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This study aims to argue that manufacturers with more exploration orientation (compared to exploitation orientation) have higher degrees of export marketing internalization (EMI) of branding and channels.

The authors use a multisource survey collecting data from 161 Taiwanese high-tech manufacturers in emerging markets.

The results show that manufacturers with more exploration orientation have higher degrees of EMI of both branding and channels. This work also reveals that relational ties with supply chain peers can strengthen this proposed positive effect on the EMI of channels while weakening the positive proposed effect on the EMI of branding.

Accordingly, this study enriches the resource-based view (RBV) literature by showing how firms’ unique resource portfolios affect their adopted EMI strategies in two ways: (1) firms design their EMI based on their value maximization of core competences (e.g. ambidexterity capability), and (2) firms face resource inconsistency when designing their EMI of different marketing activities.

Extant studies in entrepreneurship have explored factors that influence the birth and growth of start-up firms; however, there appears to be a dearth of studies examining the influence of founders' ambidextrous orientation on start-ups' success, especially their speed of attaining the coveted status of a “unicorn start-up” – which is considered a mega success in practice. This study examines whether and how founding teams’ collective ambidextrous orientation influences their respective start-ups’ pace of becoming a “unicorn”.

This study empirically analyses 220 interviews by the founders of 83 Indian unicorns in examining the influence of the founding teams’ collective exploration-exploitation capability on their firms' speed to achieve the “unicorn” status. The Cox Hazard model was used to test the hypothesized relationships, and linear ordinary least squares (OLS) regression was used to test the robustness of the results.

The authors find a strong positive relationship between founding teams’ ambidextrous skills and the speed of becoming a unicorn. The study results suggest that the founding teams’ collective exploratory skills may be more influential in their start-up’s speed to unicorn status vis-à-vis their exploitative skills.

This study finds that the founding teams’ ambidextrous orientation and exploratory skills accelerate their start-up’s speed to becoming a unicorn, contributing to the academic discourse on the “unicorn” phenomenon, which is widely acknowledged as a grand success status for start-ups—especially technology and venture capital funded start-ups—among the practitioners. This study contributes to the academic discourse on firm capabilities and founding-team-related antecedents of start-up success by raising a new dimension of the founding team’s ambidextrous orientation.

Agribusiness shows a growing degree of competitiveness and innovation. However, the organizational mechanisms that compete for innovation and organizational performance are not sufficiently studied. Thus, this study aims to analyze the influence of market orientation and organizational structure on innovation generated and its influence on market and financial performance in agribusiness firms in Extremadura (Spain).

A conceptual model was designed and tested. Data were collected from a questionnaire sent to innovative agri-food companies. The analysis of the model methodologically combines partial least square structural equation modelling, necessary condition analysis and importance-performance map analysis.

The main results reveal that low levels of innovation ambidexterity impact significantly performance but when compared to exploitative innovation, explorative innovation shows a stronger influence on the market and financial performance.

The results are intended to be useful to managers to improve their innovative performance by incorporating new strategies in the market orientation and organizational structure.

The originality of this research lies in the novelty of the proposed mediators, as well as the sector under study. The study expands the knowledge of the influence that market orientation and organizational structure have on the types of innovation (exploitative/explorative).

Emotions are widely acknowledged decision-making drivers, taking the front seat when managers lack objective information. Existing evidence indicates that negative emotions often lead to the decision to retrench. Contrary to these insights, our research aims to show that negative emotions can sometimes push top managers to withdraw from retrenching marketing activities. By drawing on the affect-as-information approach, this study aims to examine the direct and conditional effects of top managers’ negative emotions on small and medium-sized enteprises (SMEs’) intention to retrench marketing activities during the recent economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

This study uses a descriptive research design and surveys a sample of 155 chief executive officers from business-to-business (B2B) SMEs in Croatia. The authors empirically test the conceptual framework with hierarchical regression.

Based on the sample of 155 top managers of SMEs operating in B2B industries, negative emotions positively drive marketing retrenchment. However, additional insights reveal that this relationship is conditioned by crisis severity and SMEs' strategic orientations (exploration and exploitation). The relationship between negative emotions and marketing retrenchment weakens for SMEs severely hampered by the crisis and for SMEs following the exploitative orientation. In contrast, this relationship becomes stronger for SMEs whose business customers have been severely hampered and for SMEs following exploratory orientation.

This research advances the body of knowledge by demonstrating that, depending on the severity of the crisis and the strategic orientation of the SME, top managers may interpret negative emotions quite differently, which eventually has lasting consequences on marketing retrenchment during crises. Therefore, by focusing on emotional microfoundations and unique crisis- and firm-level contingencies, this study goes beyond existing theoretical discussions that contrast marketing retrenchment vs investment and offers a different understanding of why and when SMEs retrench their marketing activities during crises.

