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PurposeThe purpose of this study is to look at the attitudes of the employees in terms of sharing knowledge during COVID-19 in an online environment and the various difficulties associated and to analyze knowledge sharing (KS) in a virtual office setting, using the conservation of resources theory.Design/methodology/approachA qualitative approach was used by conducting face-to-face interviews online through GoogleMeet, Skype and Zoom. A total of 34 interviews from 14 multinational companies (or their subsidiaries), in a supervisory role, were conducted for the study. A thematic analysis was conducted to analyze the responses.FindingsDuring a crisis, the tendency of employees to share knowledge at the individual, team and organizational level increases and is interlinked. The results of this study suggest that during the initial phases of lockdown, the creativity levels among employees were high;however, as the work from the office got postponed because of extended lockdowns, the creativity level of employees saw a dip. Furthermore, the findings of this study also highlighted that KS in remotely located teams was found to be dependent on the extent to which the team members knew each other, such that known teams were in a better position to share knowledge than a newly formed team with unknown or less known members.Research limitations/implicationsThis study has 34 respondents which is an acceptable number for a qualitative inquiry. However, the number of industries could be increased for generalization purposes. Responses were collected from a group of knowledge workers who were willing to correspond digitally, using social media channels of the authors, such as Linkedin. Responses collected personally could provide different results.Practical implicationsThis study provides insights into visible change in organizational processes. The conceptual model developed in this study has several implications which will help chief knowledge officers to understand why the various individual, team and organizational factors lead to KS, particularly with respect to COVID-19.Originality/valueThis study has explored a contemporary phenomenon – KS during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, in an online environment. This study depicts the extant literature on knowledge management during a pandemic, thus bridging the scholarly gap. This study tried to bring in a broader perspective by selecting respondents across continents, domains and varied age groups. Fourth, most studies analyzing KS/knowledge hiding in the extant literature, especially during the pandemic, have followed a quantitative approach. This study followed a qualitative approach to gain insights into the KS of the firm and the thoughts and practicalities behind it.
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Contributions by individual open source software (OSS) community members are the lifeblood of the OSS projects that power today's digital economy and are important for the very survival of such communities. Individual contributions by OSS community members to others' projects and their own determine whether OSS communities are resilient in the face of major shocks. Arguably, if crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic prompt users to reduce their contributions to others' projects relative to the contributions to their own projects, such behavior can have implications for the overall resilience of the OSS community. Therefore, whether and how individuals change their contributions in the face of a crisis is an important question. We examine whether members in an OSS community increased or decreased their contributions to others' projects relative to their own in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, a sudden and unexpected global health-related shock that has affected almost everyone. We also compare and contrast this behavior when the OSS community faced increasing unemployment, an economic cyclic shock that is arguably and relatively more personal. Drawing on the concept of prosocial behavior and conservation of resources (COR) theory, we hypothesize that the pandemic increased OSS community members' contributions to others' projects relative to their own;on the other hand, the threat of rising unemployment decreased OSS community members' contributions to others' projects relative to their own. Our empirical analyses of a longitudinal dataset of over 18,000 OSS community members on GitHub, with more than 1.4 million member-day observations, support our hypotheses. This study contributes by uncovering the differential effects of exogenous health-related and economic shocks on the resilience of the OSS community. We conclude with a discussion of our findings' implications for OSS community resilience.
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PurposeDrawing upon the conservation of resource (COR) theory, the purpose of this paper is to explore the mediating role of knowledge hiding in the relationship between job insecurity and two dimensions of thriving at work, i.e. learning and vitality. The study further aims to investigate the moderating role of benevolent leadership in the aforementioned mediating relationship by applying the moderated mediation framework.Design/methodology/approachThe sample for the study consisted of employees working in service sector in India. The hypotheses were tested with two wave survey data collected from 365 employees during the COVID-19 pandemic when the Indian Government was lifting phase wise restrictions. Data was analyzed using mediation and moderated mediation analyses on PROCESS v 3.0 macro.FindingsResults showed that knowledge hiding mediated the relationship between job insecurity and both dimensions of thriving at work. Further, benevolent leadership was seen to moderate the mediated relationship providing support for the moderated mediation framework.Practical implicationsThe results highlight the significance of providing benevolent leadership training to the managers to help them cope with the anxiety arising out of job insecurity. Further, employees need to be cautioned regarding the deleterious effects of knowledge hiding, which can impede their own learning and vitality.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the mediating role of knowledge hiding in the relationship between job insecurity and thriving. Further, the role played by benevolent leadership in mitigating the harmful effects of job insecurity especially during COVID-19 pandemic is a unique contribution of the study.
