Since the early 90s, the evolution of the Business Process Management (BPM) discipline has been punctuated by successive waves of automation technologies. Some of these technologies enable the automation of individual tasks, while others focus on orchestrating the execution of end-to-end processes. The rise of Generative and Agentic Artificial Intelligence (AI) is opening the way for another such wave. However, this wave is poised to be different because it shifts the focus from automation to autonomy and from design-driven management of business processes to data-driven management, leveraging process mining techniques. This position paper, based on a keynote talk at the 2025 Workshop on AI for BPM, outlines how process mining has laid the foundations on top of which agents can sense process states, reason about improvement opportunities, and act to maintain and optimize performance. The paper proposes an architectural vision for Agentic Business Process Management Systems (A-BPMS): a new class of platforms that integrate autonomy, reasoning, and learning into process management and execution. The paper contends that such systems must support a continuum of processes, spanning from human-driven to fully autonomous, thus redefining the boundaries of process automation and governance.
Purpose: The purpose of this study was to validate the academic organizational capacity framework from the perspective of the presidents of public universities in the country.
Methodology: This research was conducted with a quantitative approach and using a descriptive-survey research method. The statistical population included university presidents across the country, and sixty university presidents were selected as the research sample using purposive sampling. The research tool was a scale constructed based on the academic organizational capacity framework of Torkzadeh et al., (2019), whose validity and reliability were examined and confirmed using item analysis and Cronbach's alpha.
Findings: The path coefficients obtained from the first and second order confirmatory factor analysis and related indicators indicate the appropriate fit and validity of the academic organizational capacity framework. Accordingly, the framework, which includes the dimensions of mission, talent management, infrastructure, process, and organizational performance, was assessed as valid from the perspective of university administrators.
Originality: The validation of the organizational capacity framework considered in this study confirms that this framework can assist university administrators and policymakers in identifying, developing, and strengthening academic capacities to improve effectiveness in the higher education ecosystem.
Economic growth, development, planning, Employee participation in management. Employee ownership. Industrial democracy. Works councils
Autonomous control of multi-stage industrial processes requires both local specialization and global coordination. Reinforcement learning (RL) offers a promising approach, but its industrial adoption remains limited due to challenges such as reward design, modularity, and action space management. Many academic benchmarks differ markedly from industrial control problems, limiting their transferability to real-world applications. This study introduces an enhanced industry-inspired benchmark environment that combines tasks from two existing benchmarks, SortingEnv and ContainerGym, into a sequential recycling scenario with sorting and pressing operations. We evaluate two control strategies: a modular architecture with specialized agents and a monolithic agent governing the full system, while also analyzing the impact of action masking. Our experiments show that without action masking, agents struggle to learn effective policies, with the modular architecture performing better. When action masking is applied, both architectures improve substantially, and the performance gap narrows considerably. These results highlight the decisive role of action space constraints and suggest that the advantages of specialization diminish as action complexity is reduced. The proposed benchmark thus provides a valuable testbed for exploring practical and robust multi-agent RL solutions in industrial automation, while contributing to the ongoing debate on centralization versus specialization.
The efficiency of pension schemes in Kenya invites elevated interest owing to the increasing pension contribution amounts and the expectation that benefits paid out of these schemes would protect members from old age poverty. The study investigates the intervening effect of risk management on the relationship between corporate governance and the efficiency of pension schemes in Kenya. The study employs panel data consisting of 896 observations from 128 schemes in a sample period from 2015 to 2021. The study finds that risk management significantly mediates the relationship between employee representatives on the board of trustees, as a component of corporate governance, and the efficiency of pension schemes. Consequently, the mediation effect of risk management indicates that when employee representatives are involved in governance, the presence of strong risk management practices ensures that their contributions lead to improved efficiency. Risk management, therefore, serves as a critical safeguard that enables governance structures to function more effectively and contribute to the overall performance of the scheme.
