Managerial Community Research Articles

Grey Relation System Applications in Multi-Attribute Decision-Making and Forecasting in Financial Management

Objective: The objective of the paper is to verify the Grey relation analysis methods and compare them with known models in financial management. The first part is devoted to MADM (multi-attribute decision methods) and the second one to grey forecasting methods. Method: Localization GRA and globalization GRA multi-criteria models are described and compared with the TOPSIS method. The forecasting GRA(1,1) model based on cumulative data is described, derived and compared with the linear growth model. The models are verified on the data set. Results and Discussion: The globalisation model based on a pair-wise comparison of alternatives is different, and the ranking of alternatives is fully different in comparison with the TOPSIS model. It was found that the localisation GRA model and TOPSIS, both constructed on similarity measures, present similar and comparable results. So, the grey relation approach considers the uncertainty of input data. The forecasting model GRA(1,1) is computed and compared with the growth model. Results show that the growth model is the trendy model, and the non-trendy series is overestimated or underestimated, so the GRA model looks more robust. Research Implications: The problem of imprecise data is investigated. And it is a realistic condition for practical decision-making. The problem of lack of data is often a phenomenon in decision-making. Traditional statistical methods cannot be applied. Therefore, grey relation methodology is one approach to overcoming the problem of imprecise data and lack of data. Uncertainty and lack of data problems are topics important for research and the managerial community. Originality/Value: Sometimes, in financial decision-making, high-quality data or long-term time series is not at our disposal, and on the other hand, decisions have to be made. This problem is often neglected and solved by not-relevant traditional statistical models. Therefore, methods that allow the solving of such problems are useful. It was shown that a grey relation methodology for multicriteria financial performance evaluation and forecasting shows more robust and stable results and could be more relevant for imprecise data or short time series data in financial decision-making problems.

Drivers of consumer protection practices: implications for operational performance

PurposeGlobalization and increased outsourcing have contributed to increased supply chain complexity, exposing firms to greater vulnerability in the areas of product safety and supply chain security. Meanwhile, stakeholders pressure firms to ensure that their products are safe, and their supply chains are secure. Drawing from stakeholder theory, this paper aims to explore how the supply chain characteristics of distance and power affect the adoption of consumer protection (CP) practices, which ensure product safety and supply chain security.Design/methodology/approachUsing primary survey data from a sample of Canadian manufacturing firms, this research examines the relationships among supply chain characteristics, adoption of CP practices and firm performance.FindingsAnalysis supported the use of two practices related to product safety (consumer education and product design) and three practices for supply chain security (packaging, tracking and authenticity). Greater cultural distance between the focal firm and its suppliers was positively associated with investments in safer design practices, while increased geographical distance between the focal firm and the customer was significantly related to increased consumer education. Moreover, as power of a focal firm relative to its suppliers increased, so too did investments in supply chain security. Finally, CP practices were related to improved operational performance along multiple dimensions.Originality/valueThis research focuses on the critical role of two key stakeholder groups in improving product safety and supply chain security: suppliers and customers. The authors add to the theoretical discussion of product safety and supply chain security by identifying critical differences between suppliers and customers for the focal firm. Second, the research informs the managerial community of the potential benefits of investments in CP practices.

Design Thinking and AI: A New Frontier for Designing Human‐Centered AI Solutions

AbstractIn recent years, design thinking (DT) has become a pervasive innovation approach in the managerial community as a structured way of solving challenging problems through a human‐centered perspective. The approach fosters lateral thinking and has a huge impact on the organizational culture and the core elements of the innovation process. At the same time, the number of organizations trying to solve problems through the application of artificial intelligence (AI) is constantly growing, although more than 80% of AI projects never reach deployment due to the wrong strategic approach, poor data quality, or a lack of AI awareness among employees—and those that do remain below profitability expectations. The aim of this paper is therefore to connect the AI and DT communities by proposing a first framework supporting the development of AI solutions in a human‐centered way. The contribution of this paper is thus twofold: First, we investigate ways in which design thinking adds real value along the design process of intelligent solutions, thereby enriching the present body of design management literature. Second, we propose a first framework by linking core elements of both worlds to support strategic designers and data engineers in designing such applications. Finally, we propose a research agenda that can serve as a basis for future research directions in order to advance contributions at the intersection of the two fields.