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Research on the regional difference characteristics and driving mechanisms of high-quality developmental evaluations of the construction industry under the constraint of carbon emissions has important practical significance for guiding the efficient development of the construction industry, alleviating the contradiction between economic and social development and resource conservation, low-carbon requirements in the process of rapid urbanization, and realizing regional coordinated development. Taking carbon emissions as unexpected output into the evaluation system of high-quality development of construction industry, this paper studies the spatial–temporal differentiation characteristics, dynamic trend evolution and its driving factors of high-quality development of China’s construction industry from 2006 to 2021 by using the SE-SBM model of unexpected output, GML index analysis and grey correlation model. The research results show that: (1) from 2006 to 2021, the high-quality development of the construction industry generally fluctuated in a sinusoidal function pattern, and the high-quality development level of the construction industry in China was improved as a whole. It is manifested in the coexistence of regional imbalance and spatial correlation. High-efficiency provinces are concentrated in the eastern coastal areas, forming an obvious cluster effect;however, the radiation-driving effect is weak. (2) The regional difference in technological scale change is the largest, which is the main reason for the difference in regional total factor production growth rate;the contribution of technological progress to the difference in total factor growth rate is also relatively large. Generally speaking, technological factors are the key to reducing the difference of total factor growth rate between regions. (3) Urbanization level, carbon emission constraints, government regulation, scientific and technological R & D investment and industrial structure upgrading are the main driving factors that affect the spatiotemporal differentiation and evolution of high-quality development of the construction industry.
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Aquaculture (artificial cultivation, processing and sale of aquatic biological resources: fish and seafood) plays the role of a powerful locomotive for the development of the food sector of the 21st century and can become one of the catalysts for the deep economic, social and environmental changes in food systems around the world. COVID-19 significantly halted globalization processes, strengthening social autonomy, closing many markets, which affected the volume of trade in fish and seafood and its subsequent processing for the catering industry. Global expectations imply further closure of borders and localization of the business, reduction in the number of employees and distance from large urbanization sites, which suggests the need for a new model for the development of the fish resource business in the context of sustainable development, environmental and social significance of the safest food. The current state of the functioning of the aquaculture and seafood market is investigated and proposals for the development of the industry are formulated. An analysis of international approaches revealed the need for structural transformation of the industry in accordance with the global concept of sustainable development of the agro-food complex and food security. The application of the proposed measures will lead to the achievement of performance indicators in line with international standards, improve the livelihoods of the adjacent urbanization areas and the overall economic progress of the country, and strengthen the system of organization, control and management of the aquatic biological resources sector. © 2022 Author(s).
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This exploratory study utilises quantitative analysis to deliver a systematic literature review of published journal papers from 1993 to 2020 with the aim to identify research trends and present a comprehensive overview of research focus conducted in the sustainable packaging domain within the scope of supply chain management. This research is conducted with the data mining software, NetMiner 4, utilising the three analytical tools of statistical analysis, keyword network analysis, and topic analysis. The research also utilises the qualitative method of in-depth interviews in order to investigate current trends and perspectives on the future of sustainable packaging and to validate the analysis results. The research findings reveal that research in the field of ‘sustainable packaging in supply chain management’ field has been extremely limited, and this study acts to address this research gap. The results confirm that the vast majority of research focus has been in the fields of engineering and science. Research on the topic has gained momentum and has significantly increased since 2013 with research trends becoming increasingly diversified and gradually aligned with the concept of circular economy, while the topic of operational management has been highlighted as an area requiring additional attention. The keyword frequency analysis reveals the following highest occurring keywords in TF: life cycle;environmental impact;consumer;transportation;and production. The highest occurring keywords in TF-IDF: production;transportation;consumer;food;and environmental impact. Topic modelling revealed the following six topics: consumer behaviour;environmental pollution;circular economy;waste management;resource conservation;and operational management. This study contributes to understanding past, present, and future research agendas, and can be utilised as foundation for research development, as it provides insight to current research status and trends provided by the keyword network analysis highlighting research focus and trends in ‘sustainable packaging in supply chain management’.
