Adm. Sci., Volume 9, Issue 3 (September 2019) – 25 articles

This paper addresses the role of monetary incentives with regard to the performance of employees and organizations. The distribution of monetary incentives among employees in public administration has been investigated. Specifically, the traditional approach of bureaucracy that pays a premium to each employee, based on the position held, is compared with a merit approach which tends to recognize and reward individual contributions. A task advice centrality indicator and a value index have been defined and used to study the performance of employees. The results show a modification of individual behaviors, in line with the theoretical foundations and predictions formulated. Full article

The Industry 4.0 (I4.0) concept is concerned with the fourth industrial revolution in manufacturing, in which technological trends such as digitalization, automation and artificial intelligence are transforming production processes. Since the concept’s introduction at the Hannover Fair in Germany in 2011, I4.0 has enjoyed a meteoric rise in popularity and is currently high on the agenda of governments, politicians and business elites. In light of these observations, some commentators have asked the question of whether I4.0 is a concept that is hyped up and possibly just the latest in a long line of fashionable management concepts introduced over the course of the last few decades. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to provide a critical outside-in look at the emergence and rise of I4.0. Theoretically, these processes are viewed through the lens of management fashion, a theoretical perspective well suited to examinations of evolutionary trajectories of management concepts and ideas. The findings indicate that the I4.0 concept has quickly become highly popular and is dominating much of the popular management discourse. The concept has migrated out of the specialized manufacturing discourse to become a more general concept with mainstream appeal and applicability, evidenced by a multitude of neologisms such as Work 4.0 and Innovation 4.0. The numbers 4.0 have spread in a meme-like fashion, evidenced by the fact that the combination of a noun and the numbers 4.0 are used to signal and usher in discussions about the future of business and society. While there is much evidence that clearly shows that the concept has had a wide-ranging impact at the discursive level, the currently available research is less clear about what impact the concept has had so far on industries and organizations worldwide. Full article

In the aftermath of the 2019 European elections, the article tries to assess the efficiency and effectiveness of the European Parliament within the framework of the ordinary legislative procedure (co-decision). After defining and formulating the main indicators, the paper analyses the micro- and macro-performance of the European Parliament within the decision-making process from a quantitative-qualitative and a qualitative-quantitative perspective; highlighting the relativizing factors and the responsiveness of the European decision-making process to the Europeans’ needs. Full article

A start-up already at its origin has to solve the crucial existential condition that is a viable business model. The purpose of the research is to deepen and expand the knowledge about the structure of the start-up business model and its impact on entrepreneurial performance. Field research was carried out in three stages over one and a half years. The source of knowledge about the studied start-ups has been the personal experience recorded in the questionnaire. Start-ups are small closed communities that do not sufficiently shape external partnerships, cannot reach the customers, although they can identify them well enough, try to improve the business model blocks but they do not pay attention to their coordination and perceive the monetization in a simplified way. The impact of the business model on start-up performance has been confirmed but the internal blocks affect business performance unambiguously over the three stages of the research. The best conversion of users to customers and subsequently to revenues are distinctive for the start-ups with their own simple distribution channel and partners who are experienced distributors. The lessons learned can directly improve the results of start-ups when their incompleteness and imperfection will be substituted by appropriate partners. Start-ups provide a space for the new jobs and the self-realization of ambitious people with a sense of service for society. Empirical research on start-ups identifies their weaknesses and possibilities to increase their entrepreneurial performance. Full article

In this article we explore the challenges inherent in developing effective interorganizational relationships in the context of supporting the integration of health and social care in Scotland. We begin by outlining the context of health and social care integration and the nature of the program. We then describe the theories that underpinned our approach and outline in detail how the approach worked in practice in one area. We go on to discuss our reflections on six practices participants found helpful in creating the conditions necessary for effective collaboration. Finally, we end by reflecting on our learning. Full article

