Gréta Björk Kristjánsdóttir, Úlfar Kristinn Gíslason and Ásta Sif Erlingsdóttir
Research management is slowly being recognised as a profession in Iceland as demands from funders and quality assurance have increased. The Icelandic research community is very…
Abstract
Research management is slowly being recognised as a profession in Iceland as demands from funders and quality assurance have increased. The Icelandic research community is very small and funding for research is limited. The development of the profession in Iceland is tightly connected to international cooperation in research and participation in international programmes, in particular, the EU framework programmes. This participation has increased the administrative burden on researchers and shown the need for a specific profession that manages all other aspects of the research enterprise. This has slowly developed from being mostly financial management of grants into complete research management from idea to impact. A pivotal moment for research management in Iceland was the founding of ICEARMA in 2012, which has put a spotlight on the role of research managers within institutions, and led to most major research institutions hiring a designated research manager. This has also increased cooperation within the community.
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Toni Ahlqvist, Asta Bäck, Sirkka Heinonen and Minna Halonen
This paper seeks to discuss the outcomes of a road‐mapping research on social media project completed at VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland. Social media refer to a…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper seeks to discuss the outcomes of a road‐mapping research on social media project completed at VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland. Social media refer to a combination of three elements: content, user communities, and Web 2.0 technologies.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper utilizes socio‐technical road‐mapping to study the potential transformations of social media in the virtual and physical spheres.
Findings
Road‐maps were constructed in three thematic areas: society, companies, and local environment. The results were crystallized into five development lines. The first development line is transparency and its increasing role in society. The second development line is the rise of a ubiquitous participatory communication model. The third development is reflexive empowerment citizens. The fourth development line is the duality of personalization/fragmentation vs mass effects/integration. The fifth development line is the new relations of physical and virtual worlds.
Originality/value
The study of social media has been focusing mainly on its technological aspects from the current perspective. This paper forms a future‐oriented perspective to social media in a wider societal context.
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Ilona Bartuseviciene, Ona Grazhina Rakauskiene and Asta Valackiene
The purpose of this paper is to define the main dimensions/aspects of resilient organizations and propose a benchmarking model to assess an organization's resilience in the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to define the main dimensions/aspects of resilient organizations and propose a benchmarking model to assess an organization's resilience in the context of uncertainty.
Design/methodology/approach
The systematic literature review method was applied to collect and synthesize relevant scientific literature from 2001 to 2022 to construct and validate a methodological approach.
Findings
This paper proposes a conceptualization of organizational resilience as the capacity of an organization to first remain stable; then prepare, absorb and recover after a crisis; adapt to the new environment; and, finally, use the developed experience to enhance the capacity for transformation, playing an essential role for coping with uncertainty.
Research limitations/implications
Resilience is recognized as organizations’ ability to adapt to the new conditions, influenced by the crises. Moreover, it supports the recognition of the learning phase that allows for growth by constantly learning from emerging situations and gaining unique experiences. These observations allow us to suggest the twofold approach. The first distinguishes the resilience as organizations’ ability to adapt to the changing environment, that is, bounce back, while the second highlights the importance of learning capacity, that is, bounce forward.
Practical implications
The authors suggest to adopt the conceptual framework of the bounce forward phenomenon using the Resilient Organizations’ Resilience Benchmark Tool to assess organizational resilience. This would determine the overall resilience by identifying the links between bouncing back (preparing, absorbing, recovering and adapting) and bouncing forward (enhancing learning capacity).
Originality/value
Having reviewed the methodologies in the extant literature to evaluate organizational resilience and explored the similarities and differences between them, the authors concluded that the Resilient Organizations Resilience Benchmark Tool (2017) is the most appropriate three-dimensional tool because of its universality and comprehensive scope. These three dimensions consist of: leadership and culture; networks; and change readiness. This methodology assesses organizations' perspectives regarding resilience based on their ability to respond to and manage crises and their ability to bounce forward successfully.
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Richelle Marynowski, Amber Darroch, Asta Gregory and Molly James
This paper reports on a study exploring a sustained coaching model of teacher professional development (PD). The study was undertaken with middle school teachers in a small rural…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper reports on a study exploring a sustained coaching model of teacher professional development (PD). The study was undertaken with middle school teachers in a small rural school division in Alberta, Canada. The goal of the study was to theorize about the components of the sustained coaching model of PD that supported or was a barrier to teachers engaging in a year-long PD series.
