Silvana Costantini, Jon G. Hall and Lucia Rapanotti
The paper aims to provide methodological support for hybrid project management, in which the discipline of predictive methodologies combines with the flexibility of adaptive ones…
Abstract
Purpose
The paper aims to provide methodological support for hybrid project management, in which the discipline of predictive methodologies combines with the flexibility of adaptive ones. Specifically, the paper explores the extent complexity and volatility dimensions of organisational problems inform choices of PM methodologies both theoretically and in current practice, as a first step towards better methodological support for hybridisation.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper takes a mixed method approach, including both secondary research and primary research with practitioners. Primary research consists of a small scale survey (n = 31) followed by semi-structured interviews, with findings triangulated against secondary evidence.
Findings
The paper provides empirical insights on how complexity and volatility of organisational problems can inform hybrid project management practices. Specifically, it suggests a mapping between volatility and complexity dimensions and predictive and adaptive risk controls as a first step towards the systematisation of hybrid combinations in projects.
Research limitations/implications
Due to the small participant sample, the research results may lack generalisability.
Practical implications
The paper includes implications for the development of methodological support for setting up hybrid projects in practice.
Originality/value
The paper addresses a gap acknowledged both in the literature and by practitioners.
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Edward J. Oughton, Zoraida Frias, Mischa Dohler, Jason Whalley, Douglas Sicker, Jim W. Hall, Jon Crowcroft and David D. Cleevely
Public policy requires effective identification of the current and emerging issues being faced in industry and beyond. This paper aims to identify a set of key issues currently…
Abstract
Purpose
Public policy requires effective identification of the current and emerging issues being faced in industry and beyond. This paper aims to identify a set of key issues currently facing digital communications and reviews their relevance for the strategic provision of infrastructure, particularly within the UK context.
Design/methodology/approach
The methodology focusses on taking a horizon-scanning approach to obtaining current information from a range of authoritative decision makers across industry, government and academia. After structuring the issues identified, these areas are explored by a multi-disciplinary research team covering engineering, economics and computer science.
Findings
Five key categories were identified including future demand; coverage and capacity; policy and regulation; economics and business models; and technology. The results are reported for both fixed and wireless networks. Shared issues affecting the wider digital ecosystem are also identified including Brexit, connecting remote areas and the degree to which the economics of infrastructure allows for building multiple overlapping infrastructures. The authors find that future demand uncertainty is one of the major issues affecting the digital communications sector driven by rigid willingness-to-pay, weak revenue and an increasing shift from fixed to wireless technologies. Policy must create the market conditions that encourage the entry of new competitors with innovative thinking and disruptive business models.
Research limitations/implications
A limitation of the analysis is that it is quite UK-focussed; hence, further research could broaden this analysis to assessing issues at a continental or global scale.
Originality/value
The value of this paper originates from the breadth of the expert elicitation exercise carried out to gather the initial set of issues, followed by the analysis of this data by a multi-disciplinary team of researchers. The results direct a future research agenda, as many issues are indicative of a lack of existing evidence to support effective decision-making.
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Alessandro Lo Presti, Beatrice van der Heijden, Jon P. Briscoe and Assunta De Rosa
As the notions of protean career and job crafting share a common emphasis on self-management, proactivity and customization, this study aimed to examine if the associations…
Abstract
Purpose
As the notions of protean career and job crafting share a common emphasis on self-management, proactivity and customization, this study aimed to examine if the associations between protean career, subjective and objective career success were mediated by job crafting, assessed via its three main dimensions (i.e. increasing structural job resources, increasing social job resources and increasing challenging job demands).
Design/methodology/approach
The authors sampled 594 Italian employees using a time-lagged research design: protean career was assessed at T1 and job crafting and career success at T2. Responses were analyzed through structural equation modeling.
Findings
This study’s results showed that increasing structural job resources mediated the association of protean career with subjective career success, while increasing challenging job demands mediated its association with objective career success.
Originality/value
In contrast to previous studies, in this contribution, the mediating role of job crafting is disentangled by taking into account its three respective dimensions. Additionally, the authors included both forms of career success as outcomes of protean career. Implications for future research and practical recommendations are presented and discussed.
