Mojca Indihar Štemberger, Vesna Bosilj Vuksic, Frank Morelli and Jurij Jaklič
Although improving customer experience (CX) has always been one of the top priorities of business process management (BPM), the evidence on the actual contribution made by…
Abstract
Purpose
Although improving customer experience (CX) has always been one of the top priorities of business process management (BPM), the evidence on the actual contribution made by traditional BPM to improving CX and customer experience management (CXM) is mixed. Recently, new and enhanced capability areas have been added to the traditional BPM frameworks, yet it is unclear which of them contribute to CXM. Moreover, it is not known which of them are necessary and which are sufficient conditions. The aim of this research is to shed light on the research gap concerning which BPM capabilities, especially new and enhanced ones, are relevant to CXM.
Design/methodology/approach
Quantitative data from 268 medium and large companies in 3 EU countries were analysed using hierarchical linear regression analysis and necessary condition analysis.
Findings
The results show that traditional BPM capabilities are a necessary condition for CXM, but with minor significance. Most highly significant necessary conditions and also most highly or medium significant sufficient conditions belong to the People or Culture area. Agile Process Improvement is the only new or enhanced BPM capability area in the Methods/IT area that is a necessary and also a sufficient condition for CXM maturity. Advanced Process Digitalisation was identified as neither a significant necessary nor a sufficient condition for CXM.
Originality/value
This research contributes to better understanding of the role played by BPM for CXM, where previous research provides mixed results.
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Anne Lise Bjørnstad and Frederick M.J. Lichacz
The purpose of this paper is to focus on organizational flexibility and explore its antecedents, organizational structure, and processes, as proposed by network organization…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to focus on organizational flexibility and explore its antecedents, organizational structure, and processes, as proposed by network organization theories. The study also explores the possible moderating effects of power distance (Pd) and cultural diversity.
Design/methodology/approach
Using self-report data from three different multinational military exercises and one laboratory experiment, the paper explored the relationships between perceptions of flat organizational structure, decentralized processes, and flexibility. The data from each of these studies were analyzed both separately and together.
Findings
The analyses revealed that decentralization had the most consistent relationship to organizational flexibility across each of the four studies. Moreover, when the data were analyzed conjunctively, significant positive relationships between decentralization and flexibility and between flat structure and flexibility were observed. No moderating effects of Pd or cultural diversity were found.
Practical implications
The results suggest that decentralizing processes and creating flatter hierarchies may contribute to achieving higher levels of organizational flexibility in military organizations.
Originality/value
The paper contributes to empirical support for the central theoretical propositions of network organizational literature, including moderating factors that are essential in multinational organizational contexts.
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Lucrezia Songini, Chiara Morelli and Paola Vola
Notwithstanding the relevance of managerial control systems (MCS) in any organization, as well the distinctive role they can play in family business, due to its specific features…
Abstract
Notwithstanding the relevance of managerial control systems (MCS) in any organization, as well the distinctive role they can play in family business, due to its specific features, the literature rarely dealt with the role and characteristics of MCS in family business. Taking into account previous contributions from different disciplines (organization, management accounting, and family business), the current work aims to better understand the state of the art about research in the field of MCS in family business in order to identify main research gaps and propose future research directions.
Forty-five articles have been analyzed, which were issued in 29 sources. Research findings show that the literature on MCS in family business is limited and not very conclusive. Some authors focused on the type of controls, other authors outlined the role of MCS in managerialization and the relation with professionalization. A few studies focused on some specific mechanisms, especially strategic planning and compensation. Some contributes dealt with MCS’ determinants and impacts. Differences between family and non-family firms were proposed. However, a clear and organized picture of the features of MCS in family firms, their determinants, and impacts has not yet been developed. Particularly, the impact of the distinctive features of family business on MCS represents an underdeveloped research field along with how MCS can be differently developed and used in different kinds of family firms. In the light of findings of the literature review, we propose a reference research framework on MCS in family business.
