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1 – 10 of 10Misal Ijaz, Abeera Zarrar and Farah Naz
The purpose of this study is to evaluate the synergy of corporate governance (CG) with intellectual capital (IC) and to assess the moderating effect of profitability indicator on…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to evaluate the synergy of corporate governance (CG) with intellectual capital (IC) and to assess the moderating effect of profitability indicator on the aforementioned synergy using agency theory, resource-based view theory and theory of financial ratios as conceptual frameworks.
Design/methodology/approach
The sample includes 72 companies with a six-year data set drawn from the KSE 100 Index companies of Pakistan. In addition, the study adopts Pulic’s model to compute the efficiency of IC. The research uses fixed-effect panel regression for analysis and two-stage least squares regression (2SLS) to address endogeneity issues in the estimation process.
Findings
The results showcased that chief executive officer duality possesses negligible impact on IC efficiency (ICE), while independent directors, audit committees and board size tend to attain a strong association with IC. Moreover, it postulates that the moderation of return on equity strengthens the path between all governance components and ICE significantly.
Originality/value
The research uses a 2SLS regression analysis to explore how CG practices take hold on the effectiveness of IC in Pakistan while taking into account the moderating impact of profitability. The findings add to the body of knowledge on the value that strong governance practices have on businesses and society.
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The attention of scholars and policy makers towards the topic of innovation has consistently increased, especially in recent years. This is justified by the fact that innovation…
Abstract
The attention of scholars and policy makers towards the topic of innovation has consistently increased, especially in recent years. This is justified by the fact that innovation undoubtedly plays, today, a crucial role in driving a country’s economic growth, improving productivity and, more generally, enhancing overall societal well-being.
When the discourse around innovation focuses on its economic dimension, the strong intertwinement with entrepreneurship emerges. In line with this, focusing on research on innovation in organisations and, especially, innovation in relation to the figure of the entrepreneur is considered, plenty of studies have been carried on, over time, in many disciplines, analysing the role of the entrepreneur in relation to innovation from various different angles. However, especially when management studies are considered, we can notice a poor consideration of the role played by the gender of the entrepreneur. In line with this consideration, by means of a systematic literature review, this chapter aims to fill this literature gap focusing on the intertwinement that can be envisaged, in management studies, among the issues of entrepreneurship and innovation in the case of women-owned firms.
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Amrita Hari, Luciara Nardon and Dunja Palic
Educational institutions are investing heavily in the internationalization of their campuses to attract global talent. Yet, highly skilled immigrants face persistent labor market…
Abstract
Purpose
Educational institutions are investing heavily in the internationalization of their campuses to attract global talent. Yet, highly skilled immigrants face persistent labor market challenges. We investigate how immigrant academics experience and mitigate their double precarity (migrant and academic) as they seek employment in higher education in Canada.
Design/methodology/approach
We take a phenomenological approach and draw on reflective interviews with nine immigrant academics, encouraging participants to elaborate on symbols and metaphors to describe their experiences.
Findings
We found that immigrant academics constitute a unique highly skilled precariat: a group of professionals with strong professional identities and attachments who face the dilemma of securing highly precarious employment (temporary, part-time and insecure) in a new academic environment or forgoing their professional attachment to seek stable employment in an alternate occupational sector. Long-term, stable and commensurate employment in Canadian higher education is out of reach due to credentialism. Those who stay the course risk deepening their precarity through multiple temporary engagements. Purposeful deskilling toward more stable employment that is disconnected from their previous educational and career accomplishments is a costly alternative in a situation of limited information and high uncertainty.
Originality/value
We bring into the conversation discussions of migrant precarity and academic precarity and draw on immigrant academics’ unique experiences and strategies to understand how this double precarization shapes their professional identities, mobility and work integration in Canadian higher education.
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Anna Hallberg, Ulrika Winblad and Mio Fredriksson
The build-up of large-scale COVID-19 testing required an unprecedented effort of coordination within decentralized healthcare systems around the world. The aim of the study was to…
Abstract
Purpose
The build-up of large-scale COVID-19 testing required an unprecedented effort of coordination within decentralized healthcare systems around the world. The aim of the study was to elucidate the challenges of vertical policy coordination between non-political actors at the national and regional levels regarding this policy issue, using Sweden as our case.
Design/methodology/approach
Interviews with key actors at the national and regional levels were analyzed using an adapted version of a conceptualization by Adam et al. (2019), depicting barriers to vertical policy coordination.
Findings
Our results show that the main issues in the Swedish context were related to parallel sovereignty and a vagueness regarding responsibilities and mandates as well as complex governmental structures and that this was exacerbated by the unfamiliarity and uncertainty of the policy issue. We conclude that understanding the interaction between the comprehensiveness and complexity of the policy issue and the institutional context is crucial to achieving effective vertical policy coordination.
Originality/value
Many studies have focused on countries’ overall pandemic responses, but in order to improve the outcome of future pandemics, it is also important to learn from more specific response measures.
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The purpose of this study is to understand how executives in technology companies relate to targets for gender equality, especially pertaining to top management.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to understand how executives in technology companies relate to targets for gender equality, especially pertaining to top management.
Design/methodology/approach
The study draws on 19 interviews of CEOs, senior line managers and HR directors in ten technology companies operating in Finland. The method is (reflexive) thematic analysis.
