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Organizational studies fail to examine organizations in terms of the several environments in which they operate, both internally and externally. That is, studies tend to focus on climate, or time, or trust, or leadership. This chapter builds on academic research that discusses organizational environments in ways that show all of these environments are important for organizational understanding, especially for organizational leadership. In particular, this chapter offers a paradigm of understanding organizational leadership realities through multi-level understanding of the organizational environments of climate, knowledge, ethnos, and time.

The chapter first discusses five enviroscapes – climate, knowledge, ethos, time, and leadership. Each of these enviroscapes has two phenotypes – business and commerce. Each of these enviroscapes, with its concomitant phenotypes, is used differently at multiple levels of management and leadership by senior managers, middle managers, and entry-level managers. The scope of organizational reach, in terms of global, regional, and local levels of analysis, provides additional context for the use of enviroscapes. After a review of the theoretical bases for each enviroscape, the chapter applies appropriate theory and models to an extended time case study of land purchase in Indonesia.

Local Chambers of Commerce networks provide small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with an opportunity to access essential information and networking with other businesses, resulting in improved business performance. However, rural SMEs are less likely to participate in these networks and often possess lower performance. This paper aims to examine the relationship between being members of local Chambers of Commerce networks and rural SMEs’ performance by comparing business performance between rural SMEs who are members and non-members of local Chambers of Commerce networks. This paper also further explores difference in business growth plans between rural SMEs members and non-members.

The empirical analysis draws on cross-sectional data of 3,769 rural SMEs in England and Wales from the UK's Government Longitudinal Small Business Survey 2015. Propensity score matching (PSM) is applied to control for selection bias and variations in business characteristics before comparing business performance, measured in terms of annual turnover, sale growth and profitability, between rural SMEs that are members and non-members of local Chambers of Commerce networks.

Our results show that rural SME members of local Chambers of Commerce networks are more likely to grow their sales than non-members. However, they perform as good as non-members in terms of turnover and profitability. The results also emphasise that local Chambers of Commerce networks are crucial for rural SMEs to develop the skills of the workforce and leadership capability of managers, new product/service development and new working practices. Therefore, to enhance rural SMEs' performance, tailoring the services of local Chambers of Commerce to support rural businesses' needs and encouraging rural SMEs to make use of business networks are recommended.

The paper unpacks the relationships between being local Chamber of Commerce membership and business performance, offering lessons for rural SMEs to boost their business performance and growth through participating in local business association networks.

This paper is the first study that explores the comparative analysis of business performance and growth plans between rural SMEs that are members and non-members of the local Chamber of Commerce networks. We provide an empirical evidence-based analysis to existing literature regarding the advantages of being local Chamber of Commerce memberships to enhance business performance in rural areas.

Nowadays, the Internet usage rate is rising continuously with the impact of globalization which has led to a significant increase in the use of e-commerce and social commerce. Since the fast spread of Internet usage, globalization has affected all areas of life. Especially with the Covid-19 pandemic, lots of social, commercial, and economic transformations have occurred, and many activities transferred to online environment worldwide. However, in this period, people try to avoid physical contact, staying at home, and started to use e-commerce and social commerce more than before. Therefore, with Covid-19 pandemic, the structure and the relations of globalization, e-commerce, and social commerce has changed. In this regard, within the pandemic period, globalization is going through a great transformation, and, therefore, commercial activities have to be not only global-oriented but also local-oriented. Since many countries closed their borders to protect themselves, the pandemic period has turned into the global crisis which forced nations and companies to focus on the local environment. In this study, it is argued that advancements in Internet technologies affect globalization; globalization affects e-commerce and social commerce usage positively. But, with the discovery of social media platforms, e-commerce has shifted to customer-oriented social commerce, and this has turned people's tendency toward localization, not globalization, especially with the effect of Covid-19 pandemic period. Also, this study discusses how pandemic period changed globalization, e-commerce, and social commerce from global-oriented to local-oriented.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate how retailing companies use social media, local and mobile commerce in their omni-channel management strategy. This approach, also known as SO-LO-MO, encompasses customer touchpoints that offer numerous available channels to consumers. The paper provides insights from 16 retailers in two countries, thus showing geographical differences in the SO-LO-MO as well as differences depending on product segments.

In order to analyse how retailing companies implement SO-LO-MO, a conceptual framework including 48 SO-LO-MO activities was derived from literature. The empirical validation was built upon qualitative and quantitative data collection by retrieving information from the websites, social media channels and mobile applications (apps). Analyses included triangulated content analysis as well as non-parametric statistical tests.

The research findings enable a comparison of the SO-LO-MO concept between retailers operating in the two countries. The authors were able to reveal similarities and differences in the SO-LO-MO-based omni-channel management strategies. The identified SO-LO-MO practices vary according to different product segments. The authors identified slightly more SO-LO-MO implementation and integration within the German sample. Differences in local commerce between the two samples appear to be statistically significant. Although the differences in mobile and social commerce are not of statistical significance, there are variations in practical usage.

The research focusses on a small sample of retailers from different product segments in two markets.

The findings present the current state of the SO-LO-MO concept from the omni-channel perspective in Germany and Turkey.

