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The purpose of this study is to examine how sports marketing can attract audiences towards less popular sports.

A total of 22 interviews were conducted first to explore the opinions of sports professionals about how audiences can be attracted towards less popular sports. Then 479 responses to an online questionnaire were collected. The online questionnaire includes a pretest-posttest experiment in which each respondent has watched a video. Confirmatory factor analysis, reliability test and hierarchical regression analysis have been performed.

The elements of sports marketing that can help to attract audiences towards less popular sports are sports media, sports advertising, star athlete and sports sponsorship. The performance of national teams moderates the relationship between sports advertising and attraction towards less popular sports.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, a definition of sustainable sports marketing is introduced for the first time. Sustainable sports marketing can be defined as the continuous implementation of marketing activities in the sports context to ensure the continuous existence of the sports themselves (all types of sports) and the prosperity of future generations. Elements that can attract audiences towards less popular sports have been examined for the first time.

The maritime freight transportation industry has played an important role in the Korean economy. The Korean maritime freight transportation industry is faced with a period of transforming it competitively and efficiently in this global age. This paper, therefore, aims to identify the impact of the maritime freight transportation industry in the Korean national economy. Hence, this paper provides policy-makers with accessible and reliable information regarding the role of the Korean maritime freight transportation industry. This study employs input-output (I-O) analysis to examine the role of the maritime freight transportation industry in the national economy for the period 1995-2003, with specific application to Korea. This study pays particular attention to the maritime freight transportation industry by taking the industry as exogenous variable and then investigates its economic impacts. We identify inter-industry linkage effects in 20 sectors, production-inducing effects, added value-inducing effects, and supply-shortage effects of the maritime freight transportation industry.

After decades of hypergrowth, since the 2008 global financial crisis there has been a deceleration of globalization and a partial jamming of its main engines (trade and foreign direct investment [FDI]). This study aims to critically reflect on the current phase, labeling it as “win-lose globalization” characterized by firm-firm competition increasingly intertwined with that between the respective nation-states, which aim to be the relative winners, even at the expense of joint absolute gains. Acting as “strategists,” states implement policies to weaponize economic interdependences, which the paper analyzes.

The approach is “problem setting” rather than “problem solving.” The latter offers well-defined solutions but often assumes unambiguous definitions of problems, which obscure their complexity. This phase is so intricate that the problem itself is problematic. Thus, to advance knowledge, the focus is given on nation-state policies: FDI screening and the politicization of international trade relations; protectionism; misuses of antitrust and regulation.

The intensification of firm-firm/state-state competition, seeking disproportionate gains over rivals, is the ultimate result of the contradictions and dissatisfactions accumulated over decades of globalization, the benefits of which have been far from equally distributed. Conflicts in international economic relations are bound to intensify, and a return to win-win globalization is unlikely. International cooperation to strengthen existing/new supranational governance institutions in the interest of absolute global inclusive benefits is urgently needed.

The paper integrates the international business debate on the fate of globalization with interpretations from industrial policy studies and international relations theory. This allows for suggestions for policymakers, corporate executives and scholars.

This study adopts an institutional entrepreneurship perspective in the context of public–private partnerships (P3s) to highlight the role of social actors in enacting institutional change in a complex organizational setting. By studying the actions of two prominent social actors, the authors argue that successful institutional change is the result of dynamic managerial activity supported by political clout, organizational authority and the social positioning of actors.

The authors conducted a field-based case study in a complex institutional and organizational setting in Alberta, Canada. The authors employed an institutional entrepreneurship perspective to identify and analyze the activities of two allied actors motivated to transform the institutional environment for public infrastructure delivery.

The empirical study suggests that the implementation of institutional change is both individualistic and collaborative. Moreover, it is grounded in everyday organizational practices and activities and involves a coalition of allies invested in enacting lasting change in organizational practice(s), even when maintaining the status quo seems advantageous.

The authors critique the structural explanations that dominate the literature on public–private partnership implementation, which downplays the role of agency and minimizes its interplay with institutional logics in effecting institutional change. Rather, the authors demonstrate that, given the observed impact of social actors, public–private partnership adoption and implementation can be theorized as a social phenomenon.

This paper aims to examine lean thinking in medical commodities supply chains by considering its applications and success factors. It determines the drivers and wastes of medical commodity supply chain, and the existing lean tools and practices together with their application in the supply chain processes. The paper also examined the challenges and success factors for effective lean application in the medical commodities supply chains.

The study used qualitative approaches, in-depth interviews and focus group discussions with key informants to form the basis for data collection. Through thematic analysis, the collected data were analyzed by developing themes reflecting the objectives of the study.

The main drivers for waste associated with the supply chain were demand management, supplier development, institutional framework and governance. The wastes were observed at the level of inventory, operation costs, transaction costs, delays in terms of service, commodity delivery time and quality. Digitalization, information technology and standardization were the tools for medical supply chain. Poor infrastructure, unreliable internet supply, environmental uncertainty and poor management support were challenges to realizing an effective supply chain.

Although the qualitative approach used in the study provides detailed information, a quantitative study covers a larger sample for generalization.

Capacity building and professionalism should be given a priority because the philosophy of lean focuses on waste removal and continuous improvement, which highly depends on the quality of human resource (Brito et al., 2020). Limited human resource capabilities in supply chain management will, therefore, result into poor operational efficiency, which are wasted. Moreover, systems interoperability is key waste minimization and, therefore, demands interventions.

