular sort of experience rather than providing particular sorts of texts. This theoretical emendation also better aligns the service distinction with contemporary conceptualizations of RA as a “whole collection” service. Important practical and philosophical implications follow from the new account.

The purpose of this study is to identify potential differences in experiences and their causes from a gender-based perspective.

We use secondary data, and we conduct a thematic analysis, to identify whether and how women and men negotiate differently.

Despite remote work being considered as creating a level-playing field for both genders, women are still vulnerable to work and life demands, and pre-existing stereotypes become exacerbated. In addition, we show how technology might be used to manage physical and temporal boundaries, through integration or segmentation tactics.

There is a growing body of literature that focuses on work-life conflict among teleworkers. Yet, there is limited research that explores such conflicts from a gender perspective, specifically whether and how different genders manage boundaries between work and life differently.

Society is critically dependent on an adequate supply of hospital doctors to ensure optimal health care. Voluntary turnover amongst hospital doctors is, however, an increasing problem for hospitals. The aim of this study was to systematically review the extant academic literature to obtain a comprehensive understanding of the current knowledge base on hospital doctor turnover and retention. In addition to this, we synthesise the most common methodological approaches used before then offering an agenda to guide future research.

Adopting the PRISMA methodology, we conducted a systematic literature search of four databases, namely CINAHL, MEDLINE, PsycINFO and Web of Science.

We identified 51 papers that empirically examined hospital doctor turnover and retention. Most of these papers were quantitative, cross-sectional studies focussed on meso-level predictors of doctor turnover.

Selection criteria concentrated on doctors who worked in hospitals, which limited knowledge of one area of the healthcare environment. The review could disregard relevant articles, such as those that discuss the turnover and retention of doctors in other specialities, including general practitioners. Additionally, being limited to peer-reviewed published journals eliminates grey literature such as dissertations, reports and case studies, which may bring impactful results.

Globally, hospital doctor turnover is a prevalent issue that is influenced by a variety of factors. However, a lack of focus on doctors who remain in their job hinders a comprehensive understanding of the issue. Conducting “stay interviews” with doctors could provide valuable insight into what motivates them to remain and what could be done to enhance their work conditions. In addition, hospital management and recruiters should consider aspects of job embeddedness that occur outside of the workplace, such as facilitating connections outside of work. By resolving these concerns, hospitals can retain physicians more effectively and enhance their overall retention efforts.

Focussing on the reasons why employees remain with an organisation can have significant social repercussions. When organisations invest in gaining an understanding of what motivates their employees to stay in the job, they are better able to establish a positive work environment that likely to promote employee well-being and job satisfaction. This can result in enhanced job performance, increased productivity and higher employee retention rates, all of which are advantageous to the organisation and its employees.

The review concludes that there has been little consideration of the retention, as opposed to the turnover, of hospital doctors. We argue that more expansive methodological approaches would be useful, with more qualitative approaches likely to be particularly useful. We also call on future researchers to consider focussing further on why doctors remain in posts when so many are leaving.

This study aims to identify the factors influencing agile readiness in start-ups. Start-ups are being confronted with increased competition, customer demands, technological innovations and changes in the market environment. Adopting agile readiness for sustainable operations is a profitable and dependable way to improve the competition and reduce the number of failures of start-ups. The start-ups may investigate “how” after understanding the “whys.” The answers to these questions will be crucial to develop a strategy and a plan for luring clients, users, investors and partners. Therefore, this study will help in answering these crucial questions by using Total Interpretive Structural Modeling (TISM), whose main aim is to answer the key question of “what,” “how” and “why.” Using the “Total Interpretive Structural Modeling (TISM)” technique, this research tries to “describe,” “analyze” and “categorize” the agile readiness for sustainable operations enablers in start-ups.

Expert feedback and literature reviews from various start-ups led to the discovery of 10 enablers. In this study, the TISM technique was used to examine the inter-relationships between the enablers. The agile readiness for sustainable operations enablers was ranked and classified using the “Multiplication Applied to Classification (MICMAC)” technique. They were divided into four different categories: “autonomous,” “independent,” “linkage” and “dependent enablers.”

The results show that executive-level aid is the key agile readiness factor for sustainable operations. The next priority has been capability, experienced and skilled employees, market knowledge and environment agility. Leadership and clear vision have been given further priority. The next important is flexibility. The last and the least priority is given to receptive and strategic agility. This directional flow assists management in attaining adaptable sustainability, leading to continued growth in this dynamic environment.

The study focuses primarily on the agile readiness for sustainable operations of start-ups. This study offers a recommended list of crucial elements for start-ups, which may aid in creating guidelines for implementing agility for sustainable operations. This study provides academics with a TISM model that illustrates how start-ups can be ready to implement agility for sustainable operations. Future researchers could add more agility readiness variables to this study and validate this model across different start-ups.

Before implementing agile readiness for sustainable operations in start-ups, this study will aid managers and practitioners in the start-up business in understanding the relationships of enablers and identifying important readiness enablers.

The current study analyzes the agile readiness for sustainable operations in Start-ups. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, it is the first endeavor to use the “TISM approach” to examine the interrelationships across agile readiness for sustainable operations characteristics in start-ups.

Digital Service innovation (DSI) plays a fundamental role in the successful transition from product manufacturer or traditional service provider to a provider of digitally-enabled service solutions. Multiple impediments make managing this transformation using digital technologies difficult for firms, their customers and wider ecosystems. Extant knowledge of these digital technology impediments requires synthesizing and mapping.

A systematic literature review (SLR) was conducted. DSI tools and terminology are synthesized via thematic analysis. Subsequently, impediments to DSI for servitization (covering barriers, challenges and tensions) faced by actors across three key innovation phases: strategic planning, design planning and implementation, and four interaction levels (Micro, Meso, Macro-environment, Macro-ecosystem) are mapped via template analysis.

Six impediment categories (external environmental factors, internal firm factors, capabilities, business models and processes, value creation and interaction) encompassing 28 unique impediment types to DSI during servitization are identified. A framework enabling impediment comparison across innovation phases and ecosystem/network interaction levels, revealing that the majority of barriers can be framed as “challenges” was developed.

Whilst literature is emerging relating to digital servitization, there is a lack of research on the role DSI plays in facilitating digital servitization and no comprehensive study of DSI impediments exists. Additionally, consensus around the cross-disciplinary terminologies used is lacking. This study is a structured attempt to map the domain, summarizing the terms, identifying and clarifying impediment categories and providing recommendations for researchers and managers in tackling the latter.

The paper aims to understand how the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) influenced public employees' perception of smart working and how this approach was used during the pandemic. The authors asked about smart working's positive and negative aspects and how these changed during the pandemic.

The authors explored the strengths and weaknesses of smart working before and after COVID-19. The authors interviewed 27 Italian public employees who had experienced smart working before the pandemic. The questions and discussion aimed to broadly explore the strengths and weaknesses of smart working and smart working's impact on working performance, work relationships and work–life balance (WLB).

Smart working had a widespread and positive impact on organizational flexibility. Smart working improved the response and resilience of Italian public organizations to the pandemic. However, some critical factors emerged, such as the right to disconnect and the impact on WLB.

The authors suggest that the pandemic exposed the need for public administrations to consolidate work flexibility practices, such as smart working, by paying more attention to the impact of these practices on the whole organization and human resources management (HRM) policies and practices.

This study makes an important contribution to the literature on the public sector by discussing the positive and negative aspects of smart working. The study also provides managerial and policy implications of the use of smart working in public administrations.