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The purpose of the study was to ascertain the influence of innovation conviction, innovation mindset and innovation creed on the performance of women entrepreneurs in South African small and medium enterprises and their capacity for innovation. The study also examined how proactive personality and entrepreneurial education moderate the relationship between innovative capability and women entrepreneurs' performance.

The study used a quantitative research design and administered a questionnaire to collect data from participants. Since there was no sampling frame available, purposive sampling, a non-probability sampling technique, was used to select suitable respondents who were identified as entrepreneurial women. Data were collected from 304 women entrepreneurs in the Gauteng province of South Africa. The data were analyzed using smart partial least squares.

The findings demonstrated that innovation conviction, innovation mindset and innovation creed have a positive impact on innovation capability. It was also discovered that innovation capability, proactive personality and entrepreneurial education all positively and significantly impact women entrepreneurs' performance. Furthermore, the results showed that entrepreneurial education and proactive personality had a positive and significant moderating effect on the nexus between innovation capability and the performance of women entrepreneurs.

This study will add to the body of knowledge on women's small business management and entrepreneurship in Africa, two topics that are typically ignored by academics in developing nations.

The combination of strategic orientation and digitalization for sustainable competitive advantage among small businesses is still not given much attention in the literature. Therefore, this study aims to understand the influence of strategic orientation on sustainable competitive advantage while mediating the relationship with digitalization.

This study used a cross-sectional design. This design helped collect data from 234 small businesses in Arusha city, Tanzania. Since the study used latent variables, structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to analyze relationships and conduct confirmatory factor analysis. Through bootstrapping confidence intervals, Hayes's Process was also used to test how digitalization mediates the relationship between strategic orientations and sustainable competitive advantage.

The strategic orientation attributes that include market orientation, entrepreneurial orientation and learning orientation were positively and significantly related to digitalization. Furthermore, the results on digitalization and sustainable competitive advantage show a significant positive relationship. Finally, digitalization was analyzed to mediate the relationship between strategic orientation, market orientation, entrepreneurial orientation, learning orientation and sustainable competitive advantage. Hence, all hypotheses were supported.

This study adopted a cross-sectional design that helped to capture the quantitative information. In addition, the current study is limited to Tanzania's small businesses; thus, the findings cannot assure generalization of the conclusion to other countries because of the differences in social, cultural and technology across countries.

This study integrates the concepts of strategic orientation from the strategic management discipline and digitalization from a technology perspective. As a result, the study adds new knowledge about combining two aspects and determining whether they add value in terms of providing a sustainable competitive advantage. This knowledge comes from digitalization, which acts as a mediator between strategic orientation dimensions and a sustainable competitive advantage.

The current study was developed in response to the profound impact of ethical practices on the beverage industry. It aims to examine the mediating role of perceived brand trustworthiness in the relationship between brand social responsibility and brand positioning in the Tanzanian beverage industry.

The study adopted a post-positivist approach, as it encompasses a deterministic perspective where causes are believed to determine outcomes or effects. The study focused on customers of two major beverage companies in Tanzania, namely Coca-Cola and Pepsi. Data were collected from 458 customers and analyzed using structural equation modeling.

The findings indicate that brand social responsibility serves as a valuable intangible asset, capable of establishing a competitive edge when integrated into the value proposition. Additionally, the results reveal that brand trustworthiness plays a mediating role in the connection between brand social responsibility and brand positioning.

The study employed a convenience sampling technique; hence, generalization of the findings should be approached with caution.

This study represents one of the few scholarly endeavors that explore the role of social responsibility at the product brand level in establishing brand positioning. By doing so, it contributes to the advancement of knowledge concerning the impact of brand social responsibility on building competitiveness within the context of today's competitive business environment.

This study provides theoretical and empirical insights into how firms can enhance their performance strategically and financially by integrating learning and transformational capabilities into research and development (R&D) activities based on the dynamic capabilities approach. To achieve this, the authors propose that transformational capabilities in R&D mediate the relationship between learning capabilities in R&D and competitive advantage.

Using a purposive sampling technique and standardized questionnaires, data were collected from 118 R&D and senior managers. To analyze the data, multiple regression analysis, along with SPSS PROCESS macro (Model 4), was used.

The results support the theoretical assumption that there are direct and indirect positive and significant effects between learning capabilities in R&D and competitive advantage as mediated by transformational R&D capabilities.

This study explores R&D from a dynamic capabilities perspective and suggests that learning capabilities should come first to enhance businesses’ competitive advantage. Furthermore, transformational R&D capabilities can explain the relationship between learning capabilities in R&D and competitive advantage. The authors recommend that researchers should investigate the contributions of R&D to promote competitive advantage.

