Narrow Results

The relationship between budget deficits and macroeconomic variables (such as growth, interest rates, trade deficit, exchange rate, among others) represents one of the most widely debated topics among economists and policy makers in both developed and developing countries. However, the purpose of this paper is to review the extensive literature to such a relationship, concentrating on theoretical debates and empirical studies, in order to derive substantive conclusions, which can be beneficial in the macroeconomics area; policy analysis; or in terms of constructing or developing a macroeconomic model for analyzing the impact of budget deficits on macroeconomic variables. The majority of these studies regress a macroeconomic variable on the deficit variable. These studies are cross-country and utilize time series data. In general the key outcomes from the studies presented in this paper indicated that both the method of financing and the components of government expenditures could have different effects. Therefore, it is crucial for the government to distinguish between consumption and investment expenditures especially when the government is in the process of evaluating the impact of fiscal policy on private investment and output growth or in the process of cutting expenditures to reduce the fiscal imbalances in the country. Even though the overall results from the empirical literature with respect to the impact of public investment on private investment and growth are ambiguous, the bulk of the empirical studies find a significantly negative effect of public consumption expenditure on growth, while the effects of public investment expenditure (such as on education, healthcare) are found to be positive although less robust. The key findings from these studies is important in particular for developing countries to be aware of the importance of government investment expenditures in the area of education, healthcare, infrastructure to long-term economic growth and the benefits from which are an important contributor to welfare and well-being. The key outcome from all of the studies presented in this paper while investigating the relationship between the budget deficit and current account deficit showed strong evidence in both developed and developing countries towards supporting the Keynesian proposition (conventional view) which suggests that an increase in the budget deficit would induce domestic absorption and, hence import expansion, causing a current account deficit. The key findings from the empirical studies investigating the relationship between the budget deficit and interest rates indicated strong evidence towards supporting the Keynesian model of a significant and positive relationship between budget deficits and interest rates. The major outcomes from the empirical studies examining the relationship between budget deficits and inflation showed strong evidence that the budget deficit financed through monetization and a rising money supply could lead to inflation.

This study examines the financial rights and responsibilities of China’s local villages and townships based on a field survey conducted in Xingguo County. This field study focussed on local revenues and expenditures from 2012 to 2014. Upon analyzing data from the survey, we noted numerous difficulties of local financial management due to a lack of well-configured financial authority and power among central and local governments. In addition, revenues and expenditures are unbalanced at the local government level in China. Rural financial management systems need to be improved, and the rural finance function should be strengthened.

The vehicle routing problem (VRP) and its variants are a class of network problems that have attracted the attention of many researchers in recent years, owing to their pragmatic approach to solving issues in logistics management. Most surveys/reviews of the extant literature often focus on specific variants or aspects of the VRP. However, a few reviews of the overall VRP literature are available. The focus of these papers is to identify which VRP literature characteristics are the most popular in recent studies. To this end, we analyze 229 articles published between 2015 and 2017. We provide a systematic literature review evaluating the Scenario Characteristics and Problem Physical Characteristics that are most frequently addressed by VRP researchers, the Type of Study and Data Characteristics that they address, the most cited works that constitute the theoretical pillars of the field, and details of three specific problem variants that have been studied extensively in recent years and their opportunities for future research.

Hybrid entrepreneurs (HEs) represent a considerable share of all entrepreneurial activity. Yet little is known about the phenomenon. In this study we examine the differences between transitory HEs, who expect to make the transition to full-time entrepreneurship, and persistent HEs, who view their part-time status as permanent. With data collected from 848 academic HEs we find that only a small minority considers full self-employment likely in the near future and that self-fulfillment is the most significant motive for entrepreneurial activities. The results suggest that persistent hybrid entrepreneurship should be viewed as a form of entrepreneurship in its own right, and that even partial entrepreneurship has the potential to lengthen careers and improve wellbeing at work. Hybrid entrepreneurship offers the entrepreneurially inclined employees the best of both worlds.

In this paper, the results of a survey on capital structure decisions of Hong Kong listed firms are reported. It is found that Hong Kong firms conformed more to the "pecking order" principle than a target long term debt-equity mix in their financing decisions. Financial managers' preferences over alternative capital raising instruments are also investigated. The degree of information asymmetry and firm size are found to have impacts on the ranking of some factors governing capital structure decisions. However, signaling motivation does not play a role in managers' financing decisions.

This paper presents empirical research aimed at studying what characterizes successful information technology (IT) projects. There are often doubts about what characterizes project success and who actually defines it. In this paper, we have reviewed the literature and present significant contributions to the discussion of what characterizes successful IT projects. Furthermore, a survey was conducted in Norway to collect data on successful IT projects. Research results show that the five most important success criteria are: (1) the IT system works as expected and solves the problems, (2) satisfied users, (3) the IT system has high reliability, (4) the solution contributes to improved efficiency and competitive power, and (5) the IT system realizes strategic, tactical and operational objectives.