Findings
Previous studies on the role of executives in promoting gender equality provide somewhat mixed results: while their role is vital, senior leaders may not be inclined to support gender equality targets and measures. Drawing on critical feminist theorizing, this study identifies three ways in which the executives in technology companies related to gender equality targets: endorsing, negotiating and resisting. However, all these responses were constrained by the executives’ assumption that their companies are meritocratic. The study illustrates how executives’ narrow understanding of gender equality and reliance on the presumably well-working systems, combined with underlying doubts about the competence of women, hinder the advancement of women to top management.
Originality/value
While previous studies have evaluated targets to increase the number/percentage of women, both in certain “ideal case” companies and in terms of their effectiveness more broadly, this study discusses how technology company executives navigate these targets in relation to women's assumed “competence”.
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Ingo Pies and Vladislav Valentinov
Stakeholder theory understands business in terms of relationships among stakeholders whose interests are mainly joint but may be occasionally conflicting. In the latter case…
Abstract
Purpose
Stakeholder theory understands business in terms of relationships among stakeholders whose interests are mainly joint but may be occasionally conflicting. In the latter case, managers may need to make trade-offs between these interests. The purpose of this paper is to explore the nature of managerial decision-making about these trade-offs.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper draws on the ordonomic approach which sees business life to be rife with social dilemmas and locates the role of stakeholders in harnessing or resolving these dilemmas through engagement in rule-finding and rule-setting processes.
Findings
The ordonomic approach suggests that stakeholder interests trade-offs ought to be neither ignored nor avoided, but rather embraced and welcomed as an opportunity for bringing to fruition the joint interest of stakeholders in playing a better game of business. Stakeholders are shown to bear responsibility for overcoming the perceived trade-offs through the institutional management of social dilemmas.
Originality/value
For many stakeholder theorists, the nature of managerial decision-making about trade-offs between conflicting stakeholder interests and the nature of trade-offs themselves have been a long-standing point of contention. The paper shows that trade-offs may be useful for the value creation process and explicitly discusses managerial strategies for dealing with them.
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This study aims to analyze the factors driving Syrian refugees into the informal labor market in Türkiye despite the existence of regulations and programs to facilitate their…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to analyze the factors driving Syrian refugees into the informal labor market in Türkiye despite the existence of regulations and programs to facilitate their integration into the formal labor market.
Design/methodology/approach
This study presents results from a literature review of secondary sources and primary data collection through semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders and Syrian refugees.
Findings
The study shows that the implementation of policies and programs to boost formal employment among refugees has yielded limited results. Many refugees continue to operate within the informal economy. This informality is due to various socio-economic challenges, including anti-refugee sentiments, geographical restrictions and economic crises. The 2023 twin earthquakes have further exacerbated the vulnerable situation of refugees, intensifying the difficulty of achieving self-reliance.
Research limitations/implications
The study’s drawbacks include a small sample size. This implies that the sample is not representative; therefore, results may lack generalizability.
Practical implications
The study’s findings could stimulate greater engagement in public policy, facilitate the management of public perceptions regarding refugees and provide support to the private sector, all to enhance the integration of Syrian refugees into the formal labor market.
Originality/value
This study addresses crucial areas previously unexplored, including the impact of economic and natural disaster crises on the labor market integration of refugees. To the best of the author’s knowledge, by investigating these factors for the first time, this study offers novel insights into their influence on refugees’ labor market integration.
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Thomas Trabert, Luca Doerr and Claudia Lehmann
The organizational digital transformation (ODT) in companies presents small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) – who remain at the beginning of this transformation – with the…
Abstract
Purpose
The organizational digital transformation (ODT) in companies presents small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) – who remain at the beginning of this transformation – with the challenge of offering digital services based on sensor technologies. Against this backdrop, the present paper identifies ways SMEs can enable digital servitization through sensor technology and defines the possible scope of the organizational transformation process.
Design/methodology/approach
Around 21 semi-structured interviews were conducted with experts from different hierarchical levels across the German manufacturing SME ecosystem. Using the Gioia methodology, fields of action were identified by focusing on influencing factors and opportunities for developing these digital services to offer them successfully in the future.
Findings
The complexity of existing sensor offerings must be mastered, and employees' (data) understanding of the technology has increased. Knowledge gaps, which mainly relate to technical and organizational capabilities, must be overcome. The potential of sensor technology was considered on an individual, technical and organizational level. To enable the successful implementation of service offerings based on sensor technology, all relevant stakeholders in the ecosystem must network to facilitate shared value creation. This requires standardized technical and procedural adaptations and is an essential prerequisite for data mining.
Originality/value
Based on this study, current problem areas were analyzed, and potentials that create opportunities for offering digital sensor services to manufacturing SMEs were identified. The identified influencing factors form a conceptual framework that supports SMEs' future development of such services in a structured manner.
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This paper aims to examine the factors associated with a household business entrepreneur’s decisions to formalise the firm at a multidimensions level.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the factors associated with a household business entrepreneur’s decisions to formalise the firm at a multidimensions level.
Design/methodology/approach
The data set is a panel of 2,336 SMEs and household businesses from Vietnamese SME surveys during the 2005–2015 period.
Findings
This study elucidates how firm-level resources, entrepreneur characteristics and costs of doing business influence an entrepreneur’s decision to enter, the speed and the degree of formality.
Originality/value
This study provides insight into the origins of an entrepreneur’s decisions to the multidimensions of business formality through the lenses of the resource-based view, entrepreneurship and institution theories.
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