Measuring Business Excellence最新文献

Purpose

Digitalising cities requires new urban governance processes that account for rapidly changing environments and technological advances. In this context, agile development methods have become valuable, if not necessary. However, agile development contradicts public administration practices of risk aversion and long-term planning. The purpose of this study is to discuss practical avenues for navigating these two contradictions by adapting agile development to the needs of public sector organisations.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors review the collaborative elaboration of Dresden’s smart city strategy as a critical case study. Dresden’s smart city strategy was developed using agile development and quadruple-helix innovation. The year-long co-creation process involved stakeholders from various groups to conceive an integrated and sustainable vision for digitalisation-based urban development.

Findings

Despite the apparent contradictions, this study finds that key aspects of agile development are feasible for public sector innovation. Firstly, risks can be strategically managed and distributed among administration and non-administration stakeholders. Secondly, while delivering value through short iterative loops, adherence to formal processes remains possible. Informal feedback cycles can be harmoniously combined with official statements, allowing iterative progress.

Research limitations/implications

The empirical material is based on a single case study and thus risks overemphasising the general applicability of the proposed methods.

Practical implications

This paper outlines practical steps to greater agility for public administration engaged in digitalising cities. The paper conceptualises a forward and lateral momentum for the agile development of a smart city strategy that aims to reconcile formal policymaking processes with short-term loops and risk aversion with experimental value creation. This approach balanced risks, created value and enhanced the strategy‘s alignment with strategic frameworks, ultimately promoting innovation in the public sector.

Originality/value

This paper proposes a novel, empirically grounded conceptualisation of implementing agile methods that explicitly recognises the peculiarities of public administrations. It conceptualises the orchestrated and pragmatic use of specific agile development methods to advance the digitalisation of cities.

Purpose

E-commerce companies use different types of dark patterns to manipulate choices and earn higher revenues. This study aims to evaluate and prioritize dark patterns used by e-commerce companies to determine which dark patterns are the most profitable and risky.

Design/methodology/approach

The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) prioritizes the observed categories of dark patterns based on the literature. Several corporate and academic specialists were consulted to create a comparison matrix to assess the elements of the detected dark pattern types.

Findings

Economic indicators are the most significant aspect of every business. Consequently, many companies use manipulative methods such as dark patterns to boost their revenue. The study revealed that the revenue generated by the types of dark patterns varies greatly. It was found that exigency, social proof, forced action and sneaking generate the highest revenues, whereas obstruction and misdirection create only marginal revenues for an e-commerce company.

Research limitations/implications

The limitation of the AHP study is that the rating scale used in the analysis is conceptual. Consequentially, pairwise comparisons may induce bias in the results.

Practical implications

This paper suggests methodical and operational techniques to choose the priority of dark patterns to drive profits with minimum tradeoffs. The dark pattern ranking technique might be carried out by companies once a year to understand the implications of any new dark patterns used.

Originality/value

The advantages of understanding the trade-offs of implementing dark patterns are massive. E-commerce companies can optimize their spent time and resources by implementing the most beneficial dark patterns and avoiding the ones that drive marginal profits and annoy consumers.

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to discuss how organizations can drive organizational performance through human capital (HC) investment through systematic thinking.

Design/methodology/approach

This study analyzes three companies from various industries, adopts systems thinking and uses three leading indicators from the balanced scorecard framework to explore the effects of strategic orientations for HC on innovation ecosystems and organizational performance.

Findings

In terms of academic contributions, this study broadly verifies the innovation ecosystem model for organizations and reveals that customer-oriented, internal process-oriented and innovation learning-oriented HC strategies reinforce the pathways in organizational innovation ecosystems, thereby enriching the literature on innovation ecosystems.

Practical implications

In terms of practical contributions, this study provides a novel HC-based perspective on developmental dynamics and details the relationships among each aspect of the innovation ecosystem and HC strategies.

Originality/value

The proposed architecture and strategic frameworks provide a reference for corporations to implement strategic orientations of HC, drive operations in organizational innovation ecosystems and improve organizational performance.

Purpose

This study aims to examine the effect of ownership structure on financial performance of commercial banks in Kenya.

Design/methodology/approach

The data were collected from audited financial statements of 39 commercial banks in Kenya for the period 2009–2020.

Findings

Regression results found evidence of ownership structure explaining commercial banks’ financial performance. The results found a negative association between state ownership and net interest margin, a negative association between management ownership and net interest margin and a negative association between institutional ownership and return on assets.

