Search results

This paper aims to build on opportunity identification and resource-based view theory, this paper examines the internationalization process of family firms. The role of innovativeness in influencing the internationalization rate of family firms is explored in terms of customer responsiveness, proactiveness and risk-taking.

Multiple case studies were carried out with several family businesses in the information technology industry in Australia.

The findings of this research suggest that innovativeness of family firms depends on responsiveness to customer needs in the international market while involving a degree of risk-taking. In addition, the results suggest family firms are not proactive in their pursuit of international market opportunities.

If family firms focus more on becoming more innovative, then they will stand a better chance to successfully enter more international markets.

The paper highlights the need for family firms to embrace their innovativeness as a distinctive capability for their internationalization efforts. Several new research directions that may enhance the understanding of family firm innovation and internationalization are suggested.

This paper investigates the effect of diversity management on employees' innovative work behavior (IWB) through human resource management (HRM) and affective commitment (AC).

Data were collected from 358 employees of small- and medium-sized enterprises in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. The hypothesized model has been evaluated using structural equation modeling.

Findings suggest that workforce diversity management directly and significantly affected HRM and AC. Furthermore, findings revealed that HRM significantly influenced both employees' IWB and AC, while AC had a significant positive influence on IWB. Moreover, concerning the indirect effects, AC and HRM significantly mediated the relationship between DM and employees' IWB.

A cross-sectional single source dataset is used to evaluate the hypothesized model.

Grounded in the social exchange and institutional theories, this research fills the gap in the literature by addressing the “black box” of how workforce DM influences employees' IWB while examining the mediating role of employees' AC and firm HRM policies.

While the contribution of educational students to the economies of developed countries is critical, educational immigrants rarely find employment in the regulated unionized sectors of these countries and are found instead setting up their own business. The purpose of this paper is to understand how educational immigrants use their cultural and social heritage for entrepreneurial purposes.

A qualitative method was undertaken, comprising face-to-face in-depth interviews with 12 respondents, involved in the hospitality industry for various purposes such as inspiration, challenges, frustrations and attracting investments. A convenience sampling method coupled with snowball sampling was chosen because of the availability of the informants and their willingness to be a part of the study. A thematic analysis was conducted in the transcripts of interviews to understand the aim and motivation factors of each individual followed by content analysis process.

The findings reveal that, while the informants suffer of language barriers, lack or shortage of experience in understanding the laws and legislations, unfamiliarity with the host culture, as well as financial constraints, the entrepreneurial sprite drives them to establish their businesses.

This study has important consequences for understanding how educational immigrants transition from an educational to a business setting.

As the increase in educational immigrants becomes more important to the economic and social performance of countries, it is important to understand how young entrepreneurs start their businesses.

Educational immigrants are an important source of regional innovation and development. This paper focuses on the role of international higher education and the link to entrepreneurship by focusing on young Chinese entrepreneurs.

The purpose of this paper is to review the literature on women’s entrepreneurship and internationalization in order to build an understanding about future trends. There is increasing interest in the role of women in entrepreneurship yet little research has been conducted about the link to internationalization patterns.

The literature is reviewed based on a systematic analysis of the words women, female, gender and internationalization.

Three main schools of thought around women’s entrepreneurship and internationalization (philosophy, management and motivations) are then discussed. The analysis of literature and classification into main theories enables the building of new research around women’s entrepreneurship and internationalization.

There is a pipeline of women intending to become entrepreneurs so this paper helps to understand how women entrepreneurs influence internationalization patterns and how to help support women in their business endeavors.

Does internal integration extend to business continuity and to managing supply chain disruptions (SCDs)? Despite the voluminous literature on supply chain integration, evidence on its effectiveness on risk management and disruption response is scant. The purpose of this paper is to assess the effectiveness of business continuity management (BCM) and of supply chain involvement in BCM (SCiBCM) on reputational and operational damage containment in the face of SCDs.

This study draws on Simons’ Levers of Control framework to explain how the involvement of supply chain in BCM affects firm capabilities in containing damages caused by major SCDs. The authors develop and test hypotheses by analyzing large-scale questionnaire responses from 448 European companies.

Results of the data analysis suggest that BCM improves reputational damage containment, whereas SCiBCM improves operational damage containment. The findings also show that the significant effects of BCM and SCiBCM on reputational and operational damage containment, respectively, were amplified for the firms facing higher supply chain vulnerability. Post-hoc analysis further reveals the complementarity effect between BCM and SCiBCM for the companies exposed to high supply chain vulnerability.

Evidence on the effects of BCM and its internal integration on performance is limited. This study offers empirical evidence on the topic. Also, while supply chain integration can improve information sharing and coordination, some may not fully recognize its potential benefits in addressing SCDs. This study theoretically and empirically demonstrates the role played by internal integration, in the form of SCiBCM, in improving organizational damage containment efforts.

Grounded in stewardship theory, this study explores the motives, actions and meanings of multiple stakeholders involved in an inter-family hospitality family firm succession.

A longitudinal, ethnographic case study approach collects data from 15 in-depth interviews, one year of observation and a one-month on-site internship.

