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This study aims to determine the factors and dynamic systems behaviour of essential medicine stockout in public health-care supply chains. The authors examine the constraints and effects of mental models on medicine stockout to develop a dynamic theory of medicine availability towards saving patients’ lives.

This study uses a mixed-method approach. Starting with a survey method, followed by in-depth interviews with stakeholders within five health-care supply chains to determine the dynamic feedback leading to stockout and conclude by developing a network mental model for medicines availability.

The authors identified five constraints and developed five case mental models. The authors develop a dynamic theory of medicine availability across cases and identify feedback loops and variables leading to medicine availability.

The need to include mental models of stakeholders like manufacturers and distributors of medicines to understand the system completely. Group surveys are prone to power dynamics and bias from group thinking. This survey’s quantitative output could minimize the bias.

This study uniquely uses a mixed-method of survey method and in-depth interviews of experts to assess the essential medicine stockout in Nigeria. To improve medicine availability, the authors develop a dynamic network mental model to understand the system structure, feedback and behaviour driving stockouts. This research will benefit public policymakers and hospital managers in designing policies that reduce medicine stockout.

Critical infrastructures (CIs) for essential services such as water supply and electricity delivery are notoriously vulnerable to disruptions. While extant literature offers important insights into the resilience of CIs following large-scale disasters, our understanding of CI resilience to the more typical disruptions that affect CIs on a day-to-day basis remains limited. The present study investigates how the interorganizational (supply) network that uses and manages the CI can mitigate the adverse consequences of day-to-day disruptions.

Longitudinal archival data on 277 day-to-day disruptions within the Dutch national railway CI were collected and analyzed using generalized estimating equations.

The empirical results largely support the study’s predictions that day-to-day disruptions have greater adverse effects if they co-occur or are relatively unprecedented. The findings further show that the involved interorganizational network can enhance CI resilience to these disruptions, in particular, by increasing the overall level of cross-boundary information exchange between organizations inside the network.

This study helps managers to make well-informed choices regarding the target and intensity of their cross-boundary information-exchange efforts when dealing with day-to-day disruptions affecting their CI. The findings illustrate the importance of targeting cross-boundary information exchange at the complete interorganizational network responsible for the CI and to increase the intensity of such efforts when CI disruptions co-occur and/or are unprecedented.

This study contributes to our academic understanding of how network-level processes (i.e. cross-boundary information exchange) can be managed to ensure interorganizational (supply) networks’ resilience to day-to-day disruptions in a CI context. Subsequent research may draw from the conceptual framework advanced in the present study for examining additional supply network-level processes that can influence the effectiveness of entire supply networks. As such, the present research may assist scholars to move beyond a simple dyadic context and toward examining complete supply networks

For corporate communications, it is crucial to know how news media outlets report and frame the sociopolitical activities of multinational corporations (MNCs), including their corporate diplomacy, that affect perceptions of their legitimacy. Therefore, this study aims to identify how local news media frame corporate diplomacy in a host country and, in turn, benefit the media legitimacy of MNCs.

To identify media frames in the host country, a quantitative content analysis involving factor and cluster analyses of 385 articles published in newspapers in the United Arab Emirates from 2014 to 2019 addressing the corporate diplomacy of large European MNCs operating in the country was conducted.

This study identified three media frames, two of which establish moral and pragmatic media legitimacy. Results suggest that media legitimacy grows when news media emphasise institutional relationships between MNCs and local, established organisations and corporate diplomacy's benefits for society.

Findings provide insights into how corporate communications can contribute to legitimacy building by emphasising corporations' relationships with institutional actors in host countries and the benefits of corporate activities for local communities.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study was the first in corporate communications to empirically investigate news media's role in corporate diplomacy and how media frames contribute to the media legitimacy of MNCs at the moral, pragmatic, regulative and cognitive levels.

This study aims to see the moderating effect of board diversity on the relationship between ownership structure and real earnings management.