Practical implications

Based on the findings, commercial bank management should therefore devise ownership structure policies that are geared toward boosting their financial performance both in the short run and the long run. Second, this study recommends a minority shareholding of the state in commercial banks to deter political interference, protect investors’ wealth from erosion and allow the majority shareholders to adopt a strong corporate governance mechanism for higher financial performance. Banks with a high percentage of state ownership should consider partial privatization to improve corporate governance practices. Third, banks should adopt a managerial ownership policy limiting the proportion of equity stock held by executives to limit their powers in strategic decision-making. Fourth, this study proposes a percentage limit on the equity stock of an institutional investor to eliminate bureaucracy in strategic decision-making and protect investors’ wealth.

Originality/value

The study finding is meant to inform regulation and operation policies in the banking sector and contribute to the literature on ownership structure, especially in the banking sector.

Purpose

This study aims to explore corporate social responsibility (CSR) implementation in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and examines the role of management accounting practices (MAPs) in the relationship between CSR and performance in SMEs.

Design/methodology/approach

A questionnaire survey was conducted among 1,000 SMEs in the southern region of Malaysia, and 203 valid replies were received.

Findings

The results indicate that most SMEs are informed about their social responsibilities across several CSR dimensions. There is evidence that supports the significant direct relationship between CSR and firm performance, and MAPs significantly and indirectly contribute to the effect of CSR on firm performance.

Originality/value

The findings contribute to an understanding of how the integration of CSR and MAPs can amplify the effect of CSR implementation on performance in SMEs. The finding may be useful for the relevant policymakers to increase socially responsible activities among SMEs to spur further growth for SMEs and society. SMEs may acknowledge MAPs as a significant intermediary in making CSR activities financially and operationally feasible.

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine the corporate social responsibility performance among small and medium enterprise (SME) owners in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) before and during COVID-19. This study shows insights into the barriers that could affect the CSR performance practices of UAE SMEs, and related implications are discussed in the study.

Design/methodology/approach

This study used a longitudinal qualitative research design. The research comprised 30 interviews from 15 SME owners that were studied prior to and during the pandemic. The 15 interview participants are the sole owners of these SMEs and are Emirati citizens. They were identified through personal contacts and referrals.

Findings

Study findings show that there was a clear shift during the pandemic to place more focus on employees. CSR performance practices are dominated by strategies for caring for the environment and employees. During the pandemic, the priority was paying employees at least a portion of their salary despite financial hardships and ensuring their health and well-being. Prior to the crisis, the key barrier to the implementation of CSR performance practices was a lack of knowledge. During the pandemic, barriers identified included uncertainty and financial constraints. Furthermore, all the owners believe that big corporations should be more socially responsible and SMEs should be the recipients of CSR practices. Lastly, the owners expressed their belief in the values of transparency, integrity, commitment, efficiency and responsibility.

Originality/value

This study is a novel attempt to gain an in-depth understanding of CSR among SMEs in the UAE in the context of a pandemic. It looks specifically at the performance practices pursued by SME owners in the UAE before and during the COVID-19 crisis.

Purpose

This study aims to investigate whether sustainability disclosures (SD) can improve financial, operational and market performance for businesses in Jordan. This research is based on the idea that firms that are open and transparent about their sustainability efforts tend to perform better than their competitors.

Design/methodology/approach

This study used an empirical approach for data collection and analysis. The independent variable was SD, and the dependent variables were performance indicators (i.e. Tobin’s Q, return on equity and return on assets). This study analyzed 81 non-financial companies listed on the Amman Stock Exchange from 2014 to 2018.

Findings

The present study found a significant and positive relationship between corporate SD and operational, financial and market performance.

Practical implications

The analysis shows that implementing corporate SD may lead to better performance. Specifically, firms may benefit internally by becoming more aware of important actions to be taken internally and externally by understanding the sustainability-related desires of other stakeholders and regulators for better sustainable development.

Originality/value

This study offers new insights into the effect of SD on firm performance and its implementation in emerging markets, which has not been extensively studied in academia. This research provides new insights into the link between SD and performance, and is particularly timely in its contribution to this topic, which is important for the government’s adoption and implementation of a robust SD code.

Purpose

Existing literature is still lacking field works that reflect the implications and applications of blockchain in supply chain management. This paper aims to explore the role of blockchain technology in improving the performance of maritime shipping and develop a model to enhance blockchain applicability.

Design/methodology/approach

Qualitative data were collected through 28 semi-structured interviews from several supply chain actors in the Middle East and were analyzed based on a thematic analysis approach using NVivo software.

Findings

An emerging model for improving the performance of the maritime shipping industry through blockchain technology has been developed. The findings suggest that there are transparency and process efficiency–related improvements as an outcome of Blockchain implementation in the maritime shipping industry.

Practical implications

As shipping industry is largely fragmented, small players find it difficult to achieve great benefits such as those achieved by larger players in the sector. The authors’ model provides guidance for the implementation of Blockchain.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the first scholarly works to investigate Blockchain applicability in shipping industry in the Middle East. The lack of a universal standard is a considerable challenge which is still hindering the development of blockchain applications that integrate the different actors.