Conference Agenda

This study systematically reviews the literature on the interplay between Management Control Systems (MCS) and Human Resources (HR), to provide a comprehensive overview of available research and identify significant themes, research gaps, and potential avenues for future investigation. In particular, this literature review firstly emphasizes the key role of the behavioral aspects in MCS adoption, such as trust dynamics, peer control, and goal congruence, and then it provides a set of research questions that should be studied by future research.

Distributed manufacturing seeks to improve accessibility, transparency, and inclusivity within manufacturing supply chains, benefiting all stakeholders, including suppliers, customers, and broader communities. However, there exists a significant gap in understanding the involvement of these stakeholders in enabling distributed manufacturing and its integration into the manufacturing value chain to address societal issues such as skills, employment, and inclusivity sustainably. To remain competitive, the manufacturing supply chain sector must embrace digital technologies. However, the digital skills gap in manufacturing highlights a disparity in digital competencies among workers and businesses, hindering the integration of critical technologies such as data analytics, visualisation, automation, and artificial intelligence. Surveying 135 UK manufacturing and engineering businesses revealed shortages in skills related to business analytics, web/app development, and artificial intelligence/machine learning/augmented reality (AI/ML/AR), robotics, and systems integration. Looking ahead, digital technologies such as additive manufacturing, AI/ML/AR, and robotics/process automation are perceived as vital skill sets for the UK economy in the next five years. This research aims to shed light on the current digital skill requirements in the manufacturing supply chain, explore anticipated future digital skill needs, and identify optimal approaches for enhancing digital skills in the future.

The demand for Global Virtual Teams (GVTs) has surged due to global expansion, mobility, and technological advances, especially with the COVID-19 pandemic accelerating the adoption of remote work. As a result, organizations increasingly rely on employees with strong virtual team skills. This shift has led to a renewed interest in reimagining teamwork processes for virtual environments. Concurrently, Design Thinking (DT) has gained prominence as a user-centered problem-solving approach, particularly in addressing complex, "wicked" problems in the 21st century. DT is known for its iterative nature and focus on human needs, making it a valuable strategy for fostering innovation and collaboration. While DT has been widely adopted in business education, there is a lack of research on effectively teaching DT in virtual settings, especially in GVTs. This study describes a design thinking project implemented with global virtual teams and the participants’ perceptions of virtual collaboration technologies. As a result, this research then presents a plan for implementing design thinking strategies with virtual reality, and virtual collaboration spaces in global virtual teams. With this, we intend to contribute to curricula development and course design in the field of Information Systems. The factors that influence the acceptance of virtual collaboration tools, the role trust plays in virtual teams, and how design thinking strategies impact overall team success will all be explored.