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1 – 10 of over 9000Shubham Kumar, Deepak Kumar, Keya Sengupta and Tapas Kumar Giri
This study aims to examine the altering paradigms for two specific characteristics of the international diamond industry: community-based business model and competitive advantage…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to examine the altering paradigms for two specific characteristics of the international diamond industry: community-based business model and competitive advantage and their impact and interaction effect.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses global value chain (GVC) analysis to understand the industry characteristics, social impacts and disruption in the international diamond industry. Further, normalized revealed comparative advantage is used to measure the competitiveness of different countries over time. Finally, stochastic frontier analysis is used to test the impact of the community-based business model and competitiveness on exports and estimate the technical efficiency.
Findings
The international diamond industry is witnessing changes in the business model, competitiveness, processes, policies and consumer behavior. While competitive advantage and community have a positive impact on exports, the relationship between competitive advantage and exports gets negatively moderated by the community. Further, insights from the GVC analysis indicate that though the industry is facing several disruptions and challenges, it has shown the unique quality of community reconfiguration and relocation.
Originality/value
This paper provides insights into the diamond industry facing multiple disruptions at various stages of GVC and contributes to the literature on international trade, community-based business models and GVC.
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Thushari Wanniarachchi, Kanchana Dissanayake and Carolyn Downs
The purpose of this study is to assess sustainability across the handloom industry in Sri Lanka and identify opportunities for sustainable innovations supporting new markets…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to assess sustainability across the handloom industry in Sri Lanka and identify opportunities for sustainable innovations supporting new markets, development of small-and-medium enterprises (SMEs) and growth in the Sri Lankan craft sector.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a multiple case studies methodology, 10 case studies and 37 semi-structured interviews were analysed along with the triple-layered business model canvas.
Findings
The study reveals the handloom industry to be fundamentally sustainable but with structural barriers that hinder both innovation and growth. The environmentally conscious production process and social inclusion within weaving communities are the key driving forces of sustainability in the sector; however, the structure of the industry and lack of access to markets and information act as barriers to both innovation and growth. The incorporation of design interventions, closed-loop manufacturing strategies and the encouragement of community-based entrepreneurship would support sustainability-orientated business innovation in the handloom industry.
Originality/value
The rapidly increasing market share for high-quality, hand-made goods indicates the potential of the creative industries to accelerate socio-economic growth. Handloom textiles is attracting growing interest in fashion markets because of increasing concern about exploitation in production, thus encouraging interest in the economic benefits of fairly traded, high quality materials and the potential contribution of handloom to sustainability in the fashion industry. The results of this study will support the handloom industry and policy-makers in developing support for sustainable innovation in the handloom industry.
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Mathew Joseph, George W. Stone, Kimberly Grantham, Nukhet Harmancioglu and Essam Ibrahim
This exploratory study attempts to capture some of the principal benefits/factors attributable to service learning/community service projects, from a student perspective.
Abstract
Purpose
This exploratory study attempts to capture some of the principal benefits/factors attributable to service learning/community service projects, from a student perspective.
Design/methodology/approach
A sample of 67 males and 83 females (16 graduate, 71 seniors, and 63 juniors) participated in the study.
Findings
Students believe that their college experience is preparing them for the job market, that critical thinking has been enhanced, and that their college academic experience has emphasized community service upon graduation.
Practical implications
The results increase one's knowledge of the benefits of service learning since so much emphasis is currently being placed on improving the critical thinking and problem‐solving ability of undergraduate business students.
Originality/value
Practitioners would be interested in understanding the impact that service learning can have on the problem‐solving ability of potential employees. If additional research could advance the proposition that students with service learning experience are generally superior in terms of their problem‐solving skills to students with no similar experience, then evidence of a service learning component on a student résumé suddenly adds value to the employer.
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The purpose of this chapter is to make the case for significant change in the content and structure of undergraduate business education in the United States. The premise is that…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this chapter is to make the case for significant change in the content and structure of undergraduate business education in the United States. The premise is that business education is generally effective at Getting Things Done – but that generally what it Gets Done is the Wrong Things – advancing destructive tendencies in capitalism – rather than the Right Things – fostering sustainable and democratic alternatives.
Design/methodology/approach
The chapter advances a viewpoint about the current weaknesses and potential strengths of undergraduate business education, relative to the goal of creating more sustainable, community-based economic and social organization. It is structured as a reflection on the history of business education in the United States and on the author’s experience as a professor at a public university.
Findings
The analysis suggests that while undergraduate business education in the United States serves largely to buttress unsustainable and fundamentally destructive tendencies in capitalism the social characteristics of the students and the fundamental nature of the material also makes it – in an apparent paradox – potentially a very rich process, system and venue for fostering more sustainable, community-based economic and social organization.