This study analyzes antecedents explaining the lack of resilience in family-owned firms. Our model suggests that family-owned firms’ strategic behaviors and heterogeneity explain a particular crisis outcome: a lack of recovery.

Our evidence is based on a sample of 842 European family-owned firms. We complement regression analysis results with fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA).

Our results show that lack of resilience is relevant. In fact, in our sample, 60% of family firms (FFs) failed to recover their sales. This evidence supports the role played by exploitation and exploration behavior as well as family heterogeneity in explaining the lack of recovery.

Our results may offer guidance to practitioners and policymakers on the pathways that explain the lack of resilience.

Although it is unlikely that an external crisis such as COVID-19 will occur again to the same extent, other threatening events may occur and impact FFs. Understanding how FFs can avoid non-recovery is crucial: it can inform managers on how to deal with stressful events and provide guidance to economic authorities on how to help FFs around the world avoid non-recovery, which affects the economy.

First, the study contributes to FF research by offering a theoretical explanation for the different effects of FF attributes on non-recovery in the context of a global crisis. Second, it contributes to the literature on organizational resilience by examining explorative and exploitative behaviors as antecedents of FF non-recovery. Third, we show the usefulness of combining fsQCA and regression analysis to understand complex phenomena.

本研究擬分析家族企業缺乏復原力的原因。我們的模型暗示了家族企業的策略性行為和異質性是可闡明一個特殊的危機後果：企業未能成功恢復。

我們的證據是建基於一個涵蓋842間歐洲家族公司的樣本。我們以模糊集質性比較分析，去補充迴歸分析的結果。

研究結果顯示，缺乏復原力是有相關性的。事實上，在我們的樣本裡，有百分之六十的家族企業未能恢復其銷售量。研究結果提供了證據，確認了若要闡明缺乏復原力的原因，我們必須瞭解開發和探索行為、以及家族異質性所扮演的角色。

我們的研究結果，或許可為從業人員和政策制訂者提供引導，幫助他們找出缺乏復原力的原因。

雖然像2019冠狀病毒病的外部危機以同樣的程度發生的機會是很微的，但其它有威脅性的事件或會發生，並會影響家族企業; 因此，瞭解家族企業如何能避免缺乏復原力的弊端是非常重要的。這可讓經理瞭解如何處理令人憂慮的事件，亦可為經濟事務當局的高層人員提供引導，幫助他們瞭解如何協助世界各地的家族企業，去避免影響經濟的復原乏力。

首先，本研究在家族企業的探討上作出了貢獻。研究人員在一個全球危機的背景下提出了理論解釋，讓人們明白家族企業的屬性，如何會對復原乏力產生各種影響。其次，本研究在探討組織彈性的文獻方面作出了貢獻，因研究人員對作為引發家族企業復原乏力因素的探索和開發行為、進行了探討和研究。最後，研究人員展示了若要瞭解複雜的事物或現象，把模糊集質性比較分析和迴歸分析結合起來運用是有效的。

This study examines the role of social media adoption (SMA), opportunity recognition (OR) and opportunity exploitation (OE) in mediating the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and the performance of newly established small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in emerging economies, with a particular emphasis on Ghana.

This study adopts a post-positivist philosophical stance and uses a quantitative approach and a survey design. A purposive sampling technique was used to select 336 SME owners and managers from Ghana’s manufacturing, trading and service sectors. Questionnaires were administered to source the empirical data for this study. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to analyse the proposed hypotheses.

The results reveal that EO positively and significantly influences the performance of new-born SMEs. SMA, OR and OE partially mediated this relationship.

This study is a wakeup call to policymakers, practitioners, managers and owners of recently established businesses. Policymakers should provide support and resources for newly established SMEs to adopt effective social media marketing strategies, bolstering their online presence and customer engagement. Simultaneously, they should invest in entrepreneurship education and create an environment conducive to innovation to cultivate an entrepreneurial mindset among fresh SMEs. Business owners and managers should proactively monitor market trends and consumer preferences, adapting their strategies to identifying and seizing emerging opportunities.

This study introduces a significant novelty to previous literature and one of the first to employ the dynamic capability theory to examine the interplay between EO, SMA, OR and OE in influencing the performance of new SMEs in the context of emerging markets. Furthermore, it extends the scope of understanding of the mechanisms through which SMEs can prosper in these dynamic environments. This unique combination of theoretical framework, comprehensive variables and contextual focus sets this study apart from existing research, enriching the literature on SME performance in emerging markets.

