The impact of inter-organizational management control systems on performance: a longitudinal case study of a supplier relation in automotive.

This study investigates whether appropriate management control design of supplier relations is associated with better performance. Although management control systems (MCSs) are found to be contingent on situational characteristics, it remains unclear whether this contingency fit contributes to performance. In order to illustrate the existence and refine the dynamics of the fit-performance association, we perform a longitudinal case study of an exemplary automotive manufacturer-supplier relation that was subject to considerable change and severe performance difficulties in the course of time. As proposed, case findings show that if the supplier is incapable of dealing with changed contingencies, a MCS contingency misfit is associated with poor operational performance. However, this misfit is only temporal, as the manufacturer adapts the MCS to fit the changed supplier relation and regain operational performance. In addition, the longitudinal study suggests that trust and basic formal control (control continuously exercised under all circumstances) are complements, while trust substitutes for extra formal control (control set up on top of basic formal control). Finally, the data indicate a timing difference in the substitutive relation: the building up of extra formal control proceeds gradually, while the lowering happens almost immediately.management control; trust; performance; supplier relationships; manufacturing; contingency theory; case research; automotive;

MiSFIT: Mining Software Fault Information and Types

As software becomes more important to society, the number, age, and complexity of systems grow. Software organizations require continuous process improvement to maintain the reliability, security, and quality of these software systems. Software organizations can utilize data from manual fault classification to meet their process improvement needs, but organizations lack the expertise or resources to implement them correctly. This dissertation addresses the need for the automation of software fault classification. Validation results show that automated fault classification, as implemented in the MiSFIT tool, can group faults of similar nature. The resulting classifications result in good agreement for common software faults with no manual effort. To evaluate the method and tool, I develop and apply an extended change taxonomy to classify the source code changes that repaired software faults from an open source project. MiSFIT clusters the faults based on the changes. I manually inspect a random sample of faults from each cluster to validate the results. The automatically classified faults are used to analyze the evolution of a software application over seven major releases. The contributions of this dissertation are an extended change taxonomy for software fault analysis, a method to cluster faults by the syntax of the repair, empirical evidence that fault distribution varies according to the purpose of the module, and the identification of project-specific trends from the analysis of the changes

Management control system design for supplier relationships in manufacturing: Case study evidence from the automotive industry..

