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Team structural control and team resilience: An empirical study of creative project-based teams
No full textGiven the turbulent business environment and the prevalence of project-team-based work structures, ensuring team resilience becomes necessary for contemporary organizations to overcome adversity and eventually succeed. Existing research suggests that structural team design is important for effective teamwork, but little is known about how it is associated with team resilience. Similarly, there is a lack of empirical evidence on how team resilience is related to team performance. Based on existing literature on teams, resilience, and organizational design and on multi-respondent survey data from 101 creative project-based advertising teams, this paper investigates how two team structural-control mechanisms – centralization and formalization – relate to team resilience, depending on team membership stability. To understand the further performance implications of team resilience, it uses the setting of creative teams to examine how team resilience is associated with team creativity. In the end, implications for research and practice are derived
Shaping the Future of Business Sustainability: LDA Topic Modeling Insights, Definitions, and Research Agenda
No full textThis article offers a comprehensive overview of Business Sustainability (BuS), and directly addresses the lack of consensus around this important concept. Through a mixed-methods approach, we conduct the first systematic literature review of BuS employing Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic modeling to uncover hidden thematic structures, Narrative Synthesis to refine and extend BuS definitions within different contexts, and the LDA-HSIM method to classify topics and design a new framework. We analyzed an extensive dataset comprising 92,311 articles sourced from 11,579 journal outlets. From this dataset, we identified 9,561 articles suitable for LDA topic modeling by applying funnel criteria, focusing on articles with clear theoretical underpinnings. A text extraction technique enabled us to identify and analyze theories used in BuS studies. This analysis revealed 150 underlying theories that advance the BuS concept across different research topics. The study contributes to BuS theory development with great potential to improve ethical decision-making by establishing meaningful, context-specific definitions and providing clear guidance for future researchers in selecting appropriate theoretical perspectives for their work. We identify research gaps, propose a prioritized research agenda focused on theory development, and formulate key implications for practitioners and policymakers. This study demonstrates the effectiveness of machine learning methods in conducting large-scale literature reviews to accelerate theoretical advancements and generate research agendas.The authors gratefully acknowledge the Flemish Supercomputer Center (VSC) for providing computational resources and services essential for this research. Funding was generously provided by the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) and the Flemish Government – department EW
Building trust in drones: inspect with confidence
No full textDrones have evolved from a novelty to an important industry asset. In inspection, drones are deployed for several tasks as their benefits are straightforward: they reach hazardous places, capture various data types, and do so in a safer manner, allowing for inspections at lower costs than traditional methods. Yet, technology alone does not unlock value. Proper adoption stalls when people do not trust the drone to fly accurately anddeliver decision-grade data. Lower trust leads to resistance, while higher trust leads to more confident use
Academy of Management Proceedings
No full textDisidentification refers to an individual’s perceived sense of separation from: (a) personal characteristics or traits (personal disidentification, e.g., not identifying as a smoker); (b) a role or relationship (relational disidentification, e.g., not identifying as a leader); and/or (c) a group (social disidentification, e.g., not identifying with an organization) (Elsbach, 1999). Together, identification (a sense of oneness) with and disidentification (a sense of separation) from targets shape an individual’s identity (Stone, 1962). Existing research has predominantly focused on the detrimental consequences of disidentification, ranging from boycott and public disparagement (Elsbach and Bhattacharya, 2001; Pratt, 2000) to workplace deviance (Bolton et al., 2012) and organizational crimes (e.g., Vadera & Pratt, 2013). However, the overwhelming focus on negative outcomes has contributed to disidentification’s receiving less scholarly attention compared to identification (Kalkman, 2023; Kreiner & Ashforth, 2004). The papers in this symposium seek to reinvigorate research on disidentification by addressing key limitations: its prevailing characterization as dysfunctional, the lack of consensus on its definition and mechanisms, and the limited exploration of its temporal dynamics (Ashforth, Harrison, & Corley, 2008)
Data Envelopment Analysis in Healthcare: New Directions for Efficiency and Value-Based Care
No full textHealthcare systems are designed to maintain and improve human health. Yet, in recent decades, these systems have been struggling to sustain their own health due to rising expenditures that outpace available budgets. This growing financial pressure requires healthcare providers to actively strive for cost-efficient care, meaning additional investments should translate into better quality of care, while cost reductions should not compromise patient outcomes, in line with the principles of Value-Based Healthcare (VBHC). Navigating this complex balance requires analytical methods that explicitly link resource use to health outcomes in order to support well-informed decision-making. Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) offers such opportunities, as it enables the simultaneous evaluation of multiple inputs and multiple outcomes without requiring predefined trade-offs between them. Although DEA is widely used to assess efficiency in healthcare, traditional applications typically rely on aggregated data and rarely incorporate quality metrics such as patient-centred outcomes, limiting their relevance for VBHC. This dissertation, therefore, explores how DEA can be applied in innovative ways to support the transition toward more efficient and value-based healthcare. In collaboration with three Belgian hospitals, the research adapts DEA to more granular units of analysis, including care processes and individual patients, and integrates it with operations management methods and management accounting techniques. At the process level, DEA combined with Discrete-Event Simulation is applied to evaluate hybrid outpatient appointment scheduling with integrated teleconsultations. The same methodology is used to assess Just-in-Time surgical case cart preparation, demonstrating improvements in efficiency and operational decision-making. At the patient level, a four-step framework is developed to combine individual costs with multiple clinical and patient-reported outcomes into a single value score using DEA and Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing. This framework enables benchmarking patients based on value and is first applied to psoriasis care within an integrated practice unit. It is further used in a comparative analysis of conventional versus robot-assisted Total Knee Arthroplasty, demonstrating the generalizability of the proposed approach. Overall, the dissertation shows that DEA, when adapted to process- and patient-level analyses, can serve as a practical decision-support tool to explicitly link costs to outcomes and to advance the operationalization of value-based healthcare
