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This study aims to contribute to fill the gap in the existing absorptive capacity (AC) literature relating to how organizational mechanisms applied both at the national and international level affect a firm’s AC.

A systematic literature review was carried out using analytical articles from two sources – Web of Science and Scopus – aiming to cover as many studies related to the AC research topic.

The results show that the majority of the studies do not include a specific analysis of an organizational mechanism’s role as mediator or moderator of a firm’s AC. The analysis of the reverse knowledge set of mechanisms will provide for international business scholars and practitioners a compilation of specific strategies that MNC apply to improve AC.

The study identifies four sets of organizational mechanisms: external search strategy; organizational knowledge management; reverse knowledge; and mechanisms not orientated to knowledge management; and it describes their specific relationships with AC.

This paper aims to present a systematic literature review (SRL) on the topic of value investing (VI) in the international studies. The purpose of this study is twofold: to highlight the strategic approaches followed in recent contributions in the field of finance connected to the main approaches of the pioneering authors (Graham and Dodd, 1934; Fisher, 1958; Fama and French, 1992; Lakonishok, Shleifer and Vishny, 1994) who have investigated VI; and to analyse whether scholars follow a qualitative approach in studying VI that enables companies to achieve greater competitive advantage..

From a SLR of peer-reviewed papers covering the period 2007-2017, 45 papers were identified and analysed to present a better understanding of the adopted approaches and methodologies compared to the pioneering contributions on the topic.

This search found that 24 out of 45 papers specifically analyse VI. In particular, this work highlights 20 out of 24 papers that directly or indirectly, follow the approaches of “Graham and Dodd” or “Lakonishok, Shleifer and Vishny”/“Fama and French”, and 4 out of 24 that do not follow one of the main approaches identified. After the descriptive findings of the review, this paper highlights that none of the contributions takes into account qualitative analysis of a company to define whether the firm itself does or does not have a sustainable competitive advantage.

This paper suggests to international investors who intend to invest in one or more markets to revise the basic principles of VI, while also considering qualitative elements related to strategic aspects and behavioural finance. In particular, this study suggests that the investor introduce a qualitative analysis to allocate equity in value firms with a lasting competitive advantage.

This study contributes to advance the knowledge of VI from a theoretical point of view. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, it is the first study that systematises the international literature on this topic by highlighting the main contributions written in the period 2007-2017, analysing the development of the pioneering strategic approaches and examining their method of assessing firms.

Dynamic capabilities (DCs) upgrade operational capabilities. However, DC dimensions of sensing, seizing and reconfiguring may combine in different configurations that result in alternative outcomes, depending on the firm's lifecycle stage. The purpose of this research is to explore configurations of DC dimensions during different stages of firms' lifecycles that result in operational marketing and technological capabilities.

Given the limited understanding of how DC dimensions and operational capabilities interact across a firm's lifecycle, the authors employed a multi-method approach to understand whether different configurations of DC dimensions may lead to operational marketing and technological capabilities and how the firm's lifecycle may condition these configurations. The authors first apply PLS path modelling to assess the validity and reliability of the measures. Then, the authors use fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to analyse micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in different growth stages operating in the creative industry within highly competitive and fast-changing environments.

Results show that several configurations of DC dimensions and competitive intensity influence marketing and technological capabilities. Although several configurations include sensing, seizing and reconfiguring, the findings also point to configurations where not all DC dimensions are present.

Improving operational capabilities does not necessarily imply a simultaneous presence of all three DC dimensions. Especially in the growth stage, managers that face resources shortage may only focus on sensing and seizing dimensions when developing marketing capabilities.

This research focuses on configurations of DC dimensions (instead of configurations of different types of DCs) that generate diverse marketing and technological capabilities development paths. The authors provide several equifinal configurations of DC dimensions that lead to operational marketing and technological capabilities. This study contributes to disentangling DCs and their dimensions across different lifecycle stages.

The Waorani are an Amazonian indigenous nationality with a population of 4,000. They inhabit three provinces of Ecuador: Pastaza, Napo and Orellana, and their ancestral lands contain a wealth of natural resources, which attracts the onslaught of the processes of extractivism. Significant social and economic asymmetries have also arisen in the decades since first contact. It is in this context that the Waorani Women's Association was created in 2005. Its main purpose is to end deforestation and illegal hunting of species in Waorani territory by promoting initiatives such as the cultivation of organic cocoa and handicrafts to improve the economy of families and to diminish the reliance on the preponderant economic system of use and abuse of non-renewable resources. This chapter analyzes how the spirituality of the Waorani nationality, manifested by the women who work in cocoa farms and chambira palm crafts, combine syncretism and ancestral knowledge in their daily work. It also analyzes the change of spiritual identity from the first contact with the Summer Language Institute missionaries, and subsequent evangelical, Catholic, Jehovah's Witnesses and the Church of Latter-day Saints missions to their lands.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of strategic communication during a change management process within the internationally famous Ferrari corporation. The aim is to show that strategic communication, through its main components, can be a pivotal lever that supports continuous improvement and helps drive organizational success.

The change management process at Ferrari is described and interpreted through the framework of the entrepreneurial organization theory (EOT), from which the four components of strategic communication are derived.

The paper explores the case of Ferrari, which started a reorganization process in which the main actors were employees and strategic communication represented the crucial component.

This paper focuses on one single organization. Additional research is needed to generalize the effectiveness of the proposed strategic communication model.

The paper shows that the four strategic communication components (i.e. aligning, energizing, visioning, and constituting), if applied in an integrated manner, can give insightful stimulus for the management of important change programs.

The paper contributes to the change management literature by linking strategic communication, continuous improvement and entrepreneurial theory.

Telemedicine has been advancing for decades and is more indispensable than ever in this unprecedented time of the COVID-19 pandemic. As shown, eHealth appears to be effective for routine management of chronic conditions that require extensive and repeated interactions with healthcare professionals, as well as the monitoring of symptoms and diagnostics. Yet much needs to be done to alleviate digital inequalities that stand in the way of making the benefits of eHealth accessible to all. The purpose of this paper is to explore the recent shift in healthcare delivery in response to the COVID-19 pandemic towards telemedicine in healthcare delivery and show how this rapid shift is leaving behind those without digital resources and exacerbating inequalities along many axes.

Because the digitally disadvantaged are less likely to use eHealth services, they bear greater risks during the pandemic to meet ongoing medical care needs. This holds true for both medical conditions necessitating lifelong care and conditions of particular urgency such as pregnancy. For this reason, the authors examine two case studies that exemplify the implications of differential access to eHealth: the case of chronic care diseases such as diabetes requiring ongoing care and the case of time-sensitive health conditions such as pregnancy that may be compromised by gaps in continuous care.

Not only are the digitally disadvantaged more likely to belong to populations experiencing greater risk – including age and economic class – but they are less likely to use eHealth services and thereby bear greater risks during the pandemic to meet ongoing medical care needs during the pandemic.

At the time of writing, almost 20% of Americans have been unable to obtain medical prescriptions or needed medical care unrelated to the virus. In light of the potential of telemedicine, this does not need to be the case. These social inequalities take on particular significance in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In light of the COVID-19 virus, ongoing medical care requires exposure to risks that can be successfully managed by digital communications and eHealth advances. However, the benefits of eHealth are far less likely to accrue to the digitally disadvantaged.