Search results

In recent decades, organizations globally have faced challenges in adopting disruptive innovation. This chapter explores the relationship between change management and adopting disruptive innovations. Through a systematic analysis of existing literature, common themes and trends in this field are identified. The present study employs a bibliometric and content analysis of 77 publications to analyze the role of change management in the adoption of disruptive innovation. Additionally, a framework is presented to facilitate the understanding of how change management influences the adoption of disruptive innovations within organizations. The research highlights that embracing disruptive innovation is not straightforward; it demands a well-thought-out change management approach. This approach should emphasize cultivating an environment that encourages and nurtures innovation. Creating a culture that empowers employees to take risks and explore new ideas is crucial. Additionally, organizational culture, leadership, communication, and employee engagement emerge as critical factors for the successful adoption of disruptive innovations in the workplace. In summary, it is important to recognize that the successful adoption of disruptive innovations within organizations relies on the successful implementation of change management initiatives.

This study explores the critical role of strategic leadership in driving organizational innovation amid rapid technological advancements. It delves into how strategic leaders, including top management teams and CEOs, capitalize on technological changes to foster innovation and sustain competitiveness. By employing bibliometric analysis, the research identifies pivotal themes within strategic leadership literature, highlighting the importance of adaptable leadership styles, executive influence, and the emergent role of social capital. The study underscores the necessity for strategic leaders to dynamically adjust their strategies to navigate the evolving technological landscape effectively. Through an extensive review, it offers insights into how leadership practices can drive organizational success in an era of technological disruption. This research not only extends the theoretical framework of strategic leadership in the context of technological innovation but also offers practical implications for leaders aiming to cultivate a culture of innovation within their organizations.

Every organization must deal with new challenges such as automation, digitization, or structural transformation, which requires a highly resilient and engaged workforce to stay competitive. Strong leadership in a firm and specific abilities of the leader are necessary to manage uncertainties and to be able to react to certain changes. Various studies regarding organizations and resilience focus on large enterprises, while studies on small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are lacking. SMEs account for 99.6% of all companies in Austria and are largely run by entrepreneurial owners and their families. Based on transformational theory, the theory of resilience as well as positive psychology, we investigate five SME owners and their personal resilience in an exploratory study. The owners were selected by purposive sampling with the aim to develop a framework with recommended actions for the personal resilience of SME leaders.

The importance of developing and implementing sustainable business practices has never been greater. Business schools are increasingly tasked with preparing students to contribute to this imperative and although progress is being made, the impact of integrating sustainability into business school curriculum has remained uncertain as studies exploring the impact have been lacking. The purpose of this multi-case study was to examine the impact of integration efforts in two distinct undergraduate business programs at Royal Roads University. The research focused on how students' understanding of sustainability and their associated attitudes and behaviors changed as they progressed throughout their programs. In addition to considering the impact of a sustainability-infused curriculum, other factors affecting sustainability orientations were also explored. The study was unique in both its comparative nature and in its investigation of the various contextual factors shaping sustainability orientations. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and through document analysis. Findings suggest a combination of approaches to integration is most effective in impacting sustainability perspectives. While sustainability was generally understood in a multidimensional manner, there was a noticeable environmental bias and a tendency to view it within the business framework. A need for stronger and more comprehensive conceptualizations was identified. Recommendations include: (a) embed sustainability in a comprehensive manner across the curriculum, (b) move beyond a disciplinary conceptualization of sustainability and introduce stronger sustainability discourse, (c) utilize powerful experiential and place-based pedagogies, (d) pay attention to context and ensure both the formal and the informal curriculum mutually reinforce a pro-sustainability agenda.

The personalities of leaders have been shown to impact the culture of their organizations and are also expected to have a more distal impact on the firm’s financial performance. However, the authors also expect that leader gender is an important intervening variable such that exhibiting various personality dimensions may result in unique cultural and performance-based outcomes for women and men leaders. Thus, the authors seek to examine first the impact of leader personality on organizational performance, as driven through organizational culture as a mediating mechanism. In doing so, the authors propose the expected impact of specific personality dimensions on certain types of organizational cultures, and those cultures’ subsequent impact on the organization’s performance. The authors then extend to consider the moderating effects of leader gender on the relationship between leader personality and organization. To support their propositions, the authors draw from upper echelons and implicit leadership theories. The authors encourage researchers to consider the proposition within a sample of the largest publicly traded US companies (i.e., Fortune 500) at an important era in history such that for the first time, 10% of these companies are led by women. In doing so, the authors hope to understand the leadership dynamics at the highest echelons of corporate governance and provide actionable insights for companies aiming to optimize their leadership composition and drive sustainable performance.

The insurance industry has been slow to adopt digital technologies due to high barriers to entry, product complexity, capital reserves, solvency requirements, and regulatory constraints. This chapter focuses on how insurtech is disrupting the insurance industry, resulting in a transformation from a traditional structure to a dynamic user-centric ecosystem. Next, it highlights the insurtech ecosystem by providing an in-depth analysis of the new paradigm on how insurtech is transitioning from the linear value chain to a more dynamic and interconnected value network. Finally, this chapter defines a perspective of insurtech's impact by identifying three waves of transformation within the insurance industry and understanding the evolution and chronology of insurtech's influence. Thus, this chapter provides insights into the opportunities and challenges of this technological breakthrough, offering a comprehensive view of insurtech's transformative journey within the insurance landscape.

The recent pandemic has witnessed increased digitalization. The supply chain disruptions have forced businesses to adopt innovative business strategies that were not prevalent in previous years. This chapter elaborates on how integrating disruptive technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain, and the Internet of Things (IoT) into business strategies is essential for modern organizations. It emphasizes creating and capturing value through business model innovation, highlighting the significance of developing a value proposition differentiating an enterprise in the market. This involves rethinking and redesigning how organizations create customer value, leveraging these technologies to enhance efficiency, customer experience, and competitive advantage. This chapter advocates for a proactive approach to technology adoption, stressing the importance of agility, innovation, and a forward-thinking leadership mindset in capitalizing on the opportunities presented by technological advancements.

This chapter examines how more women in the workforce can contribute towards making businesses more resilient. The overall objective of the study is to assess how women's employment influences various factors related to resilience and that in turn drives business activities. The methodology used is qualitative in nature using thematic analysis as a tool. Some quantitative data have been assessed in order to understand how companies survived the pandemic and to examine the trends in female labour force participation. This chapter also builds on observational research methodology in places to arrive at certain key inferences. The analysis examines top performing firms and sectors that survived the pandemic, key characteristics of business resilience and characteristics of women's labour and their role in building business resilience. A conceptual framework has been developed to discuss how female labour force participation can contribute to different sectors in order to build resilient businesses.

Smart technologies in today's Internet of Things (IoT) era cover a wide spectrum, including smart identification technologies, robotics, virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), wearable technologies, cloud, artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and blockchain. This study aims at revealing the role and importance of smart technologies in service systems which encompass a wide spectrum of sectors. The scope of this study covers the main applications in transportation and logistics, retail, health care, hospitality, and financial services sectors. A broad overview is provided for the potentials and benefits of smart technology utilization in these service areas, and future research agenda is suggested. Findings reveal that simultaneous use of smart technologies bring tremendous opportunities in terms of efficiencies and automation, reshaping and transforming operations and business processes of the service enterprises. The study highlights that although core proven applications of smart technologies are in manufacturing, generally lagging service sector applications promise radical productivity improvements, performance enhancements, and increased service quality. By radically upgrading the customer satisfaction to entirely new levels and providing unique customer experiences, smart technologies lead to bottom line profitability improvements as well competitiveness.