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In this chapter, we focus on virtual teams and emotions during postmerger and acquisition (M&A) integration. Our main research question is “How to manage emotions and virtual teams following cross-border M&A?”. We answer this question through the following research subquestions: (1) What virtual interaction can be identified post-M&A?; (2) What emotions arises from virtual communication; and (3) What emotions and challenges do virtual teams encounter following cross-border M&As? This research is based on a single case study. The main findings imply that emotions, trust, and cultural differences play an important role in virtual interaction following a cross-border M&A.

The purpose of this paper is to elaborate on the concept of action by addressing actions and roles in the practice of action research, illustrated by dilemmas in an action research project on information systems development in public sector. The main ambition with action research is being able to solve organisational problems through intervention and to contribute to scientific knowledge. The main emphasis has so far been on the “research part”. Here the authors focus on the “action part” of action research to generate rigorous research, to solve local problems and to deal with evident dilemmas in action research.

This is a qualitative case study. The empirical illustrations of this paper originate from an action research project that focused the two e-service development initiatives analysed below. The analysis is structured using key aspects and phases proposed by Avison et al. (2001). As a result of the analysis, the concept of action is elaborated. The action elements action, actor, motive, space and time are analysed together with different roles. This goes beyond the existing action research literature.

The conclusions show that there is a need to understand actions and roles within action research projects – not separating action from research. Research is also seen as action. The practice of action research is also discussed as context-bounded interactive social action: action research as a recurrent, interactive and dynamic activity. It is also identified that the understanding of roles, actions and interaction can help handle dilemmas in action research.

The authors contribute to the body of knowledge concerning action research in the information systems research field and in general by exploring the need to study the concept of action (e.g. situations and elements), to be explicit concerning the different phases, roles and responsibilities and management of different dilemmas in action research. A limitation of this study is that the inter-organisational development character in this study adds an extra dimension into the practice of actions research only partially highlighted. Another limitation is focus on public agencies. However, this is not critical for the results on action elements and the action research dilemmas that are studied.

The understanding of roles, actions and interaction can solve the dilemmas and challenges linked to the practice of action research in the information systems field, but such understanding can help discover and handle dilemmas in action research.

The originality in this research is an illustration of and a perspective of action research as a context-bounded interactive social action: action research as a recurrent, interactive and dynamic activity. The value is that this knowledge can help handle dilemmas in action research.

The strategic management literature emphasizes the concept of business intelligence (BI) as an essential competitive tool. Yet the sustainability of the firms’ competitive advantage provided by BI capability is not well researched. To fill this gap, this study attempts to develop a model for successful BI deployment and empirically examines the association between BI deployment and sustainable competitive advantage. Taking the telecommunications industry in Malaysia as a case example, the research particularly focuses on the influencing perceptions held by telecommunications decision makers and executives on factors that impact successful BI deployment. The research further investigates the relationship between successful BI deployment and sustainable competitive advantage of the telecommunications organizations. Another important aim of this study is to determine the effect of moderating factors such as organization culture, business strategy, and use of BI tools on BI deployment and the sustainability of firm’s competitive advantage.

This research uses combination of resource-based theory and diffusion of innovation (DOI) theory to examine BI success and its relationship with firm’s sustainability. The research adopts the positivist paradigm and a two-phase sequential mixed method consisting of qualitative and quantitative approaches are employed. A tentative research model is developed first based on extensive literature review. The chapter presents a qualitative field study to fine tune the initial research model. Findings from the qualitative method are also used to develop measures and instruments for the next phase of quantitative method. The study includes a survey study with sample of business analysts and decision makers in telecommunications firms and is analyzed by partial least square-based structural equation modeling.

The findings reveal that some internal resources of the organizations such as BI governance and the perceptions of BI’s characteristics influence the successful deployment of BI. Organizations that practice good BI governance with strong moral and financial support from upper management have an opportunity to realize the dream of having successful BI initiatives in place. The scope of BI governance includes providing sufficient support and commitment in BI funding and implementation, laying out proper BI infrastructure and staffing and establishing a corporate-wide policy and procedures regarding BI. The perceptions about the characteristics of BI such as its relative advantage, complexity, compatibility, and observability are also significant in ensuring BI success. The most important results of this study indicated that with BI successfully deployed, executives would use the knowledge provided for their necessary actions in sustaining the organizations’ competitive advantage in terms of economics, social, and environmental issues.

This study contributes significantly to the existing literature that will assist future BI researchers especially in achieving sustainable competitive advantage. In particular, the model will help practitioners to consider the resources that they are likely to consider when deploying BI. Finally, the applications of this study can be extended through further adaptation in other industries and various geographic contexts.

