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This article focusses on the hybrid strategy, a simultaneous combination of cost leadership and differentiation strategy. The study aims to examine the impact of hybrid strategy on firm performance through its anticipated positive effects on process and product innovation. In addition, we study the moderating role of adaptive capacity in the direct relationships of hybrid strategy with process and product innovation.

Structural equation modelling was used to analyse 1,842 Spanish firms with fewer than 250 employees. We randomly selected small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) operating in Spain from the Spanish Central Business Directory (2021) database. The overall sample design was based on stratified sampling.

We found that hybrid strategy is positively related to firm performance and to process and product innovation. Additionally, in firms implementing hybrid strategies, process innovation fostered firm performance. Finally, adaptive capacity strengthened the relationships of hybrid strategy with process and product innovation. This sheds light on how and when hybrid strategy is most effective in fostering SME performance.

We highlight that SMEs need to establish strategies that use diverse resources and capabilities and not just generate competitive advantage using one strategy (cost leadership or differentiation strategy). This requires an agile and flexible systems and structures.

Our research provides novel results by proposing the adoption of hybrid strategies instead of pure strategies (cost leadership and differentiation strategy) as a way for SMEs to survive during crises. Unlike “stuck in the middle” strategies, our study demonstrates the importance of hybrid strategies in a comprehensive model that links them to innovation and firm performance, with adaptive capacity being a determining factor.

Engaged employees assure organizational competitiveness and sustainability. The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between job resources and employee turnover intentions, with employee engagement as a mediating variable.

Data were collected from 934 employees of eight wholly-owned pharmaceutical industries. The proposed model and hypotheses were evaluated using structural equation modeling. Construct reliability and validity was established through confirmatory factor analysis.

Data supported the hypothesized relationship. The results show that job autonomy and employee engagement were significantly associated. Supervisory support and employee engagement were significantly associated. However, performance feedback and employee engagement were nonsignificantly associated. Employee engagement had a significant influence on employee turnover intentions. The results further show that employee engagement mediates the association between job resources and employee turnover intentions.

The generalizability of the findings will be constrained due to the research’s pharmaceutical industry focus and cross-sectional data.

The study’s findings will serve as valuable pointers for stakeholders and decision-makers in the pharmacuetical industry to develop a proactive and well-articulated employee engagement intervention to ensure organizational effectiveness, innovativeness and competitiveness.

By empirically demonstrating that employee engagement mediates the nexus of job resources and employee turnover intentions, the study adds to the corpus of literature.

Successful project delivery for sustainable building construction (SBC) has been linked to certain features. Previous studies have emphasised the need to improve SBC practice in South Africa. The purpose of this study is to explore the SBC features for project delivery in South Africa.

A structured questionnaire elicited the primary data from 281 built environment professionals, mainly in South Africa’s Gauteng province. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used for the data analysis. This study used the principal component analysis technique to ascertain the principal SBC features.

Three components of SBC features, namely, sustainable resource use and compliance, sustainable waste minimisation and recycling and sustainable designs and materials, were developed from the principal component analysis. The factor loadings of the constituent variables ranged from 0.570 to 0.836. The reliability of each component was evaluated, and the results were 0.966, 0.931 and 0.913.

The revelations from this study will aid the decision-making of the relevant stakeholders towards establishing improvement initiatives and mitigating the reluctance to shift from conventional building methods and poor knowledge sharing of SBC benefits.

This is one of the most recent South African studies that sheds light on the components of a successful SBC deployment. The findings of this study added to knowledge by confirming three fundamental features of SBC. This study recommends adequately considering the principal features for successful SBC project delivery in South Africa.

This paper aims to propose and test a corporate entrepreneurship strategy (CES) model in small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with international activity located in Andalusia (Spain) – a peripheral region with high levels of inequality in the European Union (EU).

A quantitative analysis has been carried out with data from 101 SMEs to contrast and analyze the proposed CES model. The sample data were obtained through questionnaire-guided interviews with chief executive officers. Data processing has been done using partial least squares-path modeling, a variance-based technique for structural equation modeling.

The results of this study show the positive effect of environmental conditions on the development of CES actions in Andalusian SMEs (Spain) and the positive influence of CES on the results of SMEs’ international activity. In turn, environmental conditions do not directly affect the international activity.

Although previous works address the relationship between corporate entrepreneurship (CE) and international enterprise activity, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this work is original in testing a CES model (including CE and the entrepreneurial strategic vision) in SMEs in a region that has one of the lowest levels of development in the EU. The results have important implications for SMEs and policymakers and could be extrapolated to other emerging economies.

This study aims to provide an overview of the dimension of stored collections displayed in visible storage and to indicate the main factors which hinder their accessibility.

This study is based on quantitative analysis: a survey was conducted through the offices of International Council of Museums and direct invitations to 2,558 museums located worldwide.

The study estimated 32% on average the share of stored collections displayed in visible storage. The analysis provides a picture of how many stored items are made accessible in visible storage across the continents, according to the collection’s type and size and the museums’ legal status. In addition, several aspects of visible storage are investigated to highlight whether or not it truly enables museums to achieve accessibility of their stored collections and which factors might hinder the accessibility. Amid them, the foremost factors involve the inadequacy of resources, such as the lack of staff (71%) and poor budget (68%). Because of it, museums are prone to setting up offsite storage (37%), often 16 km far from the city centre, thereby questioning the concept of accessibility itself.

