Firm Adoption Research Articles

AI adoption in the hiring process – important criteria and extent of AI adoption

PurposeIn the context of new workplace environment, this study aims to study and generate insights about artificial intelligence (AI) adoption in hiring process of firms. It is very relevant when AI is dramatically reshaping hiring function in the changing scenario.Design/methodology/approachThe objectives are achieved with the help of three studies involving Delphi method to explore the criteria for AI adoption decision. Followed by two multi criteria decision-making techniques, i.e. analytic hierarchy process to identify weights of the criteria and fuzzy technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution to assess the extent of AI adoption in hiring.FindingsThe findings reveal that information security and return on investment are considered two very important criteria by human resources managers while contemplating the adoption of AI in hiring process. It was found that AI adoption will be suitable at the sourcing and initial screening stages of hiring. And the suitability of the hiring stage where AI can be applied has been found to have changed from before and after the onset of COVID-19 pandemic situation. The findings and its discussion assist and enhance better decisions about AI adoption in hiring processes of firms amid changing scenario – external and internal to a firm.Research limitations/implicationsFindings also highlight research implications for future research studies in this emerging area.Practical implicationsResults act as a starting point for other human resources managers, who are still pondering over the idea of adopting AI in hiring in future.Originality/valueThis paper through a systematic approach contributes by identifying important evaluation criteria influencing AI adoption in firms and extent of its application in the stages of hiring. It makes a substantial contribution to the under-developed yet emerging paradigm of AI based hiring in practice and research.

Stepping up to the mark? Firms’ export activity and environmental innovation in 14 European countries

ABSTRACT We investigate the ability of exports to trigger the adoption of environmental innovation (EI) in firms, shedding light on the determinants of convergence in environmental standards for Europe’s catch-up economies. To analyse this question empirically, we measure the latter as the 1) probability a firm adopts EI and the 2) breadth of EI adoption in firms. Applying Logit and Poisson pseudo-maximum likelihood estimations to firm-level data for 14 European countries, we find that particularly Eastern European exporters report higher EI adoption propensities, an effect exclusively driven by process-based EI and not observable for product-based EI. Additionally, we reveal that regardless of a firm’s origin, exposure to importing countries with high market-related environmental policy stringency, is linked to the adoption of EI. We conclude that learning-by-exporting, regulation-push and demand-pull mechanisms may help to explain these findings, with foreign markets being characterised by a wider diversity of stakeholder preferences.

Effects of Digital Adoption on Performance of Insurance Companies in Kenya

Technology, innovation and digitalization have been of benefit to a greater extent for organizations to achieve competitive advantage. Moreover, digital adoption is necessary as it enables firms to cope with changing needs of customers in the dynamic environment and has positive impacts in terms of customer satisfaction, faster service delivery, profit growth, consistency and processes improvements. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of digital adoption on performance of insurance firms in Kenya. The specific objectives of the study were; to establish the extent of digital adoption by insurance firms and to establish the relationship between digital adoption and performance of insurance firms in Kenya. This study was guided by the technology adoption theory and the innovation diffusion theory. The study used descriptive research design and a census approach was adopted to target all the 54 insurance firms in Kenya as at December, 2020. Descriptive statistics were used to determine the extent of digital adoption in line with process, product and service while inferential statistics was undertaken using a regression analysis. The study established that there is a relationship between digital adoption and performance of insurance firms in Kenya, with digital adoption positively and significantly influencing performance of the insurance firms. The study concludes that digitalization enables the insurance firms to upgrade their processes, make product improvements and discharge quality services to their clients. The study recommends that insurance firms continually invest in technology and keep up with new innovations in order to enhance processes, products and service delivery to customers in order to improve company performance.

