Many firms facing major regulatory, resource, and market challenges are increasingly under pressure to adopt circular economy practices, yet they lack integrated and empirically validated tools to evaluate their circular maturity in a systemic and actionable way. To fill this gap, our study developed the Circular Maturity Tool (CMT), an artifact that assesses firms' circular capabilities and guides capability development across successive stages. Using a design science (DS) approach, we conceptualize circular maturity as a capability comprising interdependent organizational dimensions that the CMT integrates in a staged architecture. Following a full DS cycle, the CMT is grounded in a systematic literature review and 54 interviews, that we then refined through expert-based alpha testing, and subsequently tested in a multi-method beta evaluation. Guided by the Design Science Validity Framework, the evaluation confirmed the CMT's structural integrity and contextual robustness and revealed positive associations between maturity scores and the adoption of circular resource strategies. The study contributes to science by specifying an integrated developmental logic that links organizational dimensions, maturity levels, and operationalized capabilities, and by demonstrating how DS supports rigorous artifact development and evaluation. In practice, the CMT helps firms assess their circular maturity, identify capability gaps, benchmark progress, and prioritize capability development; to date, it has been applied in nearly 3000 assessments across more than 900 firms.
As Artificial Intelligence (AI) becomes increasingly embedded in organisational decision-making, it fundamentally reshapes workers' personal control over their tasks and outcomes. While, in contrast to AI automation, AI augmentation is typically promoted as a way to preserve human agency and personal control, empirical evidence regarding its psychological consequences remains fragmented. This study adopts Control Theory to examine how varying degrees of AI involvement, conceptualised as a continuous gradient rather than a binary condition, affect Personal Control (PC). Through an online within-subject experiment, participants performed a logistical optimisation task (bin-packing) under varying degrees of AI support. The findings reveal that high AI involvement significantly reduces PC, whereas for low and medium AI levels PC remains comparable to the no-AI condition. The research identifies perceived responsibility as a key mediator: increased AI intervention diminishes the sense of responsibility, subsequently eroding PC. Furthermore, the user's personality - specifically Locus of Control - moderates this relationship, suggesting that individuals with an internal orientation are more sensitive to control loss. The study identifies a critical threshold within the augmentation region beyond which increasing AI involvement begins to produce control-reducing effects comparable to those of full automation, even when humans formally retain final decision authority. The work offers practical implications for the design of human-centric AI systems and for the operationalisation of human-in-the-loop principles in the workplace.
Silver tourism is a rapidly growing segment of global tourism, yet older adults face persistent digital divides when engaging with smart travel platforms. This study examines technology use intentions among 800 silver tourists in Greece (Athens) and the UK (Birmingham) through a complexity-informed bounded Rational Choice Theory framework. Integrating fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) with Necessary Condition Analysis (NCA), the study identifies sufficient configurations of six conditions namely perceived usefulness, ease of use, subjective norms, cognition, trust, and perceived competence alongside city-specific necessary conditions. Subjective norms emerge as necessary in Athens (collectivist, digitally uneven), while trust and perceived competence are necessary in Birmingham (individualist, digitally mature).In total, the analysis identified three acceptable pathways: one shared pathway, the Cognitive-Competence users which was valid in both Greek and British contexts, and two context-specific pathways, namely the Usage-Norm Consumers in Greece and the Cognitive Trust-in-Competence users in the UK. Post-evaluation interviews with six tourism managers confirmed the ecological validity of the identified pathways and strengthened the practical relevance of the findings. Findings extend digital divide theory, Rational Choice Theory, and complexity theory, offering culturally tailored guidance for inclusive tourism technology design.
