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This study aimed to address the underexplored domain of organisational vulnerability, with a specific focus on understanding how vulnerability is understood in organisations and the underlying pathways leading to vulnerability.

This study utilised a narrative literature review methodology, using Google Scholar as the primary source, to analyse the concepts of organisational vulnerability in the context of disaster risk studies. The review focused on relevant documents published between the years 2000 and 2022.

The analysis highlights the multifaceted nature of organisational vulnerability, which arises from both inherent weaknesses within the organisation and external risks that expose it to potential hazards. The inherent weaknesses are rooted in internal vulnerability pathways such as organisational culture, managerial ignorance, human resources, and communication weaknesses that compromise the organisation’s resilience. The external dimension of vulnerability is found in cascading vulnerability pathways, e.g. critical infrastructure, supply chains, and customer relationships.

As the frequency and severity of disasters continue to increase, organisations of all sizes face heightened vulnerability to unforeseen disruptions and potential destruction. Acknowledging and comprehending organisational vulnerability is a crucial initial step towards enhancing risk management effectiveness, fostering resilience, and promoting sustainable success in an interconnected global environment and an evolving disaster landscape.

This paper aims to examine the unique Chinese context by analyzing the city labels (e.g. smart city and eco city) used by Chinese local governments at or above the provincial capital level to represent themselves (adopted city labels) and the developmental pathways they actually pursued (adopted developmental pathways).

The authors compared the city brand choices to those anticipated based on their geographic and economic contexts (predicted city labels and developmental pathways) as well as the directives outlined in national planning documents (imposed city labels and developmental pathways). The authors identified ten main categories of city labels used to designate themselves and establish the frequency of their use based on municipal plan documents, economic and geographic data and national plan documents and policy reports, respectively.

The authors discovered that both local economic development and geographic factors, as well as top-down administrative influences, significantly impact city branding strategies in the 38 Chinese cities studied. When these models fall short in predicting adopted city labels and pathways, it is often because cities favor a service-oriented reputation over a manufacturing-focused one, and they prefer diverse, multifaceted industrial images to uniform ones.

The originality and value of this paper lie in its contribution to the academic literature on city branding by developing a predictive model for brand development at the municipal level, with explicit attention to the national-local nexus. The paper’s approach differs from existing research in the first cluster of city branding by not addressing issues of stakeholder involvement or adoption and implementation processes. Additionally, the paper’s focus on the political power dynamics at the national level and urban governance details at the municipal level provides a unique perspective on the topic. Overall, this paper provides a valuable contribution to the field of city branding by expanding the understanding of brand development and its impact on the socioeconomic environment.

The purpose of this paper is to understand how and why small to medium enterprises (SMEs) access knowledge from external actors in general and from higher education institutions (HEIs) in particular and what is the extent to which these knowledge access pathways affect SME innovativeness.

The paper involved both quantitative and qualitative approaches: a survey of 1,226 SMEs and a mini case study to follow-up on issues arising from the survey analysis. Survey data were analysed using both non-parametric and multivariate Poisson regression analysis. The case study was based on a medium-sized manufacturing firm in South Australia.

While there are significant differences between the micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises, the evidence suggests that SMEs generally use “generic” university–industry knowledge transfer pathways (e.g. published research results) rather than university–industry links with high “relational” involvement. More significantly, the results indicate that SMEs are more likely to rely on organisations other than universities and related R&D enterprises for knowledge acquisition like clients/customers or suppliers. While collaboration is most likely to occur within the same state/territory, or Australia, many SMEs also collaborate internationally, usually as part of normal supplier–customer relationships, reinforcing knowledge acquisition from organisationally proximate partners. These findings are also supported by the case study.

This research was limited to surveying SMEs in one geographic (metropolitan) region in Australia. It also does not account for the different patterns of HEI–SME interactions in different industry sectors. There is also only one case study.

First, the research adds to the few field studies that have investigated accessing knowledge for innovation among SMEs. Specifically, the research contributes to an understanding of the heterogeneous roles that different actors play in facilitating knowledge access for improving innovative SMEs outcomes. Second, the research does not treat all SMEs similarly in terms of size effects but instead accounts for differing SME sizes and how this affects their selection of knowledge access pathways. Third, the research contributes to a small number of studies that attempt to understand how HEIs and SMEs can work better together in the context of a regional innovation system, especially one that is relatively less competitive to the larger economy.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the determinants of two distinct geographic pathways to internationalization for small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs). Regional and global pathways are juxtaposed to study the influence on export performance of selected key intangible resources, namely, innovation, human resource management, networking and the firm's experience.