Navigating uncertainty in the design of emerging technologies
No full textThis dissertation examines how emerging technologies can be designed to contribute meaningfully to sustainability challenges when both the problems and the technologies themselves are marked by fundamental uncertainty. Wicked problems such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and water scarcity resist definitive solutions, evolve unpredictably, and involve contested values. At the same time, technologies such as blockchain are still maturing, their impacts unclear, and their affordances only partially stabilised. When these two forms of uncertainty intersect, conventional approaches that separate problem definition from solution development become inadequate. Instead, design research (DR) must embrace co-evolution, where both problems and solutions unfold together through experimentation, reflection, and adaptation. Blockchain for environmental sustainability provides the critical case. While blockchain’s affordances have been hailed as transformative, most applications remain at the pilot stage, hindered by technical, regulatory, and organisational barriers. This tension between promise and reality makes blockchain a revealing lens through which to examine how design research can navigate volatile socio-technical contexts. The dissertation comprises three interrelated studies: The first is a systematic review of blockchain applications across the United Nations SDGs. It identifies dominant areas of application such as supply chain traceability, carbon markets, and resource tokenisation. It also reveals persistent barriers explaining why so few initiatives progress beyond pilot stages. The review highlights the gap between technological vision and practical impact, setting the stage for more situated design inquiry. The second study engages directly with practice through a collaboration with Botanical Water Technologies and Fujitsu Belgium. The project focused on designing a blockchain-based multi-sided platform for the sustainable trade of water. In response to the global challenge of water scarcity, six design principles were developed to provide guidance towards the design in a similar blockchain context. These principles were instantiated in a working prototype, demonstrating how blockchain’s affordances can be mobilised in concrete socio-technical contexts to promote sustainability. The third study shifts focus from the artefact to the design process itself. It introduces ORCA, a set of guiding principles for navigating uncertainty in design research that foregrounds action potentials rather than fixed features. ORCA draws on lessons from the water trading project to show how researchers and practitioners can productively engage with uncertainty, turning it into a driver of creativity, collaboration, and adaptation. Taken together, the three studies advance our understanding of blockchain’s potential for sustainability, provide actionable design principles for blockchain-enabled platforms, and propose a methodological orientation for design research under uncertainty. The dissertation demonstrates that uncertainty is not an obstacle to be eliminated, but a condition to be embraced and worked with. By treating blockchain as an evolving socio-technical platform rather than a fixed solution, and by allowing problems and solutions to co-evolve, design research can make a constructive contribution to the pursuit of sustainable future
How finance teams can succeed with AI
No full textResearchers at Vlerick Business School’s Centre for Financial Leadership and Digital Transformation have worked with CFOs and finance leaders to understand how finance can lead in the AI era. Their latest study, building on a 2023 digital-maturity diagnostic published in MIT Sloan Management Review, combines survey responses from over 100 senior finance executives with company-level data to explore what enables finance teams to become strategic business partners in an AI-driven world. The findings reveal that although AI adoption is widespread, its impact is often limited by organizational misalignment, digital overload, and the challenge of integrating new technologies without overwhelming human decision-making. The real obstacle turns out to be not the technology itself but whether finance teams are structured to absorb and apply it effectively
Enablers and Barriers in FinTech Adoption: A Systematic Literature Review of Customer Adoption and Its Impact on Bank Performance
No full textThe rise of financial technology (FinTech) has generated substantial research on its adoption by customers and the associated implications for traditional banks. This systematic review addresses two questions: (1) What factors enable or hinder consumer adoption of FinTech? (2) How does consumer adoption of FinTech affect the performance of traditional banks? Following the PRISMA guidelines, we screened and analyzed 109 peer-reviewed articles published between 2016 and 2024 in Scopus and Web of Science. The findings show that adoption is driven by economic incentives, digital infrastructure, personalized services, and institutional support, while barriers include limited literacy, perceived risk, and regulatory uncertainty. At the bank level, adoption enhances operational efficiency, customer loyalty, and revenue growth but also generates compliance costs, cybersecurity risks, and competition. Consumer adoption studies primarily employ the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT), often extended with trust and privacy constructs. In contrast, bank performance research relies on empirical analyses with limited theoretical grounding. This review bridges behavioral and institutional perspectives by linking consumer-level drivers of adoption with organizational outcomes, offering an integrated conceptual framework. The limitations include a restriction of the retrieved literature to English publications in two databases. Future work should apply longitudinal, multi-theory models to deepen the understanding of how consumer behavior shapes bank performance
Digitale verandering? Geef de mens controle over het stuur!
No full textOnze maatschappij en ons werk veranderen voortdurend onder invloed van digitale technologie. Toch vergeten we vaak dat digitale transformatie meer is dan technologie implementeren. Het is een fundamentele verandering in hoe mensen werken en denken over de toekomst van hun organisatie. In ‘Digital at Heart’ pleiten Karlien Vanderheyden, Ignace Decroix en Stijn Viaene voor een mensgerichte aanpak. Ze gebruiken het “4V-model” dat wendbaarheid van de organisatie als doel stelt van een digitale transformatie, om die visie tastbaar te maken. Wij spraken met hen over digitale transformaties en de sleutelrol van hr