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This paper investigates internal and external barriers influencing the different dimensions of firm service innovativeness and the moderating effect of transformational leadership on these relationships in an emerging economy, namely, Turkey.

The hypotheses were tested using cross-sectional survey data from 148 hotels. The authors use regressions to analyze the data set.

The results demonstrate that barriers to innovation need not necessarily impede firm service innovativeness at all times; some of these so-called “barriers” may even act as catalysts that improve firm’s likelihood of adopting innovations. More importantly, the findings suggest that a transformational leadership style alleviates the negative influence of internal barriers on internal service innovativeness dimensions of process, strategic and behavioral innovativeness.

The positive effect of transformational leadership lessening the detrimental impact of barriers to innovation is a topic in need of research. In addition to examining this phenomenon in a developing country, the authors choose a service retailing industry as a study context: hospitality/tourism. The main reason for choosing this industry is that there is little empirical evidence of service innovation activity in this industry despite the fact that it contributes to a large extent to employment and gross domestic product in most emerging economies, and it is, in fact, a fairly innovative industry. Furthermore, this study presents a unique perspective by investigating small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

The purpose of this paper is to provide a framework for understanding the relationships between resource commitment, management experience, firm size, internationalization, internal export barriers and export performance in firms. Specifically, this paper empirically investigates the impact of resource commitment, management experience, firm size, and internationalization on export performance, using internal export barriers as an intervening variable. These antecedents of export performance are selected because they are constraints that managers have an opportunity to influence. This study is therefore relevant to the managerial process.

A survey design using firms from Ghana was chosen. This was expected to be an appropriate population from which data could be gathered to investigate the authors' hypotheses. In order to test these hypotheses, questionnaires were designed to collect data from small and medium export firms in an emerging market. Data on resource commitment, management experience, firm size, internationalization, internal export barriers and export performance were collected. The data was then analysed by applying path analysis using LISREL 8 in testing the hypotheses.

Results from the study shows that in this market, firm size is related positively to internal export barriers, firm size and internal export barriers are related positively to export performance, and that internationalization is related negatively to export performance. The observation suggests that a large firm size and a good internationalization strategy are the most effective strategic options for enhancing firm export performance in this market. Another observation from the study was that firms in emerging markets lack the needed resource commitment to export.

Results of this study add to prior literature by identifying variables which contribute to the improvement of both internal export barriers and export performance in an emerging market (sub-Saharan Africa). The study provides advice to managers who are trying to improve the export performance of a firm in an emerging market and to policy makers about how an emerging market can improve its export industry.

This research work serves as an important guide for future researchers who intend to study export problems in other emerging economies. Policy makers in emerging economies may refer to this work to identify export problems that firms face in order to provide timely and effective assistance to small and medium scale enterprises engaged in export ventures. The paper believes the benefit of internationalization is realized as managers' leverage the learning opportunities accumulated over the years through exposure to the international market. Managers need to develop considerable capabilities and competencies to identify the specific barriers they must overcome in order to formulate appropriate export strategies.

The objective of this study is to investigate how country risk, different political actions from the government and bureaucratic behavior influence the activities in industry supply chains (SCs) in emerging markets. The main objective of this study is to investigate the influence of these external stakeholders’ elements to the demand-side and supply-side drivers and barriers for improving competitiveness of Ready-Made Garment (RMG) industry in the way of analyzing supply chain. Considering the phenomenon of recent change in the RMG business environment and the competitiveness issues this study uses the principles of stakeholder and resource dependence theory and aims to find out some factors which influence to make an efficient supply chain for improving competitiveness. The RMG industry of Bangladesh is the case application of this study. Following a positivist paradigm, this study adopts a two phase sequential mixed-method research design consisting of qualitative and quantitative approaches. A tentative research model is developed first based on extensive literature review. Qualitative field study is then carried out to fine tune the initial research model. Findings from the qualitative method are also used to develop measures and instruments for the next phase of quantitative method. A survey is carried out with sample of top and middle level executives of different garment companies of Dhaka city in Bangladesh and the collected quantitative data are analyzed by partial least square-based structural equation modeling. The findings support eight hypotheses. From the analysis the external stakeholders’ elements like bureaucratic behavior and country risk have significant influence to the barriers. From the internal stakeholders’ point of view the manufacturers’ and buyers’ drivers have significant influence on the competitiveness. Therefore, stakeholders need to take proper action to reduce the barriers and increase the drivers, as the drivers have positive influence to improve competitiveness.

