Search results

New consumers have emerged in North America. These consumers have higher expectations and are more demanding than yesterday’s consumers. Businesses must meet these requirements if they are to hold a competitive place in today’s marketplace. The authors report on research that identifies the key characteristics of the new consumers and suggest worker attitudes and behaviors that must be employed to serve these changing demands. This article also includes a lengthy sidebar that examines the factors that drive consumer attitude change over time.

This paper is an initial attempt to discuss the American institutionalist movement as it changed and developed after 1945. Institutionalism in the inter-war period was a relatively coherent movement held together by a set of general methodological, theoretical, and ideological commitments (Rutherford, 2011). Although institutionalism always had its critics, it came under increased attack in the 1940s, and faced challenges from Keynesian economics, a revived neoclassicism, econometrics, and from new methodological approaches derived from various versions of positivism. The institutionalist response to these criticisms, and particularly the criticism that institutionalism “lacked theory,” is to be found in a variety of attempts to redefine institutionalism in new theoretical or methodological terms. Perhaps the most important of these is to be found in Clarence Ayres’ The Theory of Economic Progress (1944), although there were many others. These developments were accompanied by a significant amount of debate, disagreement, and uncertainty over future directions. Some of this is reflected in the early history of The Association for Evolutionary Economics.

This paper presents a structured literature review of studies on IT-enabled organizational transformation to determine the state of the art and to identify areas for future research.

We collect 201 academic publications on IT-enabled organizational transformation and analyze them from three perspectives: a publication perspective, a research perspective and a conceptual perspective.

From a publication perspective, we identify and synthesize the seminal works to provide a brief history of research on IT-enabled organizational transformation. From a research perspective, we show that studies in this area have seldom been grounded in theory and have predominantly used qualitative approaches, while only a few studies have drawn from quantitative data. From a conceptual perspective, we show that most research has studied higher levels of transformation, especially process redesign.

This review presents the landscape of the literature on IT-enabled organizational transformation, which provides a foundation for future research.

This study aims to integrate Roccas and Brewer’s (2002) social identity complexity theory with the brand symbolism literature to propose a new construct: brand identity complexity (BIC). Different than previous conceptualizations of identity complexity which focus on the degree of internal differentiation of the personal self, BIC focuses on the degree of complexity in the social self and is defined as a consumer’s subjective representation and psychological state of belongingness to multiple identity-constructing brand ingroups. BIC impacts the adoption of new brands as they relate to the social self.

Three experiments were performed to test BIC’s predictive power. Study 1 measures BIC and tests its influence on the adoption of new brands positioned as unique. Study 2 manipulates BIC through priming and tests its influence on the adoption of new brands that appeal to independence. Study 3 also manipulates BIC and examines its influence on the adoption of brand extensions.

Study 1 demonstrates that high BIC consumers are more likely to adopt a new brand that appeals to a unique social self. Study 2 shows that high BIC individuals are more likely to adopt a new brand that appeals to an independent self. Study 3 shows that high BIC consumers are more likely to adopt a brand extension with a low fit to the parent category. All three studies offer evidence of the mediating role of identity-driven payoffs.

The findings suggest that individuals perceive their multiple brand ingroups to be more or less complex. This outcome merges the social identity theory with consumer–brand relationship research and adds to an emerging stream of research that explores personal, situational and cultural differences in the social self and its relation to commercial offers.

Marketers can benefit from the findings by better understanding which brand appeals will be more effective with target consumers and under what conditions.

This research develops a conceptual framework for understanding the development of brand ingroup-based identity complexity.

This paper aims to make use of participatory scenarios to assess the multiple aspects of space with the help of future scenarios.

This paper makes an attempt to appreciate multiple representations of space where past and present experiences merge with future desires and concerns. With the help of one case study, Izmir (Turkey), where a vision of democratic city is developed, the paper shows how future scenarios can provide deeper and richer appreciation of present space, thereby challenging existing spatial practices.

The participatory approach used in the development of scenarios suggests interesting implications to operationalise a more relational concept of space in real planning strategies.

The use of scenarios in strategic planning to identify future possibilities and to make stakeholders aware of uncertainties has been increasingly recognised in planning research and practice.

