Business School Lausanne

Sustainability is now central to corporate legitimacy; yet, its implementation remains uneven—particularly in emerging and fragile institutional contexts characterized by weak enforcement, shifting stakeholder expectations, and fragmented governance. Although research acknowledges that senior executives shape sustainability outcomes, it often relies on structural or demographic proxies and overlooks how leaders actually interpret and address these demands. This conceptual paper develops Executive Sustainability Cognition (ESC) as cognitive governance: the capability through which C-suite leaders select, frame, prioritize, and embed sustainability imperatives when formal institutional guidance is weak or ambiguous. Integrating Upper Echelons Theory, Institutional Theory, Stakeholder Theory, Strategic Leadership Theory, and sensemaking research, the paper develops a four-stage ESC process comprising: (1) attention to sustainability cues (selective noticing and issue admission), (2) framing (meaning construction), (3) prioritization (authorization of strategic trade-offs through commitment and resource allocation), and (4) translation (institutionalizing sustainability through structures, incentives, and culture). Eight testable propositions specify how ESC mediates between external pressures and organizational responses, and how institutional fragility, stakeholder fragmentation, and organizational learning orientation moderate these effects to produce symbolic versus substantive outcomes. By framing executive cognition as a substitute governance mechanism in fragile contexts, the paper offers a context-sensitive framework to guide research and improve sustainability practices in emerging and weak-governance markets.

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ABSTRACT Digital monetary transactions are revolutionizing the way economies operate by enabling faster, more efficient, and cost-effective methods of value exchange. These developments carry significant macroeconomic implications, notably for the velocity of money (VoM). Despite the growing literature on digital payments and macroeconomic variables, the interaction between digital transactions, monetary aggregates, and structural shifts such as the COVID-19 pandemic remains underexplored, especially for developing economies. This study investigates the impact of digital transactions and the COVID-19 pandemic on VoM in Turkey while accounting for a comprehensive set of macroeconomic variables. Employing an Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model with bounds-testing, we find a stable and positive long-run relationship: a 1% increase in digital payments raises VoM by 0.3%. The COVID-19 pandemic has amplified this effect, as lockdowns and social distancing measures have accelerated the adoption of contactless transactions. Among digital banking activities, digital payments emerge as the primary drivers of increased VoM, surpassing money transfers and online credit card use. Moreover, digital banking influences the circulation of currency more than broader monetary aggregates, mainly by displacing physical cash. These results confirm that rising VoM driven by digitalization may require more dynamic and forward-looking liquidity management and closer monitoring of payment systems.

In today's workplace, the proliferation of digital technologies has transformed work tasks but also led to technostress. This stress, associated with technology use, negatively impacts employees' behavioral outcomes and performance. Despite these effects, research on coping strategies for technostress and mitigation methods for individuals and organizations remains limited. This study utilizes the transactional theory of stress and coping to analyze the process of technostress, specifically focusing on defensive routines as a coping mechanism and technology-enabled performance as an outcome. Additionally, the study draws on Job-Demand Resource model to examine two critical moderators: employees' goal orientations and digital leadership. To gather data, we collected multisource data from 221 salespeople and their line managers in Pakistan. The results demonstrate that defensive routines act as a mediator between technostress creators and technology-enabled performance. Furthermore, we found that digital leadership plays a buffering role, alleviating the negative impact of technostress creators on technology-enabled performance. This research significantly contributes to the existing theories on technostress and routine dynamics. • Defensive Routines help salespeople cope with technostress but limit growth. • Digital leadership mitigates technostress impacts on organizations. • Defensive routines obstruct workplace technology adoption efforts.

Digital Twin (DT) technology revolutionises personalised healthcare by creating virtual patient replicas for real-time monitoring, predictive modelling, and tailored treatment planning. This chapter examines the current applications of digital twins in healthcare, emphasising their potential to improve clinical outcomes and reduce costs through precision medicine. Key uses include managing chronic diseases, integrating multi-omics data and medical imaging to customise treatment strategies in personalised cancer care and surgical planning, allowing for the rehearsal of complex procedures and custom implant design. Despite its promise, adopting DTs in healthcare faces challenges, particularly in data privacy, model accuracy, and integrating diverse data sources. Ensuring model reliability and addressing ethical concerns about patient data are essential for widespread adoption. This chapter highlights the need for ongoing research and development to overcome these challenges and fully leverage the potential of DTs in transforming personalised healthcare.

This study examines the factors behind retail banking customers in Hong Kong switching their use of traditional retail banks to digital banks utilizing the push-pull-mooring model. Satisfaction was proposed as a push factor. Utilitarian value, hedonic value and social value were proposed as pull factors. Habit and switching costs were proposed as mooring factors. It was hypothesized that all six factors could impact switching behavior. A quantitative survey was conducted with 360 residents of Hong Kong through an online questionnaire. The hypotheses were analyzed and tested using descriptive and inferential statistics. Utilitarian value, habit, and switching costs were found to be impactful to customer switching behavior using the PLSSEM methodology. Their p values were below the threshold of significance (p < 0.05) at 0.006, 0.001, and 0 respectively. A case study conducted with 12 banking professionals provided further triangulation and insight into these findings. An implication of this study’s findings is that retail banks should pay great attention to the role of utilitarian value to attract customers in Hong Kong.

Digital-first markets have changed how consumers discover, evaluate, and stay loyal to brands. At the same time, enterprises are under pressure to modernize internal management systems so they can sense consumer intent in real time, coordinate decisions across teams, and respond consistently across channels. This paper proposes an Artificial Intelligence-Based Enterprise Management Model for Consumer Psychology (AI-EMMCP) that connects enterprise workflows (planning, operations, finance, supply chain, service) with consumer psychology signals (attitudes, involvement, risk perception, trust, experience, and privacy concerns). Building on research in digital transformation, AI-enabled marketing, customer journey management, behavioral decision theory, and responsible AI, the model introduces a closed-loop architecture: (1) data capture and identity resolution, (2) psychological signal extraction, (3) decision intelligence and orchestration, (4) enterprise execution, and (5) governance and learning. We also outline implementation stages aligned with the “marching towards digital” path: digitization → digitalization → digital transformation. Finally, we propose evaluation metrics and ethical safeguards, emphasizing Explainability, fairness, and privacy-aware personalization. The contribution is a practical, research-grounded blueprint that helps leaders treat consumer psychology as an operational input, not just a marketing concept.