Organizational Balance as a Key to Enterprise Reorganization

The article provides authors’ ideas about organization, based on the notion of organizational balance that is secured by cyclic interaction of order and disorder, reorganization and disorganization. Striving for balance ensures continuous dynamics of organization development (ontogenesis). Guided by the ides of organizational balance the authors put forward and substantiate the thesis that organization is built in a different way compared with activity that is done by it. That is why to conduct effective transformations the organization should be studied and analyzed in another logic and parallelism between activity and organization accepted in managerial community acts as a hindering simplification. According to the authors, the manager gets a chance to see their organization and conduct needed changes that do not contradict its ‘nature’ only with the help of the organizational balance notion. The method of restoring organizational balance proposed for carrying out transformations is built on the artificial abstract separation of activity (business) and organization, their separate examination and diagnostic with further analysis and assembling steps on balancing with proposals aimed at upgrading businessprocesses within the frames of complicated organizational concept.

LIFE RIPARIAS Early Alert: Using GBIF-mediated data to better manage invasive alien species

Invasive alien species represent one of the major threats to biodiversity. Prevention is better than cure, but once invasive species get established, early management interventions are important to prevent further damage to nature and increasing management costs. Managers need to be informed as swiftly as possible when invasive species pop up in their area. Moreover, an effective response also requires information on species in neighbouring areas. This way, managers can anticipate recolonisation and coordinate the response across higher spatial scales. Open data are indispensible to efficiently organize such early detection of and rapid response to invasive species. Here, we present LIFE RIPARIAS Early Alert, a new open source tool that aggregates data from diverse sources and sends tailored e-mail alerts to managers. The tool focusses on the project area of the EU co-funded project LIFE RIPARIAS (Reaching Integrated and Prompt Action in Response to Invasive Alien Species, LIFE19 NAT/BE/000953), which aims to improve dataflows for the management of invasive alien species in river basins across regional administrative borders in Belgium. Data on invasive alien species in Belgium are scattered across a multitude of sources, including project surveys, official monitoring schemes, scientific projects and citizen science reporting portals. We facilitated the standardization and publication of these sources as open datasets to the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). The early alert tool then harvests these observations from GBIF, visualizes them on a map as well as in table view, with their exact coordinates and a link to the original record. The tool allows for date range filtering and the selection of newly reported (and published) observations through a simple intuitive user interface. Users can create e-mail alerts to be notified of new observations for their species group(s), area(s) or source dataset(s) of interest. Currently, only observations from LIFE RIPARIAS target species (Branquart et al. 2022)—equally published as a checklist on GBIF—are displayed. These include non-native crayfish, invasive aquatic plants and a range of high-impact alert list species that should not yet occur in the area but will be rapidly removed should they arrive. The tool is currently being tested by the Belgian managerial community. In time, we hope to increase both the taxonomic scope as well as the number of sources. To our knowledge the RIPARIAS early alert tool is one of the first of its kind in Europe. It is unique in displaying data from multiple data sources at the highest spatial resolution, considering the species from the European Union Invasive Species Regulation (European Commission 2019) and actively promoting and supporting data owners to publish their data openly.