Building upon a resource‐based view of the firm, Tobit regression models are used to test the hypotheses on a sample of 2,657 Italian manufacturing firms.

The paper provides empirical evidence that the determinants of SME export performance vary in line with the geographic scope of internationalization. While product innovation (innovation) positively impacts on SME export performance, irrespective of export destination, other factors do so selectively. For example, location in industrial districts (networking) and the deployment of external managers (human resource management) exclusively exert their positive impact respectively on regional and global export performance. The firm's age (experience) does not seem to guarantee success on regional or global export markets.

Investing in product innovation and hiring specialist non‐family executives are associated with success on global export markets. Industry clustering provides the resources that are useful for internationalization up to a point (export growth in regional markets), but it is not effective in the case of expansion on distant international markets.

Exporting beyond the regional market exposes firms to the liability of foreignness to a greater degree, thus requiring more dedicated and specialized resources and competences. This paper supports the hypothesis that export drivers differ between regional and global markets and calls for a definition of export performance that distinguishes between them.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the development of an eating disorder care pathway for adults with eating disorders, in a northern borough town. It arose out of a need to reduce and address inconsistent access to services and treatment pathways.

The development involved a mapping exercise of current service delivery, a review of the literature on eating disorder care pathways, consultation workshops, the engagement of service users and carers, and the development of draft pathways for patients and carers.

Significant emphasis was on raising awareness, prevention, identification and assessment, treatment and recovery. Two pathways were proposed, one for service users focusing on awareness raising/prevention, identification and assessment, treatment, stabilisation and relapse prevention and one for carers/families focusing on carers being identifiable in their own right to receive support for caring for someone with an eating disorder.

A limitation of the care pathway under development was the difficulty obtaining an accurate figure of the true number of cases of eating disorders in the local area. This, together with the lack of any form of systematic review or meta-analysis of care pathways made identifying the number of people suffering from eating disorders and developing an effective model difficult.

The proposed pathway places significant emphasis on increasing knowledge, incorporating the patient perspective, and enhancing the recognition and understanding of eating disorders in the community. A model was created that could be implemented successfully and identify patients suffering from eating disorders, when the true incidence of eating disorders remains hidden.

The purpose of this paper is to develop and apply a framework that examines the dynamics of internationalization strategies employed by export companies in the agricultural sector of emerging economies over time, with a focus on the locus of destination markets of the Chilean fruit sector. Thus, the objective is to identify conceptual and empirical deviations from existing research on export firms participating in non-agricultural sectors of industrialized countries.

The matrix of multi-nationality developed by Aggarwal et al. (2011) is extended by incorporating the firm category of “host region” and the dimensions scale and time. This framework is utilized to classify 233 Chilean fresh fruit exporters according to their internationalization strategies based on a geographical distribution of their exports. A uni- and bivariate longitudinal analysis is conducted over a seven-year period (2009–2015) to explore the dynamics of this internationalization process.

A significant number (12.75 percent) of firms classified as “host regional” are identified, and thus a clear difference in internationalization strategies when compared to non-agricultural sectors in industrialized countries. Simultaneously, similarities in these sectors can be found. Most firms are “transregionally” (65.12 percent) or “globally” oriented (16.06 percent), mainly following a linear internationalization path when considering the number of export markets. But there is also evidence of “born-global” firms, which mainly follow non-linear internationalization paths in more geographically and psychically distant markets.

The extended framework developed in this research can be applied to future studies, particularly in the case of economies where a significant proportion of firms are predominantly focusing their export strategies on one single international market. Since this study focuses on one national sector as a prime example, further studies on other countries and sectors may provide additional evidence of its generalizability.

Based on the findings, concrete measures have been suggested to aid Chilean policy makers in implementing evidence-based economic policies, as well as Chilean public trade organizations and private export associations in the fruit sector, in relation to services such as training, strategy consulting and trade network development that they provide to export firms.

The study contributes to the existing literature by introducing the firm category “host regional” into the matrix of multi-nationality, and empirically verifies its existence among agricultural export firms in emerging economies. Furthermore, it also shows that even when it might result counterintuitive, firms from the agricultural sector share similarities in internationalization strategies with firms from industrial sectors.

