Simon Bourdeau, Benoit Aubert and Celine Bareil
This study aims to investigate innovation intensity by exploring the roles of internally focused and externally focused information technology (IT) use intensity and innovation…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate innovation intensity by exploring the roles of internally focused and externally focused information technology (IT) use intensity and innovation culture on innovation intensity and organizational performance.
Design/methodology/approach
A model exploring the effects of internally and externally focused IT use, plus two key dimensions of innovation culture – collaborative and entrepreneurial – on innovation intensity and organizational performance is tested via a structural equation model using partial least squares with data collected from 395 top executives.
Findings
The results indicate that intense use of internally and externally focused IT and the collaborative dimension of culture positively affect innovation intensity, which, in turn, increases operational and financial performance.
Practical implications
Innovation is an important driver of performance, for both internal efficiency and competitiveness. The role of IT in the innovation process is key: it allows information, knowledge and idea sharing. Top managers should make a wide array of IT tools available to increase internal and external information exchanges. They should also develop an organizational context that stimulates innovativeness and promotes collaboration.
Originality/value
IT helps employees acquire and use the knowledge needed to innovate within and outside organizational boundaries. To be innovative, employees need to work in an organization with a strong innovation culture, a primary determinant of innovation intensity. This study is one of the first to examine the effects of an organization’s innovation culture and its use of IT on innovation intensity and organizational performance. In addition, constructs of innovation intensity and internally and externally focused IT use are developed and tested.
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The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of budgeting in the monitoring functions of the Tanzanian Parliament, specifically the monitoring functions of the Parliamentary…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of budgeting in the monitoring functions of the Tanzanian Parliament, specifically the monitoring functions of the Parliamentary Budget Committee (PBC).
Design/methodology/approach
The paper uses Burchell et al.’s (1980) accounting “machines” framework and its development as a theoretical lens to interpret the research findings. Interviews, document analysis and observation were used for data collection.
Findings
The findings reveal that budget documents were used as learning and answering machines, as they served as the basis for questioning, for checking variances, for reviewing and for conducting monitoring visits. Budgeting procedures were utilized as ammunition machines, as they were used as the basis for expressing legislative officials’ positions and understanding the logic of executive officials’ actions.
Research limitations/implications
The paper investigates the role of budgeting in a parliamentary setting. However, comparative analysis is missing. Nevertheless, the results provide a foundation for future studies and the opportunity to investigate the role of budgeting in the monitoring functions of other parliaments, especially in emerging economies.
Practical implications
The study has practical implications directed toward governments, especially in emerging economies. This study suggests that budgeting documents and procedures can be used to overcome the complexities of the PBC monitoring functions. Budgeting is, therefore, essential in the monitoring functions of the PBC, especially in emerging economies.
Originality/value
The study contributes to the understanding of the role of budgeting in monitoring functions in a parliamentary setting in emerging economies, where such research is lacking. The study also contributes by introducing an “ammunition” role to the theoretical literature on budget use (Simons, 1990, 1991; Abernethy and Brownell, 1999), which is argued to be relevant to politicians and organizations of a political nature, including parliaments.
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Jeremy S. Wolter, V. Myles Landers, Simon Brach and J. Joseph Cronin
The purpose of this paper is to examine whether customer-company identification (CCI) can transfer from one organization to the next within the context of service alliances.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine whether customer-company identification (CCI) can transfer from one organization to the next within the context of service alliances.
Design/methodology/approach
A between-subjects experiment using a fictitious alliance and a field study focused on a real alliance tests identification transfer at the time of a service alliance announcement and while the service alliance is in operation.
Findings
Identification transfer is enabled by an exclusive service alliance but not an inclusive one. For identification transfer to be maintained, customers must perceive the companies as a coherent group (i.e. high entitativity) and have close physical proximity to the alliance.
Originality/value
By drawing heavily on self-categorization theory for the proposed effects, the current research provides a new theoretical framework to the service and brand alliance literature that contrasts with the attitude-based theories commonly used. Furthermore, the current research explores how company-company relationships influence CCI whereas most research has focused on characteristics of the customer-company relationship. These two differences suggest service alliances provide more value to the companies and customers than currently realized.
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Juliet Ann Musso, Christopher Weare and Robert W. Jackman
The goal is to illuminate the requisites for the implementation of performance management reforms in a public bureaucracy.
Abstract
Purpose
The goal is to illuminate the requisites for the implementation of performance management reforms in a public bureaucracy.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper employs a configurational approach, qualitative comparative analysis, that identifies combinations of political and organizational conditions necessary and/or sufficient for success. The analysis applies the success factor identified in the literature in analyzing the experience of departments involved in a city-wide reform in Los Angeles. The analysis utilizes two rounds of survey data combined with case observations to evaluate the presence of these conditions. Cross-case comparisons employ Boolean logic to identify configurations associated with successful system implementation.
Findings
The analysis identifies several distinct configurations of conditions that appear in departments that implemented the reform. One emphasizes mayoral support, while others emphasize leadership in combination with other organizational capacities.
Practical implications
The analysis yields several insights for managers. First, no silver bullet such as strong leadership assures reform implementation. Second, there are multiple avenues to reform. An organization that lacks some prerequisites – such as leadership or metrics – may succeed in the presence of other features such as an innovative culture or external political support. Finally, the study provides a bracing council that even under favorable conditions, performance management reforms may fail to take root, for reasons that can be difficult to predict.