IT business value research examines the organizational performance impacts of information technology. In this paper, we apply the value configuration of the value shop to describe and measure organizational performance. The value shop consists of the five primary activities of problem understanding, solutions to problems, decisions on actions, implementation of actions, and evaluations of actions in an iterative problem-solving cycle. Police investigation work is defined as value shop activities. Our empirical study of Norwegian police results in significant relationships between information technology use and investigation performance for all primary activities. The most important primary activities for IT use are problem understanding and implementation of actions, as both significantly improve value shop performance.

This paper explores user views of the current e-learning practices in an organisational setting. Eighty employees of Korean Air, who were enrolled in an e-learning course, participated in the study on a voluntary basis. Data on employees' perceptions of importance and satisfaction with their course portal were gathered by administering a survey questionnaire. The study revealed that employees considered all portal features as quite important and satisfying, although some more than others. They also agreed that there was scope for further improvement through adding extra functionality. These findings have important implications for improving the effectiveness of corporate e-learning.

This paper reports the results of a survey of the adoption of knowledge management (KM) in the public administration organisations in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). The results indicate that these organisations have a good understanding of the value of their knowledge assets, that they are in the process of implementing some form of strategy to manage these assets, and that they face obstacles in this process that are mainly outside their control. The overall picture also shows that KM practices in BiH are being implemented at similar levels as other countries in all aspects except measurement and technology. This suggests that BiH needs to catch up with the more advanced countries by accelerating application of these two KM initiatives.

Measuring organisational trust gives stakeholders many indicators of their organisations. These indicators are performance, leadership, employees' satisfaction, job satisfaction, and knowledge sharing culture. In addition to that, the highest levels of organisations' trust can critically reduce conflict charges and transaction costs.

This paper is the first stage of a research study that discusses the importance of trust to knowledge sharing. This paper shows to what extent culture influences organisational trust compared with the global trust index. This research adopts a model of trust with five dimensions and they are relating to knowledge sharing in an organisation; concern for employees, openness and honesty, identification, reliability, and competence. The adopted model was used to develop the global trust index. A survey of 26 different items was conducted on 135 profitable organisations in Jordan in different industries. A total of 397 questionnaires were returned in a form eligible for the analysis.

The results show that the overall organisational trust index in Jordan compared with the global index is low and the difference is significant. Furthermore, all trust dimensions in Jordan have lower values than the world's trust dimensions. Locally, the openness and honesty dimension has the highest value, and the competency dimension has the lowest value. Therefore, Jordanian culture significantly affects the trust index in the country and lowers it compared with the global trust index.

This paper examines empirically the role of business intelligence (BI) in customer relationship management (CRM). Drawing on relevant literature on BI and CRM, the research model for the current investigation proposes that BI approaches of an organisation and its competition influence organisational business strategy which in turn impacts its customer strategy. The model is tested empirically using survey data of 165 respondents from 73 different private and state owned businesses operating in a transitional economy of East Europe. Empirical evidence confirms a key role of BI in CRM through its impact on organisational business and customer strategies development. Such findings make two important contributions. For research, they provide an improved understanding of the factors and processes involved in realising benefits from BI. For practice, they show managers how BI can be leveraged to achieve performance gains through competitive actions. Further research is recommended to confirm and extend the current investigation.

As organizations become larger it becomes increasingly difficult to share lessons-learned across their disconnected units allowing individuals to learn vicariously from each other's experiences. This lesson-learned information is often unsolicited by the recipient group or individual and required an individual or group to react to the information to yield benefits for the organization. Data was collected using 39 interviews and 582 survey responses that proved the effects of information usefulness, related human intermediary activities, and an individual's perceived discretion have on the review and subsequent adoption of unsolicited lessons-learned information.

The aim of this paper is to conduct an empirical study to explore the influence of size category on innovation incorporation in Irish SMEs. Changes in markets and in large organisation strategies have resulted in the need for SMEs to re-examine and modify their competitive strategies to increase innovation. Although there is some literature on innovation incorporation in SMEs, there is a lack of direct studies on this issue, with a reliance on related but indirect studies such as Reengineering and New product development in SMEs. Furthermore, there is a paucity of studies and data on the innovation incorporation in different organisational size categories within SMEs.

This study uses a grounded SME innovation model developed from earlier studies as the basis of a questionnaire survey of 2086 SMEs in Northern Ireland. The results indicate that SME organisational size categories has a significant effect on innovation incorporation in relation to leadership, people and culture, TQM/CI, product and process and Knowledge and information management.

Although measuring the performance of a firm's R&D activities is a very challenging task, the critical role played by R&D in creating and sustaining a firm's competitive advantage has raised the need to adopt appropriate performance measurement systems (PMSs) in R&D units. Therefore, management scholars have been studying this issue and PMSs have diffused in the R&D departments of most R&D-intensive companies. Nevertheless, empirical investigations into the diffusion and practical use of PMSs in R&D units mainly concern Anglo-Saxon countries, where R&D information disclosure requirements have been in place for a long time. The purpose of this paper is to study the diffusion and practical use of PMSs in the R&D units of firms that are not subject to these types of external institutional influences. With this aim, the results of a survey on the R&D performance measurement practices adopted by a sample of Italian R&D-intensive firms are discussed. They allow to understand why and how R&D-intensive companies design and use a PMS in their R&D units for managerial purposes.

