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Public facilities in most part of the world, including South Africa, are poorly managed due to factors including inadequate funding and poor implementation of systems. This study seeks to develop strategies that would help to overcome the barriers to managing public facilities.

The study adopted an exploratory research design. A semi-structured interview was used to collect qualitative data from the respondents. Purposive sampling was used to select the organizations whereas quota sampling was used to select the participants. The collected data were analysed by means of the thematic analysis technique.

The study found that 6 main strategies (i.e. adequate and capable human resources, provision of maintenance equipment and systems, adequate budget provision, amendment of procurement systems, root out corruption and effective organization structure) could be implemented to overcome public facilities management challenges.

The data were collected from only one province in South Africa. However, the findings may be applicable to other provinces since most of the provinces in the country share similar characteristics.

The Department of Public Works and other public institutions could use these strategies to mitigate the barriers to public facilities management. This will help to improve the facilities management systems leading to enhanced facilities' value.

Studies on challenges of public facilities management abound; however, approaches and strategies of dealing with these challenges have not received much attention. This study has identified strategies that could help mitigate the challenges associated with public facilities management. Thus, the findings of this study contribute to the body of knowledge on strategies of mitigating public facilities management challenges.

This study aims to develop comprehensive definitions, conceptualizations and measures of four internal brand management (IBM) outcomes, namely, brand understanding, brand identification, brand commitment and brand citizenship behaviour (BCB). In doing so, it also aims to propose a model, which considers the relationships across these outcomes.

Data were collected via an online survey of 375 employees who work in service organizations, sourced from an Australian, Web-based market research list.

In addition to the indirect effect of brand understanding on BCB via affective IBM outcomes (i.e. brand identification and brand commitment), the study exposes a direct effect of brand understanding on BCB. Therefore, the study shows that BCB is affected by cognitive and affective antecedents.

Because this study focuses on IBM outcomes, future studies could propose and test relevant antecedents and moderators. As the empirical basis of this study comes primarily from the tourism and hospitality industry in one domestic market, the study should be replicated in other industries and countries to ensure the generalizability of the identified relationships.

This study not only delivers IBM outcome measures but also empirically validates that employees’ understanding of the brand is a foundation for affective and behavioural IBM outcomes. Therefore, managers, especially in service organizations, should provide sufficient IBM practices to enable such brand understanding.

This study contributes to IBM literature by developing comprehensive definitions, conceptualizations and measures of four important IBM outcomes. This study is the first to include brand understanding, brand identification, brand commitment and BCB simultaneously.

Though prior research has recognized business skills as one of the keys to successful information system development, few studies have investigated the determinants of an IS developer’s behavioral intention to learn such skills. Based on the motivation-ability-role perception-situational factors (i.e. the MARS model), the purpose of this paper is to argue that the intention of IS developers to acquire business skills is influenced by learning motivation (M), learning self-efficacy (A), change agent role perception (R), and situational support (S).

Data collected from 254 IS developers are analyzed using the partial least squares technique.

Results show that a developer’s intention to learn business skills is positively influenced by intrinsic learning motivation and both absolute and relative learning self-efficacy. Furthermore, in comparison to two other change agent roles, the advocate role leads to a significantly higher level of learning intention. Finally, work and non-work support positively influence both extrinsic and intrinsic learning motivation. Notably, non-work support has a greater impact on both absolute and relative learning self-efficacy.

Though many of the proposed hypotheses were supported, results showed several interesting and unexpected findings. First, regarding the change agent role perception, people who perceived themselves as advocates displayed a higher level of intention to learn business skills than did those who identified with the other two roles (i.e. traditionalist and facilitator). Second, when compared to extrinsic learning motivation, intrinsic learning motivation contributed more to the intention to learn business skills. Third, the study contributes to the literature by finding that, in terms of direction and magnitude, the two types of self-efficacy have similar influence on an IS developer’s behavioral intention to learn business skills. Finally, work support was found to have a positive impact on both extrinsic and intrinsic learning motivation. However, it was interesting to note that work support did not lead to significantly higher levels of relative and absolute learning self-efficacy.

The findings of this study provide several critical implications for practitioners seeking to encourage IS developers to learn b-skills. First, organizations should strongly encourage IS developers to take on the advocate role in ISD projects, and urge them to acquire business skills through formal education and on-the-job training. Second, organizations should also help IS developers understand how learning business skills is important for their future work and potential self-growth, rather than focusing solely on extrinsic benefits such as promotion or remuneration. Third, organizations can also make use of the strategies to enhance IS developer’s learning self-confidence and beliefs, which will, in turn, increase their intention to learn business skills. Finally, support from others is influential in the formulation of positive work attitudes and behaviors, so organizations will benefit when employees are well supported.

While prior research has emphasized the importance of business skill possession for IS developers during the system development process, few studies have explored the factors affecting an IS developer’s behavioral intention to learn those business skills. This study intends to bridge this gap by investigating factors that drive IS developers’ intention to learn business skills. The findings of this study are useful to researchers in the development and testing theories related to IS developer learning behavior, and to practitioners to facilitate business skill learning for their IS development staff.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the use of telematics in insurance and its consequences for the insurability of risks. Empirical results on monitoring policyholders or insured objects and its consequences for asymmetric information, as well as claims frequency and severity are discussed. Furthermore, potential future research questions that arise from the use of telematics in risk management and insurance are outlined.

The paper systematically reviews existing studies and then investigates the consequences of telematics using Berliner’s insurability criteria. The results are based on 52 academic studies and industry papers published from 2000 to 2019.

The findings emphasize the effects of new information on information asymmetry and risk pooling, the implications of new technologies on loss frequency and severity, legal restrictions and ethical consequences of the use of telematics in the insurance field. Problems with the insurability impede the market development of innovations such as telematics tariffs.

Despite its increasing relevance for businesses at present, research on telematics in insurance is limited. Some papers can be found in the IT domain, but relatively little research has been done in the business and economics literature. The authors illustrate where the research stands currently and outline directions for future research.