Many technology companies aim to improve access and inclusion not only by making their products accessible but also by bringing people with disabilities into the tech workforce. We know less about how accessibility is experienced and negotiated by disabled workers within these organizations. Through interviews with 20 BLV workers across various tech companies, we uncover a persistent misalignment between organizational attempts at accessibility and the current realities of these employees. We introduce the concept of the accessibility paradox, which we define as the inherent tension between the productivity- and profit-driven nature of tech companies and their desire to hire and retain disabled workers. Focusing on the experiences of BLV workers, we show how the accessibility paradox manifests in their everyday workplace interactions, including digital infrastructure, accommodations processes and policies, ability assumptions, and competing priorities. We offer recommendations for future research and practice to understand and improve workplace accessibility and inclusion.
This study investigates whether demographic factors shape adoption and attitudes among employees toward artificial intelligence (AI) technologies at work. Building on an extended Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT), which reintroduces affective dimensions such as attitude, self-efficacy, and anxiety, we surveyed 2,257 professionals across global regions and organizational levels within a multinational consulting firm. Non-parametric tests examined whether three demographic factors (i.e., years of experience, hierarchical level in the organization, and geographic region) were associated with AI adoption, usage intensity, and eight UTAUT constructs. Organizational level significantly predicted AI adoption, with senior employees showing higher usage rates, while experience and region were unrelated to adoption. Among AI users (n = 1,256), frequency and duration of use showed minimal demographic variation. However, omnibus tests revealed small but consistent group differences across several UTAUT constructs, particularly anxiety, performance expectancy, and behavioral intention, suggesting that emotional and cognitive responses to AI vary modestly across contexts. These findings highlight that demographic factors explain limited variance in AI acceptance but remain relevant for understanding contextual nuances in technology-related attitudes. The results underscore the need to integrate affective and organizational factors into models of technology acceptance to support equitable, confident, and sustainable engagement with AI in modern workplaces.
This paper presents HERO (Hierarchical Testing with Rabbit Optimization), a novel black-box adversarial testing framework for evaluating the robustness of deep learning-based Prognostics and Health Management systems in Industrial Cyber-Physical Systems. Leveraging Artificial Rabbit Optimization, HERO generates physically constrained adversarial examples that align with real-world data distributions via global and local perspective. Its generalizability ensures applicability across diverse ICPS scenarios. This study specifically focuses on the Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell system, chosen for its highly dynamic operational conditions, complex degradation mechanisms, and increasing integration into ICPS as a sustainable and efficient energy solution. Experimental results highlight HERO's ability to uncover vulnerabilities in even state-of-the-art PHM models, underscoring the critical need for enhanced robustness in real-world applications. By addressing these challenges, HERO demonstrates its potential to advance more resilient PHM systems across a wide range of ICPS domains.
Industrial Control Systems (ICSs) are complex interconnected systems used to manage process control within industrial environments, such as chemical processing plants and water treatment facilities. As the modern industrial environment moves towards Internet-facing services, ICSs face an increased risk of attacks that necessitates ICS-specific Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS). The development of such IDS relies significantly on a simulated testbed as it is unrealistic and sometimes hazardous to utilize an operational control system. Whilst some testbeds have been proposed, they often use a limited selection of virtual ICS simulations to test and verify cyber security solutions. There is a lack of investigation done on developing systems that can efficiently simulate multiple ICS architectures. Currently, the trend within research involves developing security solutions on just one ICS simulation, which can result in bias to its specific architecture. We present ICS-SimLab, an end-to-end software suite that utilizes Docker containerization technology to create a highly configurable ICS simulation environment. This software framework enables researchers to rapidly build and customize different ICS environments, facilitating the development of security solutions across different systems that adhere to the Purdue Enterprise Reference Architecture. To demonstrate its capability, we present three virtual ICS simulations: a solar panel smart grid, a water bottle filling facility, and a system of intelligent electronic devices. Furthermore, we run cyber-attacks on these simulations and construct a dataset of recorded malicious and benign network traffic to be used for IDS development.
