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This paper aims to investigate the impact of retrenchment strategy on firm performance in the context of Pakistani firms while considering the moderating role of chief executive officer (CEO) power. By examining the influence of CEO duality and CEO share ownership on the relationship, this study contributes to strategic management and corporate governance knowledge within the Pakistani business environment.

A quantitative approach was used to analyze the relationship using data from annual financial statements. The sample consisted of 76 companies from the KSE-100 index from the year 2015 to 2020. Random effects regression models were used, along with hierarchical regression to explore the moderating effect of CEO power.

The findings demonstrate that the implementation of a retrenchment strategy positively impacts firm performance in Pakistani firms. The study also reveals that CEO power plays a crucial role in strengthening the relationship between retrenchment strategy and firm performance. Moreover, the study highlights the importance of considering the temporal sequence, size and age of firms when examining the impact of CEO power and retrenchment strategy on firm performance.

The study enhances the understanding of the contingent nature of retrenchment strategies and the influence of CEO power in the Pakistani business context. Practically, the research contributes to strategic management and corporate governance dynamics, facilitating the development of strategies that enhance firm performance and sustainability in Pakistan.

This research provides original insights by specifically focusing on the Pakistani context and analyzing the interplay between retrenchment strategy, CEO power and firm performance. The study adds to the limited literature on the relationship between retrenchment and performance in the Pakistani business environment. Additionally, it highlights the significance of CEO power as a critical factor in determining the success of retrenchment.

This study aims to investigate the influence of resource slack on the decline of Brazilian companies, with a particular focus on the moderating role of environmental dynamism. The authors specifically examine three types of resource slack: available, potential and recoverable. These represent surplus resources that exceed what is necessary for the organization’s basic operations. The role of environmental dynamism, characterized by rapid changes in customer preferences, technologies and competitive dynamics, is considered as a moderating factor in this relationship.

The authors used data from Brazilian companies spanning from 1997 to 2008. The research sample was composed using the matching-pairs method, which included a group of publicly traded companies that experienced decline (43 companies) and a group that did not (40 companies) within the specified timeframe.

Findings of this study indicate that the presence of available slack, being more liquid resources, decreases the likelihood of organizational decline. Furthermore, the moderation effect of potential resource slack can mitigate decline in companies operating in dynamic industries.

This research provides valuable insights into the impact of slack resources on potential organizational turnarounds. Given the relative scarcity of resources in these companies compared to those in developed countries, whether they be financial, human or technological, the study highlights the unique influence of slack in a less explored institutional environment. This research underscores the importance of examining the decline of Brazilian companies from a broader perspective, emphasizing that decisions regarding resource use can have significant implications on a company’s trajectory, either amplifying or mitigating its decline.

¿Cuál es el impacto del slack de recursos en el declive de grandes empresas brasileñas? Para responder a esta pregunta, hemos probado hipótesis por separado para tres tipos de salck de recursos: disponible, potencial y recuperable. Estos excedentes consisten en recursos en exceso más allá de lo necesario para mantener la organización funcionando.

Desarrollamos un estudio empírico cuantitativo y longitudinal con datos de empresas brasileñas de 1997 a 2008. Adoptamos el método de pares emparejados, componiendo la muestra de investigación con un grupo de empresas cotizadas en bolsa que declinaron (43 empresas) y otro que no declinó (40 empresas) en el período de tiempo.

Encontramos que la disponibilidad de recursos más líquidos reduce la posibilidad de declive. El efecto de moderación en el slack de recursos potenciales para empresas en industrias dinámicas puede mitigar el declive.

Esta investigación contribuye a una mejor comprensión del efecto del excedente en posibles recuperaciones. Extender los estudios de recursos excedentes al contexto de empresas brasileñas mostró la influencia que el excedente ejerce en un ambiente institucional relativamente menos explorado. Ya sea financiero, humano o tecnológico, la escasez de recursos es más pronunciada que en empresas de países desarrollados. Esta investigación llama la atención sobre el hecho de que la declinación de empresas brasileñas se analiza desde una perspectiva más amplia. Las decisiones sobre cómo la empresa usa sus recursos pueden afectar positiva o negativamente la declinación de las empresas, reforzando la importancia de discutir esta relación.