Universities play pivotal roles when research findings are to be adopted commercially. Although these roles vary from one country to another, effective patenting and licensing procedures, as well as eventual commercialisation of scholarly inventions, reflect hard work on the part of the University mediating between the researcher and the industry through technology transfer offices (TTOs) in order to ensure that knowledge-developers take motivational and monetary credit for their findings. This paper details some existing models, processes, and roles taken up in some countries where sharing of intellectual property exists, and links it up with aspects of university–industry technology transfer, such as policies surrounding patenting, government investment and marketing, and the process of academic entrepreneurship, among others. 22 articles were found via a systematic review of literature and analysed with respect to four identified areas of focus: internal strategy, investment and market, academic entrepreneurship and policy. Based on models, processes, and roles in reviewed studies, our results indicate that new models for technology transfer mainly stem from the fact that there is no universally accepted model in the literature. Furthermore, management of technology transfer is mostly the responsibility of TTOs in most countries. While university TTOs act as intermediaries to protect the interest of the author/inventor, issues such as poor relationships between universities and industry, as well as funding, remain major challenges in many emerging economies. In contrast, researchers in western economies are mainly challenged by financial motivation and recognition within the academic domains. Full article

The Finnish health and social care sector is currently undergoing numerous reforms. These reforms involve novel demands regarding the role of steering, decision-making, and management in health and social services. This article sheds light on some of the critical factors encountered by decision-makers and managers when implementing reforms to change health and social services. The article investigates cooperation between the steering ministries and different dimensions of management in local health and social service organizations. Interview data from the ministries were studied through content analysis, and quantitative survey data were analyzed using mean values guided by the model of multidimensional management. The co-operation between different ministries has intensified while implementing different reforms, but functional and cultural boundaries between them persist. The management dimensions in changing health and social service organizations stress the role of managers as facilitators and enablers, highlighting the significance of caring for the human resource dimension as one of the managers’ core tasks. The successful implementation of change should never be automatic. What emerges prominently is the skill essential to achieve cooperation which transcends the borders of both multiprofessional and traditional professional and administrative work both in ministries and local health and social service organizations. Full article

The main aim of this study is to gain insights into project management professionals’ perception of how project success can be achieved. The Q-methodology was followed in this research. Based on an extensive literature review and validation through expert judgment, a framework consisting of 33 factors increasing the likelihood of success was developed. A total of 34 practitioners in three different sectors (real estate, urban development, and infrastructure) in the Netherlands were asked to rank the statements contributing to the success of their projects. Four different perspectives of how project success can be achieved were distinguished in this study: “seeking the best match”, “being adaptive and open”, “keeping the team focused”, and “preparing for opportunities”. The perception of different practitioners of how success can be obtained may stem from factors of project context rather than sector and complexity. This highlights further research opportunities in taking a contingent approach when investigating project performance. The study helps to grasp the subjectivity of practitioners’ viewpoints regarding the potential ways to enhance project performance by understanding the similarity and differences of these viewpoints. Full article

Restaurant service quality assessment has generally focused on the dining service. However, restaurant service begins with waiting for the meal. When service failure occurs due to a long waiting time, restaurant managers should adopt appropriate service recovery measures to retain consumers and reduce loss. This approach would allow them to mitigate customer dissatisfaction and negative impressions. In this study, we explore the importance of pre-processing service in the context of possible restaurant service crises and construct a restaurant service recovery model for willingness to pay (WTP) through the contingent valuation method (CVM) to measure the effects before and after implementing service recovery. Overall, several psychological and tangible service recovery measures are provided to enhance people’s willingness to extend their waiting time. Within our study group, relatively young participants showed a high willingness to extend their waiting time. Furthermore, the opportunity cost of high-income people in the waiting process was relatively high. Compared with psychological service recovery programs, our results show that tangible service recovery programs prompt respondents to wait for an additional ~10 min. This paper offers support for restaurant managers to manage consumer relationships. Full article

The growing importance of sustainable development constitutes a challenging trend for education. Universities create study programs and organize extracurricular activities in order to prepare future generations of professionals as well as political and social leaders for responsible actions toward sustainable development. The main objective of this article is to investigate how universities in Poland develop educational programs and extracurricular activities to enable students to shape sustainability competencies. The study employed a triangulation of research methods including a literature analysis, desk research analysis of the universities’ educational programs, and quantitative research among students. The findings suggest that Polish universities attempt to shape sustainable development-oriented competencies not only through formal sustainable development education, but also via non-formal activities toward social and environmental challenges. The research results have practical implications for universities and can support the advancement of educational programs related to sustainable development. Full article