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Asuman Buyukcan-Tetik, Sara Albuquerque, Margaret S. Stroebe, Henk A. W. Schut and Maarten C. Eisma
Purpose: The death of a child can elicit enduring and intense parental grief. Additionally, as parents are both confronted with the loss of their child, interpersonal processes…
Abstract
Purpose: The death of a child can elicit enduring and intense parental grief. Additionally, as parents are both confronted with the loss of their child, interpersonal processes come into play. This study aimed to examine the change in reported levels of grief among bereaved parents individually and at a couple-level. The authors examined the differences in grief trajectories between mothers and fathers and whether the reported level of grief of one partner predicts the other partner’s reported level of grief.
Design/methodology/approach: Our longitudinal study included 229 bereaved couples who completed the Inventory of Complicated Grief at 6, 13, and 20 months post-loss.
Findings: A latent growth curve analysis showed that parents reported consistently high average grief levels, mothers reported higher grief levels than fathers, and all parents reported a similar small decline in grief. A cross-lagged panel analysis showed that the grief of one parent affected the grief of the other parent with similar strength. Our results held regardless of the child’s gender and age, but an expected loss was associated with a lower grief level 6 months post-loss and a smaller decline in reported levels of grief.
Originality/value: These findings highlight bereaved parents as a particularly vulnerable population, increase our understanding of change in parental grief over time and of the interdependence of grieving in bereaved couples.
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It tends to be called the corner shop, mainly because it occupied a corner building for extra window space, but also due to the impetus given to the name by television series…
Abstract
It tends to be called the corner shop, mainly because it occupied a corner building for extra window space, but also due to the impetus given to the name by television series seeking to portray life as it used to be. The village grew from the land, a permanent stopping place for the wandering tribes of early Britain, the Saxons, Welsh, Angles; it furnished the needs of those forming it and eventually a village store or shop was one of those needs. Where the needs have remained unchanged, the village is much as it has always been, a historical portrait. The town grew out of the village, sometimes a conglomerate of several adjacent villages. In the days before cheap transport, the corner shop, in euphoric business terms, would be described as “a little gold mine”, able to hold its own against the first introduction of multiple chain stores, but after 1914 everything changed. Edwardian England was blasted out of existence by the holocaust of 1914–18, destroyed beyond all hope of recovery. The patterns of retail trading changed and have been continuously changing ever since. A highly developed system of cheap bus transport took village housewives and also those in the outlying parts of town into busy central shopping streets. The jaunt of the week for the village wife who saw little during the working days; the corner shop remained mainly for things they had “run out of”. Every village had its “uppety” madames however who affected disdain of the corner shop and its proprietors, preferring to swish their skirts in more fashionable emporia, basking in the obsequious reception by the proprietor and his equally servile staff.
The purpose of this study is to explore the conceptualisation of co-evolution using a corporate history research approach. While the application of the co-evolutionary perspective…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to explore the conceptualisation of co-evolution using a corporate history research approach. While the application of the co-evolutionary perspective to the organisational-environmental relationships has uncovered significant evidences, little is understood about how the co-evolutionary process occurs over time between organisations and their institutional environment.
Design/methodology/approach
A co-evolutionary corporate history approach in used, as the authors investigated Sainsbury’s historical trajectory, exploring the role specific family members played in the evolution of the firm and the co-evolution of Sainsbury’s with its environment. This research design framework encompasses longitudinal archival analysis which incorporates both external and internal engagement which fostered Sainsbury’s joint evolution.
Findings
The findings from this study clearly suggest that certain organisations can and do co-evolve with their environment. However, organisations need to build legitimate cases for co-evolution to occur. In addition, they need to acquire certain resources that can be used to stimulate changes within their institutional environment.
Originality/value
Through a corporate history archival analysis, this study presents a UK company’s evolutionary narrative. The authors contribute to the growing literature on co-evolution in management studies by presenting a detailed historical narrative and interpretation of Sainsbury’s evolution at different time periods.