In an era of global competition, firms need to collaborate for long-term benefits. Researchers have investigated the linkages between supply chain collaboration (SCC), customer satisfaction and loyalty. However, little attention has been paid to these linkages in the home electronics sector. This study attempts to investigate the impacts of SCC on firms' competitive advantage, customer satisfaction and customer loyalty in the home electronics sector of Vietnam.

Besides aggregation of literature review, the authors conducted an experimental study with a sample of 300 customers who bought household electronic appliances in the first six months of 2021 in Hanoi city, Vietnam. In this study, structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to analyse the hypotheses.

The findings indicate that SCC has a positive impact on competitive advantage, increasing customer satisfaction and loyalty in the home electronics sector. Evidence also revealed that competitive advantage can be enhanced through information sharing, decision synchronisation and incentive alignment.

This study can be applied to foster a more effective collaboration approach amongst supply chain members in the household electronic appliances sector, which, in turn, will increase competitiveness, customer satisfaction and loyalty.

The purpose of this paper is to comment on Professor Ming-Jer Chen’s recent publication titled “Competitive dynamics: Eastern roots, Western growth” and present an asymmetry reversing perspective on the competitive dynamics between two nonobvious, invisible or indirect competitors, namely, how emerging market resource-poor firms compete and outcompete advanced country resource-rich rivals.

The author first identifies an important neglect in Professor Chen’s scholarship on competitive dynamics, i.e., the neglect of the ubiquity of the less visible competition between two actors who initially would not be considered as competitors. Then, the author proposes an asymmetry reversing theory (ART) of competitive dynamics to redress this neglect. The theory is presented in two parts. The first part describes the competitive dynamics between the two actors as a three-stage process of reversing the asymmetry in resource possession and market position between the resource-poor firm and its resource-rich rivals. The second part explains the key success factors for the resource-poor firm to go through each of the three stages.

The growth process of the resource-poor firm can be broadly divided into three stages: surviving, catching-up, and outcompeting. For ambitious yet pragmatic resource-poor firms, in the surviving stage, they often (have to) accept the asymmetry between themselves and their resource-rich rivals in terms of resource possession and market position, and try to avoid any direct competition with the strong incumbents. They often tactically appear to pursue different paths of development from those of the strong incumbents by focusing on particular product categories and market segments. Doing so allows the resource-poor firms to win times and spaces for non-interrupted growth. Once they have accumulated sufficient resources and market experiences, they start to reduce the asymmetry between themselves and their better-endowed rivals by entering the similar or same product categories and market segments. To effectively catch up and outcompete the incumbents, they often differentiate themselves from their rivals by offering cheaper products or services, adding new features to their products, providing extra services to their customers, inventing new business models, etc.

One limitation of this paper is that the ART framework has so far been built on anecdotal evidences. It needs to be tested by empirical studies and refined further in the future. Another limitation is that the proposed theory is based on competitive dynamics between emerging market resource-poor firms and advanced country resource-rich firms. It needs to be tested whether this theory has applicability to any other firms.

This paper fills an important research gap in the competitive dynamics literature by proposing an asymmetry reversing theory of competitive dynamics between a weak latecomer and a strong incumbent in a competitive field.

Sustainable development research assumes that startups, under extreme financial constraints, cannot sacrifice resources now for benefits later without risking their survival. Furthermore, their non-compliance with environmental regulations adds fuel to the fire. This paper aims to explore the challenges faced by startups in resource-scarce economies and the innovative ways of coping with these challenges.

The data for the study was collected through 17 semi-structured interviews taken from startup owners and industry experts based in Pakistan and Bangladesh. The transcribed data were coded through NVivo 12 and themes were generated by merging 47 open and 14 axial codes.

The findings show that a lack of government support and lack of organisational readiness and motivation significantly affect startups’ frugal eco-innovation. Empirical evidence reveals problems related to the business ecosystem, and internal organisational issues also contribute to challenges faced by startups in attaining a competitive position in the industry.

The study’s findings suggested leveraging dynamic capabilities can help lean startups in frugal eco-innovation. Furthermore, organisational cohesion, business ecosystem, government regulations and assistantship, organisational mismanagement and market realisation are decisive in startups’ competitive position in emerging economies.

The findings of the study will result in a higher adoption rate of more competitive business models, and hence, startups’ sustainability. The results would be an effective and efficient deployment of sustainable technological solutions, creating more customer and shareholder value leading to economic growth.

This research offers a comprehensive analysis of frugal eco-innovative startups by exploring the interplay between different challenges and organisational capabilities. Furthermore, the study contributes to the existing body of knowledge by providing empirical evidence that eco-innovation can be conducted in a resource-constrained environment. This study challenged the scholarly and managerial assumption of the availability of finances as a significant player in eco-innovation. The study also links the Darwin theory of startups to a competitive edge over rivals for startups’ survival.

