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This paper aims to discuss the strategic role of telehealth technologies in managing the COVID-19 pandemic.

This is a viewpoint paper, based on opportune information published and discussed by scholars and managers from different sources; the authors gathered this information to discuss the implications of telehealth during the outbreak.

Based on examples and benchmarking, the authors found that it is possible to lean on telehealth technologies as a frontline ally to avoid the spread of the virus by tracking, testing and treating (3T’s model).

Together with information published on COVID-19, the authors present their critical observations on the use of telehealth. However, the authors acknowledge that there are restrictions on the use of new technologies in health-care practices that were not addressed by this paper, and they suggest further research to address this limitation.

Governments, health-care organizations and managers are encouraged to take advantage of the information published in this paper. One of the benefits of telehealth is the possibility of bringing patients and physicians together virtually, without the need for physical contact. Henceforth, the authors suggest a more comprehensive implementation of best practices from telehealth to relieve congested health-care facilities and to avoid the risk of further infection.

The economic and social impacts of the virus are considered unprecedented by governments worldwide. Therefore, the authors advocate that telehealth practices embedded in health-care practices relieve the pressure that naturally arise during this type of critical event.

In this timely paper, the authors provide invaluable information related to the impact of telehealth technologies on flattening the infection curve of COVID-19.

Service networks are inherently complex as they comprise of many interrelated actors, often driven by divergent interests. This can result in imbalance, which refers to a situation where the interests of at least one actor in a network are not secured. Drawing on the “balanced centricity” perspective, the purpose of this paper is to explore the causes of imbalance in complex service networks.

Adopting a qualitative case-based approach, this paper examines a public health service network that experienced imbalance that was detrimental to the lives of its users: the Mid-Staffordshire National Health Service (NHS) Trust, UK. Drawing on service-dominant logic and stakeholder theory, case evidence provides insight into the origin and drivers of imbalance in complex public service networks.

The origin of imbalance stems from competing institutional logics of various actors (patients/public, employees, managers, regulatory bodies, etc.), but the degree to which these competing institutional logics lead to imbalance is moderated by accountability, communication, engagement, and responsiveness within the service network.

By uncovering causes of imbalance in complex public service networks, this paper pinpoints important research avenues for developing the balanced centricity perspective.

The inherent existence of multiple parallel institutional arrangements makes networks imbalanced, but value creation can be achieved when the appropriate mechanisms are fostered to manage balance between divergent logics.

By examining imbalance as the underlying cause of network dysfunction, this research contributes to understanding of the dynamics in, and performance of, complex public service networks.

Public service organizations (PSOs) face a critical dilemma: how to generate more value for society but with a much-reduced resource base. The article advances the strategy axis of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) research by examining EO and proactive market orientation (PMO) as joint-strategic approaches to this end, and how the characteristics of public managers may moderate the paths to value creation.

The article draws on a unique survey-based dataset developed from Brazilian PSOs and employs structural equation modelling for hypotheses testing. Post-hoc analysis, by way of analysis of variance, demonstrates the joint impact of the two strategic approaches on public service performance level.

Entrepreneurial and PMOs are revealed as routes to enhanced service performance, but managers’ domain expertise negatively moderates these relationships. Post-hoc analysis reveals how organizations displaying higher levels of both orientations realize superior performance, relative to those favouring either/or.

The study contributes new evidence for EO model specificity by examining a narrowly bounded sample of PSOs; addresses the neglect of other outcome variables beyond traditional performance, showing the value of EO for society and offers new insights to the managerial conditions that moderate the positive synergies between EO, PMO and service performance.

Customer experience is more critical than ever to firms’ successes and future growth opportunities. Typically measured through aggregate satisfaction scores, businesses have been criticized for oversimplifying what experience means. The purpose of this study is to provide a new perspective on experience management and offers a novel way forward for customer-centric strategizing.

