Guilherme F. Frederico, Vikas Kumar, Jose Arturo Garza-Reyes, Roberto A. Martins and Anil Kumar
This article's purpose is to record an interview with Professor Michael Roberto.
Abstract
Purpose
This article's purpose is to record an interview with Professor Michael Roberto.
Design/methodology/approach
The article focuses on the importance of stimulating debate and the need to work towards cultivating constructive conflict. Describes the idea behind this approach and explores the challenges involved. Lists the steps to be taken in introducing the process, ensuring maximum participation and avoiding an impasse or the build‐up of potentially damaging bad feeling between participants with opposing viewpoints. Discusses problems of hierarchy and status. Urges leaders to interact closely with front‐line staff to ensure leaders are not fed biased or distorted information or shielded from bad news. Reports that while many companies still avoid conflict, others are recognising its potential benefits when constructively channelled.
Findings
Professor Michael Roberto provides his view of the importance of stimulating debate and the need to work towards cultivating constructive conflict.
Originality/value
This article provides an interview with Professor Michael Roberto focusing on the importance of stimulating debate and the need to work towards cultivating constructive conflict while simultaneously building consensus to optimise the decision‐making process.
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Linda Montanari, Robert Teltzrow, Sara Van Malderen, Roberto Ranieri, José Antonio Martín Peláez, Liesbeth Vandam, Jane Mounteney, Alessandro Pirona, Fadi Meroueh, Isabelle Giraudon, João Matias, Katerina Skarupova, Luis Royuela and Julien Morel d’Arleux
This paper aims to describe the impact of the COVID-19 containment measures on the provision of drug treatment and harm reduction services in European prisons in15 countries…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to describe the impact of the COVID-19 containment measures on the provision of drug treatment and harm reduction services in European prisons in15 countries during the early phase of the pandemic (March –June 2020).
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is based on a mixed method research approach that triangulates different data sources, including the results of an on-line survey, the outcome of a focus group and four national case studies.
Findings
The emergence of COVID-19 led to a disruption in prison drug markets and resulted in a number of challenges for the drug services provision inside prison. Challenges for health services included the need to maintain the provision of drug-related interventions inside prison, while introducing a range of COVID-19 containment measures. To reduce contacts between people, many countries introduced measures for early release, resulted in around a 10% reduction of the prison population in Europe. Concerns were expressed around reduction of drug-related interventions, including group activities, services by external agencies, interventions in preparation for release and continuity of care.
Practical implications
Innovations aimed at improving drug service provision included telemedicine, better partnership between security and health staff and an approach to drug treatment more individualised. Future developments must be closely monitored.
Originality/value
The paper provides a unique and timely overview of the main issues, challenges and initial adaptations implemented for drug services in European prisons in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Daniel Trabucchi, Tommaso Buganza, Paola Bellis, Silvia Magnanini, Joseph Press, Roberto Verganti and Federico Paolo Zasa
To overcome change management challenges, organizations often rely on stories as means of communication. Storytelling has emerged as a leading change management tool to influence…
Abstract
Purpose
To overcome change management challenges, organizations often rely on stories as means of communication. Storytelling has emerged as a leading change management tool to influence and bring people on sharing knowledge. Nevertheless, this study aims to suggest stories of change as a more effective tool that helps people in taking action toward transformation processes.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors apply design science research to develop and evaluate how writing a prospective story engages organizational actors in the transformation process. The authors test the story-making artifact in a field study with five companies and 115 employees who participated in 75 workshops.
Findings
Using the findings to discuss the role of story-making in facilitating the emergence of new behaviors in transformation processes, the authors link story-making with the opportunity to make change happen through knowledge dissemination rather than merely understanding it.
Research limitations/implications
The authors illustrate the role of iterations, peers and self-criticism that help story-makers embrace sensemaking, developing a shared knowledge based that influence individual actions.
Practical implications
The authors propose the story-making approach that organizations can follow to nurture change to make transformation happen through knowledge cocreation.
Originality/value
The research explores story-making as an individual act of writing prospective stories to facilitate the emergence of new behaviors through shared knowledge.
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Mohammadali Zolfagharian, Roberto Saldivar and Jakob Braun
The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of consumer ethnocentrism and country of origin across different immigrant communities.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of consumer ethnocentrism and country of origin across different immigrant communities.
Design/methodology/approach
A survey was used to collect data from immigrants in the USA and Mexico.