This study has both theoretical and practical contributions. This study represents an important contribution to the theory by integrating two theoretical perceptions to identify factors of the RMG industry’s SC that affect the competitiveness of the RMG industry. This research study contributes to the understanding of both external and internal stakeholders of national and international perspectives in the RMG (textile and clothing) business. It combines the insights of stakeholder and resource dependence theories along with the concept of the SC in improving effectiveness. In a practical sense, this study certainly contributes to the Bangladeshi RMG industry. In accordance with the desire of the RMG manufacturers, the research has shown that some influential constructs of the RMG industry’s SC affect the competitiveness of the RMG industry. The outcome of the study is useful for various stakeholders of the Bangladeshi RMG industry sector ranging from the government to various private organizations. The applications of this study are extendable through further adaptation in other industries and various geographic contexts.

This exploratory paper investigates internal service from a service management perspective. The objectives were to identify the main internal barriers that are preventing improvements to external service within business‐to‐business (B2B) organisations, to explore the bi‐directionality of internal services provided between internal functions, to assess the quality of internal services provided between functions and develop a means of testing staff and managers for their level of internal versus external focus.

A qualitative study was conducted involving structured interviews in two European countries with 20 staffs and managers from a large international express package delivery firm.

Five findings emerged. First, six main internal barriers to improving external quality were identified. Second, the study found that the barriers in B2B organisations were the same as those in business‐to‐consumer (B2C) organisations. Third, it suggested that internal service, unlike external B2C service, is bi‐directional. Fourth, it demonstrated a perception gap in internal service provision suggesting some degree of arrogance or delusion. Fifth, it demonstrated that the managers and staff viewed their service from an organisational, inside‐out, perspective, despite articulating a desire to provide excellent service to their business customers.

The key limitations were that only one organisation was studied and 20 interviews conducted. The paper provides support for the total quality management approach and suggests that a dual approach combining a service, customer, perspective with an operations, efficiency, perspective might be useful in generating deeper insights to better understand and bring about improvements to the quality of services delivered.

From a practitioner perspective, the findings suggest that managers and supervisors need to develop a better understanding of the performance of internal services.

The paper contributes to the knowledge of internal service, particularly in B2B services.

This study focuses on resolving empirical inconsistencies in the relationship between external search breadth and innovation performance. Based on research on the knowledge-based view and innovation barriers, three internal barriers that weaken the effectiveness of external search breadth are discerned: information, rigidity and financial barriers.

For empirical analysis, the Korean Innovation Survey 2016 of manufacturing firms was utilized. This study defines innovation performance as the number of patent applications and new product introduction that are analyzed through zero-inflated negative binomial and logistic regressions, respectively.

The empirical analysis showed three findings. First, external search breadth has a positive relationship with the number of patent applications but not with new product introduction. Second, financial barrier weakens the positive association of external search breadth with the number of patent applications. Third, the interactions of external search breadth with the three internal barriers are negatively related to new product introduction.

This study makes two theoretical contributions. First, by examining barriers to external knowledge search, this research helps identify potential bottlenecks in this search. Second, the study reveals that the effectiveness of external search breadth may have a boundary in firm innovation by showing that this search affects patent application and new product introduction differently.

Since the 2008 financial crisis, the financial industry is in need of innovation to increase stability and improve quality of services. The purpose of this paper is to explore internal barriers that influence the effectiveness of projects within large financial services firms focussing on potentially disruptive and radical innovations. While literature has generally focused on barriers within traditional technology and manufacturing firms, few researchers have identified barriers for these type of firms.

A framework of internal barriers was developed and validated by means of an explorative case study. Data were collected at a European bank by exploring how innovation is organized and what barriers influence effectiveness of eight innovation projects.

Six items were identified as key barrier for potentially disruptive and radical innovations (e.g. traditional risk-avoidance focus, and inertia caused by systems architecture). As such, in the sample these were more important than traditionally defined barriers such as sources of finance, and lacking exploration competences.