Mapping the current digital technologies being used across businesses in all sectors to engage and connect with customers more effectively, this paper outlines some of the fundamental challenges of experience management and future opportunities to enhance business practice.

Businesses are capturing what they know about customers, rather than what a customer thinks and feels about the firm. Many experience management initiatives create customer pains (not gains), while for businesses, decision-making can be jeopardized by fake customer data. A framework based upon the five experience dimensions is presented for optimal customer-driven decision-making.

Going beyond aggregate satisfaction scores that serve as an output rather than an input into businesses strategizing, the paper presents an actionable framework for targeted investments and enhanced experience management practices.

Businesses are seeking to grow intelligent customer experience analysis capabilities to disrupt traditional business models toward greater customer-centricity and to track the digital spread of positive and negative experiences. Examining how this is being done and where the weaknesses lie by bridging management practice and the scientific literature, this paper provides new knowledge to advance customer-centric strategies for growth and profitability.

It is known from research that the right context can help managers develop an ambidextrous approach. But just as few of us are naturally ambidextrous, many managers fail to balance conformity and change during strategy implementation. This paper aims to investigate why.

Through a qualitative study of managers of an international airline, the authors examine a series of cultural barriers that constrain managers’ agile decision-making and stop managerial ambidexterity.

The authors identify six culturally ingrained practices that block managerial ambidexterity: top management’s unwavering emphasis on cost control when survival hinges on fresh investments; little or no scanning of the environment for new areas of opportunity; intensive planning oriented toward efficiency issues; functional structures characterized by extensive division of labor; centralized control; and formal hierarchical communication channels.

Managers find it difficult to put into practice new initiatives, particularly when the proposed initiatives counter the underlying cultural world of the organization. The authors suggest that this dark side of culture can pose tough barriers for ambidextrous action.

There is an urgent need for organizations to be aware of the possible misalignments between ambidextrous pursuits and the cultural forces that actually drive action. A deep understanding of their organization’s cultural universe is a crucial first step for managers aspiring to better engage with ambidexterity and outwit and outperform competitors.

Different strategic approaches need not be viewed as irreconcilable. If cultural elements do not block it, managerial ambidexterity can showcase innovative approaches to reconciling trade-offs in strategic decision-making.

The direct selling model adopted in the beauty and cosmetics industry puts female consumer entrepreneurs at the heart of the business model. A neglected phenomenon in female entrepreneurship, this study aims to focus on female sales agents’ capabilities that are linked to sales performance and examine which capabilities might be shaped and enhanced through coaching and training in an emerging economy context.

Survey data were generated from a sample of 249 female sales agents who agreed to participate in a coaching and training programme run by a focal firm. Data were collected in two phases to investigate the capabilities linked to sales performance pre-intervention and the impact of coaching and training on the relationships between the capabilities and sales performance post-intervention. The time-lag data were analysed using partial least squares structural equation modelling.

For female sales agents, self-efficacy and sales experience have a significant positive effect on adaptive sales performance both before and after the coaching and training intervention. In contrast, intellectual capital and self-motivation had a non-significant relationship with sales performance before the intervention. However, after the intervention, the relationship between these variables became positive and significant.

The study demonstrates the effects of pre- and post-coaching and training on female consumer entrepreneurs’ capabilities and the links to sales performance. These findings add critical empirical knowledge on how female consumer entrepreneurship may be developed and the role of entrepreneurship for female empowerment in the Asian context. Collectively, the findings bring to the fore the female sphere in consumer entrepreneurship research in emerging economies.

While the strategic management literature extols the virtues of engaging in strategic planning for superior performance, how a dynamic strategic planning capability can be developed remains underexplored; a knowledge void addressed by the paper through applying knowledge-based theory.

A mail survey was sent to high technology firms randomly sampled from the Kompass Directory of UK businesses. Firms were sampled at the SBU level, given the focus on strategic planning capability.