A Qual é o impacto da folga de recursos no declínio de grandes empresas brasileiras? Para responder a essa pergunta, testamos hipóteses separadamente para três tipos de folga de recursos: disponível, potencial e recuperável. Essas folgas consistem em recursos além do necessário para manter a organização funcionando.

Desenvolvemos um estudo empírico quantitativo e longitudinal com dados de empresas brasileiras de 1997 a 2008. Adotamos o método de pares combinados, compondo a amostra de pesquisa com um grupo de empresas de capital aberto que declinaram (43 empresas) e outro que não declinou (40 empresas) no período.

Descobrimos que a disponibilidade de recursos mais líquidos reduz a possibilidade de declínio. O efeito moderador na folga de recursos potenciais para empresas em indústrias dinâmicas pode mitigar o declínio.

Esta pesquisa contribui para uma melhor compreensão do efeito da folga sobre possíveis recuperações. A extensão dos estudos de folgas de recursos para o contexto de empresas brasileiras mostrou a influência que a folga exerce em um ambiente institucional relativamente menos explorado. Seja financeiro, humano ou tecnológico, a escassez de recursos é mais pronunciada do que em empresas de países desenvolvidos. Esta pesquisa chama a atenção para o fato de que o declínio de empresas brasileiras é analisado sob uma perspectiva mais ampla. Decisões sobre como a empresa usa seus recursos podem afetar positiva ou negativamente o declínio das empresas, reforçando a importância de discutir essa relação.

This study aims to analyze the effect of cognitive load and social value orientation on managers’ preferences when they face with two types of restructuring choices in financially distressed firms: the first belonging to the family of organizational restructuring (massive layoffs) and the second to the family of financial restructuring (debt increases).

The authors investigate experimentally the impact of managers’ cognitive load and social value orientation on the decision to restructure leveraged buyout (LBO) firms in financial distress by using either massive layoffs or debt increases.

By investigating the impact of managers’ cognitive load and social value orientation on the restructuring decision of an LBO firm in financial distress, the research reveals that, on average, cognitively loaded managers prefer massive layoffs over increased debt levels. The massive layoffs seemingly provide a relatively easier way to avoid conflict with influential, residual claimants. In contrast, social value–oriented managers actively avoid massive layoffs and prefer to increase debt.

These results imply that the performance mechanisms emphasized to improve agency relations, for example, in LBOs, have their own limitations during periods of financial distress. This study shows that one of these limits is related to cognitive distortions and personality traits.

In this research, the originality lies in understanding how managers’ internal factors affect their restructuring decision-making, in the case of LBO firms in financial distress.

The automotive industry appears to overcome much of its obstacles, despite the constant struggle facing COVID-19. The pandemic has resulted in significant improvements in the habits and conduct of consumers. There is an increased preference for personal mobility. In this dynamic environment with unexpected changes and high market rivalry, automotive supply chains focus more on executing responsive strategies with minimum costs. This paper aims to identify and model the drivers to the responsiveness of automotive supply chain.

Seventeen drivers for supply chain responsiveness have been identified from the extensive literature, expert interview. An integrated methodology of fuzzy decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory–interpretive structural modelling (DEMATEL–ISM) is developed to establish the interrelationship between the drivers. The cause–effect relationship between the drivers was obtained through fuzzy DEMATEL technique, and a hierarchical structure of the drivers was developed using the ISM technique.

The result of the integrated methodology revealed that strategic decision-making of management, accurate forecasting of demand, advanced manufacturing system in the organisation and data integration tools are the critical drivers.

This study has conceptual and analytical limitations. In this study, a limited number of drivers are examined for supply chain responsiveness. Further research may examine the role of other key performance indicators in the broad field of responsiveness in the automotive supply chain or other industry sectors. Future study can uncover the interrelationships and relative relevance of indicators using advanced multi-criteria decision-making methodologies.

The authors proposed an integrated methodology that will be benefitted to the supply chain practitioners and automotive manufacturers to develop management strategies to improve responsiveness. This study further helps to compare the responsiveness of the supply chain between various automotive manufacturers.

This paper aims to introduce a growth comprehensive pattern to explain the phenomenon of individual foreign investment, first at the global level and then at the regional level. The patterns are developed based on a number of main theories with grounded theory (GT) as the foundation, distributed on the two pull and push forces of international business theory and migration theory; simultaneously, it is classified on the three levels (attribute–consequence–value [ACV]) of means-end theory.