ManIAS: A community-driven data model and data exchange format for the management of invasive alien species and wildlife

Invasive alien species (IAS) are recognised as one of the major threats to biodiversity. The European Union (EU) Regulation 1143/2014 on the prevention of introduction and spread of invasive alien species imposes an obligation on Member States to develop management responses against a list of IAS of Union Concern and requires reporting on those interventions. However, the actors involved in IAS management are typically diverse and include authorities, managers, businesses and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Reporting on management actions, if performed at all, is often crude and does not capture essential information. Data on management are heterogeneous both in quality and format as well as what information is captured. They are recorded using a plethora of tools, are managed in data silos and not openly available. Here, we propose a community-driven data model and data exchange format for IAS and wildlife management data, called manIAS (management of Invasive Alien Species, Fig. 1). This was drafted in two consecutive workshops (Oldoni et al. 2022), building on the experience of the managerial community, combined with the existing european network of wildlife professionals (ENETWILD) standard (Body et al. 2020) for management reporting in the framework of animal health. We feel the development of such a data model is necessary and can bring multiple benefits within and outside the IAS management community. First, the data model can create awareness with data providers and project managers on the minimum quality standards for reporting on IAS management such as the target species, the management objective, the methods used, the effort spent, the results of the action and any encountered non-target effects. Second, the data exchange format will allow for easy aggregation of management data across taxa, regions, management actors and projects. Such exchanges of data on management, for example through visualisations, are necessary for running coordinated management programmes. Thirdly, it will ease the reporting on management for the EU IAS Regulation since authorities will have to spend less time in collecting and standardizing data from different actors. Lastly, the standardisation will allow more straightforward analysis of the effectiveness of management methods and the efficiency of control programmes.

Born brothers, born global: multiple possible faces of the internationalization path

PurposeOperating in a variety of countries, multinational companies (MNCs) experience a high variety and variability of physiological and contextual dynamics, requiring a more careful knowledge management approach. In this scenario, this paper aims to investigate the entrepreneurial facets and managerial aspects (entrepreneurial orientation/managerial intentionality) of MNCs’ internationalization from a knowledge-based perspective.Design/methodology/approachA theory-building approach is applied, involving a comparative case study of two MNCs conceived through the separation of a unique family business. Aiming to enrich the research about companies’ internationalization, some crucial elements are individuated to build a theoretical frame explaining the evolutionary paths of so-called born global.FindingsThis paper shows that companies’ internationalization development is based on a multiplicity of variables and underlines the need to incorporate different points of view when attempting to explain the dynamics of internationalization processes.Research limitations/implicationsThe empirical significance of the two cases does not legitimize theorization. However, this research presents interesting results that could be strengthened by a series of comparative case studies dealing with other MNCs or deeper quantitative investigation.Originality/valueThis research approach could be considered as stimulating by the scientific and managerial community, as the internationalization process is articulated by mixing managerial, entrepreneurial and cognitive aspects.

PROSPECTS FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF GENDER POLICY IN THE SYSTEM OF PUBLIC GOVERNANCE

The article provides a solution to a current scientific problem regarding the prospects for the development of gender policy in the system of public administration. The growing role of gender policy in modern society has been established. Although the role of women in society has significantly transformed and improved over the last century, an analysis of the literature has revealed unfavorable trends in the work biographies of women in the United States and Europe. Statistics and analyzed legal acts adopted in the field of gender policy of Ukraine indicate that the practical implementation of the paradigm of gender parity in the field of public administration in Ukraine encounters obstacles that can be overcome only in the long run. It is noted that gender asymmetry in public administration can be seen as one of the obstacles to making and implementing balanced management decisions. This idea is becoming more widespread in the scientific and managerial community. Wider representation of women in public bodies and the structure of public authorities contributes to the expansion of the range of problems to be solved, and thus strengthens the social orientation of public services. The article shows the theoretical and practical relevance of the problem of ensuring gender equality in public authorities. The strategic principles of ensuring the appropriate conditions are highlighted. It is pointed out that ignoring such principles leads to errors in the process of regulating gender relations in public authorities. Based on the analysis, ways to improve public policy, which should be based on a scientific statistical basis, which in turn can strengthen the gender consciousness of public policy actors. Creating an effective social monitoring system to assess women's development will make it possible to establish and disseminate gender data for further development and revision of public policy.