Jens Lowitzsch, John D. Menke, Denis Suarsana
et al.
PurposeWith a third of business successions failing, the EU is still confronted with a haemorrhage of around 150,000 enterprises and 600,000 jobs every year. Although 30 years of research have confirmed the positive effects of employee share ownership (ESO) for European enterprises and its important function for business succession, best practice, such as the US ESOP, is thinly spread across the EU. Nevertheless, Member States (MS) have developed a broad variety of ESO schemes involving intermediary entities to acquire and administer employee shares in the employer firm in particular for the transfer of businesses to employees. However, for small and medium enterprise (SME) owners the main barrier is still a lack of clearcut and transparent options to sell their enterprise to their employees and corresponding incentives to do so. In this light, this paper proposes a European approach, that is, a European Employee Stock Ownership Plan (European ESOP).Design/methodology/approachA “Common European ESOP Regime”, as a first step towards a “Common European Regime on EFP” would complement existing national laws aiming primarily at their harmonisation. As the name suggests, this would be a second contract law regime parallel to national legislation on ESO. Its objective is to eliminate obstacles to the single market that mainly, though not exclusively, stem from heterogeneous regulatory density. The existing obstacles are due to the multifarious development of national laws governing employee financial participation (EFP) in the MS. The “Common European ESOP Regime” would offer employers and employees a choice between two alternative EFP regimes one originating in national legislation, the other in European legislation. The choice between these two alternatives would be entirely optional, as in the case of the European Company Statute.FindingsThe European ESOP is modelled on the US ESOP and EU best practices. It embraces six European types of legal vehicles, i.e. the employee ownership trust (EOT), the French employee ownership mutual fund (FCPE), the Austrian civil law foundation, the Spanish Sociedad Laboral, the cooperative and the closely held limited liability company.Originality/valueThe “Common European ESOP regime” would neither replace nor override national legislation but would serve as a cross-border alternative to national laws, to be used at the discretion of the parties involved. Regarding its contents, it would contain best practice rules derived from each of the ESOP vehicles discussed to reflect the entire life cycle of SMEs (starting up, consolidation and succession).
PurposeThis article provides an overview of the different measures promoting EFP schemes that are in place across the EU-27 and the United Kingdom and classifies Member States according to a “success score” given to each measure. “Success” is measured by the degree to which both soft and hard criteria have contributed to promotion of EFP in different countries.Design/methodology/approachThe article assesses the progress of EFP in EU 27 and the UK using three indicators: (i) legal framework, (ii) fiscal incentives and (iii) political support and social dialogue to obtain an overall score for each country both for ESO and PS. Countries are then grouped into clusters, showing that a significant number of countries have made progress in the spread of both ESO and PS.FindingsESO is much less frequently used in Europe than e.g. in the US. If this still largely unexploited potential is to be harnessed, further development of financial participation, ESO in particular, should be part of an overall European strategy for stimulating sustainable and inclusive growth of the EU economy. A generally favourable attitude in some countries has usually led to supportive legislation for EFP schemes, which, in turn, have led to the spread of these schemes. Tax incentives are important tools for enhancing and broadening financial participation. When properly designed, they promote the spread of EFP effectively.Originality/valueAssessing the progress of EFP schemes in EU 27 and the UK using the three indicators (i) legal framework, (ii) fiscal incentives and (iii) political support and social dialogue, we obtain an overall score for each country both for ESO and PS and compare it with those produced in 2014. We can show that in as many as twelve countries, i.e. 44% of MS, there was a positive change in their overall score between 2014 and 2024.
