A decadal view of biodiversity informatics: challenges and priorities

Biodiversity informatics plays a central enabling role in the research community's efforts to address scientific conservation and sustainability issues. Great strides have been made in the past decade establishing a framework for sharing data, where taxonomy and systematics has been perceived as the most prominent discipline involved. To some extent this is inevitable, given the use of species names as the pivot around which information is organised. To address the urgent questions around conservation, land-use, environmental change, sustainability, food security and ecosystem services that are facing Governments worldwide, we need to understand how the ecosystem works. So, we need a systems approach to understanding biodiversity that moves significantly beyond taxonomy and species observations. Such an approach needs to look at the whole system to address species interactions, both with their environment and with other species.It is clear that some barriers to progress are sociological, basically persuading people to use the technological solutions that are already available. This is best addressed by developing more effective systems that deliver immediate benefit to the user, hiding the majority of the technology behind simple user interfaces. An infrastructure should be a space in which activities take place and, as such, should be effectively invisible.This community consultation paper positions the role of biodiversity informatics, for the next decade, presenting the actions needed to link the various biodiversity infrastructures invisibly and to facilitate understanding that can support both business and policy-makers. The community considers the goal in biodiversity informatics to be full integration of the biodiversity research community, including citizens' science, through a commonly-shared, sustainable e-infrastructure across all sub-disciplines that reliably serves science and society alike.

Corporate governance: quo vadis?

Purpose – This paper aims to examine current research trends into corporate governance and to propose a different dynamic, humanistic approach based on individual purpose, values and psychology. Design/methodology/approach – The paper reviews selected literature to analyse the assumptions behind research into corporate governance and uses a multi-disciplinary body of literature to present a different theoretical approach based at the level of the individual rather than the organisation. Findings – The paper shows how the current recommendations of the corporate governance research models could backfire and lead to individual actions that are destructive when implemented in practice. This claim is based on identifying the hidden assumptions behind the principal-agent model in corporate governance, such as the Hobbesian view and the Homo Economicus approach. It argues against the axiomatic view that shareholders are the owners of the company, and it questions the way in which managers are assessed based either on the corporate share price (the shareholder view) or on a confusing set of measures which include more stakeholders (the stakeholder view), and shows how such a yardstick can be demotivating and put the corporation in danger. The paper proposes a humanistic, psychological approach that uses the individual manager as a unit of analysis instead of the corporation and illustrates how such an approach can help to build better governance. Research limitations/implications – The paper's limited scope can only outline a conceptual framework, but does not enter into detailed operationalisation. Practical implications – The paper illustrates the challenges in applying the proposed framework into practice. Originality/value – The paper calls for the use of an alternative unit of analysis, the manager, and for a dynamic and humanistic approach which encompasses the entirety of a person's cognition, including emotional and spiritual values, and which is as of yet usually not to be found in the corporate governance literature.

Sex/gender differences and autism: setting the scene for future research

Objective The relationship between sex/gender differences and autism has attracted a variety of research ranging from clinical, neurobiological to etiological, stimulated by the male bias in autism prevalence. Findings are complex and do not always relate to each other in a straightforward manner. Distinct but interlinked questions on the relationship between sex/gender differences and autism remain under addressed. To better understand the implications from existing research and to help design future studies, we propose a four-level conceptual framework to clarify the embedded themes. Method We searched PubMed for publications before September 2014 using search terms “‘sex OR gender OR females’ AND autism.” 1,906 citations were screened for relevance, along with publications identified via additional literature reviews, resulting in 329 reports that were reviewed. Results Level 1 “Nosological and diagnostic challenges” concerns the question “How should autism be defined and diagnosed in males and females?” Level 2 “Sex/gender-independent and sex/gender-dependent characteristics” addresses the question “What are the similarities and differences between males and females with autism?” Level 3 “General models of etiology: liability and threshold” asks the question “How is the liability for developing autism linked to sex/gender?” Level 4 “Specific etiological-developmental mechanisms” focuses on the question “What etiological-developmental mechanisms of autism are implicated by sex/gender and/or sexual/gender differentiation?” Conclusions Using this conceptual framework, findings can be more clearly summarized, and the implications of the links between findings from different levels can become clearer. Based on this four-level framework, we suggest future research directions, methodology, and specific topics in sex/gender differences and autism.