Results show that a well-defined succession plan and the active involvement of the successor/s in the succession process would foster a strong stewardship commitment to the family business. Moreover, a clear and open communication strategy is required to strategically manage rivalry and competition among potential successors during an inter-family succession.

The succession process of family firms remains an intensely discussed phenomenon, and despite its importance to the tourism and hospitality industry, the intersection between tourism and hospitality and family business literature is sparse. Notably, the tourism and hospitality literature lacks a multiple stakeholder perspective to holistically capture the motives, actions and meanings of numerous stakeholders involved in an inter-family succession.

Despite the undisputed importance of organizational innovation and decades of academic research on the subject, there is surprisingly little agreement on what innovativeness is or how to achieve successful innovation in practice. Furthermore, the difference between the theory and practice is often interpreted in an ad hoc manner, which limits the potential for innovation to provide a competitive advantage. This research aims to explore perceptions of innovativeness from the perspective of senior managers in the hotel industry from a sample of 11 high-class hotels located in the developing country of Iran.

A stratified purposeful sampling method will be employed, in which in-depth interviews with top managers and owners will be carried out over a five-month period. Meaning units (MUs) will be extracted, which are compared and discussed with the interviewees until a basic agreement of terms can be made.

The findings relate to themes such as Leavitt's diamond of task, structure, people and technology, with technology featuring quite strongly in a number of responses. It reflects how top managers and owners perceive that innovativeness can gain a competitive advantage by differentiating one hotel from another; and the role of national culture in developing that advantage. There are implications that a strong relationship with government and local business stakeholders could underpin innovativeness at local and regional level.

This research provides a valuable contribution to the understanding of some important drivers of innovativeness in the context of the hotel industry in a developing country.

The purpose of this study is to assess the effect of three key inter-firm orientations often regarded as central and challenging capabilities within the marketing literature namely (i) market orientation, (ii) entrepreneurial orientation and (iii) brand orientation and their effects on the business performance of a focal international SME.

The study is based upon a sample of 104 Swiss international firms and a questionnaire is used to capture their inter-firm marketing collaborations. Existing, well-established scales for market, brand, and entrepreneurial orientation were used and modified to capture the inter-firm dimension. The data was analysed using regression analysis.

Inter-firm market and entrepreneurial orientation have a significant positive influence of both market and financial performance. However, no significant impact was found for inter-firm brand orientation.

We show that collaboration within the marketing area is of critical importance for international SME in order to enhance their performance. Dealing with the increasing complexity and uncertainty in the global environment, we argue that international SMEs are especially dependent on improving their marketing collaborations in order to strengthen their competitive advantage. One main contribution is also to conceptualize and operationalize inter-firm marketing collaborations into a measurable empirical phenomenon, including scales that can also be used by other researchers in future studies.

There is growing concern about the performance of public organizations (POs) in developing countries. Despite the fact that the advantages of innovation and learning orientation to organizations have been evidently documented in Western economies and private owned enterprises, there has been little research into these practices and their impact on enhancing competitive advantages in POs in transitional economies such as Iran. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of innovation and learning orientation on performance of POs in Iran.

This paper draws on theory from innovation and learning orientation in conjunction with a strategic-centered model to carry out a survey-based study of 127 senior level managers (e.g. CEOs, planning, finance, HR and marketing managers) of POs and/or their cluster companies in six major developed and developing cities of Iran.

The research findings show that learning orientation and innovativeness leads to better PO performance and should be encouraged. More specifically, the results suggest that higher levels of learning orientation and innovativeness led these organizations to higher levels of delivery speed, cost improvement, and quality confidence in firm future PO performance.

Data were gathered via a questionnaire administered to senior level managers of some POs and/or their clusters in some cities in Iran. Further research is required to understand the contextual factors that influence internal company culture. For example, there are relatively few women in managerial positions in Iranian companies; and the impact of a restricted business environment appears to vary from service to retail and manufacturing industries.

This study is important for managers of public sectors. From empirical evidence, the authors found that PO managers must consider innovativeness and learning as two crucial strategic capabilities for a superior and sustainable performance.

The study provides insights into the types of activities that PO management should undertake in order to enhance economic performance.

Whilst researchers have explored the relationship between innovativeness and business performance in different organizations, such studies in services such as restaurants are scarce. The purpose of this paper is to examine potential influences of innovativeness on effectiveness and efficiency and their subsequent effects on restaurant business performance.

Data for this study were collected through personal interviews from 211 Iranian restaurants to examine the interrelationships between innovativeness, effectiveness and efficiency as well as service business performance dimensions (i.e. profit goal achievement, sales goal achievement and return on investment achievement).

The findings provide a fresh insight by exploring innovativeness, effectiveness and efficiency and how these determinants affect the business performance of restaurants.

This study is limited to Iranian restaurants in a cross sectional manner, using self‐report measures indicating that the results might be idiosyncratic and subject to individual differences. Implications for future research in innovativeness in practice are discussed. This paper contributes to knowledge regarding the impact of innovativeness on effectiveness and efficiency and extends the findings of Chan et al. regarding the influences of effectiveness and efficiency on business performance.

Managers should consider the important roles that operating effectiveness and cost efficiency play in the innovativeness‐performance relationship.

The paper provides a good example of innovation, effectiveness and efficiency in the service industry.