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Purpose: As the world tries to come to terms with the exact economic and human cost of the Covid-19 pandemic, businesses are trying to discern and act on the implications of the "new normal" in order to survive and grow. Amongst all the industries impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, travel and tourism has been the hardest hit. Operators across the value chain are trying to innovate and improvise in order to mitigate the impact of the pandemic on cash flows and working capital. The primary purpose of this paper then is to take a closer look at the measures adopted by the Indian hotel industry to restore revenues, conserve resources and attain greater operational and cost efficiencies in the midst of the Covid-19 crisis. The article also brings to the fore the growth-enhancing measures adopted by the industry in anticipation of a "new normal" in the post-Covid world. Design/methodology/approach: This study is based on primary data collected via a survey, followed by a series of interviews with a select group of senior finance managers from a wide spectrum of hotels based in India. Findings: Our findings suggest that Indian hotels have adopted several measures to enhance cash flows/revenues, reduce operating costs and cash outflows and conserve resources in order to tide themselves over during the crisis. Prominent cash flow-enhancing measures include price drops on special offers and reductions on list prices. Cost-cutting measures include economizing on energy consumption, reductions in labour costs and the postponement of maintenance expenses and discretionary spending. Resource conservation measures that have been adopted focus on postponement of capital expenditure and an increasing shift to localizing supply chains. Growth-enhancing measures adopted by the industry in anticipation of the long-term "new normal" include restructuring of the workforce and measures aimed at attracting domestic tourists and increasing product diversity. Originality/value: This study attempts to understand the short-term and long-term financial management strategies adopted by Indian hotels in the face of unprecedented disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. To the best of our knowledge, this paper is the first of its kind in the Indian context.
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In China, environmental pollution due to municipal solid waste (MSW) over-generation is one of the country’s priority concerns. The increasing volume and complexity of the waste poses serious risks to the environment and public health. Currently, the annual growth of MSW generation is estimated to be approximately 8–10% and will increase to 323 million metric tons (Mt) by 2030. Based on the secondary data collected from a literature survey, this article critically evaluates the recent progress of MSW management (MSWM) in China and offers new insights into the waste sector in the era of Industry 4.0. This helps decision makers in China to plan a smooth transition nationwide to a circular economy (CE) in the waste sector. It is evident that digitalization is a driving force for China to move towards low-carbon development strategies within the framework of CE. Through digitalization, the waste sector has promoted prevention, reduction, reuse, and recycling (3Rs) of waste before waste disposal in landfills. A proper implementation of digitalization-based waste recycling has contributed to an efficient cooperation between the government and private sector, increased job opportunities, and promoted the conservation of resources. It is anticipated that this work not only contributes to the establishment of an integrated MSWM system in China, but also improves local MSWM through digitalization in the framework of a CE.
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April 22, 2021, marked the 51st anniversary of Earth Day. With the growing imperativeness of environmental protection and sustainability, we want to study people's collective attention and conversations on this themed day. What are the top-of-mind discourses and central topics about the earth? How do people feel about them, hopeful or pessimistic? How do they change over time, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic? To answer these, we extracted and quantified top frequent features, co-occurring hashtags, sentiment words, and latent sub-topics from about 300K tweets posted on the Earth Day of 2009, 2013, 2017, and 2021. The results demonstrated the longitudinal dynamics of people's rhetoric and focus regarding protecting the earth - from resources conservation to climate changes, as well as the plummeted optimism toward environmental topics after the pandemic. The findings of our paper can help decision-makers to better assess the "voices of the people"and inform evidence-based decision-making. © 2021 ACM.