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This study aims to examine the question “How can we understand the dynamics that give rise to multiplicities of overlapping controls (MoOCs)?” and explore the role of local politics in the emergence of such multiplicities.

Building on assemblage theory, we use an in-depth case study of local government in France where a Socialist and Green coalition (the “Coalition”) replaced a long-standing Communist administration. The Coalition introduced a comprehensive set of new management control systems (MCSs), layered onto pre-existing systems.

The proliferation of new MCSs, together with the persistence of legacy MCSs, gave rise to a MoOC. Linkages between controls constituted potential points of rupture around which the assemblage changed and shifted the nexus of control. Whereas densely populated areas of the assemblage provided sites for conflict in the battle to influence the allocation of resources, some MCSs became isolated or were reterritorialized by political groups seeking autonomy from the new management.

We highlight the material consequences of political contentions around MoOCs that obfuscate, and at times frustrate, the implementation of a programme for government.

We contribute a set of concepts pertaining to the dynamics of MoOCs. We offer an alternative perspective on the disappointment associated with the adoption of new management tools in the public sector, showing how MCSs can become battlegrounds for political contention rather than tools for management improvement. We contribute to literature utilizing assemblage theory for analysing management accounting change.

The purpose of this study was to conduct a cross-national comparative examination of two graduate-level initial licensure teacher preparation programs at Universitatea Babeș-Bolyai in Romania and North Dakota State University in the United States of America, both considered research-intensive institutions in their respective countries. Furthermore, the study sought to examine how lessons drawn from this unique comparison of highly specific graduate teacher education programs may inform future revisions of both programs.

The study relied on a mixed-methods approach, collecting quantitative data via a survey instrument and qualitative data via follow-up individual email interviews. A content analysis of curriculum documents from both institutions was also conducted.

Findings indicate that the two programs reflect the institutional and contextual traditions of their respective national education systems. Notably, one program places greater emphasis on theoretical preparation than the other. The results also offer insight into graduate-level teacher preparation for initial licensure and provide guidance on areas within these programs that could be strengthened or improved.

Given this study’s limited sample size, further comparative longitudinal studies with an expanded sample of programs from multiple national settings and a larger sample population are needed.

This comparative analysis revealed convergences and divergences that could be instrumental in further reforming the two programs.

This research provides novel, in-depth insight into the multifaceted aspects of graduate teacher education in Romania, which, along with its undergraduate counterpart, has been subjected to frequent reform initiatives by successive Romanian governments. It also provides a unique look into NDSU’s graduate-level initial teacher licensure program, which has been in existence longer than its Romanian counterpart but has not yet been examined either on its own or in a comparative perspective as part of an empirical research project.

This study aimed to understand how administrative employees of an oil company perceive the role of software solutions in their routines.

Starting from an interpretive perspective, we used the phenomenographic method to analyze software solutions based on users’ experience, by means of 20 interviews carried out between November 2020 and May 2021.

Interviewees ranked the function of software solutions in their routines in three categories: (1) information repository; (2) orchestration mechanism and (3) guidelines for action. Four explanatory dimensions were identified: (1) artifact performance; (2) configuration between actors; (3) degree of automation and (4) accountability aspects.

The results expand knowledge on the role of software solutions in organizations. As players consider software essential to their routines, human agency in actions tends to decrease. Furthermore, the incorporation of digital elements in routines varies, based on how actors perceive their integration, from external tools to dominant elements that shape actions.

Respecting the autonomy of the actors involved in automated routines; ideally, automating routine steps that add value to the process.

The study explores the function of software solutions in organizational routines through the phenomenographic approach, presenting different concepts of that event.

The purpose of this research was to seek a more refined understanding of the ways beneficiaries are evaluating nonprofit organisations (NPO), from the beneficiaries’ perspectives. Understanding evaluation from beneficiaries’ perspectives is not only important theoretically, but also for enabling evaluation processes to authentically contribute toward enhanced downward accountability.

Theorisation of immanent evaluation (Deleuze, 1998), the ontological view that there is no form imposed from outside or above but instead an articulation from within, was drawn upon to direct attention toward understanding beneficiaries’ inherent productive evaluative capacity and agency. This theorisation enabled a different way of observing and understanding beneficiary evaluation within a qualitative case study conducted in an Australian NPO. Data was sourced from interviews, observations and document analysis.