An organization’s strategic planning capability derives from extensive information distribution and organizational memory. While learning values is non-significant, symbolic information use degrades the development of a strategic planning capability.

By investigating the contributory activities that lead to strategic planning capability development, the findings establish how strategic planning materializes in organizations. Further, the differential effects found for knowledge management activities on strategic planning capability development extend empirical studies that suggest knowledge is always a central tenet of strategic planning.

A set of key knowledge activities is identified that managers must address for strategic planning capability development: strategic planning routines and values of search, analysis and assessment should be appropriately informed by investments in knowledge dissemination and memory on a continual basis. Meanwhile, information misuse compromises strategic planning capabilities, and managers must protect against out-of-context or manipulated information from infiltrating into organizational memory.

Despite the advent of the knowledge-based theory and its core premise that capabilities derive from knowledge management activities, little research has been conducted into demonstrating the knowledge-based antecedents of a strategic planning capability.

In providing a fine-grained analysis of public service management, the purpose of this paper is to make an important contribution to furthering research in service management, a body of literature that has tended to regard public services as homogenous or to neglect the context altogether.

Integrating public management and service management literatures, the past and present of public service management are discussed. Future directions for the field are outlined drawing on a service-dominant approach that has the potential to transform public services. Invited commentaries augment the review.

The review presents the Public Service Network Framework to capture the public value network in its abstraction and conceptualizes how value is created in public services. The study identifies current shortcomings in the field and offers a series of directions for future research where service management theory can contribute greatly.

The review encourages service management research to examine the dynamic, diverse, and complex nature of public services and to recognize the importance of this context. The review calls for an interdisciplinary public service management community to develop, and to assist public managers in leveraging service logic.

The review positions service research in the public sector, makes explicit the role of complex networks in value creation, argues for wider engagement with public service management, and offers future research directions to advance public service management research.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of intermediate knowledge mechanisms on the participative leadership–employee exploratory innovation relationship using a distal mediation model.

Deploying a time-lagged questionnaire method implemented over four business quarters, data are generated from 1,600 responses in R&D units of Taiwanese technology firms.

The structural equation modeling results reveal that participative leadership is positively related to employee exploratory innovation; coworker knowledge and absorptive capacity partially mediate the relationship between participative leadership and employee exploratory innovation independently; and coworker knowledge sharing in combination with absorptive capacity partially mediates this relationship.

The findings contribute new knowledge on the relationship between participative leadership and employee exploratory innovation by uncovering intermediate knowledge mechanisms that augment this relationship.

This special issue seeks to create an interdisciplinary community of researchers applying decision-making theory to the international marketing context. The articles published in this special issue contain cutting-edge conceptual and empirical studies that enhance existing knowledge on international marketing decision-making.

Thirty-six (36) manuscripts were submitted to the editorial office focusing on a broad range of international marketing decision-making. Following a thorough review process, a collection of five original empirical studies on different facets of international marketing decision-making from multiple theoretical, contextual and methodological perspectives are included in this Special Issue.

Overall, the combined evidence presented in this Special Issue shows that the general field of international marketing decision-making is starting to mature. Evidence from the contributors to this Special Issue shows that researchers have taken inspiration from both the past and the present when designing and crafting their research and, by doing so, they have collectively contributed to new knowledge in terms of international marketing decision-making principles, decision-maker personality traits, the consequences of international marketing decisions and cross-cultural differences with regards to decision-making influences and behavior.

With few exceptions, not much is known about how international marketing decisions are made. Yet, the way international marketing decisions are made is critical for international marketing success. This sphere of international marketing decision-making research, while relatively anemic, is typically underpinned by behavioral economic theories of decision-making, such that a duality in decision-making processes is identified. Nevertheless, international marketing and management studies are dominated by the planning paradigm, while in practice, managers often see the attempt to deviate from planning as irresponsible and dangerous. The articles included in this special issue have addressed major unanswered questions regarding the content and processes of international marketing decision-making.