Search results

This study investigates how a competitor orientation (knowledge of and acting on competitors' strengths and weaknesses) facilitates coopetition activities (collaboration with competitors), within networks of competing micro-sized, independent, family restaurants, owned by entrepreneurs from ethnic minority backgrounds.

An instrumental case study features data collected from interviews with 30 owners (as key informants) of micro-sized, independent, family-owned restaurants, in two urban clusters within the Midlands (UK). Specifically, the context involves restaurants offering South Asian cuisine and where the owner originated from the Indian sub-continent (Bangladesh, India or Pakistan). Secondary data were collected wherever possible. These two clusters (not named for ethics reasons) are highly populated by members of these respective ethnic communities; also, they contain a relatively large number of restaurants offering South Asian cuisine.

A competitor orientation facilitated strong coopetition-oriented partnerships comprised of extended family and intra-community members that helped enhance individual firms' performance, maintained family employment and sustained their cluster. It also helped owners develop subtle counter strategies where weak ties existed, such as via inter-community networks. For example, strategies attracted customers that were not loyal to a particular restaurant, or indeed, sub-ethnic cuisine (within Bangladesh, India or Pakistan, like the Punjab region). Subtle as opposed to outright counter strategies minimised retaliation, since restaurant owners wanted to avoid price wars, or spreading misinformation where the reputation of a cluster may suffer alongside the likely survival of individual businesses within that regional cluster.

Mixed evidence exists in earlier studies regarding the competitive rivalry in certain sectors where ethnic minority ownership is prominent; not least, restaurants located in regional clusters. However, this investigation considers the notion – what if some of these earlier studies are wrong? More specifically, does certain prior research under-represent the extent that rival entrepreneurs of an ethnic minority origin collaborate rather than compete for mutually beneficial purposes? New evidence emerges regarding ways in which a competitor orientation can influence the performance-enhancing nature of coopetition activities among business owners originating from both intra and inter-ethnic communities.

This chapter explores how state–business relations (SBR) in the Arab world influence public policy on industrial clusters and the resulting economic benefits from these clusters on innovation and productivity. The main SBR actors are identified as the state, big capitalists (or tycoons), and small and medium business managers and owners (entrepreneurs). The framework used here focuses on interactors' power relations. Such power relations are reflected in the ability/inability of the state to enforce its will with less consultation with and/or favorite treatment to nonstate actors. It is also reflected in the ability/inability of nonstate actors to act individually or organize in order to defend their interests and influence government policy formulation and implementation. Such power relations are reflected in the ability of nonstate actors to organize – especially entrepreneurs – and the level of favoritism provided by state officials to tycoons. The power dynamics in SBR lead to different SBR modes and different economic outcomes, one of which is the development of industrial clusters and how efficient they are in fostering innovation and productivity in Arab countries. This chapter suggests that the development of industrial clusters in the Arab world necessitates institutional reform, addressing the power relations governing SBR in the region. A more open political system allowing the independence and growth of broad-based business associations and curbing favoritism is necessary for realizing the benefits from implementing recommended policies, leading to cluster development and reaping the economic benefits from such development. Using statistical and regression analysis, empirical evidence supporting these arguments is provided.

Following a bibliometric approach, this study examines research on brand and branding in family businesses (FBs) to identify influential sources and main areas of knowledge, proposes an integrative framework that provides a holistic perspective of this field with an interdisciplinary cross-fertilization view and explores new avenues for future research and practice.

Based on 449 bibliographic references retrieved from the Web of Science database through a systematic process, the authors employed bibliographic coupling analysis to visualize the relationships among key works in the field and subsequently performed a literature review to deepen the analysis.

The bibliographic coupling analysis structured the existing research into six thematic clusters. Four of them follow an internal perspective and focus on FB identity and its influence on the construction of corporate brand identity, whereas the other two follow an external perspective that explores how FB brands are communicated and perceived by stakeholders and the influence of corporate brands and branding on FB image and reputation. Drawing from an in-depth review of the literature, this study offers a novel integrative framework, together with a set of proposals with managerial and theoretical implications.

The proposed framework aims to clarify the relationship between internal identity and management to build and communicate a FB brand. The study also shows the symbiosis that exists among family values, corporate reputation, brand equity and awareness in FBs. The existing interconnection between the family and business generates unique associations that are difficult to imitate.

This study is the first documented attempt at a bibliometric analysis of brands and branding in FBs, which serves to clarify the linkages between different research streams and connecting marketing, organization and FB literature to guide future research. Moreover, the integrative framework provides researchers and practitioners with a better understanding of its scope, highlighting the importance of corporate brand strategies beyond the boundaries of marketing departments.

