Search results

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the socio-economic background and development of social enterprises in Korea and identify representative social enterprise models.

The typology used in this study focuses on the interaction between civil society, the state and the market in their efforts to solve social problems. As a result, the typology is mainly related with social goals, although the organizational form is also taken into consideration when selecting representative social enterprises in each type so as to present a broad array of developmental histories.

This paper identified four types of social enterprises: work integration social enterprises; social service provision social enterprises; regional regeneration social enterprises; and alter-economy social enterprises. These types are not immutable; another form of social enterprise might emerge to address a new social issue and lead to a new strand of similar social enterprises.

This study found that the goals of social enterprises in Korea share common characteristics with those of social enterprises in European countries. Another outstanding feature of Korean social enterprises is that most social enterprises other than work integration social enterprises also regard work integration or job creation for the disadvantaged people as one of their important social missions.

The paper aims to explain why and how, in the USA, a very particular interpretation of economic liberalism, faring though different historical contexts, has generated, since the 1970s, a new kind of capitalism whose language, logic, legitimating paradigm and associated practices have become, thanks to “organic intellectuals” and active networks of power and influence, the “newspeak” and compass of chief executive officers from around the world, despite their always direst societal consequences.

Using history as a support to investigate the domestic and international relations contexts that bore financialized globalization, the paper is strongly located into political sociology. As such, and if we consider that political sociology is the “science of power”, the paper tries to identify precisely the networks of power and influence which transformed a specific interpretation of liberalism and business into a dominant paradigm and specific kind of capitalism, in the USA and the rest of the world. The approach helps to understand which sets of ideas and authors were deemed worth supporting by business and political networks of power and influence and how both sides drew on their reciprocal resources to transform their cosmogonies into dominant paradigms and real politics (corporate and States).

The paper provides a global but precise understanding of the complex processes that allowed some vested interests to impose their vision of economics and business on a domestic, then world, scale. It also questions the relevancy of that vision according to a presentation of the negative societal externalities the associated policies generated and according to the official investigations that have been conducted on the corporate and banking misdemeanors that it contributed to generate.

The paper illustrates a method of investigation that can be used to develop the “global view”, a prerequisite to making decisions in full knowledge of causes and consequences and thus a means to train future “globally responsible leaders”.

By revealing the hidden interests behind financialized globalization and the societal consequences of their power plays, the paper indirectly demonstrates the urgent need for an “alter‐economy” geared to meet the fundamental needs of societies and to preserve their natural environment in the long term.

The paper offers a different perspective on economics and business which is seldom presented in business schools where, owing to the discussed dominant ideology, politics is considered irrelevant to understand business and economics and where the latter are nearly always presented as vectors of good.

The aim of this study is to provide a detailed picture of the digitalization propensity and human IT agility of Italian SMEs, verifying whether companies are pursuing coherent and reliable choices for these dimensions and whether digitalization choices affect human IT agility.

Using a POSET approach, this study constructs two nonaggregative multidimensional indicators of human information technology (IT) agility and firms' digitalization. The analysis is based on the microdata provided by ISTAT relating to 4,682 Italian manufacturing companies.

The results show the existence of a strong relationship between digitalization propensity and human IT agility. However, the analysis shows that companies are characterized by a low level of digitalization propensity and human IT agility. At the same time, the findings highlighted that the managerial choices adopted by companies appear to be inconsistent with respect to the two multidimensional indicators.

This study has important implications for managers and policymakers by suggesting acting specific policies to promote a better implementation of digitalization that considers the key role of human IT agility.

This study contributes to the existing literature on organizational agility and digitalization by providing a detailed picture of the Italian manufactured SMEs. At the same time, the POSET approach allows to aggregate a lot of information in one or more indicators without neglecting the value of each dimension faced with the extreme heterogeneity of companies' profiles.

Brand positioning based on the brand’s country of origin is at the centre of attention in international marketing. It is evident that global brands constitute critical intangible assets for businesses and places. However, it is not clear how they contribute to national economies. This paper aims to discuss the significance of brands as contributing to the value of their companies but also helping to leverage national economies. Although global brands can be produced and purchased in multiple countries, their influence on the economy of the country where their owner’s seat is located can be more meaningful than in other economies included in the “global factory”.

Based on 500 Brandirectory, the Most Valuable Global Brands 2011-2015 rankings powered by Brand Finance, the authors observed a spatial-economic autocorrelation which exemplifies the potential interdependency between gross domestic product (GDP) and brand value. This relationship has become a starting point for designing a spatial regression model.

The findings support the hypothesis that assumptive spatial dependencies have a significant influence on the examined relationship of brand value and GDP.

The presented study is the first to examine the potential interdependence between brand values and GDP of the countries of origin using a dynamic spatial approach.

This paper aims at explaining why “Globally Responsible Humanism (GRH)” is presented here as the pivot for a re-foundation of European Business Schools’ culture. Explaining the concept and its difference with traditional European Humanism, the related argumentation is organized around two main parts: the first one explains why the European Union and its business schools do not make sense in a globalization process driven by the financialized economy; the second one shows how a sustainable exposition of European management students to a transcultural approach, a postcolonial perspective, and critical thinking, can lead to their training as future globally responsible leaders in New Business Schools for Societal Studies.

An international political sociology perspective, applied to the interpretation of globalization trends, and a critical thinking approach to education allow for a questioning of the values and contents of mainstream business learning.

The new proposed transversal, postcolonial and interdisciplinary pedagogical approach regarding business education is conducive to closely related operational tracks: on the one hand, how to improve the skills and systemic understanding of students’ global environment; on the other hand, how to lead, organize and manage the coherent “GRH”-driven business school.