One major limitation of this study is that it does not consider people’s standpoints. Therefore, the author recommends that future studies focus on what people opine on visible storage, such as their appreciation of the display format, the behind-the-scenes, their need for interpretation and the degree of satisfaction with their information needs, as well as their perception of the size of stored collections.

These findings suggest that museums could take action in areas whereby the data demonstrated weaknesses in terms of accessibility. For instance, museums could set up a shuttle service or arrange public transportation service to allow people to visit offsite storage. Additionally, financial accessibility might be achieved by not charging some groups (elderly, students, etc.).

The topic of stored collections and their accessibility has crucial social implications because not displaying collections triggers inequality amid social groups of excluded people and a small elite.

This study focuses on visible storage as a possible solution to enhance the accessibility of collections and indicates to what extent visible storage provides this accessibility. On the contrary, previous research did not estimate how much visible storage impacts the accessibility of stored collections.

This paper focuses on image-to-text manuscript processing through Handwritten Text Recognition (HTR), a Machine Learning (ML) approach enabled by Artificial Intelligence (AI). With HTR now achieving high levels of accuracy, we consider its potential impact on our near-future information environment and knowledge of the past.

In undertaking a more constructivist analysis, we identified gaps in the current literature through a Grounded Theory Method (GTM). This guided an iterative process of concept mapping through writing sprints in workshop settings. We identified, explored and confirmed themes through group discussion and a further interrogation of relevant literature, until reaching saturation.

Catalogued as part of our GTM, 120 published texts underpin this paper. We found that HTR facilitates accurate transcription and dataset cleaning, while facilitating access to a variety of historical material. HTR contributes to a virtuous cycle of dataset production and can inform the development of online cataloguing. However, current limitations include dependency on digitisation pipelines, potential archival history omission and entrenchment of bias. We also cite near-future HTR considerations. These include encouraging open access, integrating advanced AI processes and metadata extraction; legal and moral issues surrounding copyright and data ethics; crediting individuals’ transcription contributions and HTR’s environmental costs.

Our research produces a set of best practice recommendations for researchers, data providers and memory institutions, surrounding HTR use. This forms an initial, though not comprehensive, blueprint for directing future HTR research. In pursuing this, the narrative that HTR’s speed and efficiency will simply transform scholarship in archives is deconstructed.

This study aims to examine the relationship between internal and external factors and job satisfaction, and between job satisfaction and auditors’ performance.

This research used deductive approach. Data was gathered from 83 auditors in the Saudi Organisation for Certified Public Accountants (SOCPA) database. By implementing the partial least squares-structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) technique, the suggested hypotheses were examined.

The results show that internal factors, i.e., achievement, advancement, recognition and growth, significantly impact job satisfaction. Subsequently, the external factors, i.e., company policies, relationship with a peer and relationship with supervisor, significantly impact job satisfaction. In contrast, work security has no relationship with job satisfaction. Furthermore, job satisfaction is a significant driver for auditors' performance.

This research sheds light on the relationships between internal and external factors, job satisfaction and auditors' performance in the Saudi context. It would be interesting to investigate these relationships in a different setting, such as a different country, time or industry. Future studies should broaden the sample frame to include different types of employees to obtain more generalisable results.

This study may help managers of auditing departments formulate appropriate strategies and design effective programs to increase the level of job satisfaction between auditors by enhancing such factors, which will lead to improving the auditors' performance.

This research provide an empirical evidence to support the theoretical assumptions of Herzberg's which is much needed.

This article aims to map the expectations of manufacturing companies towards suppliers in terms of implementing improvement activities. The article poses two research questions: RQ1: What kind of improvement of activities do the surveyed producers expect from their suppliers? RQ2: Do factors such as size, capital or implemented systems influence different assessments of the analyzed requirements toward suppliers?

The Computer Assisted Telephone Interview (CATI) technique was used to collect data. The sample consists of 150 producers (employing over 50 people) who were suppliers for enterprises from the automotive, electromechanical and chemical sectors operating in the Polish business-to-business (B2B) market. We analyzed 11 improvement activities, while their correlation structure was examined by exploratory factor analysis.

We have identified three latent factors – risk reduction, product innovation and increasing efficiency – which summarize the main expectations of manufacturing companies towards suppliers. Expectations for these factors are independent of the implemented management system, although the analysis showed higher expectations for product innovation in organizations with the implementation of Kaizen.

The article fills the research gap in the literature. The research results presented in the literature so far have focused on the expectations of enterprises towards suppliers in terms of meeting the criteria for their initial and periodic assessment. The research gap in the article is the result of empirical research presenting the expectations of manufacturers towards suppliers in terms of improving their processes. Based on the findings of the presented study, development trends and implications for managers responsible for purchasing processes and relationships with suppliers can be determined.

Optimal application and commitment toward financial management practices enhance organization performance. This study aims to assess the influence of financial management practices on organizational performance of small- and medium-scale enterprises.

Data were collected from 45 small-sized and 72 medium-sized firms. Data supported the hypothesized relationships. Construct reliability and validity were established through confirmatory factor analysis. The conceptual model and hypotheses were evaluated by using structural equation modeling.

The results indicate that working capital significantly influenced organizational performance. Capital budget management significantly influenced organizational performance. A non-significant influence of asset management on organizational performance was observed.

The generalizability of the findings will be constrained due to the research’s SMEs focus and cross-sectional data.

The study’s findings will serve as valuable pointers for stakeholders and decision-makers of SMEs in the development of well-articulated and proactive financial management systems to ensure competitiveness, sustainability, viability and financial competences.

The study adds to the corpus of literature by evidencing empirically that financial management practices significantly influenced SMEs’ performance.