Viscous democracy is a generalization of liquid democracy, a social choice framework in which voters may transitively delegate their votes. In viscous democracy, a "viscosity" factor decreases the weight of a delegation the further it travels, reducing the chance of excessive weight flowing between ideologically misaligned voters. We demonstrate that viscous democracy often significantly improves the quality of group decision-making over liquid democracy. We first show that finding optimal delegations within a viscous setting is NP-hard. However, simulations allow us to explore the practical effects of viscosity. Across social network structures, competence distributions, and delegation mechanisms we find high viscosity reduces the chance of "super-voters" attaining large amounts of weight and increases the number of voters that are able to affect the outcome of elections. This, in turn, improves group accuracy as a whole. As a result, we argue that viscosity should be considered a core component of liquid democracy.
Most AI tools adopted by governments are not developed internally, but instead are acquired from third-party vendors in a process called public procurement. In this paper, we conduct the first empirical study of how United States cities' procurement practices shape critical decisions surrounding public sector AI. We conduct semi-structured interviews with 19 city employees who oversee AI procurement across 7 U.S. cities. We found that cities' legacy procurement practices, which are shaped by decades-old laws and norms, establish infrastructure that determines which AI is purchased, and which actors hold decision-making power over procured AI. We characterize the emerging actions cities have taken to adapt their purchasing practices to address algorithmic harms. From employees' reflections on real-world AI procurements, we identify three key challenges that motivate but are not fully addressed by existing AI procurement reform initiatives. Based on these findings, we discuss implications and opportunities for the FAccT community to support cities in foreseeing and preventing AI harms throughout the public procurement processes.
Fathi Fakhfakh, Nathalie Magne, Thibault Mirabel
et al.
Purpose France is the third country in Europe after Italy and Spain for the number of employee-owned firms, with some 2,600 worker cooperatives (SCOPs). The authors propose a comprehensive review of SCOPs and any barriers to their expansion.Design/methodology/approach The authors analyse relevant legislation; review the rich empirical economic literature on SCOPs; and offer new descriptive empirical evidence comparing SCOPs and other French firms.Findings SCOPs benefit from a consistent legal framework and a well-structured and supportive cooperative movement. Cooperative laws allow attracting external capital, provide barriers against degeneration and encourage profit allocations that favour investment and labour. SCOPs are distributed across a wide range of industries; are larger than conventional firms, as capital intensive, more productive and survive better. Despite this good performance their number remains modest, perhaps because of information barriers.Research limitations/implications An examination of the Italian and Spanish experiences and the relationship between SCOPs and the French labour movement might contribute to explaining the modest number of SCOPs.Originality/value The first comprehensive review of French worker cooperatives in four decades and the first with extensive comparative data on SCOPs and conventional French firms. With some of the best data on worker cooperatives in the world, findings have international relevance.
Maryam Tehrani, Akbar Hassanpoor, Saeed Jafarinia
et al.
Background & Purpose: Organizational fear has a negative impact on the employee performance at work, creates a silent culture, delays decision-making, and prevents innovation and development in the organization. The aim of this research is to provide a comprehensive model of fear management in financial organizations.Methodology: To obtain the main purpose of the study, grounded theory method was used. Participants of the study were experts in public and private organizations in financial industry that are active in Tehran, from which 20 experts were selected as a statistical sample through a purposeful sampling method.Findings: Based on the results, the central category was explained in three subcategories of communication, functional and motivational dimensions. Causal conditions were classified in the form of 2 categories of intra and extra-organizational factors, background conditions in the form of two categories of social and technological background, and intervening conditions in the form of two categories of economic conditions of society and psychological conditions triggering organizational fear. Actions-reactions were identified in the form of four categories of managing the roots of fear in employees, human resources management measures, behavioral reforms, and cultural measures. Finally, the consequences were explained in four categories of functional, behavioral, structural, and social damages.Conclusion: Using this model, managers can take steps in the field of understanding the organizational fear of employees, and in order to prevent or treat it, they can also take measures to identify and define the factors that cause fear, and finally in order to deal with organizational fear, they can reform the structure and culture.
Employee participation in management. Employee ownership. Industrial democracy. Works councils
Arezoo Sohrabi, Hamid reza Yazdani, Amin Hakim
et al.