In view of a limited theoretical understanding and empirical grounding on the SO-LO-MO concept, the findings provide empirical evidence by assessing innovative omni-channel management practices of leading retailers in various industry segments. Furthermore, the paper proposes a frame of reference for measuring the level of SO-LO-MO implementation from an omni-channel perspective.

Suggest hybrid e‐commerce strategies can take many forms – ranging from approaches with limited interaction between the physical and virtual entities – to where these two modes are inseparable. Investigates theoretical strengths of synergy models, presenting a series of case studies that illustrate that some companies and industries have hybrid strategies. Sums up that contrary to the former e‐commerce rhetoric, distance is not dead and geography still bears an influence on e‐commerce retail activity.

There have recently been considerable changes in the British Chamber of Commerce system, leading to the creation of a network of Approved Chambers and Chambers of Commerce, Training and Enterprise (CCTEs). However, the question of whether British Chambers of Commerce should move further towards the dominant Chamber model of mainland Europe, based on public law status, continues to be debated in academic and practitioner circles. This paper assesses the case for and against such a move, in order to contribute to the understanding of the likely impact of recent changes and possible future reforms to the British Chamber system. Various aspects of British, French and German Chambers are discussed, compared and contrasted in order to consider whether a move to public law status on the part of British Chambers would be in Britain’s best interests.

Citizen participation has attracted attention in the context of decentralization. In a disaster reconstruction process, a business plan for reconstruction can be modified in line with diversified situations of disaster-affected areas by citizen participation. In Japan, the central government makes a decision about the authority in charge of an overall disaster reconstruction and the budget planning, whereas local governments are in charge of creating and implementing a business plan for reconstruction of each local municipality. Therefore, local governments play an important role in organizing citizen participation to realize the reconstruction that fits reality. It has yet to be shown as decentralization reform and citizen participation system in Japan produce the socio-spatial inequality after the Great East Japan Earthquake. However, it remains to be elucidated how local government and community have to operate the institution about citizen participation during the disaster reconstruction process. I have been doing fieldwork on three tsunami-affected sites in Miyagi Prefecture over past 4 years: Onagawa Town, Higashimatsushima City, and Natori City. I have investigated the social processes of making and implementing a reconstruction plan, and citizen participation. The findings from my fieldwork are as follows: First, citizen participation is based on organizing residents at the community level. Second, traditional community organization (such as neighborhood organization abd industrial associations) contribute to organize residents especially in the emergency phase. Third, as the disaster phase moves, local government and community organization need to change the previous participation frame to ensure residents representation and policy legitimacy.

Conventional analyses and policy prescriptions for postwar societies in West Africa typically conflate wartime networks with continued violence and criminal economic activities. However, while posing real problems, these networks also are potential vehicles for economic transformation. As evidence from Liberia and Sierra Leone shows, some of these networks show signs of developing commercial activities outside old political patronage networks based in the national capital. They provide avenues for ex-combatants to gain direct access to economic opportunities in defiance of the control previously exercised by local political insiders. Alongside this unexpected development lies the risk that foreign-sponsored reform programs unintentionally strengthen centrally organized insider networks that are, to many wartime combatants, avenues of privilege and exploitation. The analysis presented here provides a contrast to the view that the survival of wartime associations of combatants is purely negative in its effects on society and the economy. It suggests that appropriate reform strategies should take into account the potential for some of these associations of ex-combatants to develop as more purely business operations and should seek ways to integrate them into the formal economy.

This article reports on an investigation into lack of skills and awareness as barriers to the uptake of e‐commerce by small‐ to medium‐enterprises (SMEs) within the food industry in Queensland, Australia. Interviews were conducted with owners of these businesses. The findings confirm that lack of knowledge and technological skills plus structural issues are barriers to this industry sector’s members engaging in e‐commerce. The findings also support the Wide Electronic Commerce Awareness Network of Excellence’s (WECAN) conclusions that a range of training and development strategies are required to meet the individualised needs of specific industry groups who are moving into e‐commerce.

This study aims to investigate the factors that may hinder or facilitate consumers’ adoption of mobile-commerce (m-commerce) activities in the context of developing countries exemplified here by Oman.

A conceptual model was developed through integrating factors from UTAUT2 (performance expectancy, expectancy effort, social influence, facilitating conditions, hedonic motivation, price value, habit and self-efficacy) and SERVQUAL (system quality, service quality and information quality). Data were collected from 530 Omani m-commerce users through a cross-sectional survey.

The results of the structural equation modelling showed that consumers’ behavioural intention (BI) towards m-commerce adoption was significantly influenced by information quality, habit, performance expectancy, trust, hedonic motivation, service quality, price value and facilitating conditions, in their order of influencing strength, and explained 65.5 per cent of the variance in BI. Unexpectedly, effort expectancy, social influence, self-efficacy and system quality had no significant effect on BI.

This study will explain the currently relatively low penetration rate of m-commerce adoption in Oman, which will help local m-commerce businesses to develop the right organizational strategies, especially related to marketing strategies and developing mobile applications, which will draw the attention of many users.

This is one of the few studies that integrates UTAUT2 with SERVQUAL and tests the proposed model in non-Western cultural contexts. Specifically, in contrast to previous studies, diversity of individuals’ acceptance behaviour is examined in Oman.