This paper aims to map the knowledge management research in small businesses and suggest future actions to strengthen managerial practices. Knowledge management practices foster the growth of small businesses. They allow innovation to grow within the institutions, enhance customer satisfaction and reduce employee absenteeism and attrition.

The study adopts a bibliometric protocol to retrieve the 686 articles published in the Web of Science (WoS) database. The WoS database is selected to ensure only quality and peer-reviewed publications are analysed in the study. It then identifies the top contributions, and existing thematic areas, and suggests future research and policy actions for boosting economic growth through small business. The study uses VOSviewer, Science of Science (Sci2) and Gephi to conduct the bibliometric and network analysis.

The results from keyword co-occurrence and co-citation analysis helps in identifying thematic areas. The findings highlight that there exist five major themes in knowledge management research for small businesses. The dynamic co-citation analysis helps in tracing the evolution of these clusters and suggests future themes, research directions and methodological advances in the theme. PageRank analysis helps in identifying the top articles published on high-impact journals in the theme.

The study helps researchers by summarising existing literature and identifying key thematic areas. It also assists policymakers by recommending actions to improve knowledge management practises in small businesses to gain a competitive advantage. The paper suffers from the limitations of bibliometric analysis. The sample is collected from a single data source and a single type (journal articles) and the statistical accuracy of the analysis depends on the quality of the sample.

The study’s originality lies in using fit-for-purpose software in clustering the research and suggesting actions. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of its kind in applying bibliometrics in studying and covering several aspects of knowledge management in small businesses with a combination of software.

This study aims to determine how much company participation in a type of cluster affects its economic performance.

This study includes companies operating in seven industries (automotive, engineering, textiles, information technology (IT) services, furniture, packaging and nanotechnology) in the Czech Republic. The companies are divided into three groups: members of institutionalized cluster, operating in the same region (natural clusters) and operating in other regions. Data envelopment window analysis is used to measure their performance for 2009–2019.

Results show that the effect of clustering differs among industries. Companies in three industries (automotive, engineering, nanotechnology) reveal a positive impact of the cluster initiative on performance growth. Two industries (textile, packaging) with companies operating in a natural cluster show better performance than those in an institutionalized cluster. Moreover, the IT services and the furniture industries show no positive effect of clustering on corporate performance.

This research includes 686 companies from seven industries and monitored for 11 years. On the one hand, the sample includes a relatively high number of companies overall; but on the other hand, the sample is relatively small, especially for nonclustered companies. The reason is the lack of available financial statements for small companies.

From the perspective of practical cluster policy, the authors can recommend that monitoring the performance of member companies in clusters must be one of the criteria for evaluating the success of a cluster, such as cluster initiatives.

This study distinguishes between long-standing natural clusters in a given industry and institutionalized ones that have emerged because of a top-down initiative. An original database is created for clustered and nonclustered companies in seven industries, covering the entire Czech Republic.

The purpose of this paper is to identify different types of resource and capability configurations among Hungarian family and nonfamily firms and explore which compositions can be considered competitive. In a rivalrous, dynamic world, understanding which sets of resources and capabilities lead to a higher level of competitiveness is vital.

This paper is based on a quantitative competitiveness survey carried out between November 2018 and July 2019 in Hungary. The authors used the Firm Competitiveness Index (FCI) to measure competitiveness and the resource-based view (RBV) approach to understand which configurations of resources and capabilities are responsible for a higher level of competitiveness based on 32 variables. An exploratory factor and cluster analysis were conducted to analyze the ownership's effect on firm competitiveness. The final sample size contained 111 companies, of which 53 were identified as family and 58 as nonfamily firms.

Factor analysis reveals five factors determining resources and capabilities: “operational,” “leadership,” “knowledge management,” “transformation” and “networking.” Based on these factors, the cluster analysis identified five groups in terms of types of family and nonfamily firms: “Lagging capabilities,” “Knowledge-based leadership,” “Innovativeness and transformation-oriented management,” “Relationship-oriented management” and “Business operation-oriented management.” Results show that nonfamily businesses focus on operational and leadership capabilities, reaching a higher FCI than family businesses, which are likely to invest more in their networking, transformation and knowledge management capabilities.

By defining the different configurations family and nonfamily firms rely on to reach competitiveness, the paper applies an essential element to the Hungarian and Middle Eastern European contexts of family business research. The findings contribute to developing family business literature and point out specific resources and capabilities family firms should focus on to shift toward reaching a higher level of professionalization and competitiveness. The characterization of different types of competitiveness comparing family and nonfamily firms enables the firms to assess customized implications.

This study reviews scholarly work in sustainable green logistics and remanufacturing (SGLR) and their subdisciplines, in combination with bibliometric, thematic and content analyses that provide a viewpoint on categorization and a future research agenda. This paper provides insight into current research trends in the subjects of interest by examining the most essential and most referenced articles promoting sustainability and climate-neutral logistics.

