PurposeThis study aims to examine the impact of cultural familiarity with images on the memorability of recognition-based graphical password (RBG-P).Design/methodology/approachThe researchers used a between-group design with two groups of 50 participants from China and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, using a webtool and two questionnaires to test two hypotheses in a four-week long study.FindingsThe results showed that culture has significant effects on RBG-P memorability, including both recognition and recall of images. It was also found that the login success rate depreciated quickly as time progressed, which indicates the memory decay and its effects on the visual memory.Research limitations/implicationsCollectively, these results can be used to design universal RBG-Ps with maximal password deflection points. For better cross-cultural designs, designers must allow users from different cultures to personalize their image selections based on their own cultures.Practical implicationsThe RBG-P interfaces developed without consideration for users’ cultures may lead to the construction of passwords that are difficult to memorize and easy to attack. Thus, the incorporation of cultural images is indispensable for improving the authentication posture.Social implicationsThe development of RBG-P with cultural considerations will make it easy for the user population to remember the password and make it more expensive for the intruder to attack.Originality/valueThis study provides an insight for RBG-P developers to produce a graphical password platform that increases the memorability factor.

Supply chain disruptions negatively impact the economy and individual organizations. However, as many companies recover from disruptions (COVID-19 being a recent example), less attention has been paid to how these events impact business-to-business (B2B) relationships characteristic of supply chains. Drawing on justice theory, we examine how the suppliers' management of the recovery process affects behavioral reactions in the context of supply chain relationships. This study empirically examines the role that partners' recovery process, honesty, effort, availability, and outcome fairness play in influencing satisfaction, future business volumes, and word-of-mouth. Using ordinary least squares (OLS) regression to test survey data, results indicate that how recovery processes are managed positively affects satisfaction, reduces the likelihood of future business loss, and affects the propensity to communicate negatively about a relationship partner. Unexpectedly, outcome fairness (distributive justice) has a significant positive impact on negative word-of-mouth, indicating that increased perceptions of distributive justice actually increase negative behavioral outcomes in certain settings. We conduct exploratory post hoc serial mediation analysis to further examine this finding and uncover a potential extension to the boundaries of a justice lens. These post hoc results, which generally confirm the OLS results, drive opportunity for better understanding of complaining behavior and navigating the tricky environment associated with managing B2B relationships in a post-disruption environment.

Ensuring engineering program graduates possess the skillset sought by employers is critical to the success of colleges and universities offering these degrees. Accrediting bodies are demanding that engineering programs better integrate professional skills in their curriculum. The IET Accreditation of Higher Education Programmes (AHEP) requires academic programs to include non-technical competencies such as working with information ambiguity, communication, innovation, project management, teamwork, and ethics (AHEP, 2014). The American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE), the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) want graduates from engineering programs to possess both technical and non-technical skills (Dukhan and Rayess, 2014). A study of engineering graduates’ perspectives on the importance of various ABET technical and non-technical competencies, found the non-technical skills of working in teams, data analysis, problem solving, and communication were critical to graduates’ professional success (Passow, 2012). Missing from extant literature is a comprehensive understanding of which competencies make up the broad classification generically known as “professional” or “non-technical skills.” To address this gap, the authors undertake a rigorous literature review to develop a complete list of the competencies that comprise professional skills (e.g. Ahn et al., 2014; Borrego et al., 2013; Colby & Sullivan, 2008; Johnson et al., 2015; Ling, 2002). The 51 competencies identified from the literature are then validated using a database of online employment advertisements seeking engineers. The dataset of job advertisements includes professional opportunities across engineering disciplines. The rigorous methodology of Software-Assisted Content Analysis is used to identify professional skills required of engineering job applicants. Results affirm that employers want engineering graduates to possess a portfolio of professional skills. Job advertisements predominantly required multiple professional skills. Furthermore, results show a positive relationship between the years of experience and number of professional skills required. Results also validate the literature-based list of professional skills, with 65% of those professional skills found in the job advertisements. This study supports that employers seeking to fill engineering positions are requiring a wide range of professional skills, suggesting that the breadth of professional skills needed by engineering program graduates is much greater than what is currently required by accrediting bodies and addressed in most engineering curriculum.

This study examines how team collaboration and goal setting mediate the effects of team relationship conflict and conflict management on team performance. Primary data were collected from students who worked in teams to design functional information systems (IS). The data were then analyzed using structural equations modeling (SEM). The mediators - team collaboration and goal setting - positively affected each other and performance. Full results support a partial mediation model in which 60% of the total effect of relationship conflict and 80% of the total effect of conflict management on team performance are carried through team collaboration and goal setting. This work is the first of its kind that theoretically posits and empirically tests a mechanism through which team conflict and its management relate to team performance.

Purpose - This research aims to investigate how team support and cohesion channel the effects of relationship conflict and its management on team productivity.Design/methodology/approach - Questionnaire data were sampled from students working in groups to design software systems for companies. Structural equation methodology was used to estimate the proposed model.Findings - The results indicate that the mediators (team support and cohesion) positively affect each other and team performance. The results support that the effects of conflict and conflict management on team performance are mediated by team support first and then indirectly through team cohesion.Research limitations/implications - This paper empirically establishes the mechanisms through which conflict and its management affect team performance. The following limitations should be considered when generalizing the results of the study: team-level phenomena were assessed using perceived measures of individual team members and an academic setting was used for data collection.Practical implications - The findings indicate that team support plays an important role in protecting the team from the negative effects of conflict and that team support contributes to the development of team cohesion.Originality/value - This work is one of the first to evaluate the mechanisms of team support and cohesion through which team conflict and its management affect team performance.