This study uses unbalanced panel data of 75 listed energy firms (346 firm-year observations) from three South Asian emerging economies (Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan) from 2015 to 2019. The two-step system GMM estimation is used for data analysis. This study also uses fixed effect regression to obtain robust findings.

The findings show that firms with a greater ownership concentration and managerial ownership significantly reduce real earnings management. In contrast, the data refute the idea that institutional and foreign ownership affect real earnings management. We also find that board diversity interacts significantly with ownership concentration and managerial ownership, meaning that board diversity moderates the negative link of the primary relationship that reduces real earnings management. On the other hand, board diversity has no interaction with institutional and foreign ownership, implying no moderating effect exists on the primary relationship.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is unique research investigating how different ownership structures affect real earnings management in the emerging nations’ energy sector, which the earlier studies overlook. More specifically, this research focuses on how board diversity moderates the relationships between ownership structure and real earnings management, which could be helpful for future investors.

While the branding of individuals has attracted increasing attention from practitioners in recent decades, understanding of personal branding still remains limited, especially with regard to the branding of celebrity CEOs. To contribute to this debate, this paper aims to explore the co-branding of celebrity CEOs and corporate brands, integrating endorsement theory and the concept of meaning transfer at a level of brand attributes.

A between-subjects true experimental design was chosen for each of the two empirical studies with a total of 268 participants, using mock newspaper articles about a succession scenario at the CEO level of different companies. The study is designed to analyse the meaning transfer from celebrity CEO to corporate brand and vice versa using 16 personality attributes.

This study gives empirical support for meaning transfer effects at the brand attribute level in both the celebrity-CEO-to-corporate-brand and corporate-brand-to-celebrity-CEO direction, which confirms the applicability of the concept of brand endorsement to celebrity CEOs and the mutuality in co-branding models. Furthermore, a more detailed and expansive perspective on the definition of endorsement is provided as well as managerial guidance for building celebrity CEOs and corporate brands in consideration of meaning transfer effects.

This study is one of only few analysing the phenomenon of meaning transfer between brands that focus on non-evaluative associations (i.e. personality attributes). It is unique in its scope, insofar as the partnering relationship between celebrity CEOs and corporate brands have not been analysed empirically from this perspective yet. It bridges the gap between application in practice and the academic foundations, and it contributes to a broader understanding and definition of celebrity endorsement.

The purpose of this paper is to apply the aspects of decision theory (DT) to performance measurement and management (PMM), thereby enabling the theoretical elaboration of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity in the business environment, which are identified as barriers to effective PMM.

A review of decision theory and PMM literature establishes the Cynefin framework as the basis for extending the performance alignment matrix. Case research with seven companies explores the relationship between two concepts under-examined in the performance alignment matrix – internal dominant logic (DL) as the attribute of organisational culture affecting decision making, and the external environment – in line with the concept of alignment or fit in PMM. A focus area is PMM related to sustainable operations and sustainable supply chain management.

Alignment between DL, external environment and PMM is found, as are instances of misalignment. The Cynefin framework offers a deeper theoretical explanation about the nature of this alignment. Other findings consider the nature of organisational ownership on DL.

The cases are exploratory not exhaustive, and limited in number. Organisations showing contested logic were excluded.

Some organisations have cultures of predictability and control; others have cultures that recognise their external environment as fundamentally unpredictable, and hence there is a need for responsive, decentralised PMM. Some have sought to change their culture and PMM. Being attentive to how cultural logic affects decision making can help reduce the misalignment in PMM.

A novel contribution is made by applying decision theory to PMM, extending the theoretical depth of the subject.

This study aims to investigate the manufacturing reshoring decision-making content from an Eclectic Paradigm perspective.

Data were collected through a six-step systematic literature review on factors influencing manufacturing reshoring decision-making. The review is based on 100 peer-reviewed journal papers discussing reshoring decision-making contents published from 2009 to 2022.