An embedded method is applied to generate two complementary datasets from two approaches: in-depth interviews and secondary data analysis.

In this structure, the investor plays a central role as the decision-maker based on the entrepreneur's motives for internationalization (economics-driven and psychology-driven factors) and the householders' motives for emigration (aspiration and access capabilities). The external forces considered are a push from the home country (structures) and pull from the host country (immigrant investment programs [IIPs]), in which the factor of (dis)trust/misconception as a moderator has an additional impact on this mobility. Demographic factors such as gender, region, generation/age, level of education, religion and occupation generally describe the characteristics of each specific target group.

This paper is to develop a conceptual framework.

The results of this study, in addition to fulfilling its own objectives, will also serve as the foundation for further research in several scientific fields such as economics, sociology and politics.

The peer review history for this article is available at https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-12-2022-0786

Using the lens of crisis innovation and strategic alignment, this study explores how a segment of the restaurant sector that may be less agile than others—Michelin-starred restaurants—perceives and aligns with the challenges brought about by the COVID-19-pandemic.

The study collected data from 19 Michelin-starred restaurants in Spain using a qualitative interview method. The data were analyzed qualitatively and organized thematically.

Four key categories of strategic challenges were identified: human resources, uncertainty, control and economic challenges. In response, chefs displayed both behavioral and organizational strategies. Those organizational strategies were new human resource management, reorganization, product and service innovation and marketing. While the new human resource management actions adopted to align with the human resource challenges identified, a misalignment remains between some of the other strategic actions, such as product and service innovation, marketing and economic and uncertainty challenges.

The findings offer new insight into Michelin-starred restaurant chefs' challenges and (mis)alignment strategies, an area that has been understudied in the current literature on innovative responses in the hospitality sector post-pandemic.

Major maintenance projects are often regarded as maintenance activities regardless of the projects' complexity and scale. Consequently, very scarce research attention has hitherto been paid to the critical skills required when undertaking these projects. More specifically, the body of relevant knowledge is deprived of a study focusing on maintenance projects within the energy sector. In view of this shortcoming, this research aims to examine the critical project management (PM) skills required to deliver major maintenance projects within the energy sector.

Based on a quantitative research strategy, this study addressed the knowledge gap through a cross-sectional survey of professionals involved in the delivery of major maintenance projects in the United Kingdom's (UK) energy sector. Data obtained were analyzed via descriptive (e.g. frequencies, mean and standard deviation [SD]) and inferential statistical analyses (One sample t-test and exploratory factor analysis (EFA)).

Out of the 45 PM skills identified in the literature and examined by the respondents, the results obtained from the One sample t-test (based on p (1-tailed) = 0.05) showed that 37 were considered to be at least “important,” accounting for 80.4% of all the skills identified. EFA revealed a clustering of the PM skills items into seven components: “skills related to work scheduling and coordination”; “communication, risk, safety and stakeholder management skills”; “quality assurance skills”; “people management skills”; “skills related to forecasting scope and duration of outage”; “implementation of processes and time management skills” and “technical/engineering skills and experience pertaining to the outage and local site knowledge.”

This study has identified and contributed to the limited state-of-the-art skills project managers must possess to manage major maintenance projects in the energy sector successfully. The findings would be useful to organizations within the energy sector in ensuring that the organizations have suitable personnel in place to deliver major maintenance projects on the organizations' assets.

The study examines the IPO resilience grounded on the firm’s intrinsic factors.

We examine the association of IPO performance and post-listing firm’s performance with issuers' pre-listing financial and qualitative traits using panel data regression.

IPOs floated in the Indian market from July 2009 to March 31, 2022, evince the notable influence of issuers' pre-IPO fundamentals and legitimacy traits on IPO returns and post-listing earning power. Where the pandemic’s favorable impact is discerned on the post-listing year earning power of the issuer firms, the loss-making issuers appear to be adversely affected by the Covid disruption. Perhaps, the successful listing equipped the issuers with the financial flexibility to combat market challenges vis-à-vis failed issuers deprived of desired IPO proceeds.