Offshoring of information systems development (ISD) projects has become increasingly popular among companies seeking reduced project costs, increased productivity, and improved quality and schedule performance. However, offshore ISD project teams face tremendous challenges, including unclear responsibilities, lack of trust and information sharing and difficulty in creating collaborative solutions. Extant studies in the management of offshore project teams have failed to address empowerment and rapport as sources of project success. To fill this gap, this study uses a social capital perspective to develop a research model and estimates a path analytic model using data from surveys of 194 participants in offshore ISD project teams. We find that team building, rapport among team members and empowerment of team members all contribute to improved information processing, which in turn leads to improved project team performance.

Anecdotal evidence from U.S. manufacturers and literature from strategy and operations research suggest that industry competition may be driving firm contract manufacturing decisions. However, there is little empirical research regarding specific drivers of contract manufacturing, particularly the effect of supplier industry competition on the use of contract manufacturing in the focal industry and how this relationship may be conditioned and moderated by focal industry characteristics. Grounded in Porter's Five-Force Model and Value Chain Perspective, the current study purports to address this research gap through an empirical examination of a panel dataset on all U.S. manufacturing industries, collected from the U.S. Economic Census. Regression results show that contract manufacturing is positively associated with supplier industry competition and the association is further moderated by focal industry competition and IT investment.

Recent catastrophic events have disrupted supply chains around the globe, causing practitioners and academics to look more closely at recovery strategies. Recent examinations of supply chain disruptions focus primarily upon the recovery process and its impacts on firm performance. However, less is known about how supply chain disruptions affect business-to-business (B2B) relationships. This study uses interview data from senior supply chain managers to explore how a firm's disruption recovery processes affect supply chain relationships. Results suggest that firms desire supply chain partner participation in the recovery process and value interpersonal characteristics, including honesty, accessibility, and responsiveness.

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to evaluate the performance effects of information exchange by observing actual information exchange between industrial trading partners. Information exchange facilitates coordination through sharing both order cycle and enhanced information. Increased exchange may lead to closer relationships with the expectation of improved performance. This study moves away from perceived measures of information exchange and firm performance by integrating two datasets: one capturing historical firm performance and the second capturing electronic information exchange data.Design/methodology/approachQuantitative data of electronic information exchange between firms are observed and compared with operational performance results. Longitudinal regression analyses are conducted using data gathered from an electronically‐mediated industrial exchange network. This unique dataset provides distinct insights into the application and performance outcomes related to information exchange.FindingsResults show that information characteristics vary by firm and the position of the firm within the supply chain. Manufacturers benefit from exchanging more basic information and from stability in their trading partner portfolio. Retailers enhance performance when there is more turnover in their trading partner portfolio and when information is exchanged reciprocally with suppliers.Practical implicationsResults from this study provide insight into the potential performance outcomes of sharing information within industrial relationships. The study demonstrates how greater information exchange changes the nature of supply chain relationships. Closer supply chain relationships may improve firm performance, but the extent of this varies based on the firm's position within its supply chain. Consequently, firms should consider the strategic implications of the way in which they exchange information with their trading partners.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the literature by identifying and testing specific information characteristics using actual observed exchanges of information between firms. The data set supports the measurement of information exchange between multiple firms and trading partners which allows for testing at a level of granularity beyond existing studies.

This article examines the performance implications of information exchange in industrial supply chains. While existing literature has addressed the critical role of information exchange in supply chain integration, existing studies fail to address the specific characteristics of information exchange that affect performance. Through a transaction cost economics theoretical lens, hypotheses are developed and tested to explore the effects of information volume and information diversity on firm performance. The hypotheses are tested using an original dataset of twenty-three manufacturing firms that exchange information with their trading partners using an electronic intermediary. Results indicate a positive relationship for information volume and a negative relationship for information diversity as related to firm performance.

This paper examines the importance of tactical and strategic information sharing between supply chain partners. Through a transaction cost economics theoretical lens, we hypothesize that greater tactical and strategic information sharing volumes are associated with greater survival of supply chain relationships. We also hypothesize that a greater ratio of strategic to tactical information sharing is associated with supply chain relationship survival. The hypotheses are tested using an original data set of 42 firms, which include 24 manufacturers, six wholesalers, and twelve retailers. We find support for the two hypotheses that associate tactical and strategic information sharing with relationship survival.

The purpose of the paper is to examine how team support and cohesion mediate the effects of relationship conflict and conflict management on the performance of IT teams. Primary data were collected from students who worked in teams to design systems to be used by real-world enterprises. The data were analyzed using structural equations modeling. The mediators – team support and cohesion – positively affected each other and performance. The results support a full mediation model in which the total effects of conflict and conflict management on team performance are channeled through team support first and then indirectly through cohesion.