Based on a small number of projects within one firm, the results highlight the need for more in-depth research on the effects of barriers and how barriers can be overcome within this industry.

The results show that there is a discrepancy between the societal demand for radical change within the financial industry and the ability of large financial services firms to innovate. The study identifies which unique internal barriers hamper potentially disruptive and radical innovation in large financial services firms.

The study examines how teachers and school administrative staff perceive external and internal barriers to the implementation of technologies into the teaching process and how teachers and school administrative staff technology readiness is related to these perceptions. These data were used for discussion and construction of an explanatory model.

The data from 8,188 Russian respondents who took the survey just before the first massive lockdown announcement due to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID 19) was used. First, descriptive statistics were shown for two groups: teachers and administrative staff. Second, confirmatory factor analysis was applied to construct external and internal barriers scales. These scales were then used as dependent in a series of regressions with the technology readiness index (TRI) and the respondent role in schools as independent variables.

Results showed that administrative staff compared to teachers were more likely to select internal barriers related to teachers, while teachers were more likely to choose external obstacles. The technology optimism scale was negative, and negative attitudes toward technologies were positively related to both barriers.

The originality of the study lies in determining the relationship between the technology readiness and choosing barriers perception as well as comparing the sense of responsibility for the introduction of technologies in schools experienced by teachers and administrators.

Many management theorists and consultants urge companies to focus on their customers′ needs and satisfaction – this is common to strategic management, the marketing concept, the pursuit of “excellence”, market‐orientation, total quality management, relationship marketing strategies, and service quality theorists. However, in spite of the availability of many techniques and systems for monitoring and measuring customer satisfaction and using it in decision making, there are major implementation problems facing a customer satisfaction strategy which have been totally ignored. An internal market perspective suggests where these implementation barriers may arise inside organizations in ways which directly mirror the external market. Workshop and survey information confirm the existence of powerful but hidden implementation obstacles in the internal market. This leads to the identification of a need for an internal marketing strategy for customer satisfaction that goes far beyond customer satisfaction questionnaires, to confront the behavioural and organizational barriers to delivering customer satisfaction where it matters – in the external customer marketplace.

The environmental performance of organizations has come under public policy limelight since the phenomenal increase of natural resource degradation and industrial waste. Thus, green concepts have been put forward, but the implementation of green practices faces many barriers and challenges. These barriers require attention as organizational practices are negatively affecting the environment leading to global warming and climate change. Therefore, this chapter systematically identifies four internal barriers including inadequate management commitment and support, insufficient technology competence and infrastructure, financial constraints, the uncertainty of economic benefits, and eight sub barriers within an organization concerning green concepts implementation. Moreover, this chapter also identifies four external barriers including lack of stakeholder's interest, inadequate environmental administrative support, scarce academic research, and lack of green collaborative practices, and eight sub barriers outside an organizational context concerning green concept implementation. The barriers in this research were identified by reviewing the existing literature on the topic. This chapter advances the green literature by identifying multiple barriers and challenges to the successful implementation of green concepts in organizations. This is of significance as if these barriers are tackled strategically, it would reduce environmental degradation problems and help make financial gains. Moreover, this research can help managers understand the key barriers to green concept implementation and provide guidance to them when attempting to implement green practices in their organizations. This research would also motivate researchers to extend further investigation on how to overcome such barriers and find out strategies to mitigate the barriers to green concept implementation to effectively address environmental issues.

The purpose of this paper is to compare the effects of organizational and technological barriers to knowledge sharing between large and small firms through the lens of attribution theory.

The structural equation modeling approach was applied to estimate the conceptual model by using survey data from a list of Taiwan’s top 1,000 manufacturing and 500 service companies. A total of 229 valid questionnaires were collected.

The empirical results show that both organizational and technological barriers have relationships with an individual’s effort and ability with regard to knowledge sharing behavior. When organizational barriers occur, the perceived lack of effort has a direct effect on knowledge sharing behavior for large firms, while negative sharing behavior among employees of small firms is influenced by the perception of low ability through the perceived lack of effort.

A review of the literature reveals organizational and technological barriers that lead to the negative influences of internal attributions on knowledge sharing. This study, therefore, contributes to a comprehensive perspective on how to encourage knowledge sharing behavior at different sizes of firms.