Originality/value
The paper highlights the importance of considering configurations of conditions rather than focusing on conditions independently. Also, it highlights the importance of equifinality, the notion that observed outcomes can have multiple causes, a perspective typically missing in correlational analyses.
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To explain the processes involved in rewriting one’s way of understanding phenomenon.
Abstract
Purpose
To explain the processes involved in rewriting one’s way of understanding phenomenon.
Design/methodology/approach
A model for characterizing cognitive conceptions of learning and unlearning is described through a historical, current, and forward thinking approach to understanding content. Ideas for the reorganization of information are proposed alongside application-oriented means of implementing learn over theory in classrooms.
Findings
For cognitive development to ensue, we must capitalize on students’ existing knowledge and ways of knowing the world through chance plus selection, piggy-backing, affective boosting/field facilitation, imitation, learning support systems, bias, LC learning, use of spare mental capacity, and the need for coherent self-concept.
Practical implications
Through effective facilitation of their learning, students can hone their skills, recognize their efforts toward their successes, write and rewrite their existing schematic frameworks, develop and maintain positive self-concepts, and advance their systems for understanding their worlds and how to progress to subsequent levels of attainment independently.
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Maria Gravari-Barbas and Sébastien Jacquot
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the mechanisms involved in the progressive integration of marginal and peripheral urban areas, located close to established tourist…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the mechanisms involved in the progressive integration of marginal and peripheral urban areas, located close to established tourist destinations, into the visited tourism perimeter, and the interplay of the supporting public and private actors. It focusses on the intertwining processes of commercial gentrification, heritagization and aestheticization of former “ordinary” or marginal areas as tools for and indications of their tourism development. It explores how the metropolitan tourism geography is progressively redesigned.
Design/methodology/approach
Following a comprehensive literature analysis, the Saint-Ouen flea market was selected as the object of study. The methodology is based on extensive in situ observations, a systematic analysis of the press and a corpus of tourist guides and several in-depth interviews with local public and private stakeholders.
Findings
This paper shows that combined public (Parisian urban and tourism stakeholders) and private interests led to the integration in the tourism perimeter of a space that was once on the margins of the tourism and metropolitan area. It highlights the mechanisms of this integration and the link between touristification, gentrification, aestheticization and artification. It was found that private investors and political decision makers regard Saint-Ouen flea market as a major opportunity for tourism and real estate development, which leads to some contradictions regarding heritage protection. Finally, it shows that market traders opposed the evolution of a commercial place into a place of symbolic consumption. At another level, it shows the stakes of tourism diversification in a metropolitan tourism destination that is characterized by overtourism.
Research limitations/implications
More studies are needed to identify not only the potential of flea markets to diversify tourist areas and practices, but also any potential resistance. The consequences on metropolitan tourism can be the subject of additional investigations: can this tourism diversification reduce overtourism in the centre, or is it only a diversification that functions as an additional driver of attractiveness? This research opens new perspectives on the modes of diversification (spatial and experiential) of metropolitan tourism as well as on the role that commercial changes play in these evolutions. It also makes it possible to question the modes of engagement of investors and traders in tourism.
Originality/value
This is an in-depth analysis of the case of Saint-Ouen flea market. The issues raised herein are applicable to similar peripheral urban areas, flea markets especially, that are rarely studied on the tourism-aestheticization-gentrification nexus. The analysis also shows the diversification of places and imaginaries of metropolitan tourism.
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Stephen F. Thode and James M. Maskulka
Despite nearly universal agreement that ultra‐premium California wines have reached a quality level which is on a par with the world's best, these wines have not captured the…
Abstract
Despite nearly universal agreement that ultra‐premium California wines have reached a quality level which is on a par with the world's best, these wines have not captured the hearts and minds of many traditional buyers of the best wines in the international marketplace. These California wines face several competitive disadvantages — the lack of a sustained track record over a long period of time; comparatively small production levels; the lack of an established pecking order; and, a less‐than‐optimal distribution system, among other factors. As a result, brand equity of California ultra‐premium wines has suffered. This paper modifies and extends the paradigms of both Aaker and Keller by specifying a brand equity model that captures the dimensions of brand equity for ultra‐premium California wine producers. Evaluating current marketing practice against the derived model, the authors suggest marketing strategies and tactics that may permit ultra‐premium California wines to overcome many of their competitive disadvantages with the objective of enhancing brand equity.
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Christine Gerber and Martin Krzywdzinski
The term “crowdwork” describes a new form of digital work that is organized and regulated by internet-based platforms. This chapter examines how crowdwork platforms ensure their…
Abstract
The term “crowdwork” describes a new form of digital work that is organized and regulated by internet-based platforms. This chapter examines how crowdwork platforms ensure their virtual workforce’s commitment and control its performance despite its high mobility, anonymity, and dispersion. The findings are based on a case study analysis of 15 microtask and macrotask platforms, encompassing 32 interviews with representatives of crowdwork platforms, and crowdworkers, as well as an analysis of the platforms’ homepages and community spaces. The chapter shows that performance control on crowd platforms relies on a combination of direct control, reputation systems, and community building, which have until now been studied in isolation or entirely ignored. Moreover, the findings suggest that while all three elements can be found on both microtask and macrotask platforms, their functionality and purpose differ. Overall, the findings highlight that platforms are no neutral intermediaries but organizations that adopt an active role in structuring the digital labor process and in shaping working conditions. Their managerial structures are coded and objectified into seemingly neutral technological infrastructures, whereby the underlying power relations between capital and labor become obscured.