High initial returns followed by a declining pattern substantiate the retail investors to be less informed vis-à-vis initial investors, valuers and underwriters, who exit post-listing after profit booking. Investing in the shares of the newly listed ventures post-listing in the secondary market can shield retail investors from the uncertainty losses of being uninformed. The IPO market needs stringent regulations ensuring the verification of the listing valuation, the firm’s credentials and the intent of utilizing IPO proceeds. Healthy development of the IPO market merits reconsidering the listing of ventures with weak fundamentals suspected to withstand the market challenges.

Given the tremendous rise in the new firm venturing into the primary market and the spike in IPOs countering the losses immediately post-opening, the study examines the loss-making and young firms IPOs separately, adding novelty to the study.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the link between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and the amount of trust customers have in Somali Islamic banks. Furthermore, the role of gender in CSR activities and Islamic bank clientele is evaluated.

Throughout February and March 2022, 410 clients of Islamic banks in Somalia were surveyed using a questionnaire. The partial least squares approach and the structural equation model are applied to examine the data.

Findings indicate that all variables of CSR activities, such as social product, social legal, social needs, social environment and social employees’ responsibility, are influential and significant predictors of trust in Islamic banks in Somalia. Gender inequalities moderate the relationship between social product, social needs, social environment, social employee and trust. Conversely, only social legal responsibility was unaffected by gender differences in Somalia regarding people’s trust in Islamic banks.

A sample from a developing country such as Somalia is useful for shedding light on the outcomes of consumers’ perceptions of and trust in businesses’ CSR in the developing world. Furthermore, this study contributes to knowledge regarding CSR and how it can help the Islamic banking industry. Its findings will be useful to policymakers and regulatory bodies in the banking industry in their efforts to improve CSR.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first empirical investigation of its kind about the understudied relationship among customer trust, CSR efforts and gender in Somalia context. Furthermore, it investigates how gender specifically moderates CSR in the Islamic banking sector in a developing country.

Organizational resilience, defined by a firm’s speed in reaching a dynamic equilibrium after a shock and after the shocks are absorbed, and crisis management are critical in a global crisis. The concept of resilience is increasingly used in the economic press; nevertheless, few studies demonstrate empirically how firms became resilient and the lessons to be learned from it. Traditionally, the concept of resilience is approached as resistance in the face of a crisis. The authors go further by showing three-loop learning, which is part of a logic of innovation and regeneration. This study aims to examine how a business can regenerate itself by effectively managing the external threats and disruptions caused by a crisis. Also, this study deepens knowledge on learning process. The double-loop learning process is known in the literature as enabling firms to learn from unexpected events and react accordingly. The findings point out a third loop implying the co-invention of a new business model and a collective mindfulness of changes made.

Using longitudinal data, the authors investigate how the global crisis affects merger negotiations between two companies. This study analyzes the period of dialogue (negotiation) between the two entities with a view to carrying out a merger and then their withdrawal from the project during the pandemic, reshuffling the cards for each company. The negotiation period is not normally disclosed because of its highly confidential and strategic nature and it is therefore difficult for researchers to access merger operations at the negotiation stage. From this viewpoint, this case study was chosen because of the availability of generally inaccessible documentation.

This in-depth case study provides new insights on organizational resilience and the recovery capacity of a firm. The results underline four main triggers that a firm should develop in facing a major crisis: skills; credits; previous and historical relationships; and corporate culture. Recovery capacity depends on reactivity, flexibility, learning and regeneration. Finally, this study points out a three-loop learning experience that can be understood as a learning process in two steps to generate lasting and adaptive changes.

The limitations are those concerning a single case study.

This study highlights the ability to deal with unexpected events. First, this work identifies concrete items that can be perceived by managers as elements enabling a firm to develop resilience. Second, the results show main elements enabling this capacity as reactivity – both companies react quickly and effectively to disturbances to limit the impact on their performance; or flexibility – firms adapt their business model to deal with disruptions. Third, this work underlines a learning capacity process in three steps to recover capacity. This process stimulates creativity and innovation by the teams and stakeholders by placing them at the heart of the change.

This case provides a vivid illustration of firms’ adaptation to a rapidly evolving context because of a global crisis. Theoretical concepts and empirical findings from the literature are combined to present a single consistent picture.