The appreciation of the multiple aspects of space with the help of future scenarios would enrich the spatial planning practice.

The use of participatory approach to preparing scenarios enables participants to make use of interactive method in social and political discourses.

The use of scenarios to examine various aspects of space that may be relevant in spatial planning has not received similar attention. The latter poses methodological as well as practical challenges for researchers. This paper is an attempt to do just that.

This article investigates the relationship between family ownership and export performance in the context of SMEs while also considering the moderating role of the financial dimension and, in particular, financial constraints and financial flexibility.

We select a sample of 1,132 Italian SMEs to examine through an econometric analysis the role and impact of family ownership and the financial moderating variables being used on their export performance.

The results indicate that there is a U-shaped relationship between family ownership and export performance: the highest levels of export performance correspond to the lowest and highest family ownership levels, whereas when a mixture of family and nonfamily ownership exists, the performance suffers because of “conflicting voices” dominating strategic visions and approaches, harming the firm's export commitment. Moreover, the findings show that lower financial constraints and/or stronger financial flexibility improve the relationship between family ownership and export performance.

Our findings show that the ownership structure is important for export performance; in particular, firms should avoid a mixture between family and nonfamily ownership because it is detrimental to export performance. Moreover, Italian SMEs need to develop sources of financing other than the banking channel, and policy makers should favour this process to overcome financial constraint problems and improve financial flexibility. Limitations concern the use of other econometric approaches and measurement variables to further investigate the connection between family ownership and export performance.

The present study enhances the comprehension of the complex relationship between family ownership and export performance by documenting the relevance of the level of family ownership and considering the moderating role of financial constraints and flexibility.

This study aims to report the descriptive statistics of cost-system obsolescence (CSO) in the Turkish hotel industry and contingent factors that affect the CSO.

To validate the reflective measurement model, first, an exploratory factor analysis in statistical package for social sciences was conducted. Then, a confirmatory factor analysis using maximum likelihood in analysis of moment structures was performed to establish the reliability and validity of the construct measurements.

The results demonstrate that CSO symptoms did not occur frequently in sample Turkish hotels. Turkish hotels were found to operate in intense competition and a significant relationship between competition intensity (CI) and CSO takes place. The hospitability industry has been perceived as rather uncertain. However, perceived environmental uncertainty (PEU) had no significant effect on CSO, and there was no mediation effect on the relationship between CI and CSO. Turkish hotels were found to perform market-orientated activities at a mediocre level. However, no significant relationship was found between market orientation (MO) and CSO. Additionally, Turkish hotels with decentralized decision-making structures and “prospector-type” strategies were found to have less CSO. On average, Turkish hotels have centralized decision-making structures and pursue “analyzer-type” strategies.

This study contributes to previous literature related to accounting information in the hotel industry. It also aims to give additional insight into Turkish hotels’ competitive environment, MO activities, decision-making structures and strategies and their association with CSO.

The study examined CSO in the Turkish hotel industry and factors that affect CSO. The study results provide additional insight into Turkish hotels’ competitive environment, MO activities, hotel structure and strategy. A new model to test CSO was created and validated using structural equation modeling (SEM).

The importance of corporate governance was recognized aftermath the major corporate scandal and regulators all over the world tightened regulations. When Sarbanes-Oxley Act was passed, President of United States George W. Bush proclaimed that “the era of low standards and false profits are over.” Following the path, SEBI (Securities and Exchange Board of India) introduced clause 49 to the listing agreement to enhance transparency and integrity to financial statements. Adequate disclosures thus ensure good governance. The concept of corporate governance is more than a decade old in India. Following Satyam Scandal, Indian Industry groups and regulators advocated a number of reforms which led to MCAs (Ministry of Company Affairs) Corporate Governance Voluntary guidelines 2009 to encourage and guide companies to adopt superior practices like appointing board committees, the appointment and rotation of external auditors, and creating a whistle blowing mechanism. The new Companies Amendment bill made the corporate governance disclosures even more stringent. Hence this is an attempt on our part to construct an objective overall corporate governance score to reflect the whole firm governance practices as per the disclosure requirements of clause 49 of the listing agreement of SEBI as well as the insights from the various academic studies to score each element of corporate governance and study the impact of governance on corporate performance represented by Tobin Q.