Findings suggest beneficiaries largely viewed the NPO’s evaluation processes to be unsatisfactory toward meeting their needs in relation to meaningful engagement. However, beneficiaries’ evaluative capacity was noted to include their own evaluation criteria and evaluative expressions indicating the production of an evaluative account. Here beneficiaries’ evaluative expressions are representations of events of evaluation, initiated by them. Findings enable a more refined understanding of beneficiaries’ engagement in evaluation, moving beyond traditional considerations of participative evaluation, and illustrating beneficiaries’ agency and active role in the production of evaluation.

This research furthers understandings of downward accountability and participative evaluation by detailing how beneficiaries’ evaluative capacity is part of an NPO’s evaluative environment, and as such, conceives of an immanent theory of beneficiary evaluation. Findings highlight how evaluation, as a mechanism of downward accountability, functions from beneficiaries’ perspectives and the type of organisational environment capable of enabling and better supporting beneficiary engagement.

This paper aims to explore the intersection of artificial intelligence (AI) and marketing within the context of knowledge management (KM). It investigates how AI technologies facilitate data-driven decision-making, enhance business communication, improve customer personalization, optimize marketing campaigns and boost overall marketing effectiveness.

This study uses a quantitative and systematic approach, integrating citation analysis, text mining and co-citation analysis to examine foundational research areas and the evolution of AI in marketing. This comprehensive analysis addresses the current gap in empirical investigations of AI’s influence on marketing and its future developments.

This study identifies three main perspectives that have shaped the foundation of AI in marketing: proxy, tool and ensemble views. It develops a managerially relevant conceptual framework that outlines future research directions and expands the boundaries of AI and marketing literature within the KM landscape.

This research proposes a conceptual model that integrates AI and marketing within the KM context, offering new research trajectories. This study provides a holistic view of how AI can enhance knowledge sharing, strategic planning and decision-making in marketing.

Shopping through e-commerce platforms has become a primary daily activity. However, research on consumer engagement within e-commerce platform contexts remains scarce. We examine the relationship between consumer engagement on online shopping platforms and their subjective well-being, considering self-expansion and self-extension as mediators.

We investigate the role of consumer engagement by dividing it into two experiences (crowdsourcing and crowdsending). Using validated measurement scales to analyze data from 440 South Korean consumers, we examine how these engagement experiences affect self-expansion and self-extension, ultimately leading to higher subjective well-being.

Crowdsourcing and crowdsending play different and complementary roles in improving self-concept. Furthermore, self-expansion and self-extension are key variables influencing consumer engagement and well-being on the platform.

This study provides a new perspective of consumer online shopping behavior, revealing the self-related mechanisms that influence the relationship between consumer engagement experiences and subjective well-being.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled Conversational Agents (AICAs) on religious tourists’ experiences. It explores how AICA attributes influence religious tourists’ cognitive and affective states and how these evaluations, in turn, affect their memorable religious tourism experiences (MRTEs) and continuous use intentions of AICAs.

Drawing on the stimulus-organism-response model and the Technology Readiness Index, the authors propose a new theoretical framework to examine the relationships among AICA attributes (stimuli), religious tourists’ cognitive and affective evaluations (organism), and their behavioral responses (MRTEs and continuous use intentions). The model is conceptual, with relationships supported through a comprehensive literature review.

The model posits that AICA attributes, such as informativeness, accessibility, empathy and personalization, shape religious tourists’ cognitive and affective evaluations of AICAs. These evaluations impact tourists’ MRTEs, influencing their willingness to continue using AICAs in future religious tourism experiences. Additionally, religious tourists’ technology readiness is posited to moderate the relationship between AICA attributes and their cognitive and affective evaluations. Recommendations are made on how future research can be conducted to investigate and test the proposed conceptual model.

This paper enhances the literature on AI in tourism by examining AICAs’ influence on religious tourism experiences and exploring the multidimensional nature of AICA adoption. The proposed conceptual model provides a foundation for future empirical research. It offers insights for tourism operators and service providers, guiding the strategic use of AICAs to enhance MRTEs while respecting the sacred nature of spiritual journeys. These insights can inform the development of more effective and culturally sensitive AI-driven solutions in religious tourism contexts.

