Ethics and taxation : a cross-national comparison of UK and Turkish firms

This paper investigates responses to tax related ethical issues facing busines

FM contract relationships: from mobilisation to sustainable partnership

Purpose / theory Outsourcing is a fundamental business model for the Facilities Management (FM) industry. To enable sustained mutual success the parties involved must seek to understand the unique, socially constructed, and often highly complex situational realities of the organisational ecologies they are engaged in. The FM industry can unlock improved performance and strategic credibility through an appreciation of the need for different conversations. Design / methodology / approach Findings from two recent cases are considered. Data from two different client-contractor relationship situations was collected utilising a critical ethnographic research methodology; a phenomenological paradigm that acknowledges knowledge as socially constructed through language. A variant on Scott-Morgan‟s unwritten-rules coding method was used to analyse the data and justify the prevalent themes and issues presented. Findings Findings include the role of perceptions and assertions in the construction of social realities, change management implications, and how these impact on the traditional view of the client/contractor relationship. Ethnographic findings are typically context specific, therefore generalisations must be carefully considered. The key findings are however substantiated by existing FM outsourcing literature. Originality / value Highlights the practical importance of seeking to understand socially embedded realities for improved FM contract performance. Considers the human resource element of change via FM outsourcing. Takes a social constructivist approach to organisational sense-making. Uses examples from focused, critical ethnographies to explore existing FM contracting dynamics. Qualitative investigations into related organisational circumstances are encouraged to further develop an evidence base

The Role of social agency in supply chain management decision-making

Global supply chains have expanded in both their size and embeddedness in the markets. The formation and development of relationships with suppliers and buyers has become key to sustaining competitiveness, whereas firms within the chains face increasing needs and demands from both internal and external stakeholders. Accordingly, decision-making within supply chains is expected to meet various objectives regarding, for example, organizational sustainability and performance. To answer the challenges related to the decision-making, researchers in the field of supply chain management have recently been concerned especially with the theme of human behavior. Processes of individual decision-making in the context are often found to be irrational with relation to organizational aims and unexpected in their consequences on the level of supply chains. Yet, explanations with reference to individual psychology and social mechanisms relevant to the phenomena have received little attention, leaving the decision-making inefficient in practice. This doctoral thesis addresses the gap in previous research by considering the interaction between the psychology of the individual decision-maker and the social environment of the supply chain. In this regard, the thesis contributes to the research paradigm of behavioral supply chain management by elaborating on what the interaction means for supply chain management decision-making. A social cognitive lens is adopted to describe how supply chain management decisions may be linked to various psychological characteristics of decision-makers and to put forward practical proposals on how to enhance decision-making in the context. The compilation thesis builds on four original publications with a diverse background of theories on individual decision-making and organizational behavior. Literature relevant to supply chain management decision-making in general—and the topics of logistics outsourcing, organizational performance, and supply relationships in particular—is subjected to conceptual analysis for the development of propositions and hypotheses to be tested. To test the hypotheses, the research then employs empirical survey data from the Finnish State of Logistics Surveys 2014 and 2018, the European Social Survey 2016, and financial reporting data from the Voitto+ and Eikon databases. One of the individual studies is conceptual by nature, whereas three follow a nomothetic approach where the data is analyzed using quantitative methods. The results show how logistics outsourcing decisions are likely to be driven by attitudes, norms, and competence; the environmental and financial performance of companies may be linked to their respective institutional environments and ambidextrous business processes; and supply relationships should be managed with consideration to individual identity and leader rhetoric. The findings further support a view of the individual decision-maker as an intentional and subjectively rational social agent that lays the foundations to behavior on multiple levels of analysis from organizations to supply chains and markets. Supply chain management decision-making could then be enhanced with behavior change techniques related to, for instance, increasing knowledge and setting goals that may be enforced from within or outside the supply chain. Hence, the results benefit business practitioners and policymakers across the boundaries of individual firms with ideas on how to acknowledge the human decision-maker in decision models vastly applied in the field

Role of Cognitive Style of a Manager in the Development of Tourism Companies’ Dynamic Capabilities