Design/methodology/approach
A grounded theory methodology was used to theorize about the components of a teacher PD model that participants viewed as being a support or barrier to their engagement in the PD. Data were collected from two individual participant interviews: one interview at the beginning of the year and one interview at the end of the year.
Findings
Findings indicate that teacher PD should include a constant community, accountability to other participants in that community, and a balance of theoretical and practical support and be provided over multiple sessions. In addition, in order for the PD to be sustainable, barriers to engaging in the PD should be minimized.
Originality/value
A recognition of the complexity of the factors influencing a teacher's interaction with PD provides a lens with which to consider the potential for a teacher's engagement with PD.
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Agnė Gadeikienė, Asta Pundzienė and Aistė Dovalienė
The rise of telehealth is evident worldwide, especially now with the COVID-19 pandemic situation, and is providing extensive opportunities for health-care organisations to create…
Abstract
Purpose
The rise of telehealth is evident worldwide, especially now with the COVID-19 pandemic situation, and is providing extensive opportunities for health-care organisations to create added value for different stakeholders. However, even in this extreme situation, the progress of telehealth is quite slow and insufficient. In this context, it is necessary to consider how the application of telehealth services allows co-creating additional value for different stakeholders. Consequently, the purpose of this paper is to explore telehealth services and the added value that they co-create for various stakeholders across publicly and privately oriented health-care ecosystems.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper adopted a qualitative research design based on an explorative and comparative approach to study the perceived added value that is co-created during telehealth encounters. The authors deployed a semi-structured interview research design. Interviews were carried out in two settings that have different health-care systems: Lithuania (publicly oriented health care) and the California Bay Area, USA, (privately oriented health care). The research covers telehealth services from the point of view of different stakeholders in the health-care ecosystem.
Findings
The paper emphasises that value-in-use is essential in the case of telehealth; however, value-in-exchange is relevant to describe the relationships between public and private insurers and health-care providers. The findings point out that despite the type of health-care system, telehealth added value-in-use was perceived quite similar in both research settings, and differences could be distinguished mainly at the sub-dimensional level. The added value-in-use for patients comprises economic, functional and emotional value; physicians potentially get functional added value-in-use. The authors also highlight that patients and physicians get relational functional and social value-in-use. The added value-in-use for health-care providers consists of economic (in both research settings) and functional value (in Lithuania). The research findings show that there is still an evident lack of health insurance companies ready to recognise telehealth as a valuable service and to reimburse similarly to in cases of in-person visits. Thus, the added value-in-exchange is hardly created and this impedes co-creation of the added value-in-use.
Originality/value
This paper contributes to the field mainly by transferring the business research applied concept of value co-creation into the social-purpose driven health-care industry. The findings are beneficial for the health-care management stream of the literature, which considers health care as a value-based industry. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first attempt to structure the perceived telehealth added value from the perspectives of different stakeholders and two different health-care ecosystems. This paper also gives a clearer understanding of the role of the value-in-exchange in such complex ecosystems as health care and gives reasons when it could be created in synergy with co-creation of the value-in-use. In this sense, the findings are beneficial from both marketing and innovation theoretical perspectives, as they give a special attention to value creation and co-creation phenomena analysis.
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Weimu You, Asta Salmi and Katri Kauppi
This paper aims to analyze the roles that African suppliers play in global value chains and the strategies that foreign firms adopt to integrate African firms into their supply…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to analyze the roles that African suppliers play in global value chains and the strategies that foreign firms adopt to integrate African firms into their supply chains.
Design/methodology/approach
The empirical research of this paper is based on a multiple case study and on interview data of foreign buyers and their entry into African supply markets: five Finnish companies and five Chinese companies were interviewed in 2014-2015.
Findings
The authors find that Finnish firms make relatively small investments and start sourcing operations on a small scale, whereas Chinese firms are running large infrastructural projects, relying on local sourcing. African firms typically only play modest roles with little value capture in the chain, supplying raw materials and simple products. The African infrastructural and cultural context makes it challenging for foreign firms to provide local suppliers with more strategic roles in their chains, thus hindering integration of local firms into global value chains.
Originality/value
This paper is one of the first to offer a comparison of Finnish (Western) and Chinese (other emerging economy) firms’ sourcing from Africa and provides understanding of the role of African suppliers in current value chains. The authors offer a qualitative exploration of why companies invest in African suppliers and of the scope of African presence in global value chains.