Business analytics adoption in firms

Business analytics adoption in firms

An Assessment of Exhibited Drivers of Mentoring in Construction Professional Firms: A Case of Nigerian Quantity Surveying Firms

The article assessed the exhibited drivers of mentoring practices in construction professional firms in Nigeria intending to improve how mentoring schemes are implemented in respective construction firms. A survey design was utilised in assessing the level of knowledge, mentoring concept adoption and the exhibited drivers of mentoring relationships in these firms. Quantity surveying firms in Abuja, Nigeria were sampled with a structured questionnaire. Percentage, mean, one-sample t-test and factor analyses were undertaken for the analysis of the data. The study reveals there is a good level of knowledge of mentoring concept but not so much with the adoption in individual firms. This connotes that there is a problem with the adoption of mentoring concept in construction professional firms despite knowledge of the concept by the professionals. Also, the study revealed the exhibited drivers of mentoring practices in construction professional firms. The findings show the exhibited drivers of mentoring practices in construction professional firms and recommendations were proposed to further the adoption and implementation of these drivers to ensure the success of mentoring practices in construction professional firms. This paper reveals the exhibited drivers of mentoring practices in Nigerian construction professional firms and provides areas that require attention for the successful implementation of mentoring schemes in construction firms.

Understanding Organizations’ Artificial Intelligence Journey: A Qualitative Approach

Background: With growth in Artificial Intelligence (AI) adoption, challenges and hurdles are also becoming evident. Organizations implementing AI are challenged to find ways to leverage AI to produce optimum results and benefits for the organization. Understanding other organizations’ AI implementation journeys will help them start and implement AI. By understanding the different facets of AI implementation, they can strategize AI to gain business value. Though several studies have examined AI adoption, there are few studies on how firms implement it. We close this gap by studying AI adoption and implementations in various firms. Method: Using a qualitative approach of semi-structured interviews, we studied twenty global organizations of various sizes that have implemented AI. Results: The study categorizes the results into four major themes – facilitators, barriers, trends, and strategies for implementing AI. Our study reinforces the relevance of the TOE framework and Roger’s DOI theory in studying AI adoption. Organizational factors such as top management support, strategic roadmap, availability of skilled resources, and corporate culture influenced AI adoption. Their lack of data or poor data quality is a primary challenge. The privacy laws concerning data, as well as regulatory bottlenecks, further exacerbate this problem. We also identified and mapped the standard AI implementations to their AI technologies. We found that most of them exploit AI’s image and natural language processing capabilities to automate their processes. Regarding implementation, firms work with partners to obtain customer data and use federated learning. Conclusion: Understanding firms’ AI implementation journey will help us promote further adoption and experimentation. Organizations can identify areas where they can leverage AI to enhance value, prepare themselves for the future, start and proceed with AI implementation efforts and overcome barriers they might encounter.

The road towards industry 4.0: a comparative study of the state-of-the-art in the Italian manufacturing industry

PurposeThis paper has two objectives: first, to investigate the state-of-the-art of Industry 4.0 (I4.0) adoption in Italian manufacturing firms and, second, to understand variations in technologies implemented and business functions involved, benefits perceived, and obstacles encountered in I4.0 implementation over a three-year period.Design/methodology/approachThe approach adopted in this research is descriptive, nesting longitudinal features. The paper presents a descriptive survey of 102 Italian manufacturing companies. The authors also evaluated non-response biases. The longitudinal approach was achieved by comparing the responses of the 40 sub-samples in common with a second similar survey launched three years prior, which aimed to identify patterns of evolution in the adoption of the I4.0 paradigm.FindingsSurvey findings demonstrate that Italian manufacturing companies still have limited awareness of I4.0 technologies, and the adoption of I4.0 technologies differs per technology. Company size and information system coverage level are the two factors that impact the company's technology adoption level. The comparative study shows that knowledge and adoption increase in a three-year interval with an unbalanced involvement of business functions regarding the I4.0 transformation. Indeed, companies are still seeking I4.0 solutions to reduce costs and lead times primarily, and the benefits perceived by companies are shown to be related to the number of I4.0 technologies in use. Finally, when companies put the I4.0 technologies into practice, competence is constantly considered the most significant barrier.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper aims at conducting a thorough investigation into the development of I4.0 adoption in manufacturing companies. The main limitation of this study concerns the limited number of subjects involved in the longitudinal study (40) and the focus on a limited geographical area (Italy). In addition, more I4.0 technologies could also be incorporated into the survey protocol to gain further insight into I4.0 development.Originality/valueThe authors provide one of the first attempts to assess the variations of I4.0 implementation concerning technology adoption, business function involvement, and the alteration of benefits and obstacles. Several studies presented in the literature highlight the lack of longitudinal studies investigating the development of the I4.0 paradigm in a specific manufacturing context: this paper is the attempt at filling this gap.