Het doel van dit doctoraat is inzicht verschaffen in het ontwerp van man agement controle systemen (MCSen) voor producent-leverancier relaties (P LRs). Aangezien de huidige economische toestand een doeltreffende supply chain vereist, hebben leverancierrelaties die goed gecontroleerd worden een grote potentiële impact op de prestaties van een producent. Daarom werd de rol van MCSen al bestudeerd vanuit verschillende invalshoeken, w aaronder uitbestedingsrelaties, strategische allianties en joint venture s. De focus van deze studies lag echter op interactie tijdens de aankoop - en ontwikkelingsfasen van de supply chain. Het MCS in een latere fase van de supply chain, namelijk productie, bleef dus relatief onderbelicht . Toch bedragen de kosten van producten en diensten voor productie meer dan 60% van de totale kosten van een gemiddelde producent. Daardoor word t op die kosten voortdurend bespaard in samenspraak met de leveranciers. Vermits ook die samenwerking een effectief MCS vereist, bestudeert dit doctoraat het ontwerp van MCSen specifiek voor leverancierrelaties in de productiefase van de supply chain. Inhoudelijk bestaat het doctoraat ui t drie manuscripten met een specifieke onderzoeksvraag en onderzoeksdesi gn. Het eerste manuscript bestudeert hoe het MCS van PLRs ontworpen is en ho e belangrijk informele controle is in dat ontwerp. PLRs zijn namelijk fo rmeler dan leverancierrelaties in de aankoop- en ontwikkelingsfasen van de supply chain. Daardoor zouden ze kunnen bestuurd worden door meer for mele en minder informele controle. Bovendien onderzoekt manuscript 1 of het MCS afgestemd wordt op de karakteristieken van een PLR. Daarvoor geb ruiken we een theoretisch raamwerk dat specifiek is afgestemd op de prod uctiefase van de supply chain. De theoretische basis voor dit raamwerk i s een combinatie van transactiekostentheorie, organisatietheorie en een aantal relationele aanvullingen. We bestuderen het raamwerk aan de hand van een diepgaande verklarende gevallenstudie van verschillende leveranc ierrelaties van autobouwer Volvo Cars Gent. Deze studie weerlegt dat PLR s bestuurd worden door weinig informele controle, omdat Volvo duidelijk waarde hecht aan het opbouwen van vertrouwen en het uitoefenen van socia le druk. De meest opmerkelijke bevinding is het bestaan en de rol van ee n gestructureerd leveranciersteam, dat fungeert als een clan en informel e controle tot stand brengt tussen de deelnemende leveranciers. Verder h ebben we drie leveranciertypes geïdentificeerd, die de vooropgestelde as sociaties tussen karakteristieken en MCSen in het raamwerk bevestigen. O p die manier illustreert de gevallenstudie de verklarende kracht van het raamwerk in de praktijk. Het tweede manuscript onderzoekt of een MCS ontwerp dat afgestemd is op de karakteristieken van een PLR (cfr manuscript 1) gekoppeld is aan goed e leverancierprestaties. Om het bestaan van deze associatie te illustrer en en tevens de dynamiek ervan te verfijnen, analyseren we een longitudi nale gevallenstudie van één specifieke leverancierrelatie van Volvo. Dez e voorbeeldige PLR werd namelijk geconfronteerd met aanzienlijke verande ringen en langdurige problemen. Uit onze analyse volgt dat Volvos onaan gepast MCS bijdroeg aan de zwakke prestaties van de leverancier, die er blijkbaar niet in slaagde om te gaan met de gewijzigde omstandigheden. D eze situatie duurde meer dan een jaar, totdat Volvo het MCS ontwerp aanp aste aan de omstandigheden en zo bijdroeg aan een verbetering van de pre staties. Vervolgens bieden onze longitudinale data de mogelijkheid om he t verband tussen vertrouwen en formele controle te verfijnen. In tegenst elling tot wat we in de literatuur terugvinden, suggereren onze data dat vertrouwen en formele controle tegelijk complementen en substituten zij n, afhankelijk van het niveau van formele controle. In het bijzonder zij n vertrouwen en basis formele controle, d.w.z. formele controle contin u uitgeoefend onder alle omstandigheden, complementen, terwijl datzelfde vertrouwen een substituut vormt voor extra formele controle, d.w.z. f ormele controle bovenop basis formele controle. Het derde manuscript gaat de impact na van culturele gelijkenissen tusse n producent en leverancier op het MCS van PLRs. Hoewel MCSen afgestemd w orden op relationele karakteristieken (cfr manuscript 1) en dit ontwerp geassocieerd is met goede prestaties (cfr manuscript 2), blijft het ondu idelijk of culturele gelijkenissen bijdragen aan de snelheid waarmee het MCS kan veranderen in tijden van wijzigende omstandigheden. Om dit effe ct van culturele gelijkenissen op de dynamiek van MCSen te illustreren, onderzoeken we een longitudinale gevallenstudie van twee gelijkaardige P LRs, die enkel verschillen in culturele gelijkenis met Volvo. Onze bevin dingen geven aan dat in de PLR met hoge culturele gelijkenis controle sn eller toeneemt. Op die manier worden toekomstige veranderingen gepast ge anticipeerd door een stijging in controle, alvorens de situatie echt wij zigt. Bijgevolg worden een onaangepast MCS en potentieel dalende prestat ies vermeden. Indien producent en leverancier echter van cultuur verschi llen, vraagt een aanpassing van het MCS meer tijd. Die vertraging draagt bij tot een escalatie van operationele problemen, totdat het MCS is aan gepast. Tenslotte tonen onze data de drie mechanismen via dewelke cultur ele gelijkenissen bijdragen tot een verhoging van management controle: m eer communicatie op initiatief van de leverancier, correcte informatie-u itwisseling en signalen van vertrouwen.

