Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide practitioners and researchers a more condensed and structured perspective on the adoption of information management systems by the health-care industry, given the spread and the increased amount of research concerning the topic. Design/methodology/approach: This paper is a literature review. A Technology (What?) – Context and before adoption Analysis (When and Why?) – Implementation (How?) – Outcomes (What for?) framework is used to present the trends concerning information technology adoption in an accessible manner. Findings: The main finding is that small or large health-care organizations should no longer focus on information systems’ adoption but should adopt a digital transformation paradigm. By considering this paradigm, management practices related to information technologies’ adoption projects should be complemented by practices related to the continuous organizational changes and readaptation of the organizational strategy, to benefit the advantages information systems can offer. Practical implications: The main recommendation for health-care industry managers is to adopt specific practices to manage the digital transformation process of their organizations, as they should understand that it is no longer about adopting information technologies, but about managing the associated organizational change. Originality/value: Instead of focusing on specific information systems’ adoption as other papers do, this paper provides a holistic understanding of the information technologies and management practices which are used in the field.

Purpose: This paper reviews existing research to understand when, how and with what results robotic process automation (RPA) is implemented by organizations.Design/methodology/approach: The authors have identified 84 sources across eight databases and have analyzed them through the lens of a context–intervention–mechanism–outcomes framework (CIMO). The CIMO analysis maps the contextual drivers, intervention approaches and value related outcomes associated with RPA implementation.Findings: The result of the analysis is the identification of four mechanisms explaining the approach organizations take to implement RPA: digitizing business processes, performing knowledge work together with humans, replacing outsourcing with RPA robots and developing a new business model. Therefore, in this paper, in order to reduce RPA literature fragmentation, the authors take into account the digital transformation (DT) perspective, by considering RPA as one example of digital technology.Practical implications: This study sensitize organizational adopters to the different mechanisms they can deploy to conduct RPA implementations to achieve different desired outcomes in response to different drivers. Moreover, having a clear picture of the key enablers and associated barriers to the realization of these alternative paths serve as a useful map to guide the implementation process.Originality/value: The findings contribute to DT research by conceptualizing these mechanisms through which organizations deploy automation tools—such as RPA.

Nowadays, when there is much concern about the demographic decline of Europe and the stringent need for public policies that support intelligent, sustainable, and inclusive growth in times of population ageing, this study aims to validate several hypotheses regarding the post-graduation migration intentions of students in economics. To analyse these intentions in the context of Romanian yearly increases of out-migration flows to Western countries, the answers to the questionnaire used for this study were obtained from three important Romanian universities. Using georeferencing, neural networks-based data mining, and two types of regression analysis, the results represent a relevant contribution to the limited body of literature. They empirically show that motivations and attitudes towards a meritocratic environment for professional advancement, and individual freedom are positive key factors for students’ migration intentions after graduation. In addition, the paper emphasises the secondary role of religiosity and intergenerational transfer of parental migration experience. It also finds that, although the income level has some influence on these intentions, its role is far less important than the one emphasised in the specific literature, which leads us to the conclusion that non-economic motivations matter more than the economic ones for the potential decision to migrate after graduation.

By considering the recently proposed definitions and metrics, oral healthcare quality management (OHQM) emerges as a distinct field in the wider healthcare area. The goal of this paper is to systematically review quality management initiatives (QMIs) implementation by dental clinics. The research methodology approach is a review of 72 sources that have been analyzed using the Context–Intervention–Mechanism–Outcome Framework (CIMO). The analysis identifies five mechanisms that explain how quality management initiatives are implemented by dental clinics. The simplest QMIs implementations are related to (1) overall quality. The next ones, in terms of complexity, are related to (2) patient satisfaction, (3) service quality, (4) internal processes improvement, and (5) business outcomes. This paper is the first attempt to provide a critical review of this topic and represents an important advancement by providing a theoretical framework that explains how quality management is implemented by practitioners in this field. The results can be used by scholars for advancing their studies related to this emerging research area and by healthcare managers in order to better implement their quality management initiatives.