Background & Purpose: Big data technology in human resources is one of the emerging technologies created by the growth of data and information volume. The use of big data has been used in other fields of management, including business and sales as well as industrial management, but it is not well known in the field of human resource management. The idea behind data-driven human resources is to help the human resources managers make smarter decisions regarding the organization and activities in the field of human resources and play the role of a strategic partner. Nevertheless, despite its importance and necessity in the field of human resources management, practical insight and its results have not been used that much. One of the most important reasons is the lack of a proper roadmap and methodology for designing and implementing its analysis. Thus, the purpose of this research is to provide a roadmap for designing and implementing analysis in the field of human resource management.Methodology: In line with this goal, this research has been done using a Meta-synthesis qualitative method. The data collection tool in the present study is past documents in this field, which generally includes 60 articles. The method of data analysis is based on open coding.Findings: The results indicate that the roadmap for analysis in the field of human resource management includes three layers of infrastructure, processes and goals. Infrastructure layer includes technical and operational factors, human capital factors, managerial and leadership factors and organizational and structural factors; The process layer includes three main categories of support activities, core activities and evaluation and development activities; and the objective layer includes decision-making, creating value for human resource, improving organizational performance, maintaining and promoting human capital, and predicting job and behavioral attitudes.Conclusion: The presented road map can be used as a practical guide and executive action for the managers and professionals in the field of organizational human resources so that they can identify the necessity of examining the massive amount of data in this field and discover practical insight, work methods, and executive actions from excellent results and use it prominently in all actions and activities in the field of human resources.
Employee participation in management. Employee ownership. Industrial democracy. Works councils
Sepideh Bahadoripour, Ethan MacDonald, Hadis Karimipour
The growing number of cyber-attacks against Industrial Control Systems (ICS) in recent years has elevated security concerns due to the potential catastrophic impact. Considering the complex nature of ICS, detecting a cyber-attack in them is extremely challenging and requires advanced methods that can harness multiple data modalities. This research utilizes network and sensor modality data from ICS processed with a deep multi-modal cyber-attack detection model for ICS. Results using the Secure Water Treatment (SWaT) system show that the proposed model can outperform existing single modality models and recent works in the literature by achieving 0.99 precision, 0.98 recall, and 0.98 f-measure, which shows the effectiveness of using both modalities in a combined model for detecting cyber-attacks.
Fikret Basic, Christian Steger, Christian Seifert
et al.
With the advent of clean energy awareness and systems that rely on extensive battery usage, the community has seen an increased interest in the development of more complex and secure Battery Management Systems (BMS). In particular, the inclusion of BMS in modern complex systems like electric vehicles and power grids has presented a new set of security-related challenges. A concern is shown when BMS are intended to extend their communication with external system networks, as their interaction can leave many backdoors open that potential attackers could exploit. Hence, it is highly desirable to find a general design that can be used for BMS and its system inclusion. In this work, a security architecture solution is proposed intended for the communication between BMS and other system devices. The aim of the proposed architecture is to be easily applicable in different industrial settings and systems, while at the same time keeping the design lightweight in nature.
PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the type of governance dominant within employee-owned companies established as an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOPs) and to ascertain if governance follows the agency or stewardship theory of governance.Design/methodology/approachA sequential mixed method (Quantitative/Qualitative) research design was used with a convenience sample of employee-owned companies who were members of The ESOP Association (TEA). The Stewardship Climate Scale (SCS) was used as the quantitative instrument and structured interviews were used as the qualitative instrument.FindingsA majority (96%) of ESOPs participating in the study self-identified as stewardship governance, only 6 of the 154 companies (4%) self-identified as having agency governance.Research limitations/implicationsThere is a potential of self-report bias based on the use of convenience sampling which should be minimized based on the large number of participants. The study was not able to examine the relationship between stewardship and productivity.Originality/valueThis is the first large scale research study examining governance within employee-owned companies.