The purpose of this paper is to review the recent critique of the discovery view of opportunities and by implication the current state of the so‐called creation view of opportunities.

A systematic review of articles published from 2000‐2010 which feature a critique of the discovery view of opportunities. The review uses an open coding approach to identify central themes in the critique. Four central themes are identified, and from within‐theme patterns three distinct groups within the literature are identified.

The four themes suggest that the discovery view is incomplete, that social and relational interactions are more pervading and important than the discovery view suggests, that opportunities are created and that the role of individuality and subjectivity needs to be emphasized more. Three distinct groups within the literature are identified, each presenting different critiques of the discovery view, theoretical foci and implications for method and practice. Furthermore, the discussion suggests that the opportunity concept is a focal point for important debates in the entrepreneurship field, that the creation view is diverse and should not be referred to in the singular and that seeking reconciliation between the discovery and creation views is a problematic strategy. Finally, it is suggested that a continued dialog exploring differences both between the discovery and creation views as well as between the creation views is a fruitful strategy for the development of the field.

The article presents a review of both the critique of the discovery view and the so‐called creation view, thereby supplementing and advancing from existing reviews of the opportunity concept in entrepreneurship. This furthers our understanding of the role of opportunities in entrepreneurial processes.

How do entrepreneurs learn from critical events or significant entrepreneurial experience? It is an important field in entrepreneurship cognition and learning studies. Previous studies have given interpretations from many perspectives, such as effectuation, scenario change of entrepreneurial behaviors, cognitive development, situated learning, etc. These studies provide important clues for exploring the dynamic mechanism of entrepreneurship learning; the problems, such as narrow study angle, fragmentation of knowledge and lack of systematic explanation, however, have also been exposed. For this reason, this study aims to reveal the deep structure and the effectiveness mechanism of entrepreneurs’ learning from critical events, based on existing theoretical progress and specific cases, through the abstract method of retrospective analysis. A conceptual model of entrepreneurial critical events learning is built on this basis, thus deepening the understanding of entrepreneurial learning mechanism.

This study combines retrospection of critical realism with a single case study. On the one hand, data are collected through many channels, such as semi-structured interview, field observation and collection of secondhand information to describe events as detailed as possible. On the other hand, strict coding principles and processes are followed to ensure the validity and reliability of the research.

Entrepreneurial critical event learning reflects the legitimacy, competency and dominancy of entrepreneurial behavior script and leaves a positive influence on the quality improvement of entrepreneurial behavior script. Entrepreneurial critical event learning is an effectual process of decision-making and a process of situated learning and cognitive development. Thus, critical event learning plays an important role in enhancing the influence capacity of stakeholders.

Single case study is used in this paper and, thus, lacks comparison and verification of multi-case study. In addition, selection biases might have occurred during the process of retrospection.

This study broadens research on new enterprise generation process from the aspect of interaction between entrepreneurs and environment. This study reveals the deep structure and effectiveness mechanisms that restrain entrepreneurial behaviors. The study overcomes the problem of over-emphasis on institutional restriction and insufficient understanding on the subjective initiative of entrepreneurs in the research on institutional legitimacy. This study addresses over-emphasis on individual initiative and insufficient focus on behavior legitimacy in effectuation theory.

The great value of offline identification of machine parameters is when the machine manufacturer does not provide its parameters. Most machine control strategies require parameter values, and some circumstances in the industrial sector only require offline identification. This paper aims to present a new offline method for estimating induction motor parameters based on least squares and a salp swarm algorithm (SSA).

The central concept is to use the classic least squares (LS) method to acquire the majority of induction machine (IM) constant parameters, followed by the SSA method to obtain all parameters and minimize errors.

The obtained results showed that the LS method gives good results in simulation based on the assumption that the measurements are noise-free. However, unlike in simulations, the LS method is unable to accurately identify the machine’s parameters during the experimental test. On the contrary, the SSA method proves higher efficiency and more precision for IM parameter estimation in both simulations and experimental tests.

After performing a primary identification using the technique of least squares, the initial intention of this study was to apply the SSA for the purpose of identifying all of the machine’s parameters and minimizing errors. These two approaches use the same measurement from a simple running test of an IM, and they offer a quick processing time. Therefore, this combined offline strategy provides a reliable model based on the identified parameters.