THE TRIPLE LAYERED BUSINESS MODEL CANVAS IN SMART AGRICULTURE: THE CASE OF EVJA STARTUP

In recent years, the studies of Business Model Innovation (BMI) and Circular Economy (CE) has been an issues much debated in literature. Moreover, the sustainable development enhanced by the Green Economy (GE) and by smart technologies represent a huge opportunity for generating profit in newly and environmentally way. Actually, was not widely investigated, what is the impact of Sustainable Business Model (SBM) in terms of competitive advantage for the firms, especially for Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) towards big companies. The research design is based on the following phases. Firstly, give a literature review of significant and emerging studies on BMI and SBM. In a second step, access to a conceptual and managerial model, in order to compare it in the scientific community and expand the debate on sustainable development also in managerial perspective. The proposed conceptual model has been tested on EVJA company, an Italian innovative start-up operating in agri-food industry. The methodology adopted was a qualitative analysis. Earlier, starting with a deep literature review in order to identify and classify the main contributions on the topic of sustainable and circular business model. Later, by in depth interviews and focus group to a firm’s key informants (namely the CEO and Co-Founder and Chief technology officer and Co-Founder of the firm) and on experts and practitioners deriving from academic and managerial community. The desk research on the case study was enriched by the recurs to primary and secondary sources. The final aim is to suggest a Triple Layered Business Model Canvas (TLBMC), in the reference framework of circular economy, to support the farms manager to figure out appropriate course of actions to promote the re-use and fighting climate changes, providing better services and products (in terms of value for money to the customers). The TLBMC tool in agri-food industries can fostering the SMEs to captures value evaluating the potentials of SBM and producing in a more economically and responsibly way. In a holistic vision, that would be involve its customers, suppliers, employees, and communities, as well as its shareholders.

Громадянська освіта: правовий та гендерний аспекти

The article examines the problems of modernization of education in Ukraine nd focuses on the importance of systematic implementation of civic and gender education in the public space for educational needs, formation and development of citizens who are aware of their rights and responsibilities who have an active citizenship position, patriotism, active outlook, cohesion and tolerance.The article reveals the components of civic and gender education, the main normative-legal and program base for their implementation in the formal and non-formal education system. The issue of strengthening is revealed considering the practical component in the training of specialists in the humanitarian sciences and the importance of using the most effective research tools, taking into account gender aspects. The importance of mastering the skills by higher education obtainers of conducting sociological research using modern information technologies, platforms and social networks is emphasized.One of them is determined to be the online service Google Forms, which allows easily creating a variety of tests, surveys, getting feedback, automatically process information and presenting it in graphical forms for easy analysis. The results of a sociological survey using the Google Forms survey showed significant differences in the responses of women and men, indicating mandatory gender and age differentiation in the research.The problems of fragmentation of civic and gender education, lack of a unified cross-cutting approach to the structure of civic competencies, insufficient practical orientation of education cause unsystematic approaches and activities, uncoordinated actions of stakeholders, especially in training humanities and civil servants.Thus, the educational, scientific and managerial community faces an important task to find new forms, adequate to the challenges of the information age, content and mechanisms of civic and gender education for all groups as a factor of democratization of Ukrainian society. Key words: modernization of education, civic education, gender education, democracy, equality, information technologies in education, sociological polls.

Implications of Temporal Orientation for Sustainability Risk

Firms having a short-term temporal orientation has been stressed as a key underlying cause of many sustainability problems, such as poor labour practices in the supply chain, pollution spills, ongoing depletion of natural resources, and inadequate responses to climate change. Yet, negligible evidence has emerged to demonstrate that a longer-term orientation genuinely improves sustainability-related outcomes and risk. The paucity of research may be due to difficulties in measuring and quantifying firm-level data for both the temporal orientation and sustainability risk. Furthermore, establishing a causal relationship between temporal orientation and sustainability risk is challenging due to potential unobservable firm-level attributes and issues related to endogeneity. We synthesize prior research and propose a structured approach using an operations lens that taps into distinct dimensions of temporal orientation, focusing on product-related and other on process-related investment horizons. Using a novel unbalanced panel data of North American manufacturing firms for the period 2007-17 to quantify sustainability risk, we construct and exploit measures for both combined and individual elements of sustainability risk. Using an instrumental variable approach, we find significant evidence that sustainability risk is negatively associated with long-term product and long-term process orientation, and that jointly the two create a reinforcing effect. Thus, our research informs the managerial community for their long-term investment decisions to proactively mitigate sustainability risk.