Findings
For immigrants with high levels of ethnocentrism, the bias for home and host country products interacts with the country of origin effect and creates multiple scenarios where the two effects move in the same or opposite directions. For immigrants with low levels of ethnocentrism, on the other hand, the country of origin effect alone is salient.
Research limitations/implications
The authors used a modified version of CETSCALE. Future research should revisit the content and dimensionality of consumer ethnocentrism in immigrant and other multicultural settings.
Practical implications
Both scholars and practitioners should exercise caution when working with ethnocentrism and country of origin as today’s societies are increasingly multicultural, which requires major modifications to the theories and tools.
Social implications
Similar to ways in which the US Census Bureau enabled multicultural consumers to assert their mixed identities, scholarly and business circles should embrace multiculturalism and empower immigrants.
Originality/value
Previous studies of consumer ethnocentrism and country of origin in multicultural contexts have restricted themselves to only one pattern of migration: consumers who move from developing to developed countries. The paper addresses this limitation by investigating various patterns of migration (including lateral, upward and downward) in multiple first-generation immigrant communities in two countries.
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Claudio Dell’Era, Stefano Magistretti, Marina Candi, Mattia Bianchi, Giulia Calabretta, Ileana Stigliani and Roberto Verganti
Design thinking is widely recognized as an effective problem-solving approach in the professional and academic world, albeit with varying interpretations. It has been studied in…
Abstract
Purpose
Design thinking is widely recognized as an effective problem-solving approach in the professional and academic world, albeit with varying interpretations. It has been studied in multiple forms – as a tool, a practice, a skill and a mindset – leading to ongoing debates about its fundamental nature. This study aims to explore the use of design thinking in practice and determine how its application varies depending on the characteristics of the innovation projects, namely, the types of goals pursued and the level of uncertainty involved.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a survey methodology and a knowledge-intensive empirical setting, this study analyzes a data set of 221 innovation consulting projects based on design thinking conducted by European consulting firms and design agencies.
Findings
By analyzing the survey data, the authors identify six distinct sets of design thinking practices: discovering user needs, understanding the problem addressed, challenging existing assumptions, navigating the problem-solution pair, ideating through visualizations and learning through prototypes. The authors also identify configurations of these design thinking practices that are used to address different innovation project goals and levels of uncertainty.
Practical implications
The study draws attention to the need for design thinking practitioners to be aware of how different innovation project goals and levels of uncertainty can be pursued/addressed through the use of alternative configurations of design thinking practices.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors knowledge, this study is one of the first large-scale quantitative analyses of the nature of design thinking in action, providing a solid foundation for future research on design thinking.
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Roberta Casadio, Izabel Cristina Marin, Thais Thomé, Roberto Mezzina, Paul Baker, John Jenkins, Patricia Martin Pérez and Raffaella Pocobello
Too often people with complex mental health needs do not find their way out of the mental health system or find satisfactory solutions that enable them to live a full life. In…
Abstract
Purpose
Too often people with complex mental health needs do not find their way out of the mental health system or find satisfactory solutions that enable them to live a full life. In 2015 the Mental Health Department (MHD) of Trieste established the Recovery House pilot project to address this concern. The paper aims to Investigate the project.
Design/methodology/approach
The Recovery House was co-created with and for people between 18 and 35 years old with diagnoses of psychosis and other complex mental health conditions. An integral part of the pilot was the organization of the “Recovery Community,” inspired by the Assembly model embraced by Franco Basaglia. The Recovery Community met regularly to both support and learn from the Recovery House and aimed to create a democratic and reflective space where power relationships, self-determination, responsibility and ownership by all the stakeholders, including family members, could be explored together.
Findings
Over a period of 31 months, four groups of people have successfully completed their residency at the Recovery House. In total, 89 percent of people who stayed at the Recovery House did so up to six months. After the period of staying at the Recovery House most of them moved to independent living or shared supported accommodation.
Originality/value
This initiative sheds light on the fact that democratic values, approaches and structures can improve both service functioning and the recovery outcomes for people with complex health needs. Further, the Recovery House has had a significant effect on the culture and practice of the MHD in adopting a comprehensive approach to emotional distress.