Social media platforms are a pervasive technology that continues to define the modern world. While social media has brought many benefits to society in terms of connection and content sharing, numerous concerns remain for the governance of social media platforms going forward, including (but not limited to) the spread of misinformation, hate speech and online surveillance. However, the voice of citizens and other non-experts is often missing from such conversations in information systems literature, which has led to an alleged gap between research and the everyday life of citizens.

The authors address this gap by presenting findings from 16 h of online dialog with 25 citizens on social media platform governance. The online dialog was undertaken as part of a worldwide consultation project called “We, the internet”, which sought to provide citizens with a voice on a range of topics such as “Digitalization and Me,” “My Data, Your Data, Our Data” and “A Strong Digital Public Sphere.” Five phases of thematic analysis were undertaken by the authors to code the corpus of qualitative data.

Drawing on the Theory of Communicative Action, the authors discuss three dialogical processes critical to citizen discourse: lifeworld reasoning, rationalization and moral action. The findings point toward citizens’ perspectives of current and future issues associated with social media platform governance, including concerns around the multiplicity of digital identities, consent for vulnerable groups and transparency in content moderation. The findings also reveal citizens’ rationalization of the dilemmas faced in addressing these issues going forward, including tensions such as digital accountability vs data privacy, protection vs inclusion and algorithmic censorship vs free speech.

Based on outcomes from this dialogical process, moral actions in the form of policy recommendations are proposed by citizens and for citizens. The authors find that tackling these dark sides of digitalization is something too important to be left to “Big Tech” and equally requires an understanding of citizens’ perspectives to ensure an informed and positive imprint for change.

The purpose of this paper is to theorize the social dynamics of modifiable off-the-shelf software (MOTS) configuration process. The authors do so by formulating theoretical propositions about the configuration process.

The authors have conducted a comprehensive review of the literature on MOTS configuration and the associated challenges to draw on the properties of MOTS. The authors then examined these properties through the lens of social construction of technology to formulate the authors’ theoretical propositions.

The authors formulate theoretical propositions about the configuration process. The authors also develop four scenarios based on the authors’ theoretical propositions for managing the configuration process of MOTS. These scenarios categorize the difficulty level of the configuration by two theoretical groups: malleability and interpretive flexibility.

The findings especially the scenarios can guide practitioners when managing configuration processes.

The authors synthesize the literature on MOTS. The theoretical contributions emphasize the social dynamics in configuring this type of software which is an angle that has not been developed in previous literature.

This paper aims to examine the relationships between undergraduate management students’ emotional interest (EI) and cognitive interest (CI) in research methods (RMs), the perceived applicability of RMs to future careers and motivation to study RMs within the Asian higher education context. This draws implications for better pedagogical approaches to motivating them to study RMs.

A pre–post-semester cohort study design was conducted with 172 undergraduate management students enrolled on an RMs subject by means of a self-administrated online survey using Qualtrics. A total of 170 students responded to the pre-semester survey and 116 students to the post-semester one. The main instrument was adapted from Mazer’s (2012) study interest scale. Regression analysis was applied to investigating the relationship between students’ EI and CI in RMs with perceived applicability of RMs to future careers and their motivation to study RMs.

The findings have shown that there was a significant relationship between undergraduate management students’ CI and EI and perceived applicability of RMs to future careers and their study motivation towards RMs. The regression model built on the two independent variables of students’ EI in RMs and their perceived applicability of RMs to future careers served to have higher accuracy in predicting their study motivation.

This paper contributes to enriching the conceptual understanding of the conflating influences of undergraduate management students’ intrinsic and extrinsic motivation levels on studying RMs within the Asian higher education context. Practically, this study explores different pedagogical approaches to better motivating students to study RMs.

Given the conflicting attitudes that people have toward those who report wrongdoing and a lack of empirical research specifically examining subsequent hiring, it is an open question as to whether accounting professionals would want to work with former whistleblowers. The authors examine this question using an experimental design, in which participants evaluate an employment candidate before and after the person discloses having been a whistleblower. Four manipulations of whistleblowing are used in both a within-subjects and a between-subjects manipulation. The authors’ results demonstrate that accounting professionals’ intentions to recommend a candidate for hire decrease after they are informed that a strong candidate has a whistleblowing past. A candidate is viewed most negatively, however, when discovering malfeasance and electing not to blow the whistle internally. Moreover, when the whistle is blown internally and the superior takes no action, the candidate who remained silent and chose not to continue to push the issue is viewed more negatively than the candidate who proceeded to blow the whistle externally. Although a candidate having a whistleblowing past appears to pose a cautionary signal in the interview process, participants reacted more harshly when the candidate failed to act or lacked the durable moral courage to see the matter through to completion.