The originality of this paper stems from the combination of critical works issued from the social and human sciences realms to revisit business education.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that it is feasible to theoretically and empirically build an international typology of social enterprise (SE) models. The authors first rely on their previous work (Defourny and Nyssens, 2017), suggesting that the concept of “interest principles” can serve as a cornerstone in such perspective. This concept, when combined with that of SEs’ “resource mixes”, allows to design an analytical tool that shows from which “matrices” and through which “trajectories” several distinct SE models can emerge, namely, the “non-profit entrepreneurial model”, the “social cooperative model”, the “social business model” and the “public sector model”.

This paper combines deductive and inductive approaches. In a deductive perspective, the authors build upon the analytical framework proposed by Gui (1991) to identify capital interest, mutual interest and general interest as key driving forces and fundamental motives in the overall economy. To confront their theoretical construction and their tentative typology of SE models with field realities, the authors also adopt an inductive approach, relying on bottom-up research strategies developed in the seven “ICSEM country contributions” forming this special issue.

At first view, mapping exercises of SE categories in the seven countries seem to highlight a high degree of heterogeneity. However, a closer analysis of these apparently diverging contributions clearly suggests that the four major SE models derived from the authors’ theoretical framework find significant empirical support in most—if not all—countries.

Although major statistical work to test the authors’ typology of SE models remains to be carried out, mainly through the exploitation of the international ICSEM database (which covers over 700 SEs from more than 40 countries), this paper represents a first—although limited—attempt to collect empirical evidence for testing this typology.

The objective of this study is to examine the causal relationship between economic growth, information and communication technology (ICT) penetration and innovation development in OECD countries.

This study incorporates data for 24 OECD countries from 2000 to 2018, which is divided into the earliest (2000–2009) and the latest (2010–2018) periods. The econometric methodologies of this study employ panel cointegration, estimation procedures and vector error-correction modelling to investigate the potential interconnections between ICT, innovation development and economic growth.

The results from the latest period illustrate that OECD countries have achieved positive and significant economic development from high ICT penetration, while results from the earliest period show that OECD countries were just beginning to enjoy the benefits of ICT penetration. Moreover, findings show that innovation development is highly significant in the latest period when promoting economic growth.

The policy implications suggest that promoting ICT infrastructure establishment and expanding the innovation development may drive the process of economic development in OECD countries.

This study employs mobile and Internet penetration as the development of telecommunication which is in line with the enlargement of innovation to foster economic growth in OECD countries. Comparing the evidence from two decades provides significant value for policymakers and decision-makers regarding the advantages of technology expansion and innovation development to promote economic growth in recent conditions.

The purpose of this study is to examine the amount and the nature of the voluntary intellectual capital (IC) disclosure of UK universities, the relation between performance and amount of IC disclosed; and the opinion of UK universities on a mandatory disclosure of IC.

Content analysis was used to examine the amount and nature of IC disclosure of the annual reports of 30 UK universities. Directors of Finance were chosen as representatives to submit an online questionnaire about IC statements and the mandatory reporting of IC for universities.

Findings suggest that the amount of IC information disclosed by UK universities in their annual reports is low. UK universities were identified as being over‐regulated and having low awareness of IC.

IC framework used for the content analysis was specific to Austrian universities and the online questionnaire responses were limited. Few adaptations were made but it is necessary to perform a preliminary study to better understand the characteristics and functioning of UK universities.

Further research and recommendations are provided. Introduction of mandatory disclosure of IC reports would contribute further to the increase of the burden. Therefore at the present time voluntary IC disclosure is the best option.

No previous research was conducted for UK universities. This brings new expertise regarding IC disclosure in higher education and forms a sound basis for future research. Universities could benefit in improving assessment of their intangible assets, performance measurements, allocation of resources and benchmarking exercise.

Much of strategy has been about defense, building the largest castle with the thickest walls to defend position, and tying down the customer with switching costs, standards, and transaction costs. The digital age changed that, making ineffective the usual competitive advantages of size and scope, infrastructure, and the former capabilities. The metaphor has moved from walls to windows: for transparency, fresh air, connection, and some protection from the harsher elements. A proactive windows strategy assembles scale and scope collaboratively, creates relationships that make switching unattractive, develops intangible resources all along the value chain, and builds co‐specialized capabilities. Illustrative examples come from three companies that have thrived in the digital age: eBay (a new company and industry), Lending Tree (new in an old industry), and Charles Schwab (old in an old industry).

The impact of information technology (IT) on mass customization (MC) capability has been implied in the literature but seldom subjected to empirical examination. This study seeks to theoretically relate four types of IT applications with MC capability and empirically examines these relationships.

This study identifies four types of IT that potentially support MC capability, including product configurator IT, new product development IT, manufacturing IT, and supplier collaboration IT. Drawing on organizational information processing theory, this study associates the four IT types with a manufacturer's MC capability. A structural equation model is tested using survey data collected from a sample of manufacturing plants that focus on product customization.

The empirical results indicate that two of the four IT types strongly support a manufacturer's MC capability.

No strong relationship between configurator IT and MC was observed, which calls for further investigation. Data used are cross‐sectional in nature. A set of refined IT measures should be developed in future studies. In addition, future studies could control for the effects of more variables that may impact IT use by mass customizers.

The paper identifies managerial opportunities for investing in IT to support or enhance MC capability.

This study provides a theoretical foundation for the IT‐MC relationship and develops a classification framework of IT applications in manufacturing plants. The study is one of the first efforts that empirically examines the impact of multiple types of IT applications on MC.