Digitalization in precision agriculture incorporates state-of-the-art digital technologies. The transformation requires manufacturers to launch digital platforms and services. As a result, innovation ecosystems emerge. In turn, digital technologies introduce novelty into innovation processes. This socio-technical transition is critical to understanding Digital Service Innovation (DSI). Thus, it is necessary for a micro-founded analysis that biographizes the socio-technical assemblages between routines, artifacts and humans that emerge from DSI processes. Against this backdrop, this study aims to examine the co-production processes and the configuration of digital servitization ecosystems based on Routine Dynamics and Sociomateriality views and the DSI perspective.

The study builds on multiple in-depth case studies, including three precision agriculture machinery and services ecosystems. For each ecosystem, the biography of the co-production process of the technological solution that integrates different actors and artifacts as a sociomaterial assemblage is reconstructed. The qualitative data consist of in-depth interviews with managers in the case companies and stakeholders in each ecosystem. Three ecosystems were surveyed. Documentary information from websites and technical documents on the products and services were systematized and incorporated into the analysis as a form of triangulation.

The analysis of ecosystem biographies evidences that DSI processes involve co-production between routines, actors and artifacts. This co-production implies moving from technology transfer relationships to the co-production of technological solutions oriented to digital servitization. New actors, digital artifacts and changes in user practices emerge as translators of DSI processes toward digital servitization. Thus, the emergence of technological solutions must be understood as socio-technical assemblages. The firms develop digital artifacts that allow the DSI process. The role of digital service platforms and users is critical in co-production. Digital artifacts based on algorithmic technologies perform automation and augmentation routines.

The study provides a complementary viewpoint between DSI approaches and the literature on Routine Dynamics and Sociomateriality. It explains in a micro-founded perspective, and based on biographies of the emergence of DSI ecosystems, how the relationship between digital artifacts, human practices and routines become dynamic in the co-production of Technological Solutions. This perspective proposes that DSI processes are based on the co-production of socio-technical assemblages. Thus, sociomateriality is at the center of analyzing the role of artifacts and the networks of relationships they perform and configure with humans, generating strategies, organizational practices and heterogeneous routine dynamics.

This study aims to examine how being part of a WhatsApp community of doctoral researchers over a five-year period influences the author’s well-being, learning and professional development.

This study adopts a digital autoethnographic approach, using the author’s own contributions to a WhatsApp group of doctoral researchers as data.

For the researcher, WhatsApp plays a significant and positive role in fostering community. The group engenders a sense of connection in a “backstage” community, where feelings can be shared honestly and reassurance received, thus supporting well-being. In this community, it is easy to seek advice about research. It also provides a low-stakes environment in which to learn how to offer advice to others, the experience of doing so contributing to professional development as a doctoral supervisor.

The insights gained will be useful for doctoral researchers considering the potential value of peer support and also for those supporting and supervising them.

This paper provides a rare glimpse into a peer-led WhatsApp community of doctoral researchers. It adds to the literature that uses rhizome theory as a theoretical lens, showing how rhizomatic principles and ideas around assemblages can be helpful in analysing multiple aspects of WhatsApp groups and other similar online communities.

VR gaming has seen significant growth over the past decade, establishing itself as more than a fleeting trend. This chapter explores how the sense of presence in VR gaming is best understood through its limitations and breakdowns. The author introduces the ‘Presence Assemblage’ concept derived from Ihde's post-phenomenological relations with technology. The framework developed argues that presence emerges as a phenomenal state in players, contingent on the balance of design elements and players' affective reception. Specifically, presence in VR is a combination of the focal, embodiment and hermeneutics relations a player has with VR and the game. The hermeneutic relation is critical but cannot be achieved without focal immersion and embodiment. By examining moments when presence ‘breaks’ or is interrupted in games like Borderlands 2 VR, Myst VR and VR Karts: Sprint, the chapter dissects factors contributing to and detracting from presence. These case studies reveal how issues with interfaces, game design, graphical fidelity and tactility illustrate presence as an assemblage of interdependent elements. The chapter argues that the breakdown of presence offers a crucial lens for understanding VR gaming dynamics. Using Heidegger's analysis of tools, it contends that presence is a state of ‘readiness-to-hand’, disrupted when technology malfunctions, making it ‘present-at-hand.’ This disruption shifts the experience from unreflective use to conscious contemplation, providing insights into what makes a VR gaming experience immersive. The chapter concludes by highlighting the intricate relationships between game design, narrative structures and technological affordances, stressing the contingent and interdependent nature of presence in VR gaming.