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Lolita Jurksiene and Asta Pundziene
Dynamic capabilities and organizational ambidexterity are closely related concepts. Unfortunately, there is still a lack of understanding about the relation between the two. This…
Abstract
Purpose
Dynamic capabilities and organizational ambidexterity are closely related concepts. Unfortunately, there is still a lack of understanding about the relation between the two. This paper aims to offer a theoretical explanation of the relationship between dynamic capabilities, organizational ambidexterity and firm competitive advantage. The authors find that organizational ambidexterity may be considered as a mediator in the relationship between dynamic capabilities and firm competitive advantage. Therefore, this paper contributes theoretically to the authors’ understanding of the relationship between organizational ambidexterity and dynamic capabilities with regard to firm competitive advantage.
Design/methodology/approach
In this conceptual paper, the review of research literature on dynamic capabilities and organizational ambidexterity is presented. Theoretical analysis is followed by theoretical prepositions that should be subsequently tested empirically.
Findings
By considering dynamic capabilities and organizational ambidexterity related to competitive advantage, this paper provides a new perspective on concepts’ relationship. The theoretical findings described in this paper suggest that organizational ambidexterity plays a mediating role in the relationship between dynamic capabilities and firm competitive advantage.
Research limitations/implications
Further research are required to develop organizational ambidexterity and dynamic capabilities theories, focusing more on the relation to competitive advantage. Additional testing is necessary to empirically validate the propositions given in this paper.
Originality/value
Based on theoretical findings, this paper clarifies the relationship between dynamic capabilities and organizational ambidexterity concepts. Theoretical findings described in this paper also determine the guidelines for further theoretical and empirical research within the fields.
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Darius Ruželė, Asta Stankevičienė and Gabija Koreivaitė
This study aimed to explore various effects of remote work on employee job satisfaction, engagement and aspects of individual work performance, namely task performance, contextual…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aimed to explore various effects of remote work on employee job satisfaction, engagement and aspects of individual work performance, namely task performance, contextual performance and counterproductive work behaviour, in the banking sector.
Design/methodology/approach
We used a survey-based quantitative approach. The sample comprised 403 bank employees in Lithuania, Denmark, Norway, Finland and Sweden. To analyse the data, we employed a confirmatory factor analysis, a CB-SEM multiple regression analysis, mediation analysis and moderation analysis.
Findings
The analysis of direct effects showed that the intensity of remote work has a positive impact on job satisfaction, a negative impact on engagement and a nonsignificant impact on individual performance. Job satisfaction has a positive impact on engagement and task performance and a nonsignificant impact on contextual performance and counterproductive behaviour. Engagement improves task performance and contextual performance and decreases counterproductive work behaviour. Job satisfaction positively mediates the impact of remote work on engagement; however, the total impact of remote work on engagement is negative. The intensity of remote work significantly moderates the impact of job satisfaction on engagement.
Practical implications
This study provides insights that allow for the optimisation of individual work performance by means of the proper management of the intensity of remote work, job satisfaction and engagement.
Originality/value
We present the original discovery that the intensity of remote work acts as a moderator of the impact of job satisfaction on engagement.
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Yuan Virtanen, Asta Salmi and Xiao Qin
Sourcing intermediaries, commonly known as agents or trading companies, represent a useful organisational solution for assisting companies to manage supply risks and to overcome…
Abstract
Purpose
Sourcing intermediaries, commonly known as agents or trading companies, represent a useful organisational solution for assisting companies to manage supply risks and to overcome the liability of foreignness. However, the landscape of global business is experiencing rapid and fundamental changes, which leads us to ask whether intermediaries will continue to play a role in global sourcing. This paper aims to understand how sourcing intermediaries ensure a lasting position in the changing setting of global sourcing and information sharing.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper investigates the operations of both Chinese and Nordic (Finnish and Swedish) intermediaries in sourcing from China by analysing qualitative data collected over a period of four years.
Findings
Through the lens of information asymmetry, this paper identifies four distinct informational roles that are used by intermediaries to reduce information asymmetry between suppliers and buyers located in different countries. The paper also examines intermediaries’ signalling activities under these roles in a cross-border triad.
Originality/value
The paper contributes to the scientific debate on the usefulness of intermediaries by underlining intermediaries’ informational advantage, which provides a new explanation for the survival of intermediaries in a rapidly changing business context. Additionally, this study contributes to research on intermediation strategies by empirically examining both Chinese and Western intermediaries, highlighting the importance of institutional contexts in affecting intermediaries’ informational roles.