Modelling the key enablers of organizational building information modelling (BIM) implementation: An interpretive structural modelling (ISM) approach

Building Information Modelling (BIM) implementation is a dynamic process and there are a number of influential variables that may change throughout. There is little research on the dynamics of the change environment and the AEC organizations’ approaches to BIM adoption and implementation. A considerable number of BIM enablers have been identified and/or developed in the extant literature. However, stipulating BIM implementation enablers per se provides only a static view that is not adequate for describing effective management of BIM implementation in Architectural, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) organizations. This study is the second part of an ongoing research about BIM implementation enablers. In the first paper “Building Information Modelling (BIM) adoption and implementation enablers in AEC firms: a systematic literature review” (Abbasnejad et al., 2020) the organizational BIM enablers have been identified. The aim of this second paper is to (1) further review and validate the key BIM implementation enablers using both the existing literature and expert interviews, and (2) develop a structural model of the key enablers using the ISM technique to understand the mutual interaction of these enablers and identify the driving enablers and the dependent enablers. Twenty-eight enablers for BIM implementation were initially identified from the literature and subsequent discussion with experts from academia and industry has been conducted to select most key BIM implementation enablers. Eleven enablers were finally chosen based on the literature review and expert interviews and the Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM) technique has been adopted to evaluate the contextual interrelationships among them. MICMAC (Matrix Impacts Cross-reference Multiplication Applied to a Classification) analysis was employed to classify the eleven enablers based on their dependence and driving power. The results indicate that there is no enabler in the autonomous cluster and this therefore signifies that all enablers are required for the implementation of BIM. BIM leadership and top management support have been identified as the enablers with the highest driving power in the initial stages of the BIM adoption and implementation process and for that reason, these enablers demand a greater priority given that there are other dependent enablers that will be impacted.

Interventions to promote technology adoption in firms: A systematic review.

Interventions to promote technology adoption in firms: A systematic review.

Eco-innovation Adoption in Malaysian Contractor Firms: Understanding the Components and Drivers

Eco-innovation (EI) is a concept that integrates eco-consciousness within innovation development. While EI has been widely applied in the manufacturing industry, its adoption in the construction sector remains uncertain. The rising concern of environmental impacts on construction necessitates the importance of finding more innovative ways to push environmental needs within the complexity of projects’ design and methods. Contractors hold a strategic position to promote and adopt EI into management, construction, and development. This paper explores 1) the adoption level of EI practices and 2) the relationship between the adoption of EI practices and the factors that drive EI, within the Malaysian contractor firms. A questionnaire survey was developed using 18 EI components and four driving factors. A total of 95 Grade G7 contractor firms responded to the survey. The survey revealed that the level of EI adoption in contractor firms is still at a moderate pace. The results showed that organisational EI is a crucial component that supports the firm’s eco-innovative management approach to improve firm’s environmental performance. The results indicated that all four driving factors have a positive relationship with the implementation of EI. Technology factor was identified as crucial in influencing better adoption of EI in contractor firms. Findings from this study are beneficial to develop a framework on strategies to increase the EI adoption rate among the contractor firms and deepen the understanding of EI implementation at the firm level, further extending to the project site level.

Born innovator? How founder birth order influences product innovation generation and adoption in entrepreneurial firms

Individuals’ birth order may be a fundamental, engrained human early-life and family-domain experience that shapes their behaviors in adulthood. However, limited knowledge is available about the influence of birth order on individual innovation preferences. By integrating sibling rivalry theory and social identity theory and analyzing 186 high-technology entrepreneurial firms, we find that founder birth order is positively associated with product innovation generation (later-born founders pursue more innovation generation than do earlier-born founders) but is negatively associated with product innovation adoption (earlier-born founders generate more innovation adoption than do later-born founders). Further, both the age spacing between a founder and closest-born sibling and founder social identity moderate the relationships. Thus, our findings advance understanding in the literature on birth order and on entrepreneurial innovation.