Team rivalry has been mostly studied in competition settings, between competing individuals or teams, and has been linked to positive performance outcomes due to its impact on increasing motivation. However, rivalry is not limited to such contexts, it can also occur in collaborative settings, among team members working on a collaborative task. We argue that in such settings rivalry in teams has a negative impact on team performance, due to its negative impact on team learning behaviors. We employed a time-lagged, survey-based design with a sample of 176 students (55 teams) to investigate the relationship between rivalry and team performance through team learning behaviors. Our results based on simple mediation analyses show that, for our sample, rivalry in teams was not in fact negatively correlated to learning behaviors. Furthermore, we did not find support for the hypothesized positive relationship between learning behaviors and team performance, nor for the partial mediation model we proposed. We show how a series of team and task characteristics could explain our results and discuss potential future directions in the study of rivalry in collaborative settings. Full article

Human resource marketing (HRM) is focused on the creation of job-position while including all relevant parameters such as work specification, wage, and adequate communication of a job offer. Wage is possible to understand as not only the amount of money received but also as all kinds of reward for the work that has been completed. Forms of staff renumeration have received more interest during the last decade, especially in regards to managers and the concept of industry 4.0. Job offer descriptions help to find suitable applicants for specific managerial positions. The main objective of this paper is to state the relationship between gender and the chosen variables (job sources). For this purpose, there was a realized questionnaire survey, focused on HRM in the business environment in the Czech Republic. The sample population for the survey consisted of 522 people, though feedback was only received from 185 participants (a return rate of 35.44%). To process the data, we employed Pearson’s chi-square test for independence and cluster analysis. Graphical design was made using an ROC curve (Receiver Operating Characteristic). According to the results obtained, there were defined relationships between gender and job servers as job sources, and between gender and social networks as job sources. This dependence is supported by the ROC curve, which shows the expectations of wage incomes according to the work-experience of the employee. Full article

This paper investigates the changed roles and strategies of professionals in a context of hybrid welfare state reform. This context exposes public professionals to market regulation and rationalization (new public management), and simultaneously expects them to work across professional borders to co-produce public services together with their clients, colleagues and other stakeholders (new public governance). Adopting a comparative perspective, we studied different types of professionals for their views on the implications of this reform mix on their work. Hence, we investigate ‘strategy’ at the macro level of public sector reform and at the micro level of professionals’ responses. The study is based on literature and policy documents, participatory observations and especially (group) interviews with professionals across Dutch hospitals, secondary schools and local agencies for welfare, care or housing. We found that professionals across these sectors, despite their different backgrounds and status, meet highly similar challenges and tensions related to welfare state reform. Moreover, we show that these professionals are not simply passive ‘victims’ of the hybrid context of professionalism, but develop own coping strategies to deal with tensions between different reform principles. The study contributes to understanding new professional roles and coping strategies in welfare state reform, in a context of changing relationships between professions and society. Full article

Online reputation is a strategic aspect of lodgings’ image and commercialization. Websites containing tourism reviews have increased their influence on customers’ decisions, leading to the effective management of Internet social media accounts. Customer evaluations of lodgings vary across websites because of differences in the scales used, the variables measured, and the reliability of opinions. The diverse information available on the Internet can produce communication problems in lodgings because the evaluations on online portals can differ. The objective of this paper is to propose an indicator to establish the rating of the online reputation balance, so that lodgings can determine the level of coherence of their communication and image on the Internet. One target for lodging community managers should be to converge different evaluations around a similar value that defines a coherent and real online reputation. The indicator proposed is tested on lodgings of distinct categories in different tourism destinations. Among the aims of the study is to try to provide a simple and practical method for directors to improve the management of hotel communication on the Internet. This is an issue for which research should propose methodologies because it is a new challenge for the competitiveness of accommodations. Full article