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Roberto Martin N. Galang, Rouselle F. Lavado, George O. White III and Jamil Paolo S. Francisco
The purpose of this study is to answer the research question: How do cooperative organizations perform when created by government fiat in an emerging market? Through the use of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to answer the research question: How do cooperative organizations perform when created by government fiat in an emerging market? Through the use of institutional and agency theory, this paper presents a comparative analysis of the efficiency of the cooperative form of organization and investor-owned firms-investigating how the social–political structures in a community affect the efficiency of cooperatives vis-à-vis investor-owned firms. This paper also attempts to offer a better understanding of how government quality and organizational size influence performance outcomes between different organizational forms specifically in the Philippines.
Design Methodology Approach
The empirical analysis of this study was conducted among electric distribution utilities in the Philippines. Firm-level data was generated for 133 distributors, consisting of 119 electric cooperatives and 14 investor-owned companies. Panel data regressions were ran to test all hypotheses.
Findings
Cooperative organizations operate at a less efficient rate than investor-owned firms in the Philippines, even when controlling for firm-specific factors such as size, customer density and profitability. In addition, the efficiency of these cooperative organizations is more strongly influenced by the quality of the local government than investor-owned firms.
Originality Value
Positive externalities generated by the propagation of cooperatives on local communities may be based primarily on our understanding of how cooperatives have functioned largely in western contexts. Within the context of Southeast Asia, where national socio-political structures may be more dysfunctional, this paper observes that there is an equivalent negative externality caused by the tendency of cooperatives to replicate the political mismanagement of the community around it.
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Marina Proença, Bruna Cescatto Costa, Simone Regina Didonet, Ana Maria Machado Toaldo, Tomas Sparano Martins and José Roberto Frega
This study aims to investigate organizational learning, represented by the absorptive capacity, as a condition for the firm to learn about marketing data and make more informed…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate organizational learning, represented by the absorptive capacity, as a condition for the firm to learn about marketing data and make more informed decisions. The authors also aimed to understand how the behavior of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) businesses differ in this scenario through a multilevel perspective.
Design/methodology/approach
Placing absorptive capacity as a mediator of the relationship between business analytics and rational marketing decisions, the authors analyzed data from 224 Brazilian retail companies using structural equation modeling estimated with partial least squares. To test the cross-level moderation effect, the authors also performed a multilevel analysis in RStudio.
Findings
The authors found a partial mediation of the absorptive capacity in the relation between business analytics and rational marketing decisions. The authors also discovered that, in the MSMEs firms’ group, even if smaller companies find it more difficult to use data, those that do may reap more benefits than larger ones. This is due to the influence of size in how firms handle information.
Research limitations/implications
The sample size, despite having shown to be consistent and valid, is considered small for a multilevel study. This suggests that our multilevel results should be viewed as suggestive, rather than conclusive, and subjected to further validation.
Practical implications
Rather than solely positioning business analytics as a tool for decision support, the authors’ analysis highlights the importance for firms to develop the absorptive capacity to enable ongoing acquisition, exploration and management of knowledge.
Social implications
MSMEs are of economic and social importance to most countries, especially developing ones. This research aimed to improve understanding of how this group of firms could transform knowledge into better decisions. The authors also highlight micro and small firms’ difficulties with the use of marketing data so that they can have more effective practices.
Originality/value
The research contributes to the understanding of organizational mechanisms to absorb and learn from the vast amount of current marketing information. Recognizing the relevance of MSMEs, a preliminary multilevel analysis was also conducted to comprehend differences within this group.
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Mengying Feng, Wantao Yu, Roberto Chavez, John Mangan and Xumei Zhang
The purpose of this paper is to extend prior supply chain research by empirically exploring the relationship among guanxi, supply chain integration (SCI), and operational…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to extend prior supply chain research by empirically exploring the relationship among guanxi, supply chain integration (SCI), and operational performance. More specifically, this study investigates the mediating role of SCI.
Design/methodology/approach
Ordinary least square regression is used to analyze survey data collected from 126 automobile manufacturers in China.
Findings
The results reveal a significant positive relationship between guanxi and SCI, and that SCI is significantly and positively related to operational performance. The authors’ findings further suggest that guanxi indirectly affects operational performance through SCI.
Practical implications
The empirical findings imply that it is vital for managers to recognize the important mediating role of dynamic SCI capabilities.
Originality/value
As a fundamental Chinese cultural norm, guanxi can be critical in a supply chain context. Although previous research has identified the importance of guanxi and SCI in improving firm performance, far less attention was given to the study of the mediating effect of SCI on the guanxi-performance relationship. This study thus fulfills the research gap by providing an initial empirical examination of the mediating role of SCI in China’s automotive industry.