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With the rapid development of the digital economy, an increasing number of digitalized two-sided platforms have deployed the tying strategy to leverage their market power from the core two-sided product to other two-sided products in the competitive market, which transforms the competition among single platforms into that among platform ecological networks. To clarify the mechanism of the formation of the digital platform ecological networks, this paper aims to analyze the expansion and stability of platform ecology by exploring the impacts of network externalities and sellers’ heterogeneity on the tying strategy of two-sided platforms.

This paper develops a game model of two-sided platforms based on Choi and Jeon (2021), which highlights the decisive influence of non-negative price constraints (NPC) on platforms’ tying motivation. Taking the operating systems market as an example, we expand from the perspective of platform service differences to relax the NPC and explore the internal logic of platform ecosystem expansion.

Platforms have an incentive to charge lower prices or even subsidize buyers when the network externalities on the sellers’ side are relatively strong. When the product is highly differentiated and heterogenous, platforms are motivated to tie to capture more buyers with a lower price and grab excess profits from sellers. Eventually, tying is able to consolidate the two-sided platform ecological networks by excluding competitors, capturing user value and deterring entry.

In order to describe the characteristics of platform ecological network more generally, this paper extends the research based on the analyses of Choi and Jeon (2021) by (1) allowing horizontal differences between tied products and (2) relaxing the NPC. Unlike Choi and Jeon (2021), this paper allows platforms to charge users of two-sided platforms at negative prices (or to subsidize them). (3) Setting simultaneous pricing in two-sided platforms. Classical two-sided market theory stresses that the presence of cross-network externalities can give rise to a “chicken and egg” problem.

This research proposes to organise and distil this massive amount of data, making it easier to understand. Using data mining, machine learning techniques and visual approaches, researchers and managers can extract valuable insights (on guests' preferences) and convert them into strategic thinking based on exploration and predictive analysis. Consequently, this research aims to assist hotel managers in making informed decisions, thus improving the overall guest experience and increasing competitiveness.

This research employs natural language processing techniques, data visualisation proposals and machine learning methodologies to analyse unstructured guest service experience content. In particular, this research (1) applies data mining to evaluate the role and significance of critical terms and semantic structures in hotel assessments; (2) identifies salient tokens to depict guests' narratives based on term frequency and the information quantity they convey; and (3) tackles the challenge of managing extensive document repositories through automated identification of latent topics in reviews by using machine learning methods for semantic grouping and pattern visualisation.

This study’s findings (1) aim to identify critical features and topics that guests highlight during their hotel stays, (2) visually explore the relationships between these features and differences among diverse types of travellers through online hotel reviews and (3) determine predictive power. Their implications are crucial for the hospitality domain, as they provide real-time insights into guests' perceptions and business performance and are essential for making informed decisions and staying competitive.

This research seeks to minimise the cognitive processing costs of the enormous amount of content published by the user through a better organisation of hotel service reviews and their visualisation. Likewise, this research aims to propose a methodology and method available to tourism organisations to obtain truly useable knowledge in the design of the hotel offer and its value propositions.

This paper explores the idea of the prudent entrepreneurial self, through re-conceptualizing prudence into the domain of entrepreneurial education, to unite the two processes of becoming enterprising and entrepreneurial. It is argued that developing a capacity for prudence among graduates involves past, present and conjecture forms of knowledge that the authors find in the interplay between individuation and social awareness.

Building on Palmer's idea of wholeness, the authors discuss six poles of paradoxes in entrepreneurial education and in conjunction establish a philosophical argument for the idea of stimulating the development of prudence as fundamentally important to contemporary notions of entrepreneurial education.

The paper presents a model to develop a schema that moves students towards becoming prudent entrepreneurial selves. The model rests on two interrelated developmental processes – individuation and social awareness – conditional for developing the three forms of knowledge (past, present and conjecture) that makes up prudence where developing prudence is a means to handle or cope with the unknown.

This paper argues that for enterprise and entrepreneurship education to realize their potential contributions, both the relationships between each field and the overarching purpose that ties the fields together need to be rethought, and the poles of paradoxes need to be connected to further develop both fields and creating wholeness for the emerging scholarly discipline.

To educate towards the prudent entrepreneurial self means educating towards an unknown end where student development aims to meet both the objectives of individual development and the growth in social awareness required to handle the changing nature of contemporary society.