Despite the widespread agreement on the importance of customer value proposition (CVP) as one of the most critical aspects of business models (BM), little is known about how strategically valuable organizational resources may contribute to the transformation of CVP. This paper aims to develop and to test a new research framework: The organizational eco-map to explore how strategically valuable resources are underpinning a new customer value proposition of a focal company. Customer value proposition hence is an encapsulation of a strategic management decision on what the company believes its customers value the most and what it can deliver in a way that gives it a competitive advantage. Being a research-based paper, the topic is approached by theoretical analysis, conceptual development, and empirical justification. The presented organizational eco-map model encourages practitioners to grasp an exact relationship between strategically valuable resources of the organization and customer value proposition. Empirically, the paper examines the role of Latvian cultural resources in the forthcoming transformation of the customer value proposition for Riga Central Market of Latvia, a huge infrastructural establishment. Therefore, marketing practitioners will find new ways of understanding customers’ value creation for a “slow tourism” destination to develop marketing strategies to engage cultural resources of suppliers with their customers’ consumption processes to enhance better customer satisfaction. Full article

New international ventures have become an important and growing role in the economics of a country. However, it seems that the literature on international entrepreneurship has paid little attention to their employees and their contribution to the success of these firms in international markets. The employee may be a key point in explaining their rapid and fruitful international development, i.e., increasing the international entrepreneurial orientation of the company. Using case study methodology, this investigation aims to unveil the human resource management in international new ventures, complete previous models explaining these organizations, and contribute to a better understanding of their international success. The findings show that the entrepreneurs aim to foster employee entrepreneurial behavior by implementing certain human resource practices. Full article

Social investment programs are designed to provide opportunities to the less privileged so that they can contribute to the socioeconomic development of society. Stakeholders in social safety net programs (SSNPs) target vulnerable groups, such as the urban poor, women, the unemployed, and the elderly, with initiatives that have a transformative impact. Inadequate policy awareness remains a challenge, resulting in low participation rates in SSNPs. To achieve all-inclusive development, deliberate policies and programs that target this population have to be initiated by government, corporate bodies, and public-minded individuals. Artificial intelligence (AI) techniques could play an important role in improving the managerial decision support and policy-making process of SSNPs and increasing the social resilience of urban populations. To enhance managerial decision-making in social investment programs, we used a Bayesian network to develop an intelligent decision support system called the Social Safety Net Expert System (SSNES). Using the SSNES, we provide an advisory system to stakeholders who make management decisions, which clearly demonstrates the efficacy of SSNPs and inclusive development. Full article

Previous research has emphasized the importance of entrepreneurial characteristics for international entrepreneurship, hence the application of concepts such as entrepreneurial orientation and global mindset to the study of entrepreneurial internationalization tendencies (EIT). However, literature does not adequately address how EIT differ between countries or manifest in fragile country settings. We address this gap through a quantitative study to investigate EIT in two national settings that largely differ in terms of development, institutional stability, and culture. Through the lens of the institutional theory and the mindset theory, we therefore piloted the study on 112 high-growth startups in Germany and Pakistan. Our findings show, that while entrepreneurs in Germany and Pakistan show comparable levels of innovativeness and proactiveness, they significantly differ in other EIT measures. German entrepreneurs appear to have higher levels of risk-taking, which when explained through the institutional theory lens can be attributed to the higher institutional stability and support as well as social security in Germany. This potentially makes engagement in risky activities, such as business internationalization, more appealing than in Pakistan. However, despite having lower international cognition and international knowledge compared to Germany, Pakistani entrepreneurs appear to exhibit higher degrees of international behavior. Full article

Currently, lodgings’ competitiveness depends on pricing, based on the online reputation measured by quantitative scales of variables. The purpose of this article is to analyze the different prices set by lodgings by season in relation to the variables that measure their online reputation. This is an essential aspect in determining prices competitively in a constantly changing market. The study analyzes the offer of three tourist destinations (Gran Canaria and Tenerife in Spain and Agadir in Morocco) and online customer reviews on the quality of service, value, and added value obtained from Booking.com. Bivariate regressions with different functions were carried out to determine which one best matches these variables to the prices. The results show that added value has the greater relationship with prices. The cubic and quadratic functions have the best fit between quality of service and added value with regard to lodging prices. Based on the results obtained, it is possible to determine the most competitive prices lodgings can set depending on the quality of service and the added value offered to customers. To the extent that destinations from different countries are analyzed, the research reaches an international scope that is in line with the competitive reality of the tourism market. Full article