Originality/value
The value of the chapter lies in the author’s relatively rare perspective as an activist-oriented critical management professor in a U.S. business school. The combination of theoretical and political perspective and experience in the classroom and the larger University offers the possibility of stimulating new avenues of discussion, especially among academics and administrators dissatisfied with the current state of educational practice.
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Peik-Foong Yeap and Melissa Li Sa Liow
This paper aims to determine the significance of tourist walkability on three community-based tourism sustainability indicators, namely, the economic, social and environmental…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to determine the significance of tourist walkability on three community-based tourism sustainability indicators, namely, the economic, social and environmental benefits and costs impacting community’s quality of life through the lens of the triple bottom line approach with the institutional theory.
Design/methodology/approach
This study views institutions as either enabling or restricting the sustainable community-based tourism because institutions influence resource integration and value assessment by the beneficiary. Moreover, institutions also lead the co-creation of sustainable community-based tourism among various stakeholders. Drawing on this conceptualisation, the notion of sustainable community-based tourism is filtered through the lens of institutional theory. Thus, this work approaches sustainable community-based tourism as a dynamic process of co-creating a tourist destination formed by different actors’ and institutions within the ecosystem of the tourist destination. Meanwhile, the triple bottom line benefits and costs experienced by the overall community would produce net effects on the residents’ perceptions of sustainable tourism.
Findings
This paper classifies both tangible and intangible costs and benefits because of tourist walkability and its triple bottom line trade-offs experienced by tourists and residents. This paper penetrates new grounds by reviewing the triple bottom line impacts of tourist walkability on residents’ quality of life. Government policies as mediating variable and national culture and individual personalities of tourists and residents as moderating variables were discussed. A conceptual framework named Tourist Walkability Sustainable Tourism Impact on Residents (TWSTIR) is proposed. Finally, a Sustainable Community-based Tourism Strategic (SCBTS) model which is based on the two dimensions of intensity of tourist walkability and residents’ quality of life is proposed.
Research limitations/implications
Research limitations may include a lack of assessment on political, technological and legal issues, and therefore, future research is warranted in these three areas. Some emotions and attitudes of the residents may not be captured since the Gross National Index (Gross National Happiness) may have its inherent blind spots.
Practical implications
This paper would be of interest to the scholarly world, as its original idea and concluding research agenda are burrowing into a new sub-field of tourism research. In view of growth and degrowth of sustaining community-based tourism, the SCBTS model is presented to provide directions for tourism policymakers and entrepreneurs to formulate and implement appropriate strategy for the tourist walkability activity per se and investment in the accompanying infrastructure.
Social implications
This paper also presents the sacrifices and inequities in the communities and the relevance of government policies, national culture and individual personalities of tourists and residents, in which the attention of tourism policymakers and the communities that thrive on the travel and tourism industry should not be neglected.
Originality/value
The idea and discussion of this paper is original. This paper burrows into a new sub-field of tourism research. Tourist walkability needs more attention from the scholars, as this tourist activity can have positive and negative effects on residents’ quality of life. The TWSTIR framework is developed to discuss the relationships of tourist walkability, triple bottom line concept and residents’ quality of life within the sustainable community-based tourism scope. The SCBTS model is presented for tourism policymakers and entrepreneurs to perform appropriate strategy for the tourist walkability activity and investment in the accompanying infrastructure.
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The purpose of this paper is to extend previous scholarly writing on community service‐learning (SL) initiatives by looking beyond their use in the not‐for‐profit sector to their…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to extend previous scholarly writing on community service‐learning (SL) initiatives by looking beyond their use in the not‐for‐profit sector to their potential use in community‐based small businesses.
Design/methodology/approach
A rationale for the appropriateness of using SL projects in small businesses is provided, and distinctions drawn between small business SL projects and student internships. A case study involving a strategic management project in a community‐based small business is presented.
Findings
The findings support the usefulness of SL initiatives in small businesses. Benefits to the students include an enhanced understanding of course material, improved learning through the transparent information sharing and experience of the small business owner, increased confidence in strategic management skills, and greater appreciation of community, environmental, and ethical concerns. Benefits to the small business owner included receipt of customized, onsite services that circumvented opportunity, and financial costs associated with other consultation or training options, an unbiased and well‐rounded strategic audit, and receipt of an alternate perspective on the business that would not otherwise be available.
Research limitations/implications
Future research should explore the use of SL projects in a broader range of undergraduate business courses and continue to develop pragmatic frameworks for initiatives involving small businesses. Factors associated with small business engagement in SL and outcomes for business owners should also be investigated.