Developing Interpreting Competence Scales in China

Tertiary-level interpreter training and education have developed rapidly in China, and more than 500 undergraduate and postgraduate degree programs have been launched over the past decade. Despite the rapid development, there has been no standardized framework allowing for the reliable and valid measurement of interpreting competence in China. Against this background, the China Standards of English (CSE), which are the Chinese counterpart to the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR), were unveiled in 2018 after four years of government-funded research and validation. One vital component of the CSE is the descriptor-referenced interpreting competence scales. This article provides a systematic account of the design, development, and validation of the interpreting competence scales in China. Within the CSE, the construct of interpreting competence was defined according to an interactionist approach. It encompasses not only cognitive abilities, interpreting strategies, and subject matter knowledge, but also considers performance in typical communicative settings. Based on the construct definition, a corpus of relevant descriptors was built from three main sources, including: a) interpreting training syllabuses, curricular frameworks, rating scales, and professional codes of conduct; b) previous literature on interpreting performance assessment, competence development, and interpreter training and education; c) exemplar-generation data on assessing interpreting competence and typical interpreting activities, which were collected from interpreting professionals, trainers, and trainees. The corpus contains 9,208 descriptors of interpreting competence. A mixed-method survey was then conducted to analyze, scale, and validate the descriptors among 30,682 students, 5,787 teachers, and 139 interpreting professionals from 28 provinces, municipalities, and regions in China. The finalized set included 369 descriptors that reference interpreting competence. The CSE-Interpreting Competence Scales with theoretically and empirically based descriptors represent a major effort in research on interpreting competence and its assessment, and they have significant potential to be applied widely in interpreting training, research, and assessment

Validating a set of Japanese EFL proficiency tests: demonstrating locally designed tests meet international standards

A thesis submitted to the University of Bedfordshire in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of PhilosophyThis study applied the latest developments in language testing validation theory to derive a core body of evidence that can contribute to the validation of a large-scale, high-stakes English as a Foreign Language (EFL) testing program in Japan. The testing program consists of a set of seven level-specific tests targeting different levels of proficiency. This core aspect of the program was selected as the main focus of this study. The socio-cognitive model of language test development and validation provided a coherent framework for the collection, analysis and interpretation of evidence. Three research questions targeted core elements of a validity argument identified in the literature on the socio-cognitive model. RQ 1 investigated the criterial contextual and cognitive features of tasks at different levels of proficiency, Expert judgment and automated analysis tools were used to analyze a large bank of items administered in operational tests across multiple years. RQ 2 addressed empirical item difficulty across the seven levels of proficiency. An innovative approach to vertical scaling was used to place previously administered items from all levels onto a single Rasch-based difficulty scale. RQ 3 used multiple standard-setting methods to investigate whether the seven levels could be meaningfully related to an external proficiency framework. In addition, the study identified three subsidiary goals: firstly, toevaluate the efficacy of applying international standards of best practice to a local context: secondly, to critically evaluate the model of validation; and thirdly, to generate insights directly applicable to operational quality assurance. The study provides evidence across all three research questions to support the claim that the seven levels in the program are distinct. At the same time, the results provide insights into how to strengthen explicit task specification to improve consistency across levels. This study is the largest application of the socio-cognitive model in terms of the amount of operational data analyzed, and thus makes a significant contribution to the ongoing study of validity theory in the context of language testing. While the study demonstrates the efficacy of the socio-cognitive model selected to drive the research design, it also provides recommendations for further refining the model, with implications for the theory and practice of language testing validation

The upside of cultural differences: towards a more balanced treatment of culture in cross-cultural management research

Purpose –This introductory paper to the Special Issue encourages scholars to look at commonly considered phenomena in international business and cross-cultural research in new ways and to theorize and explore how cultural diversity, distance, and foreignness create value for global organizations. These considerations should result in a more balanced treatment of culture in cross-cultural management research. Design/methodology/approach – The idea that there are negative consequences associated with cultural differences is pervasive in hypotheses formulation and empirical testing in international business and cross-cultural management literature, as reflected in widely used constructs such as “cultural distance”, “cultural misfit”, “foreignness”, and related concepts. Consistent with a Positive Organizational Scholarship (POS) perspective on culture and cultural differences, the authors emphasize the positive role of distance and diversity across national, cultural, institutional, and organizational dimensions. In addition, they provide an overview of the contributions to the Special Issue. Findings – Examining the positive side of culture is not only beneficial theoretically in terms of filling the existing gaps in the literature, but is also crucial for the practice of international and global business. Accordingly, the contributions to the Special Issue highlight how explicitly considering positive phenomena can help better understand when and how cultural diversity, distance, and foreignness can enhance organizational effectiveness and performance at multiple levels. They include five research papers, a Distinguished Scholar Essay by Kim Cameron, the founder of the POS movement, and an interview piece with Richard Nisbett, a pioneer researcher in culture and cognition

Socio-technical analysis and design of digital workplaces to foster employee health