Co-creation is a special type of collaboration that co-opts individuals in an innovative way for creating value. Engaging in co-creation can result in mutual benefit for the participants as they obtain favourable end results or exchange knowledge and skills but may be challenging when an individual may not be ready or willing to co-create. This makes it imperative that an individual's readiness to co-create (RTCC) is understood and factored into the management of co-creative processes. Drawing from research on readiness to collaborate, factors that determine RTCC are examined in this article. Specifically, the relationship between constructs of individual value system (IVS), organisational value system (OVS), contextual-environmental conditions (EC), intrapersonal characteristics (IntraCharac), interpersonal characteristics (InterCharac), and RTCC are examined. Post confirmatory factor analysis indicated that most of the variables of the six constructs had loaded on a particular factor except for IntraCharac that loaded only 2 variables. Based on these results, multiple regressions were performed, which indicated that environmental conditions and InterCharac did have significant influence on RTCC whereas IntraCharac did not have a strong effect. Managerial implications and potential future research directions are also highlighted.

Service firms need to continuously innovate their service offerings in order to remain competitive in constantly changing market conditions. Successful innovators utilise current information technology (IT) to access service innovation capacity and knowledge which can be located internal or external to their organisation. In this paper, we develop and test a theoretical framework that explains how IT can contribute to service innovation performance, and finally, to service provision performance. Drawing on dynamic capability theory, we differentiate between sensing (SN), seizing (SZ), and transformation (TF) as the key abilities in service innovation. With our theoretical model, we can explain almost 40% of the variance in service innovation performance (SIP) (R² = 0.3955) and provide evidence for the multi-faceted and significant effects of IT. In particular, we are able to show a significant influence of inter-organisational IT support on SN and SZ abilities while organisational IT support has a significant impact on TF abilities.

Recent shifts in technology have created a data-rich environment and made it necessary for firms to develop new capabilities to cope with these changes. To address this challenge, this study introduces marketing-enabled data analytics capability, a specific type of information technology (IT) capability that enables firms to better understand customer needs and achieve a competitive advantage in the digital era. Using empirical results collected via online survey, we argue that marketing-enabled data analytics capability, which comprises data analytics infrastructure, marketing-oriented analytics expertise, and IT–marketing social capital, positively influences a firm’s organisational agility and innovation success. Moreover, the results show that organisational agility partially mediates the relationship between marketing-enabled data analytics capability and innovation success. By developing the construct of marketing-enabled data analytics capability, this paper lays a foundation for future research on this new type of IT capability, which is critical in the digitization process.

Since the first appearance of ‘open innovation’ as a theoretical concept in 2003, the debates on its essence still continue among academics, while its interpretations within the business community also seem to differ from one company to another. Using a survey of 251 companies operating in Europe, in this research, we compare the perceptions of open innovation that exist within both the academic and business worlds, to assist in the conceptual development of the phenomenon. Our research reveals a mismatch in these perceptions, as only a few activities counted as ‘open’ by innovation scholars appear to affect companies’ self-reported state of open innovation implementation. Moreover, our research has shown differences in the interpretation of open innovation among companies of different sizes. Only free revealing, acknowledged by scholars as one of the open innovation practices, has been recognised as such a practice by all the studied firms. This paper contributes to conceptualisation of ‘open innovation’ and shares practical insights on bridging academia and business perceptions of it.

Successfully adopting AI and realising its full innovation potential requires different competences within a company. We identified five clusters, namely, AI decision-making, AI utilisation, AI foundational, AI development and leadership & moderation competences, as the basis for our AI competence framework, combining 35 individual competences. Based on a quantitative survey of 215 companies, we determined the importance of these competences for the successful adoption of AI innovations and their current availability within companies. According to our findings, AI foundational competences play a particularly critical role compared to the other competence clusters, which are considered important but comparatively rarely available. Furthermore, our analyses show that companies with higher levels of AI foundational, AI development, and AI utilisation competences have significantly higher AI innovation capabilities. Again, in particular AI foundational competences seem to fertilize the capabilities to identify appropriate AI use cases, to make decisions about AI innovation adoption, to successfully integrate AI into internal processes, and to use the AI innovation effectively within the organisation. Our findings thus enrich the theoretical discourse on competences for organisational adoption of AI innovations and guide practitioners in taking action to develop the necessary competences.

Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) is an important factor in the success of the enterprise application as standalone applications cannot contribute to the success of the increasing business demand of today. There has been a steady growth in the number of research conducted in this field; as such, there is a need to review the research in this field. This paper conducts an extensive review on 44 journal publications in the field of EAI from 1992 to 2015 available in Science Citation Index (SCI) and Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) database. The aim of this paper is to present scholars and practitioners with a detailed overview of the available research in the field of EAI. The selected papers have been grouped into 13 categories. The contents of papers in each categories are summarized and future research direction for each category is outlined. This overview indicates that the research in EAI that has spanned from late 90’s till date, requires more effort in developing new methodologies and framework to integrate enterprise applications that are the need of today’s growing business that venture into new technologies like cloud computing and Internet of Things (IoT).