This study aims to examine the influence of the entrepreneurial orientation (EO) dimensions (innovativeness, risk-taking, proactiveness, competitive aggressiveness and autonomy) on the export performance (EXP) of small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

In this study a cross-sectional survey design was used and data were collected from 250 managers of manufacturing-exporting SMEs in Tanzania. The developed conceptual model was empirically tested using confirmatory factor analysis and hierarchical regression.

The results reveal that innovativeness, risk-taking, competitive aggressiveness and autonomy have a significant positive influence on EXP. However, proactiveness hurts EXP. Additionally, findings indicate that the dimensions of EO do not have an equal impact on SMEs’ EXP.

This study only covered SMEs; future studies would be advised to include large firms because they may behave differently with respect EO due to their resource advantages. Furthermore, this study was conducted in a single country, Tanzania, and thus the findings should be interpreted cautiously, since each country has specific institutional frameworks that foster entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial culture in a different way.

The context of this study contributes significantly to the research’s originality. The study contributes to the body of knowledge on the EO-EXP link in developing countries, where research on EO-export is scant, and it further contributes to the debate on the EO-EXP link by demonstrating that the dimensions of EO do not have an equal impact on SMEs’ EXP, and accordingly a disaggregated approach would be more meaningful. Furthermore, the study contributes with regards the role of competitive aggressiveness and autonomy in improving SMEs’ EXP, which has received little attention in previous studies.

This study aims to investigate the effects of board cultural diversity (BCD) and board gender diversity (BGD) of the board of directors on environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance in the European banking sector using resource-based view (RBV) theory. In addition, this study analyses the linkages between BCD and BGD and knowledge sharing on the board of directors to improve ESG performance.

This study selected a sample of European-listed banks covering the period 2021. ESG and diversity variables were collected from Refinitiv Eikon and analysed using the ordinary least squares model. This study was conducted in the European context regulated by Directive 95/2014/EU, which requires sustainability disclosure. The original population was represented by 250 banks; after missing data were excluded, the final sample comprised 96 European-listed banks.

The findings highlight the positive linkages between BGD, BCD and ESG scores in the European banking sector. In addition, the findings highlight that diversity contributes to knowledge sharing by improving ESG performance in a regulated sector. Nonetheless, the combined effect of BGD and BCD negatively impacts ESG performance.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to measure and analyse a regulated sector, such as banking, and the relationship between cultural and gender diversity for sharing knowledge under the RBV theory lens in the ESG framework.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the interplay of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and green innovation in boosting competitiveness in manufacturing in an emerging market context. This study adds green innovation as mediator in the relationship between CSR and competitiveness.

A model with three second-order constructs is developed and tested, in a sample of 325 managers from manufacturing companies in Ecuador, using quantitative and cross-section methods.

After obtaining adjusted and validated measurement models, a structural equation model was conducted, where the main hypotheses were confirmed, providing empirical evidence that CSR and green innovation significantly influence manufacturing competitiveness in a developing economy.

This study considers only manufacturing companies in Ecuador, focusing on CSR practices in a single territorial case study. It arguably contributes to reinforce the business case for CSR, with new evidence on the causal relationships between CSR, green innovation and competitiveness, in the context of emerging market manufacturing industries. Although the literature often points at a positive relationship between CSR and firm-level competitiveness, supporting empirical evidence remains scarce. This model, introducing green innovation as mediator in the relationship between CSR and competitiveness in developing markets, accounts for a novel theoretical approach.

The findings are consistent with previous research, reporting the positive influence of CSR activities on organizational competitiveness, reducing risks and cost structures, as well as improving the relationship with employees, enhancing talent attraction, retention and productivity. Incorporating formal CSR tools to the model allowed us to highlight the relevance of ‘green’ certifications as a means to provide a competitive edge, along with increased bargaining power in the supply chain, resulting in competitiveness gains. The findings on the role of green innovation suggest a transition from cost-savings to a more strategic leverage on responsible innovation as a source of competitive advantage.

Additionally, this research contributes to shed light on the impact of green processes and product innovations on social and environmental performance, providing evidence of a more efficient use of energy and natural resources, increasing productivity and by extension, profitability. CSR shapes an innovation culture that, through the use of social, environmental and sustainability controllers, can create new business models, products, services or processes that boost both firm-level and supply chain productivity, benefits that eventually spill over to the host community.

This study aims at bridging the research gap on the interplay of CSR, green innovation and competitiveness in manufacturing in an emerging market context.