Challenges on the Workplace Due to Changing Nature of Workforce Management: An Analysis on the Future of Work

The pattern of workforce changes from time to time according to the needs of workplace. With the rapid changes and innovations in technology it seems to be difficult on the part of the work place mangers to manage the organizations in a proper manner. Now it is a challenge for the present managerial community to maintain the changing nature of workforce in order to fit them in future work of their establishment. The changing nature of workforce due to new workplace design, new technological capability and supporting knowledge workers. This research article deals with the impact on workplace with the changing pattern of workforce and how to explore the future of work. At the same time this article highlight the issues and challenges faced by the facility mangers of today while preparing their organizations to meet the changing world of work in near future.

Purpose in the For-Profit Firm: A Review and Framework for Management Research

Purpose is a concept often used in managerial communities to signal and define a firm’s benevolent and pluralistic approach to its stakeholders beyond its focus on shareholders. While some evidence has linked purpose to positive organizational outcomes such as growth, employee satisfaction, innovation, and superior stock market performance, the definition and application of purpose in management research has been varied and frequently ambiguous. We review literature streams that invoke purpose in the for-profit firm and propose a unifying definition. Next, we develop a framework to study purpose that decouples its framing and formalization within firms from its realization, thus helping to avoid conflation of the presence of purpose with positive organizational outcomes. The framework also highlights internal and external drivers that shape the framing of purpose as well as the influence of the institutional context on its adoption and effectiveness. Finally, we provide a rich agenda for future research on purpose.

Evaluating the risk exposure of sustainable freight transportation: a two-phase solution approach

A combination of sustainability-related regulations and increased demand from stakeholders has pressed firms to adequately address sustainability-related risks. This issue is particularly important, and challenging, for the freight transportation sector due to its exposure to a large number of inherent sustainability risks. Despite the growing significance of sustainability risks, there is a lack of research related to sustainability risk management, which may be due to the difficulties in identifying and evaluating sustainability risks. We aim to fill this research gap by identifying, measuring and modelling sustainability risks in the context of freight transportation. Our research makes three primary contributions. First, we introduce the concept of a sustainability risk index (SRI) to understand the risk exposure of freight transportation systems (FTSs) in the context of India, an emerging market. The SRI is a mathematical tool used to measure sustainability risks and to quantify a firm’s exposure to sustainability-related risks. Second, we propose an integrated two-phase model based on an interval 2-tuple linguistic model and a digraph matrix approach to calculate the SRI. In contrast to other existing techniques, the proposed approach can effectively deal with uncertain and incomplete linguistic assessments without suffering a loss of information. Third, we propose a framework for calculating both the disruption scores and influencing power of sustainability risks to evaluate the associated criticality and triggering power. For a robustness check, we also conduct a sensitivity analysis of the impact of risk variations on the SRI. Unlike conventional perceptions, our results show that organisational and governmental risks, which are mostly behavioural and skills-induced, are more significant for sustainable FTSs compared to financial risks. Our research helps the managerial community in the freight transportation sector in emerging markets to engage in more informed decision-making to proactively mitigate sustainability risks, which have potentially devastating financial, environmental and societal impacts.

Analyzing barriers for adopting sustainable online consumption: A rough hierarchical DEMATEL method

Sustainable online consumption is attracting attention in both the academic and managerial communities. Identifying and analyzing the barriers of sustainable online consumption is critical to its successful implementation. However, the previous approaches often assume that the barriers are equally important in manipulating the interrelationships among barriers, and they need auxiliary information or pre-assumptions (e.g. preset fuzzy membership functions) in dealing with vague information, which will influence the accuracy of the barrier analysis results. To solve the problems, an integrated method based on improved DEMATEL, ISM and rough set theory is developed in this paper. The proposed method integrates the strength of improved DEMATEL approach in exploring cause-effect relationships considering the impact of barrier strength on the relationships, the advantage of ISM method in building the hierarchical structure of elements, and the merit of rough number in manipulating the vagueness without any auxiliary information or pre-assumptions. Finally, an application in a large e-commerce company is provided to show the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method.