Practical implications
Practical information on the implementation SL initiatives in community‐based small businesses is provided, along with guidance on dealing with potential risk management concerns related to non‐conflict of interest, confidentiality, and liability.
Originality/value
Previous approaches to SL have focused almost exclusively on partnerships with not‐for‐profit agencies. This paper supports the usefulness of SL initiatives in for‐profit, community‐based small businesses.
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This article will point out that fully utilizing community‐based information networks based on multimedia digital networking IT (information technology) supports managerial speed…
Abstract
This article will point out that fully utilizing community‐based information networks based on multimedia digital networking IT (information technology) supports managerial speed and excellence, while making it possible to formulate a new, customer value creation business model. Aggressive IT investment by top management to build community‐based information networks, a support tool for this future network strategy, will permit business innovation based on strengthened competitiveness and enhanced customer service. This article describes some real examples of communities within companies, among companies, and between companies and their customers, using cases of companies currently making active use of community nets. Case studies of manufacturing companies demonstrate the value of community nets as a network strategy support tool that bolsters community management in companies. This article will also point out that community‐based information networks will become an important multimedia communication platform for the creation of new virtual, knowledge‐based businesses.
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Socio‐economic decline in rural areas is a pervasive and debilitating phenomenon in terms of regional development, particularly when former models of economic growth which once…
Abstract
Purpose
Socio‐economic decline in rural areas is a pervasive and debilitating phenomenon in terms of regional development, particularly when former models of economic growth which once stimulated business generation and regeneration can no longer be counted on to do so. In these austere times, models of social and community enterprise are becoming more important. This corresponds to the emergence of theories of community‐based entrepreneurship and social enterprise as explanatory variables. Such theories are used to label enterprising behaviour enacted within our communities, even when the theoretical arguments underpinning these re‐conceptualisations require to be stretched to permit this. Often the resultant explanations are not entirely convincing. The purpose of this paper is to challenge existing conceptualisations of community‐based entrepreneurship and social enterprise.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a case study methodology, the paper reports on the activities of the Buchan Development Partnership (BDP) – a community‐based project situated in the Buchan area of Aberdeenshire, Scotland – demonstrating how individual and community enterprise can be utilized to develop enterprising individuals and communities by growing enterprises organically. The case articulates this process, as it occurred in a rural development partnership using a narrative‐based case study methodology to examine activities and growth strategies.
Findings
The case bridges issues of entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial process, community and regional development and tells a story of community regeneration through the process of “Community Animateurship”.
Research limitations/implications
Research, practical and social implications are discussed but in particular the need to adopt a more holistic “bottom up” approach.
Originality/value
This case challenges existing conceptualisations of community‐based entrepreneurship and social enterprise.
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Nor Haniza Mohamad and Amran Hamzah
The purpose of this paper is to share how a tourism cooperative creates economic sustainability as well as bringing socio‐cultural and environmental benefits to its members.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to share how a tourism cooperative creates economic sustainability as well as bringing socio‐cultural and environmental benefits to its members.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors' case study was the Miso Walai Homestay in Batu Puteh on the Kinabatangan River of Sabah, Malaysia. In‐depth interviews were conducted with cooperative managers and cooperative members who were identified through the purposive sampling method. Direct observation was used to gain an understanding of ground reality.
Findings
A community cooperative effectively manages economic, socio‐cultural, and environmental concerns of the local people. Society's perception of entrepreneurship and main‐streaming has changed. Shareholdership enables higher community involvement in the decision‐making processes, increases tourism income distribution, solidifies the sense of ownership, strengthens social cohesion and, inevitably, increases community support.
Practical implications
The lessons learned from the experience of the Model of Economically Sustainable Community Tourism (MESCOT) in using a community cooperative to run its community‐based tourism (CBT), which eventually expanded its economic benefits, are relevant to researchers and practitioners, and can guide other local CBT organizations in Malaysia.
Originality/value
Although the case study referred to a specific community in Malaysia, the findings do prove that an effective model for community‐based tourism is possible and has potential for replication in other places with similar enabling environments.
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Amid recent changes in the business environment and progress in IT (information technology), several companies are engaging in strategic business development by creating a variety…
Abstract
Amid recent changes in the business environment and progress in IT (information technology), several companies are engaging in strategic business development by creating a variety of communities, within and outside their corporate structures. Against the backdrop of these activities, this paper explains the importance, given likely future developments, of community management for continuous activation of corporate organizations, and for new business creation. Furthermore, given the ongoing development of IT and multimedia technology, this paper proposes new applications for finance‐related businesses that use community management‐supporting community‐based information networks, and points out that community‐based information networks will become an important multimedia communication platform for business innovation.
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