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between cognitive styles of managers working in tourism companies and dynamic capabilities of these companies. Design – The research relies on a quantitative questionnaire. Methodology – To answer the research question, the bivariate (Pearson) correlation was applied. A number of 268 answers from people working in tourism were received. Findings – We found a positive correlation between different dimensions of dynamic capabilities of tourism companies. These capabilities are influenced by managers’ cognitive characteristics. The organizational culture plays a mediating role in the latter relationship. Implications for theory – The paper offers an alternative understanding of dynamic capabilities in tourism and hospitality; the paper also opens new paths for academic research on the impact of cognitive characteristics of managers on the dynamic capabilities of tourism companies. Implications for practitioners – Making accurate psychological portrait of the candidate can predict his/her behavior in certain situation, such as response towards environmental change using dynamic capabilities and when making the necessary changes to the organizational culture. Originality – This study proposes model of influence of a manager’s cognitive style on dynamic capabilities, whereby organizational culture moderates this relationship

A Balanced Theory of Sourcing, Collaboration and Networks

In a synthesis of recent advances, this article gives a fresh, balanced theory of inter-organizational relations. It integrates competence and governance perspectives. It considers the choice between mergers/acquisitions and alliances. It offers a toolbox of instruments to govern relational risk, and the contingencies for their selection. Relationships can last too long. Therefore, the article also looks at how to end relationships. Beyond dyads of collaborating firms, it includes effects of network structure and position.corporate governance;inter-organizational relations;organizational behavior;inter-firm alliances;collaboration

What Does Not Kill You Makes You Stronger: Supply Chain Resilience and Corporate Sustainability Through Emerging IT Capability

Global epidemics and international conflicts disrupt supply chain operations. Many enterprises employ emerging information technology (IT) to reduce supply chain vulnerability and enhance supply chain resilience. Technologies like artificial intelligence and blockchain facilitate more robust supply chain operations, such as remanufacturing, just-in-time production, and automated workflow, leading to corporate sustainability along economic, environmental, and social dimensions. From a dynamic capability perspective, this article conceptualizes emerging IT capability and investigates its role in helping enterprises survive supply chain disruptions and prosper in the long run. A research model depicts the relationships among environmental uncertainty, supply chain vulnerability vigilance, emerging IT capability, supply chain resilience, and corporate sustainability. A partial least square analysis on survey observations collected from more than 200 enterprises in China that are highly susceptible to supply chain disruptions provides supporting evidence to most research hypotheses. The results show that high vigilance to potential supply chain disruptions will motivate enterprises to develop emerging IT capability, which will enhance supply chain resilience as well as economic, environmental, and social performances. The mediating role of emerging IT capability suggests a viable path for enterprises to adapt to the increasingly turbulent environment and improve supply chain resilience and corporate sustainability

IT outsourcing governance: a conceptual framework for theory and practice

The objective of this study is to improve our understanding of IT Outsourcing Governance, which has become an increasingly significant topic in recent years. In order to gain an understanding of this topic, an extensive literature review was performed and analyzed with argument mapping. The data yielded from the argument maps was used to create a comprehensive framework for IT Outsourcing Governance. What resulted was a new conceptualization of IT Outsourcing Governance, focused not only on governance structures and decision rights, but also on relationship management. This conceptualization not only provides a better understanding, but also presents a sharp contrast to the traditional view of IT Governance in which relationship management is not a major factor. In addition to the argument maps, a social representations survey was performed in order to elicit differences in the conceptualization of IT Outsourcing Governance between academics and practitioners. The results of the survey were used to perform a core/periphery analysis, which identified core and peripheral concepts used by academics and practitioners when discussing IT Outsourcing Governance. The core topics identified show a high degree of overlap with the dimensions of the framework previously developed. Finally, a review of existing technologies developed specifically to manage outsourcing arrangements (Outsourcing Relationship Management Tools) was performed in order to better understand the alignment between technology and management practices. This analysis showed that the features of Outsourcing Relationship Management tools seem to be misaligned with the duties and responsibilities of people in charge of the day-to-day management of the client-vendor relationship. The contribution of this research lies in advancing our understanding of IT Outsourcing Governance by providing a framework and new definition for this concept, along with a new theoretical lens to understand the evolution of relationships into partnerships. Additionally, this study augments the tools available to researchers by introducing argument mapping, a seldom-used technique for discourse analysis that proved to be very effective for eliciting relevant dimensions related to IT Outsourcing Governance from a literature review