Drivers of in‐group and out‐of‐group electronic word‐of‐mouth (eWOM)

Purpose– The purpose of this study is to address a recent call for additional research on electronic word‐of‐mouth (eWOM). In response to this call, this study draws on the social network paradigm and the uses and gratification theory (UGT) to propose and empirically test a conceptual framework of key drivers of two types of eWOM, namely in‐group and out‐of‐group. Design/methodology/approach– The proposed model, which examines the impact of usage motivations on eWOM in‐group and eWOM out‐of‐group, is tested in a sample of 302 internet users in Portugal. Findings– Results from the survey show that the different drivers (i.e. mood‐enhancement, escapism, experiential learning and social interaction) vary in terms of their impact on the two different types of eWOM. Surprisingly, while results show a positive relationship between experiential learning and eWOM out‐of‐group, no relationship is found between experiential learning and eWOM in‐group. Research limitations/implications– This is the first study investigating the drivers of both eWOM in‐group and eWOM out‐of‐group. Additional research in this area will contribute to the development of a general theory of eWOM. Practical implications– By understanding the drivers of different eWOM types, this study provides guidance to marketing managers on how to allocate resources more efficiently in order to achieve the company's strategic objectives. Originality/value– No published study has investigated the determinants of these two types of eWOM. This is the first study offering empirical considerations of how the various drivers differentially impact eWOM in‐group and eWOM out‐of‐group.

Towards a framework for managing IT-enabled change, sourcing and governance

In the resource-based view, organisations are represented by the sum of their physical, human and organisational assets, resources and capabilities. Operational capabilities maintain the status quo and allow an organisation to execute their existing business. Dynamic capabilities, otherwise, allow an organisation to change this status quo including a change of the operational ones. Competitive advantage, in this context, is an effect of continuously developing and reconfiguring these firm-specific assets through dynamic capabilities. Deciding where and how to source the core operational capabilities is a key success factor. Furthermore, developing its dynamic capabilities allows an organisation to effectively manage change its operational capabilities. Many organisations are asserted to have a high dependency on - as well as a high benefit from - the use of information technology (IT), making it a crucial and overarching resource. Furthermore, the IT function is assigned the role as a change enabler and so IT sourcing affects the capability of managing business change. IT sourcing means that organisations need to decide how to source their IT capabilities. Outsourcing of parts of the IT function will also outsource some of the IT capabilities and therefore some of the business capabilities. As a result, IT sourcing has an impact on the organisation's capabilities and consequently on the business success. And finally, a turbulent and fast moving business environment challenges organisations to effectively and efficiently managing business change. Our research builds on the existing theory of dynamic and operational capabilities by considering the interdependencies between the dynamic capabilities of business change and IT sourcing. Further it examines the decision-making oversight of these areas as implemented through IT governance. We introduce a new conceptual framework derived from the existing theory and extended through an illustrative case study conducted in a German bank. Under a philosophical paradigm of constructivism, we collected data from eight semi-structured interviews and used additional sources of evidence in form of annual accounts, strategy papers and IT benchmark reports. We applied an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), which emerged the superordinate themes for our tentative capabilities framework. An understanding of these interdependencies enables scholars and professionals to improve business success through effectively managing business change and evaluating the impact of IT sourcing decisions on the organisation's operational and dynamic capabilities.

Corporate strategic responses to foreign entry: insights from prospect theory

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to address how firms adapt their product and geographic diversification as a response to foreign rivals penetrating their domestic market by adopting a behavioral perspective to understand firm-level strategic responses to foreign entry. Design/methodology/approach – The study proposes that strategic responses to foreign entry selected by domestic incumbents have both a framing component and a related, strategic choice component, with the latter including changes in product and geographic market diversification (though other more business strategy-related responses are also possible, e.g. in product pricing and marketing). This study tests a set of hypotheses building on panel data of large US firms. Findings – The study finds, in accordance with our predictions, that domestic incumbents reduce their product and geographic diversification when facing an increase in import penetration. However, when increased market penetration by foreign firms takes the form of FDI rather than imports, the corporate response appears to be an increase in product and geographic diversification, again in line with our predictions. Originality/value – The study develops a new conceptual framework that is grounded in prospect theory, but builds on recent insights from mainstream international strategic management studies (Bowen and Wiersema, 2005; Wiersema and Bowen, 2008).