Recent socio-technical developments caused by ongoing digitalization (e.g., robotic process automation, artificial intelligence, anthropomorphic systems) or the COVID-19 pandemic (e.g., an increasing number of remote working employees and hence, increasing number of virtual collaboration) change the work environment and culture. Digital and smart workplace technol-ogies facilitate business processes and provide tools for efficient communication and (virtual) collaboration, “increasing the productivity of the workforce in the information age” (Attaran et al. 2019, p. 1). Especially in times of the COVID-19 pandemic, digital technologies play a crucial role in keeping us socially close, connected, and collaborative while increasing the phys-ical distance between humans. However, this development affects the health of employees (Tarafdar et al. 2013). In research, for example, it has long been known that the increased usage of digital technologies and media (DTM) may cause stress, leading to potentially harmful reac-tions in individuals. Research has noted this specific form of stress as technostress (Ayyagari et al. 2011; Tarafdar et al. 2007; Tarafdar et al. 2011; Tarafdar et al. 2019), which is an umbrella term for causes, negative organizational outcomes, and negative humanistic outcomes resulting from the use of DTM at work. The simultaneous consideration of humanistic (e.g., well-being, equality) and organizational outcomes (e.g., efficiency, productivity) is an integral part of a socio-technical system (Beath et al. 2013; Mumford 2006), which is at the core of the IS discipline (Bostrom et al. 2009; Chiasson and Davidson 2005). However, a review from Sarker et al. (2019) regarding published research articles in one of the top journals within the IS community revealed that most reviewed studies (91%) had focused exclusively on instrumental goals. They conclude that “many IS researchers have forgotten or ignored the premise that technologies need to benefit humankind overall (Majchrzak et al. 2016), not just their economic condition” (Sarker et al. 2019, p. 705). Especially as humanistic outcomes can lead to even more positive instrumental outcomes. Hence, Sarker et al. (2019) call for focusing on the connection between humanistic and instru-mental outcomes, enabling a positive synergy resulting from this interplay. For this reason, this dissertation adopts a socio-technical perspective. It aims to conduct re-search that links instrumental outcomes with humanistic objectives to ultimately achieve a healthier use of DTMs at the digital workplace. It is important to note that the socio-technical perspective considers both the technical component and the social component privileging nei-ther one of them and sees outcomes resulting from the reciprocal interaction between those two.Therefore, the dissertation focuses on the interaction while applying pluralistic methodological approaches from qualitative (e.g., semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions) and quantitative research (e.g., collection from a field study or survey research). It provides a theo-retical contribution applying both behavioral research (i.e., analysis of cause-and-effect rela-tionships) and design-oriented research (i.e., instructions for designing socio-technical information systems). Overall, this work addresses four different areas within the reciprocal interaction between the social and technical components: the role of the technical component, the role of the social component, DTMs fostering a fit between the technical and social compo-nents, and the imminent misfit between these two due to ongoing digitalization. First, to contribute to an understanding of the technical component’s role, this thesis presents new knowledge on the characteristics and features of DTM and their influence on employee health and productivity. Research on the design of digital workplaces examined different design approaches, in which information exchange and sharing documents or project support were regarded (Williams and Schubert 2018). However, the characteristics of DTM also play an es-sential role in the emergence of technostress (Dardas and Ahmad 2015). This thesis presents ten characteristics of DTM that affect technostress at an individual’s workplace, including a measurement scale and analysis on how these characteristics affect technostress. Besides, also, the provision of functional features by DTMs can affect instrumental outcomes or humanistic objectives. For example, affording users with certain kinds of autonomy regarding the config-uration of DTM while they work towards their goals could have a tremendous effect on pursu-ing goals and well-being (Patall et al. 2008; Ryan and Deci 2000). Therefore, this thesis presents knowledge regarding the design of DTM on the benefits of affording users with autonomy. Furthermore, it shows that merely affording more autonomy can have positive effects above and beyond the positive effects of the actualization of affordance. Second, to contribute to an understanding of the social component’s role, this thesis presents new knowledge on contextual and individual factors of social circumstances and their influence on employee health and productivity. In this context, the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on the intensity of technostress among employees is considered, as work became more digital almost overnight. Therefore, this thesis provides empirical insights into digital work and its context in times of the COVID-19 pandemic and its effect on employees’ well-being, health, and productivity. Furthermore, measures to steer the identified effects if the situation in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic persists or comparable disruptive situations should re-occur are discussed. On the other hand, this research takes a closer look at the effect of an individual preference regarding coping styles in dealing with upcoming technostress. A distinction is made between the effects of two different coping styles, namely active-functional and dysfunctional, on strain as a humanistic outcome and productivity as an instrumental outcome. In the course of this, evidence is provided that coping moderates the relationship between the misfit within the socio-technical system and strain as proposed by the psychological theory of job demands-resources model (Demerouti et al. 2001). Third, to contribute to a successful fit between the technical and social components, this thesis presents frameworks and guidelines on the design of DTM, which understand the social com-ponent (here the user and her/his environment) and adjust accordingly to the needs of their users. Therefore, the thesis provides knowledge on the design of DTMs that support users in applying stress management techniques and build the foundation for stress-sensitive systems (i.e., systems that aim to mitigate stress by applying intervention measures on the social and technical component (Adam et al. 2017)). As a matter of fact, a framework for collecting and storing data (e.g., on the user and her/his environment) is developed and experiences with im-plementing a prototype for life-integrated stress assessment are reported. The experiences from this and the existing knowledge in the literature will finally be aggregated to a mid-range design theory for mobile stress assessment. To contribute to the fourth and last aspect, the imminent misfit within the socio-technical sys-tem due to ongoing digitalization, this thesis presents new knowledge regarding digital work demands that potentially affect both employees’ health and instrumental outcomes. The current version of technostress’s theoretical foundation was introduced more than ten years ago by Tarafdar et al. (2007). However, the interaction with and use of DTM has considerably changed along with the societal and individual expectations. Therefore, this thesis puts the current con-cept of technostress to test. As a result, a new theory of digital stress, as an extension of the concept of technostress, is proposed with twelve dimensions – instead of five dimensions within the concept of Tarafdar et al. (2007) – that could be hierarchically structured in four higher-order factors. This theory holistically addresses the current challenges that employees have to deal with digitalization. To sum up, this dissertation contributes to the IS community’s knowledge base by providing knowledge regarding the interaction between employees and their digital workplace to foster the achievement of humanistic and instrumental outcomes. It provides both behavioral research and design-oriented research while using pluralistic methodological approaches. For this pur-pose, this thesis presents knowledge about the different components within the socio-technical system, design knowledge on DTMs fostering the fit between these components, and an under-standing of an upcoming misfit due to the ongoing digitalization. Overall, this research aims to support the successful change towards a healthy digital workplace in the face of digitalization