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Peta Ifould and Pauline Joseph
The purpose of this paper is to provide a unique perspective into user difficulties working with the functional business classification scheme (BCS) to register, search and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide a unique perspective into user difficulties working with the functional business classification scheme (BCS) to register, search and retrieve corporate information at the Western Australia Police (WA Police).
Design/methodology/approach
This paper is a single case study. Questionnaire and interview data were collected and analysed from a sample of ten EDRMS users on their perspectives of working with the BCS. An interpretive analysis methodology was used, and inductive reasoning was used for thematic analysis and sense making of the textual data from the transcripts.
Findings
Although the research participants were confident working with the BCS, they reported difficulties finding an appropriate folder that matched the information to be classified and deciding where to file the information. Participants reported that the design and structure of the BCS and training were identified as areas needing improvement.
Research limitations/implications
Paradigm shifts in the record-keeping role from the professional to the user may have some bearing on the difficulties users face when dealing with their record-keeping responsibilities. The participants provided comments and suggestions for how to make the BCS more user-friendly, more meaningful and more aligned to the business processes of the users that are practicable and workable solutions for the records professionals to implement.
Practical implications
This paper provides a unique user perspective of a BCS, their difficulties working with it and how these difficulties can be resolved in a government organisation.
Originality/value
This paper provides a unique user perspective of a BCS, their difficulties working with it and how these difficulties can be resolved in a government organisation.
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This chapter analyzes the development of the relationship between the social sciences and sport in Argentina – from its first steps, to the present, and to possible future issues…
Abstract
This chapter analyzes the development of the relationship between the social sciences and sport in Argentina – from its first steps, to the present, and to possible future issues. The description of Arbena (1999) from the last part of twentieth century about the situation of the social sciences and sport in Latin America in general and Argentina in particular could not be more precise:
Latin America has produced little scholarly analysis of sport and society, though information and insights are found in other types of writings, journalistic accounts such as club histories and popular biographies. What has been focused on soccer normally treats only the author’s own country, and is rarely available in English. Nowhere does a single author or academic group dominate. (Arbena, 2000, p. 548)
Latin America has produced little scholarly analysis of sport and society, though information and insights are found in other types of writings, journalistic accounts such as club histories and popular biographies. What has been focused on soccer normally treats only the author’s own country, and is rarely available in English. Nowhere does a single author or academic group dominate. (Arbena, 2000, p. 548)
We also make reference to how the anthropologist Eduardo Archetti breaks that mold described by Arbena and how he becomes the undisputed referent in the study of the social sciences and sport in Argentina, and how his immense contribution is recognized in the region. We analyze the present status of this topic, its major changes, the development that the area has undergone so far, and the issues that are being studied today. Moreover, we mention the importance of sociology of sport in the academic field and its formalization. Finally, this chapter also considers possible future trends in the sociology of sport in Argentina.
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This paper aims to consider the influence of imprisonment on the health of prisoners with the HIV virus or AIDS and their perceptions of their quality of life.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to consider the influence of imprisonment on the health of prisoners with the HIV virus or AIDS and their perceptions of their quality of life.
Design/methodology/approach
This is a qualitative study involving adult male prisoners in three Italian prisons. A total of 19 individual semi‐structured interviews were conducted.
Findings
Life in prison for HIV positive detainees is experienced as a kind of “double burden,” due to the connection between the loss of freedom and the limitations imposed by their health status. The experience of being ill and sick in prison results in the prisoner exhibiting fatalism towards the future, having a sense of alienation and marginalisation as well as being afraid of the consequences of living with HIV or AIDS.
Social implications
Prison can be considered as a “total institution” where prisoners are cut off from every role except the negative one of a prisoner deprived of freedom, and this situation greatly contributes to apathy and reinforces the inmates' antisocial behaviour.
Originality/value
This paper gives a voice to the needs and views of Italian prisoners who are HIV positive or who have AIDS and presents these in the context of the international situation.