In the paper, we investigate the role of smart building or green building innovations on the Polish real estate market using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method on the group of experts (consultants, managers, brokers) that are active on the office market in Krakow (study area). The findings point towards the highest relevance of the localisation factor, but also at the relatively low importance of the features of a sustainable building: building automation and information technology systems, as well as energy efficiency or certification. The findings suggest that despite the growing interest in sustainability and technological advancement amongst office market participants in Krakow, the relative importance of smart and green building features in their decision-making processes is relatively low. The study has some interesting practical implications. The knowledge regarding the relative importance of decision criteria can be valuable for developers and investors because the anticipation of tenants’ expectations is directly linked with return on investment and innovation premiums. Full article

This paper argues that elected politicians may strengthen their political leadership role by initiating, orchestrating and engaging in the co-creation of public value outcomes. The collaborative turn in public value theory shows how public managers may mobilize the knowledge, ideas and resources of users, citizens and organized stakeholders, but it has so far neglected the role of elected politicians who tend to be reduced to a legitimizing sounding board for public managers aiming to advance public value creation in collaboration with a plethora of public and private actors. This paper seeks to compensate this benign neglect by advancing a new notion of ‘interactive political leadership’. This new construct aims to conceptualize the way that elected politicians may develop new and better policy solutions through a problem-focused interaction with relevant and affected actors from the economy and civil society, including users, volunteers, citizens and other lay actors. The theoretical argument about the development of interactive political leadership, which takes us beyond the traditional forms of sovereign political leadership that perceives politicians as ‘elected kings’, is illustrated by empirical examples drawn from local, national and supranation levels of government. Full article

The growing importance of sustainable development, especially regarding environmental issues, contributes to shaping new trends at the level of enterprises. Sustainable development is perceived as a source of new entrepreneurial opportunities that serve to solve social and environmental problems. The main objective of this study is to identify factors supporting and hindering the development of enterprise innovativeness exemplified by the bioeconomy sector in Poland. A research analysis was based on the Entrepreneurial Discovery Process (EDP) model. The study employed the method of critical literature analysis, as well as qualitative methods, such as individual direct interviews with experts and smart labs with 252 enterprises from the economic sector. The results of the research analysis show that the innovative activity of enterprises in the bioeconomy sector depends on external, as well as internal, factors. This is particularly important, owing to the impact of enterprises on the environment and on society, as they contribute to the creation and implementation of new, more sustainable production and consumption models. Full article

The issue of the paper is devoted to the oligopolistic market structure, which is a popular form of imperfect competition occurring in the current market economies. The main aim of the paper is to quantify the selected oligopolistic structure of the telecom industry in the Slovak market in the period 2013–2017. We subjected the oligopoly to concentration analysis of the market to quantify and assess the competitive environment in which mobile providers are operating. Market concentration was measured while using specific indicators of market concentration CR2, CR3, the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index, Lorenz curve, Gini coefficient, and coefficient of variation, using the information on total revenues of operators, the share of mobile operators on total revenues, number of active customers, and the penetration of SIM cards. The calculated values of the selected market concentration indices in the telecom sector proved that the mobile operators market is highly concentrated. The services that are offered by operators are not identical, and they are differentiated based on price, quality, availability, or the target group of customers. We also identified the entry barriers, which can be categorized to strategic, economic, technical, and time barriers. The Slovak telecom sector is an oligopoly where competitors offer slightly differentiated products; however, the competitive environment in which they operate is highly concentrated and competition needs to be regulated to achieve the sustainable development of the telecommunication sector. Full article

Are the MBA programs really designed to foster entrepreneurial minds? Answering this question is the main objective of our work. After a literature review we identified several programs’ characteristics that promote entrepreneurship. Using a sample of 99 executive or part-time MBA programs, we found that the diversity in this sector is high. Not all the programs have been designed to foster entrepreneurship behavior; moreover, most of them do not even have an entrepreneurship subject in their curriculum. Nevertheless, other dimensions that favor this type of behavior, like internationality, are widespread in the European MBA market. Full article