Understanding organisation-CRM system misfits and their evolution : b a path to improving post-adoption CRM system usage

PhD ThesisSince the late 1990s, organisations have been increasingly investing in Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems to support their sales, marketing and customer service operations. Despite the significant growth in the acquisition of CRM systems and the widely accepted concepts of a CRM strategy, academics and practitioners repeatedly point to the high failure rates of CRM initiatives. Improving CRM systems’ use can provide organisations with considerable benefits. However, limited research has been directed towards understanding post-adoption CRM systems usage behaviour. This is an important and topical subject at a time when CRM has edged past Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) as the top application software investment priority and is expected to drive Enterprise System (ES) spending in 2013 and 2014. Using a multiple case study design methodology and Grounded Theory (GT) as the data collection and analysis technique, this process study strives to accomplish four primary research objectives. Firstly, it proposes a post-adoption CRM system usage process consisting of three phases (adaptation, exploitation, and benefits realization) and seven sub-phases (training assimilation, basic functionality discovery, basic functionality appropriation, advanced functionality discovery and appropriation, individual productivity enhancement, individual job objectives achievement, and company business objectives achievement) along which individual CRM system users can be placed. Secondly, it identifies ten misfit types (communication, supervision, user support, skill sets, commitment, functionality, data, strategy, organisation, and IT/business alignment) explaining for usage discrepancy among the user population. Thirdly, it looks at the evolution of those ten misfit types, and finds that their influence varies across the three post-adoption usage phases. For example, tool related misfits (e.g. functionality) appear early but tend to disappear by the end of the adaptation phase or the beginning of the exploitation phase, while company related misfits (e.g. communication of benefits, silo organisation) appear later in the exploitation phase, but seem to widen over time and significantly impact usage when not appropriately addressed. Finally, it identifies the organisation’s leadership style as a potential root cause explaining for CRM system usage behaviour