This study aims to explore the role of international ambidexterity (IA) in improving the innovation capability of emerging market multinationals. In particular, the main purpose of this research is to study the relationship amongst digitalisation, IA and innovation performance (IP) amongst multinational enterprises in China’s healthcare industry.

The data for this investigation were collected from 134 listed companies in China’s healthcare industry during the study period. This study tested the hypotheses by constructing a two-way fixed-effects model.

The results show that both the balance dimension and the combined dimension of IA have significant positive effects on IP. Digitalisation not only has a direct positive effect on IP but also positively moderates the positive correlation between IA and IP.

Previous studies have not captured the relationship between ambidexterity, digitalisation and IP, and this study helps to fill in the gap and examine these associations in China’s healthcare industry. The results of this study provide valuable insights for healthcare industry managers to understand the role of ambidexterity and digitalisation in innovation in the context of internationalisation.

The health and survival of massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) are of paramount concern to stakeholders. It is essential to understand the usage behaviors of exploitative and exploratory strategies. By combining the typical user experience with psychological mechanisms in MMOGs, this study is devoted to clarifying how technology affordance and digital perfectionistic intention influence reinforcement and variety-seeking orientations of MMOGs use.

This study adopted a sequential triangulation mixed-methods design to explore how diverse usage behaviors of reinforced and varied use in MMOGs are formed. After proposing the theoretical framework from MMOGs affordance, perfectionistic intentions, and diverse use, empirical evidence was initially collected from representative samples through a survey. Qualitative interviews from players in MMOGs and game industry practitioners are conducted to confirm the results, supplement understanding, and gather insights from diverse backgrounds. The quantitative and qualitative inferences are discussed to validate the research focus.

Findings from various perspectives suggest that perfectionistic intentions are critical antecedents of different usage behaviors influenced by affordances provided in MMOGs. Goal-driven affordance with reward and competition, interaction affordance, and identity affordance are key MMOGs affordances and could affect perfectionistic intentions differently. People with different perfectionistic intentions, which are the psychological outcome of MMOGs affordances, possess diverse usage behaviors.

This study is the first to consider diverse usage behaviors in virtual worlds such as MMOGs by combining lenses of perfectionistic intentions and technology affordance. Findings from mixed-methods analysis significantly enrich the research on online game usage behavior, offering valuable theoretical and practical implications for studying usage behaviors within the virtual world.

This paper seeks insights into how multinational enterprises restructure their global supply chains to manage the uncertainty caused by geopolitical disruptions. To answer this question, we investigate three significant geopolitical disruptions: Brexit, the US-China trade war and the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic.

The study uses an inductive theory-elaboration approach to build on Organisational Learning Theory and Dunning’s eclectic paradigm of international production. Twenty-nine expert interviews were conducted with senior supply chain executives across 14 multinational manufacturing firms. The analysis is validated by triangulating secondary data sources, including standard operating procedures, annual reports and organisational protocols.

We find that, when faced with significant geopolitical disruptions, companies develop and deploy supply chain structural ambidexterity in different ways. Specifically, during Covid-19, the US-China trade war and Brexit, companies developed and deployed three distinct types of supply chain structural ambidexterity through (1) partitioning internal subunits, (2) reconfiguring supplier networks and (3) creating parallel supply chains.

The findings contribute to Dunning’s eclectic paradigm by explaining how organisational ambidexterity is extended beyond firm boundaries and embedded in supply chains to mitigate uncertainty and gain exploration and exploitation benefits. During significant geopolitical disruptions, we find that managers make decisions in tight timeframes. Therefore, based on the transition time available, we propose three types of supply chain structural ambidexterity. We conclude with a managerial framework to assist firms in developing supply chain structural ambidexterity in response to geopolitical disruptions.

This study sought to develop an aggregated assessment of the literature on the resource-based view (RBV). The main aim was to map the RBV field based on a systematic literature review (SLR) of 226 academic articles published in refereed journals from 1994 to 2022.

Two bibliometric analysis methods were used: bibliographic coupling and co-citation. These measures are complementary because bibliographic coupling is retrospective in nature and co-citation is forward-looking.

The analysis identified the most influential studies, top-cited articles and journals and six major thematic clusters: RBV, customer orientation and alliance portfolio, resource-based theory, firm performance, entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and dynamic capabilities.

This research was based on a combination of bibliographic coupling and co-citation analysis. The results provide a better understanding of the RBV field’s intellectual structure, which reveals potential new lines of future research.