The government under the Ministry of Health and other key sector ministries such as local and regional governments should better understand the role of the waste drivers and adopt system-wide reforms to support improvements to remove waste in the medical supply chain. For example, the current institutional framework creates an administrative block and hence leads to wastes. This bureaucratic procedure should be removed to minimize wastes along the chain.

This study is among the first studies to determine applicability and implementation of lean in a resource-constrained context. The paper identifies contextual factors for lean implementation. This paper focused on a holistic view of the entire supply chains to enhance a well-functioning supply chain in delivering health commodities.

The purpose of this paper is to extend the understanding of Six Sigma (SS) and the underlying dimensions of its critical success factors (CSF) via an analysis of the effects of top management support (TMS), implementation strategy (IS), and collaborative team (CT) on project performance (PP) in Mexican manufacturing companies.

Based on a SS literature review, a survey was conducted to capture practitioners’ viewpoints about CSFs for SS implementation and their impact on performance in manufacturing companies. A factor analysis and structural equation modeling were conducted in order to identify and analyze causal relationships.

The results suggest that CSFs grouped in the constructs TMS, IS, and CT have a positive impact on PP as measured by cost reduction, variation reduction, and quality improvement.

Although the empirical data collected supported the proposed model, results might differ among organizations in different countries. In addition, the study did not analyze a unique performance metric; instead, general PP dimensions were used.

Boosting the TMS, IS, and CT enhances positive PP of SS in manufacturing companies.

IS as a construct has not been studied exhaustively; this work contributes to a better understanding of it and its impact on PP. Additionally, studies of SS in Latin America are limited, so this study gives a complementary vision to practitioners and researchers about it.

People’s tendency to overestimate their ability to control random events, known as illusion of control, can affect financial decisions under uncertainty. This study developed an artifactual field experiment on illusion of control for a farm machinery investment.

In an experiment with two treatments, the individual farmer was either given or not given a sense of control over a random outcome. After each decision, the authors elicited perceived control, and a questionnaire collected additional indirect measures of illusion of control from 78 German farmers and 10 farm advisors.

The results did not support preregistered hypotheses of the presence of illusion of control. This null result was robust over multiple outcomes and model specifications. The findings demonstrate that cognitive biases may be small and difficult to replicate.

The sample is not representative for the German farming population. The authors discuss why the estimated treatment effect may represent a lower bound of the true effect.

Illusion of control is well-studied in laboratory settings, but little is known about the extent to which farmers’ behavior is influenced by illusion of control.

This study aims to verify the effectiveness and efficiency of corporate technology innovation activities.

This study empirically analyzes the effects of research and development (R&D) capability on patent and new product development achievements on innovation-type small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) by using the “Report on Korean Innovation Survey 2010: Manufacturing Sector” data released by the Science and Technology Policy Institute.

The results of the study indicate that staffing of the concentration of R&D human resource team and efforts toward open innovation are essential factors for the creation of corporate performance.The number of persons of the concentration R&D team in particular makes up essential resources for patent acquisition and new product development. In addition, in case of an SME’s with relatively poor resources, it is necessary to acquire resources, both material and immaterial, learn from the external R&D activities and internalize those into key corporate capabilities rather than step up the R&D activities on their own.

The results of this study indicate that innovative small enterprises need to secure the number of R&D human resource members for maintaining sustainable competitiveness and securing market share. Therefore, a strategy is needed that would enable employing and raising excellent human resource in the quantitative and qualitative aspects. However, in the circumstances that small enterprises suffer difficulty in securing professional human resource for R&D compared to large enterprises, as there is a limitation for securing human resource for R&D from only the dimension of enterprises, governmental and political support is thought to be necessary for securing good-quality human resource for R&D. Accordingly, the results of this study provide many implications for the necessity of detailed methodology on how to expand professional human resource for R&D among supporting policies for technical innovative enterprises and to establish innovative strategies of enterprises.

The purpose of this research is to develop a better understanding of the hurdles in implementing Lean Six Sigma (LSS) for operational excellence in digital emerging technology companies.

We have conducted case studies of LSS implementations in six US-based companies in the digital emerging technology industry.

Critical success factors (CSF) for LSS implementations in digital emerging technology companies are: (1) organizational leadership that is engaged to the implementation, (2) LSS methodology that is rebranded to fit existing shared values in the organization, (3) restructuring of the traditional LSS training program to include a more incremental, prioritized, on-the-job training approach and (4) a modified LSS project execution methodology that includes (a) condensing the phases and tools applied in LSS projects and (b) adopting more iterative project management methods compared to the standard phased LSS project approach.

The qualitative nature of our analysis and the geographic coverage of our sample limit the generalizability of our findings.

Implications comprise the awareness and knowledge of critical success factors and LSS methodology modifications specifically relevant for digital emerging technology companies or companies that share similarities in terms of focus on product development, innovation and growth, such as R&D departments in high-tech manufacturing companies.

Research on industry-specific enablers for successful LSS implementation in the digital emerging technology industry is virtually absent. Our research informs practitioners on how to implement LSS in this and alike industries, and points to aspects of such implementations that are worthy of further attention from the academic community.