This study philosophically conceives a united enterprise and entrepreneurship education landscape in which deeper student learning makes possible the notion of the prudent entrepreneurial self.

This study aims to enrich the current theoretical debate on the growth of start-up firms by extensively investigating the ongoing empirical studies in this research stream. Moreover, this study identifies drivers whose support roles are confirmed in the literature and recommends further research opportunities.

In this study, we analysed the results of 316 empirical studies on start-up firms and growth and also identified and categorised 66 growth drivers. We presented these drivers in three-dimensional charts: 1) the frequency of using each driver in the 316 studies, 2) the consistency of each driver as measured by the number of studies supporting its statistical significance and 3) the net effect (positive or negative) of each driver on growth.

Our analysis compares extant studies on growth drivers and shows some under-explored growth factors of start-up firms.

Both start-up managers and policymakers can benefit from this study. This study provided managers with a fine-grained tool on the main growth drivers and can guide policymakers in supporting policies for start-up firms.

This study provides a rich, fine-grained and coherent picture of several potential growth drivers of start-up firms. Moreover, we extended our analysis to various potential drivers more than previous studies on this topic, thereby providing fruitful insights into the critical growth factors for start-up firms.

This study aims to examine the impact of implementing target costing and continuous improvement techniques in industrial companies operating in southern Palestine on achieving sustainable competitive advantage (SCA). The study mainly assesses the level of application of these techniques by Palestinian industrial companies (PICs). Furthermore, it evaluates the extent to which the integration of these two methods can impact SCA, by producing cost-effective and innovative products that meet customer demands and needs, while simultaneously achieving continuous development of the company and an SCA.

A descriptive analytical approach was used to study the target costing and continuous improvement techniques employed by industrial companies in southern Palestine. A questionnaire was administered to 415 companies in the southern West Bank to collect data on the application of target cost and continuous improvement and their impact on SCA, measured through market share, differentiation and cost reduction. Control variables, such as company age, size (measured by the number of employees) and industrial sector classification were also included in the study model.

The findings of the study revealed that the PICs apply target costing and continuous improvement at a high level. Furthermore, all dimensions of achieving SCA were found to be achieved at a high level, with market share being the most prominent. The study also found that the integration of the target costing and continuous improvement had a positive impact on achieving SCA in the PICs. However, the study found no impact on company size, age or industrial sector on achieving a competitive advantage in terms of market share or other results.

The current study was limited to the application of strategic management methods to companies within the industrial sector only. This may constitute a limitation because it neglected other sectors. Likely, another limitation was the difficulty of obtaining the quantitative numbers needed for some quantitative variables that pertain to that type of industrial companies, which are mostly family companies that could not be regulated by the local companies' law to disclose their financial statement.

If industrial companies have ambitions to reduce production costs from the planning and design stage to set the target selling price. It is based on the understanding and awareness of customers' desires while maintaining the quality of products according to the best methods of improvement and innovation; therefore, this can be achieved by using the target costing and the continuous improvement techniques through reviewing the current study and its results.

The current study sought to link two methods, simultaneously and complementary, with each other of the strategic methods of managerial accounting, which helps the companies to offer their best to attract customers, develop the product or service and maintain their continuity in a changing labor market that enables it to achieve sustainable and competitive advantage.

This study is unique in that it explores the impact of the integration of target costing or continuous improvement techniques (Kaizen) on achieving SCA in Palestine industrial companies. While previous studies have examined either target costing or continuous improvement techniques separately, this study enhances the integration of these two methods to achieve SCA.

The purpose of the paper is to explore the meaning of Human Resources (HR) analytics and introduce the HR analytics cycle as a proactive and systematic process for ethically gathering, analyzing, communicating and using evidence-based HR research and analytical insights to help organizations achieve their strategic objectives.

Conceptual review of the current state and meaning of HR analytics. Using the HR analytics cycle as a framework, the authors describe a seven-step process for building evidence-based and ethical HR analytics capabilities.

HR analytics is a nascent discipline and there are a multitude of monikers and competing definitions. With few exceptions, these definitions lack emphasis on evidence-based practice (i.e. the use of scientific research findings in adopting HR practices), ethical practice (i.e. ethically gathering and using HR data and insights) and the role of broader HR research and experimentation. More importantly, there are no practical models or frameworks available to help guide HR leaders and practitioners in doing HR analytics work.