Drawing on an organizational learning perspective, this paper examines the effect of levels of foreign market involvement (intensity and geographic spread) on internationalization outcomes recognizing that the moderating influence of entry-mode learning potential is not well documented in the literature on small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

The sample includes 180 SMEs evenly selected from three industries: biotechnology, software and clothing (60 firms in each industry). The sampled firms employ less than 250 employees and are equally distributed between three developed economies and three emerging economies. All were engaged in foreign business.

The authors find that there is a direct relationship between levels of foreign market involvement and internationalization outcomes. Entry-mode learning potential moderates the relationship between intensity of foreign market involvement and internationalization outcomes but not the relationship between geographic spread and internationalization outcomes.

This study reveals several new insights that help explain the pathway through which foreign market involvement activities are translated into internationalization outcomes.

The authors conclude that the positive relationship between intensity of foreign market involvement and internationalization outcomes is strengthened when SMEs also use an entry mode with a higher learning potential than exporting only.

The relationship between multinationality and firm performance is a central issue in the international marketing and business literatures. Predominantly, this body of research has tried to identify a single, generalized pattern for this relationship. However, despite the vast number of studies, results have been characterized as mixed or inconsistent. In this study, we take a fresh look at this relationship.

We focus on a key inducement to expand firm multinationality – the search for a more efficient way to exploit firm resources, and also on a specific operationalization of multinationality – firm geographic scope. We use a formal analytical model analyzing the trade-off between benefits and costs arising from expanding firm geographic scope and emphasizing the role of lumpy costs emanating from resource indivisibility.

The relationship between geographic scope and performance cannot be confined to a single pattern, but instead, may have any one of a set of patterns: negatively monotonic shape, inverted U-shape, S-shape, M-shape or, multiple-wave inverted U-shape.

The current study offers managers some guidelines to identify which of the above patterns fits their firm's specific case, and to identify the optimal level of geographic scope for their firm.

We conclude that the search for a single, generalized pattern for multinationality-performance is largely futile, whereas the focus on specific inducements and operationalizations for multinationality allows us to explain when and why specific patterns are more likely to occur.

The Papworth Trust and Habinteg Housing Association have just launched the findings of a two‐year research programme into the need for better housing and support for disabled people. A planning model or ‘toolkit’ has been produced based on the approach developed by the researchers (Pathways Research), which can be used by any local authority to evaluate the housing needs of wheelchair users.

This paper aims, using a case study-based research approach, to investigate the role of climate and non-climate drivers in shaping three commercial marine sectors: fishing, aquaculture and marine tourism. Essential elements of climate change research include taking a whole of systems approach, which entails a socio-ecological perspective, and considering climate challenges alongside other challenges faced by resource users.

The analysis is based on information gained using in-depth semi-structured interviews in a coastal community in southeast Australia. Even though climate drivers differ, the economic sectors of this community are representative of many similar coastal communities around Australia.

Results show that at a community level, people involved in, or associated with, marine sectors are aware of climate change impacts on the marine environment. Even though many may not see it as a pressing issue, the potential effect of climate change on business profitability was recognised. Both the profitability of commercial fishing and aquaculture (oysters) was affected through mostly a downward pressure on product price, while marine tourism profitability was mainly affected through changes in the number of visitors.

A case study approach is inherently case study-specific – although generalities from complex system representation, built on local survey respondent observation and knowledge of the combined and linked physical–biological-, social-, economic- and governance drivers. This study shows the importance of a holistic approach; yet, researchers must also consider all community sectors and cross-regional investigations to avoid future resource conflicts.

A number of positive impacts from climate-driven change, mainly from windfall economic benefits of geographically relocated species, were reported for commercial- and charter fishing. However, no positive impacts were reported for the aquaculture- and dive sector. In the aquaculture sector, climate drivers were of great significance in industry participation, while participation in commercial fishing was mainly driven by socio-economic factors.

To ensure the combined marine sectors retain a viable component of coastal communities’ economic focus, there is a need to understand what drives participation in the marine sector, and what the role of climate change is in this. To fully understand the ramifications of climate change in the marine environment, it is essential to understand its impacts across all marine sectors.

Combining the different domains with climate drivers allows for identification and assessment of targeted adaptation needs and opportunities and sets up a comprehensive approach to determine future adaptation pathways.