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Safoora Pitsi, Jon Billsberry and Mary Barrett
This paper contributes to leadership categorization theory by advocating a new method to surface people's implicit leadership theories. The purpose of this new approach is to…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper contributes to leadership categorization theory by advocating a new method to surface people's implicit leadership theories. The purpose of this new approach is to simultaneously capture individual difference in how they conceptualize leadership but within a common framework to allow for comparison of within- and between-person effects.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors conduct a narrative review of the implicit leadership theory, leadership categorization theory, cognitive mapping and verbal protocol literature with the purpose of surfacing a research method that will overcome the problems of over-simplification and over-individualization in existing methods.
Findings
The authors argue that using a combination of cognitive mapping and verbal protocols can capture the idiosyncrasies of individual lay theories of leadership while retaining the ability to compare people's responses through a common framework. The authors provide an example of how this method can be used to elicit people's perceptions of one aspect of implicit leadership theories, intelligence.
Research limitations/implications
This new method will provide a methodology to test the subset propositions advocated by leadership categorization theory. These include the idea that subordinate level implicit leadership theories contain a subset of attributes found in the basic-level implicit leadership theories, that there is attribute integrity in superordinate implicit leadership theories through the levels, and the idea that people define leadership differently depending on the context they are observing.
Originality/value
Whereas previous approaches to surfacing people's implicit leadership theories either heavily constrain their responses with a predetermined generic suite of attributes or are totally open-ended and idiosyncratic, the authors advocate an approach that combines the best of both.
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Jon D. Elhai, Jason C. Levine and Brian J. Hall
Despite concerns about digital privacy, little is known about emotional distress about data hacking and surveillance incidents. The purpose of this paper is to examine variables…
Abstract
Purpose
Despite concerns about digital privacy, little is known about emotional distress about data hacking and surveillance incidents. The purpose of this paper is to examine variables predicting anxiety about data hacking, and the role that such anxiety and other potentially important variables have in explaining the use of digital privacy protection behavior.
Design/methodology/approach
In total, 305 participants from an online labor market were sampled who frequently use the internet, surveyed about recent anxiety (using the Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 scale (GAD-7)), anxiety about data hacking (GAD-7, in reference to data hacking), and issues of digital privacy: news exposure, perceived importance, self-efficacy, protection behavior, and previous hacking victimization.
Findings
Profession (information technology-related) moderated the symptom structure for recent anxiety, but not data hacking anxiety. Using structural equation modeling, prior hacking victimization predicted anxiety about hacking. Digital privacy protection behavior was related to hacking anxiety and privacy self-efficacy. Data hacking anxiety mediated relations between hacking victimization and privacy protection. Privacy self-efficacy mediated relations between news exposure to hacking incidents and privacy protection.
Research limitations/implications
Limitations include the self-report nature of the instruments, and use of a selective, non-random sample.
Practical implications
Results highlight knowledge, self-efficacy, and threat appraisal among IT managers in motivating better digital security practices.
Originality/value
This is the first study using a standardized instrument of anxiety to examine distress about hacking and predictors of digital privacy protection behavior.
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Donald G. Gardner, Jon L. Pierce and He Peng
Social comparison and job-based psychological ownership (JPO) are compared and contrasted as explanations for relationships between organization relational psychological contract…
Abstract
Purpose
Social comparison and job-based psychological ownership (JPO) are compared and contrasted as explanations for relationships between organization relational psychological contract fulfillment (ORPCF) and organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs).
Design/methodology/approach
Survey data were collected from 241 employees and 82 of their managers at an information services company. Data were analyzed using structural equation modeling to test for hypothesized and exploratory indirect relationships.
Findings
Consistent results were found for sequential mediation from ORPCF to employee investment of the self into the job, to JPO, to supervisor-rated helping and voice OCBs. Employees' perception of their relational psychological contract fulfillment (social exchange) did not simultaneously mediate the relationships between ORPCF and employees' OCBs.
Research limitations/implications
Psychological ownership presents a complement to social exchange to explain effects of relational psychological contract fulfillment on employee outcomes. Because of the cross-sectional nature of the data conclusions about causality are quite limited.
Practical implications
Organizations and managers should emphasize that fulfillment of relational psychological contract obligations represent a significant investment in employees, who reciprocate by investing themselves into their work. This in turn bolsters JPO and its positive employee outcomes.
Originality/value
This is the first study to directly compare social exchange and psychological ownership explanations for effects of psychological contract fulfillment on employees.