Barriers and opportunities to innovation for legal service firms: a thematic analysis-based contextualization

The paper discusses innovation within the traditionally conservative legal sector as a diverse service improvement mechanism that models positive firm change. A resource-based view and practice-based view blend provided a systematic theoretical benchmark for the study. Fifty-three semi-structured interviews were conducted with law professionals from seven countries capturing their day-to-day work experiences and identifying the barriers that hinder and the opportunities that support innovation adoption in legal firms today. A data-intensive thematic analysis uncovers six core themes: human factor and culture, client and market, technology, organizational transitions, legal processes, and education. The paper contributes to the state of art by (i) contextualizing each of these themes and their diverse underpinning dimensions; (ii) developing an evidence-based conceptual framework that critically assesses legal innovation uptake barriers and opportunities; and (iii) advancing the theoretical and empirical understanding of law service operations demonstrating the rationale for legal firms to invest in technology, multidisciplinary education, and training, and to adopt leaner, hybrid and more client-driven management approaches.

Hoshin Kanri and its Diffusion among Argentine SMEs

The Hoshin Kanri is a strategic planning system that possesses the particular capability to solve the most typical problems of implementing such a plan, within organizations. Its Japanese origin has not been an obstacle for its adoption and implementation in firms and organizations of different origins, as this article shows. There still are many difficulties and few experiences for implementing it in SMEs, both in Argentina and at the international scale. The work's objective is to describe Hoshin's planning, providing evidence of its Argentine dissemination, and analyzing the feasibility of its implementation within domestic SMEs. Finally, some necessary conditions for implementing Hoshin are detailed, most of them of operative character, considering some of the specific features of this type of firm.

Exploring the Challenges for Adopting the Cloud PLM in Manufacturing Organizations

Product lifecycle management (PLM) is an engineering management approach which helps organizations to manage product-related technical data for its complete lifecycle. The right product data enables better business functioning in organizations. PLM systems are recent and upcoming information technology tools in manufacturing firms. Although PLM systems were initially introduced as the on-premise tools, the current cloud technology is taking it from organizational boundaries to a global level through the Internet. Most enterprise applications have already started moving to clouds; PLM is also all set to be utilized through clouds. But it brings various challenges during cloud PLM adoption. Hence, this paper aims to empirically investigate the critical challenges that manufacturing firms face while adopting cloud PLM. There is rare academic research in the cloud PLM domain. This paper results in the three most significant challenges viz., “Data security on clouds,” “Lack of trust on services,” and “Lack of customization.” These critical challenges not only help the managers in manufacturing firms in planning to migrate on clouds but also the technical cloud providers to improve the cloud services and systems appropriately in order to increase the compatibility of cloud PLM in firms. The present paper uniquely identifies the critical challenges for cloud PLM adoption in large manufacturing firms.

Understanding AI adoption in manufacturing and production firms using an integrated TAM-TOE model

This study aims to identify how environmental, technological, and social factors influence the adoption of Industry 4.0 in the context of digital manufacturing. The Industry 4.0 era has brought a breakthrough in advanced technologies in fields such as nanotechnology, quantum computing, biotechnology, artificial intelligence, robotics, the Internet of Things, fifth-generation wireless technology, fully autonomous vehicles, 3D printing and so on. In this study, we attempted to identify the socioenvironmental and technological factors that influence the adoption of artificial intelligence embedded technology by digital manufacturing and production organizations. In doing so, the extended technology-organization-environment (TOE) framework is used to explore the applicability of Industry 4.0. A conceptual model was proposed that used an integrated technology acceptance model (TAM)-TOE model and was tested using survey-based data collected from 340 employees of small, medium and large organizations. The results highlight that all the relationships, except organizational readiness, organizational compatibility and partner support on perceived ease of use, were found to be significant in the context of digital manufacturing and production organizations. The results further indicated that leadership support acts as a countable factor to moderate such an adoption.