The HR analytics cycle encompasses a broader range of HR analytics practices and data sources including HR research and experimentation in the context of social, behavioral and organizational science.

This paper introduces the HR analytics cycle as a practical seven-step approach for making HR analytics work in organizations.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of consumer sustainability attitudes and quick service restaurants (QSRs) practices along with the willingness of consumers to pay a premium for sustainability efforts.

A random sample of QSR customers in Germany resulted in 428 completed surveys. First, common factor analysis was conducted to assess the summated scales related to the sustainable behavior of customers, the importance attached by them to the different dimensions of sustainability and the extent to which customers perceive that QSR implement such practices. Second, the effect of these summated scales on the willingness to pay a premium (WTPP) for sustainability practices were assessed by means of a logistic regression.

The findings indicated that WTPP for sustainability efforts is primarily driven by internal beliefs and behaviors of consumers themselves rather than actions by QSR firms. Furthermore, when comparing five major QSRs, QSR brands did not appear to create a strong point of differentiation in their sustainability practices in the minds of frequent QSR consumers in the context of this study.

Implications of these results suggest that a growing number of consumers place high importance on sustainability and engage in personal sustainability practices that impact behaviors such as QSR selection and a WTPP for QSR brands and products that are perceived as implementing sustainable practices.

This paper addresses a gap by assessing drivers of willingness of QSR customers to pay a premium for sustainable practices and if QSR brands sustainability practices differ in the minds of consumers.

Consumers increasingly rely on organisations for online services and data storage while these same institutions seek to digitise the information assets they hold to create economic value. Cybersecurity failures arising from malicious or accidental actions can lead to significant reputational and financial loss which organisations must guard against. Despite having some critical weaknesses, qualitative cybersecurity risk analysis is widely used in developing cybersecurity plans. This research explores these weaknesses, considers how quantitative methods might address the constraints and seeks the insights and recommendations of leading cybersecurity practitioners on the use of qualitative and quantitative cyber risk assessment methods.

The study is based upon a literature review and thematic analysis of in-depth qualitative interviews with 16 senior cybersecurity practitioners representing financial services and advisory companies from across the world.

While most organisations continue to rely on qualitative methods for cybersecurity risk assessment, some are also actively using quantitative approaches to enhance their cybersecurity planning efforts. The primary recommendation of this paper is that organisations should adopt both a qualitative and quantitative cyber risk assessment approach.

This work provides the first insight into how senior practitioners are using and combining qualitative and quantitative cybersecurity risk assessment, and highlights the need for in-depth comparisons of these two different approaches.

This chapter deals with the perception of (sensed) discrimination and the coping strategies of Russian-speaking female scholars in Germany and applies an intersectional approach between culture, migration, gender and social background. Based on telephone interviews, the study aims to contribute to the discussion on discrimination in research environments and individuals’ professional integration by exploring narratives of migration and work in 13 women who migrated from the former Soviet Union (FSU) to Germany from 1990s to 2010s. Based on the findings, the author derives implications for policy and practice, such as a recommendation to implement introductory conversations with newcomers to reduce culture clash in competitive work contexts.

This paper aims to deal with the design optimization of a synchronous reluctance machine to be used in an X-ray tube, where the goal is to maximize the torque while keeping low the amount of material used, by means of gradient-based free-form shape optimization.

The presented approach is based on the mathematical concept of shape derivatives and allows to obtain new motor designs without the need to introduce a geometric parametrization. This paper presents an extension of a standard gradient-based free-form shape optimization algorithm to the case of multiple objective functions by determining updates, which represent a descent of all involved criteria. Moreover, this paper illustrates a way to obtain an approximate Pareto front.

The presented method allows to obtain optimal designs of arbitrary, non-parametric shape with very low computational cost. This paper validates the results by comparing them to a parametric geometry optimization in JMAG by means of a stochastic optimization algorithm. While the obtained designs are of similar shape, the computational time used by the gradient-based algorithm is in the order of minutes, compared to several hours taken by the stochastic optimization algorithm.

This paper applies the presented gradient-based multi-objective optimization algorithm in the context of free-form shape optimization using the mathematical concept of shape derivatives. The authors obtain a set of Pareto-optimal designs, each of which is a shape that is not represented by a fixed set of parameters. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this approach to multi-objective free-form shape optimization is novel in the context of electric machines.