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Most leadership theories assume that leadership is a quality of leaders (e.g., trait theory), or a response to environments (e.g., situational theory), or a combination of both (e…
Abstract
Most leadership theories assume that leadership is a quality of leaders (e.g., trait theory), or a response to environments (e.g., situational theory), or a combination of both (e.g., contingency theory). In all these approaches leadership is something knowable and definite. However, after years of research there is no agreed definition of what leadership is or any universal agreement about who might be regarded a leader. This paper outlines an alternative approach in which leadership is a contested construct and describes two engaging teaching techniques that align pedagogic approach with the underlying theory. In doing so this paper makes a case for the adoption of socially-constructed theories in leadership education.
Jone Belausteguigoitia, Jon Laurenz and Alberto Gómez
Constant change in current market and social conditions has triggered the demand for a more adaptable building stock. The capacity to assume and accommodate change has thus become…
Abstract
Constant change in current market and social conditions has triggered the demand for a more adaptable building stock. The capacity to assume and accommodate change has thus become a new requirement for buildings. At the same time, there is a growing demand for more environmentally conscious buildings. New protocols, building codes, and certification systems are becoming stricter regarding buildings’ CO2 emissions, energy efficiency, and other environmental aspects. The current building industry fails to satisfy these two demands; conventional buildings rarely enable change, unless undergoing complex renovations, and rarely consider environmental features beyond mandatory legislation. In this context, this paper proposes Modular Ecotechnological Architecture as a response to both demands. The basis is an integrated design that looks at energy, water, and materials’ efficiency altogether, combined with a modular industrialized building system. The system allows buildings to grow or reduce in size according to their needs, with little impact for their inhabitants, enabling versatility for a variety of uses within the same space and over time. This paper presents the concept of this new building system together with the technical, building code-related, and economic challenges encountered throughout recent experimental projects.
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Bongghi Hong, Karin E. Limburg, Myrna H. Hall and Jon D. Erickson
Our primary goal is to develop an integrated, quantitative assessment tool evaluating how human economic activities influence spatial patterns of urbanization, and how land-use…
Abstract
Our primary goal is to develop an integrated, quantitative assessment tool evaluating how human economic activities influence spatial patterns of urbanization, and how land-use change resulting from urbanization affects stream water quality and aquatic ecosystem health. Here we present a prototype of a holistic assessment tool composed of three “building blocks” simulating the social and economic structures, spatial pattern of urbanization, and watershed health as determined by various metrics. The assessment tool is applied to Dutchess County, New York and two of its largest watersheds, Wappinger and Fishkill Creek watersheds, demonstrating how an explicit link can be established between human economic activities and ecosystem health through changes in land use.
Linda Bitsch, Jon Henrich Hanf and Jens Rüdiger
Due to high competition in the agricultural industries and heterogeneous products, the setting of prices for direct sales to consumers is difficult. In recent years…
Abstract
Purpose
Due to high competition in the agricultural industries and heterogeneous products, the setting of prices for direct sales to consumers is difficult. In recent years, pay-what-you-want (PWYW) is discussed as an innovative pricing strategy. This study analyses whether the implementation of a pay-what-you-want strategy can be successful and if there is a willingness to pay from the consumers for wine touristic offers. Furthermore, the study analyses, in general, how suitable experiments are as a research tool.
Design/methodology/approach
A PWYW mechanism creates a situation of strategic decision- making that can be modelled as a game. This can be transferred to an experimental setting. The results were analysed with a two-sided MWU test (Stata, ranksum) in order to determine whether the differences are statistically significant.
Findings
Participants pay positive prices, although theory predicts the opposite. PWYW is a good strategy to analyse the willingness-to-pay for heterogeneous and homogenous services or products. Information or reference prices have no clear influence on the willingness to pay, confirming results of other studies. There is no influence of gender and age on the payments.
Practical implications
In general, consumers have a willingness to pay positive prices for wine- touristic offers. The willingness to pay is not different for people with or without wine knowledge. For the chosen variable information and reference price, wine producers do not have to address target groups differently.
Originality/value
It is the first study which analyses the pay-what-you-want mechanism as a tool for wine touristic activities. In addition, an experimental approach was used to analyse an innovative, consumer-based price-setting strategy.