Join In . . . and Drop Out? Firm Adoption of and Disengagement From Voluntary Environmental Programs

Voluntary environmental programs (VEPs) offer opportunities for companies and stakeholders to improve environmental outcomes valued by society in the absence of regulatory mandates. Research has addressed numerous antecedents for firm adoption of VEPs, enhancing knowledge of how stakeholders and firms engage on substantive issues of public importance. However, program adoption is dynamic, and stagnant participation rates may threaten program longevity when firms do not realize expected benefits. Prior literature has not sufficiently addressed the factors that compel firms to drop out. In this study I articulate three consequential drivers of firm commitment to VEPs—transparency, effort, and achievement—and empirically estimate their effects on firm disengagement from one such prominent program: CDP (formerly known as Carbon Disclosure Project). Findings indicate that firm transparency and effort represent powerful commitment mechanisms driving continued program participation. This study contributes to theory over multiple literatures related to VEP participation and offers practical guidance for both VEPs and firms.

Social media adoption in Italian firms. Opportunities and challenges for lagging regions

AbstractSocial media are an important growth opportunity for firms, especially small‐sized ones operating in peripheral and lagging regions. In this paper, we investigate not only whether firms are able to take this opportunity, but also if they are able to face the challenge of adopting social media at a professional level to obtain a significant economic impact, measured in terms of exporting activities. Exploring the Italian case, our empirical study indicates that smaller firms in lagging areas are more likely to adopt social media but at the same time less likely to use them at a professional level. This reflects poor strategic targets of social media adoption and lower probabilities of entering international markets.

Join In... and Drop Out? Firm Adoption of and Disengagement from Voluntary Environmental Programs

Voluntary environmental programs (VEPs) offer opportunities for companies and stakeholders to improve environmental outcomes valued by society in the absence of regulatory mandates. Research has addressed numerous antecedents for firm adoption of VEPs, enhancing knowledge of how stakeholders and firms engage on substantive issues of public importance. However, program adoption is dynamic, and stagnant participation rates may threaten program longevity when firms do not realize expected benefits. Prior literature has not sufficiently addressed the factors that compel firms to drop out. In this study I articulate three consequential drivers of firm commitment to VEPs --- transparency, effort, and achievement --- and empirically estimate their effects on firm disengagement from one such prominent program: CDP. Findings indicate that firm transparency and effort represent powerful commitment mechanisms driving continued program participation. This study contributes to theory over multiple literatures related to VEP participation and offers practical guidance for both VEPs and firms.

Towards a Nuanced Explanation of Cloud ERP Adoption in SMES

This study presents a longitudinal model for investigating cloud ERP adoption. Previous work on technology adoption mostly has investigated adoption by looking at one specific phase of adoption. However, we argue that the cross-sectional research design does not sufficiently represent the complexity and the highly volatile process of adoption as a whole. Based on an archival analysis of eighty-seven firm level technology adoption studies, we identified 24 transition factors (TF) contributing to the adoption of information technology. Building on Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovations theory (1995) this research attempts to explore which transition factors are relevant in the distinct phases of cloud ERP adoption. In our work, we model the transition factors as “triggers”, where the desirable outcomes of the transition factor within a specific phase of adoption, will lead to the next stage adoption. The contribution of the paper is twofold. First, we make a context-specific contribution by extracting the different factors which have been studied in the context of cloud ERP systems and categorizing them according to the Diffusion of Innovations theory. Second, we also make a theoretical contribution by employing a longitudinal research design.

Board interlock and the diffusion of corporate social responsibility among Chinese listed firms

This study explores the effect of board interlock on the diffusion of corporate social responsibility (CSR) among firms. While existing CSR literature has theorized a variety of institutional and organizational factors that drive CSR, what is lacking is a deeper understanding of how meso-level inter-firm relationships shape firms’ CSR. Using a series of pairwise regressions to examine Chinese listed firms’ CSR activities from 2008 to 2015, we find that board interlock leads to a higher probability of CSR adoption in both firms, and convergence of CSR structures. This interlock effect is however conditioned by some institutional and firm-level factors that enhance/impede the exchange of information between interlocked firms. This study contributes to the CSR literature by filling the theoretical gap on a meso-level mechanism of CSR diffusion and provides some managerial implications for corporate executives who are responsible for designing firms’ social programs.