In total, 80 decision factors were extracted and then categorized into resource-seeking (8%), market-seeking (11%), efficiency-seeking (41%) and strategic asset-seeking (16%) advantages. Additionally, 24% of these were identified as hybrid, which means that they were classified into multiple categories. Some decision factors were further identified as reshoring influencing factors (i.e. drivers, enablers and barriers).

Scholars need to consider what other theories can be used or developed to identify and evaluate the decision factors (determinants) of manufacturing reshoring as well as how currently adopted theory can be further advanced to create clearer and comprehensive theoretical frameworks.

This research underscores the importance of developing clearer and more comprehensive theoretical frameworks. For practitioners, understanding the multifaceted nature of decision factors could enhance strategic decision-making regarding reshoring initiatives.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the value and practicality of the Eclectic Paradigm in categorizing factors in manufacturing reshoring decision-making content and presents in-depth theoretical classifications. In addition, it bridges the gap between decision factors and influencing factors in the decision-making content research realm.

Firms have already begun integrating artificial intelligence (AI) as a replacement for conventional performance management systems owing to its technological superiority. This transition has sparked a growing interest in determining how employees perceive and respond to performance feedback provided by AI as opposed to human supervisors.

A 2 x 2 between-subject experimental design was employed that was manipulated into four experimental conditions: AI algorithms, AI data, highly experienced human supervisors and low-experience human supervisor conditions. A one-way ANOVA and Welch t-test were used to analyze data.

Our findings revealed that with a predefined fixed formula employed for performance feedback, employees exhibited higher levels of trust in AI algorithms, had greater performance expectations and showed stronger intentions to seek performance feedback from AI algorithms than highly experienced human supervisors. Conversely, when performance feedback was provided by human supervisors, even those with less experience, in a discretionary manner, employees' perceptions were higher compared to similar feedback provided by AI data. Moreover, additional analysis findings indicated that combined AI-human performance feedback led to higher levels of employees' perceptions compared to performance feedback solely by AI or humans.

The findings of our study advocate the incorporation of AI in performance management systems and the implementation of AI-human combined feedback approaches as a potential strategy to alleviate the negative perception of employees, thereby increasing firms' return on AI investment.

Our study represents one of the initial endeavors exploring the integration of AI in performance management systems and AI-human collaboration in providing performance feedback to employees.

This study aims to explore and theorize value gaps within value chain management (VCM) by extending the service quality gap model to the context of global manufacturing value chains.

Drawing upon a case study of a small, family-owned Swedish furniture wholesaler, Alpha, this research adapts the service quality gap model and integrates it into the VCM framework. The investigation examines the value creation and delivery processes across a network of actors, highlighting how various gaps emerge at different stages of the value chain.

The study identifies and describes several value gaps, including those related to consumer understanding, manufacturing capabilities and coordination across the value chain. Value creation gaps arise from poor communication about consumer needs and product features, whereas value delivery gaps are mainly tied to manufacturing capacity and material restrictions. These gaps can result in misalignment between consumer expectations and the delivered value.

Although this study provides insights into the emergence of value gaps, further research is needed to determine the magnitude and reduction strategies for these gaps. In addition, understanding how consumers evaluate new products remains a critical area for investigation.

The research highlights the significance of a coordinated approach to managing value creation and delivery processes. It underscores the need for companies to capture accurate consumer data, consider manufacturing capabilities and engage in effective coordination with various actors in the value chain.

By addressing value gaps, companies can enhance consumer satisfaction and minimize potential dissatisfaction caused by misalignment between consumer expectations and delivered value. This, in turn, can lead to improved relationships with consumers and other actors within the value chain.

This research offers a novel perspective on value gaps in VCM, extending the service quality gap model to the realm of manufacturing. It underscores the importance of managing both value creation and delivery processes for enhancing competitive advantage in a global market.