For the literature review, the authors extracted and sifted 2180 research and review papers for the period 2008–2023 from the Scopus database. The authors performed bibliometric and content analyses using multiple software programs such as Gephi, VOSviewer and R programming.

The SGLR papers can be grouped into seven clusters: (1) The circular economy facets; (2) Decarbonization of operations to nurture a climate-neutral business; (3) Green sustainable supply chain management; (4) Drivers and barriers of reverse logistics and the circular economy; (5) Business models for sustainable logistics and the circular economy; (6) Transportation problems in sustainable green logistics and (7) Digitalization of logistics and supply chain management.

In this review, fundamental ideas are established, research gaps are identified and multiple future research subjects are proposed. These propositions are categorized into three main research streams, i.e. (1) Digitalization of SGLR, (2) Enhancing scopes, sectors and industries in the context of SGLR and (3) Developing more efficient and effective climate-neutral and climate change-related solutions and promoting more environmental-related and sustainability research concerning SGLR. In addition, two conceptual models concerning SGLR and climate-neutral strategies are developed and presented for managers and practitioners to consider when adopting green and sustainability principles in supply chains. This review also highlights the need for academics to go beyond frameworks and build new techniques and instruments for monitoring SGLR performance in the real world.

This study provides an overview of the evolution of SGLR; it also clarifies concepts, environmental concerns and climate change practices, particularly those directed to supply chain management.

The objective of this study is to examine current business and management research on “Industry 4.0 base technologies” and “business models” to shed light on this vast literature and to point out future research agenda.

The authors conducted a bibliometric analysis of scientific publications based on 482 documents collected from the Scopus database and a co-citation analysis to provide an overview of business model studies related to Industry 4.0 base technologies. After that a qualitative analysis of the articles was also conducted to identify research trends and trajectories.

The results reveal the existence of five research themes: smart products (cluster 1); business model innovation (cluster 2); technological platforms (cluster 3); value creation and appropriation (cluster 4); and digital business models (cluster 5). A qualitative analysis of the articles was also conducted to identify research trends and trajectories.

First, the dataset was collected through Scopus. The authors are aware that other databases, such as Web of Science, can be used to deepen the focus of quantitative bibliometric analysis. Second, the authors based this analysis on the Industry 4.0 base technologies identified by Frank et al. (2019). The authors recognize that Industry 4.0 comprises other technologies beyond IoT, cloud computing, big data and analytics.

Drawing on these analyses, the authors submit a useful baseline for developing Industry 4.0 base technologies and considering their implications for business models.

In this paper, the authors focus their attention on the relationship between technologies underlying the fourth industrial revolution, identified by Frank et al. (2019), and the business model, with a particular focus on the developments that have occurred over the last decade and the authors performed a bibliometric analysis to consider all the burgeoning literature on the topic.

The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) (2017, pp. 14–15) identified that “industrialization is the seedbed for entrepreneurship, business investment, technological progress, the upgrading of skills, and the creation of decent jobs.” This placed studying different industrial sectors and their respective clusters, which are key drivers for economy, innovation, and knowledge creation (Slaper, Harmon, & Rubin, 2018), at the forefront of research. This chapter tackles the automobile industrial cluster in Egypt that possesses promising potential yet faces some challenges. It aims to provide an overview of the cluster, alongside underpinning its strengths and obstacles facing it. Moreover, the chapter displays the importance of the labor dimension in increasing the labor competitiveness of the cluster and showcases this through two cases of German automobile manufacturers that pioneered in venturing into the market through employing technical and vocational education and training. In conclusion, recommendations are provided to help in steering the cluster toward success.

This study builds on knowledge-based view (KBV) research and the natural resource-based view of the firm (NRBV) to examine the effect of knowledge absorptive capacity on innovative performance. It also investigates the mediating role of three dimensions of the cluster environment: degree of network, institutional environment and access to factors of production.

By means of partial least squares-based structural equation modelling method, the study validated and analysed the responses of 503 owners and managers of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the wood industrial cluster of Cote d'Ivoire, a developing economy.

The analysis and results reveal that knowledge absorptive capacity strongly predicts cluster environment and innovation performance. Moreover, the cluster environment emerged as a powerful determinant of innovation performance and a mediator of the effect of knowledge absorptive capacity on innovation performance. Unequivocally, institutional support has no significant impact on knowledge absorptive capacity (KAC) and innovative performance mediation relationship and is not a key determinant of innovative performance.

This study offers a key departure from past studies by linking knowledge absorptive capacity to innovative performance and the cluster environment in SMEs. It also extends knowledge concerning the role of KBV, NRBV and relational theory in innovation performance.