Transitional challenges cycle of service offshoring delivery centres in Central and Eastern Europe

Business process offshoring has been a vital element of global sourcing transitions across the past decades, and in the last few years its rapid growth has been observed in the region of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). It had vital impact on the organisational level of global corporations and workers employed in the industry, as well as the policy and economic situation of the transition economies from the CEE area. The paper provides a descriptive, interpretative analysis of problems affecting managerial community of service offshoring industry in Poland, identified across the cycle of its three core phases: pre-transition, transitional project, post-transition.

PENGEMBANGAN DESA WISATA BERBASIS PARTISIPASI MASYARAKAT LOKAL DI DESA WANASARI

The aims research are (1) to know rele and sinergity managerial local community on tourism village know rele and sinergity managerial local community on tourism village in Wanasari village (2) to know obstacles or problems of community on development tourism village in Wanasari village.This research do in Wanasari village, Sungai Loban district, Tanah Bumbu regency. Tehnical collection data uses depth interview and observational direct. Technical analysis data use descriptive qualitative with triangulation analysis. The result research show role of community Wanasari village in planning development of tourism village are very greatly which like the community help to help clean culture tourism center and developing community like art or dance then community too donation their money or some of plants or vas to tourism village, then role of government and private sector has significant effect because local government given funds to build infrastructure to tourism village and private sector investment to supporting economic activity village.Keyword: Tourism, Tourism Village, Local Community, Community Based Tourism

The Role of Digitalization in Value Creation and Appropriation in Travel & Tourism: The Case of Booking

The advent of the Internet has revolutionized the way companies create value. Recent studies have been focused on the concept of value creation in order to explain the benefits related to the e-business strategies. However, once the value is created, how the parties involved in the transaction protect this value? In addition, what is the moderation effect of the digitalization in the processes of value creation and value appropriation? I examine Booking, an Online Travel Agency (OTA) operating in the travel & tourism industry with the aim to investigate the impact of digitalization. The implications are drawn to enrich the theory of value creation and appropriation and to provide the managerial community with practical knowledge related to partnership strategies.

The impact of Artificial Intelligence on Design Thinking practice: Insights from the Ecosystem of Startups

Design Thinking (DT) is spreading out in the managerial community as an alternative way to innovate products and services respect to the classical stage-gate model mostly linked to technology-push innovative patterns. At the same time few disruptive technologies – like Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning – are impacting the ways companies manage their knowledge and activate innovation and design processes. What is the impact that AI is exerting on DT practices? What are the main changes that DT is undergoing? These questions are analyzed in this paper, where the aim consists in increasing the understanding of the transformation that is occurring in DT and more general in innovation practices. Through a qualitative case study analysis made on startups offering AI based solutions supporting multiple or individual DT phases, the article pinpoints few main changes: i) a facilitation in blending the right mix of cultures and creative attitudes in innovation teams; ii) the empowerment of the research phase where statistical significance is gained and user analysis are less observer-biased; iii) the automatization of the prototyping and learning phases.

A study about the aspects of customer experience analysis in first cry (baby shop – a startup Company)

Startups are also the centers of innovation and are a great way to enhance employment creation in the economy. Customer experience analysis is receiving much attention in scientific and managerial community. Scholars and practitioners state that customer experience is the next area of competition. Its factor includes conviction, trust satisfaction, loyalty, goodwill, commitment,delight, experience. In the present modest world if any business organization has to endure it needs to keep a view on various forces operating in the market. More over competitors constantly try to win over others. In this scenario, every business organization needs to monitor the changes taking place in the market so that they are not caught by competitors