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Article
Publication date: 7 July 2023

Habtie Alemnew Belay, Fentaye Kassa Hailu and Gedif Tessema Sinshaw

This study aims to posit that managerial value would be one of the responsible factors for the difference in corporate social responsibility practice among businesses. It then…

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to posit that managerial value would be one of the responsible factors for the difference in corporate social responsibility practice among businesses. It then empirically tested the effect of managerial value, with the moderation of organizational culture, on corporate social responsibility practice.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors have devised a “moderated micro-macro model” type of multilevel model, wherein managerial value took the micro (individual level) predictor variable role, stakeholder-based corporate social responsibility practice the macro (organizational level) outcome variable role and organizational culture the macro level moderating variable role. Because they need the attention of inquiry, large manufacturing firms in the Amhara region of Ethiopia, with a sample size of 53, constituted the organizational level units. The recent performance of the firms against corporate social responsibility practice and organizational culture have been judged by 473 randomly chosen employees. Managerial value has been rated by randomly picked managers, numbered 253. Analytically, Croon and van Veldhoven’s multilevel analytical package and Mplus software suited the designed model.

Findings

The study has revealed that managerial value, indeed, is a potential positive driver of CSR practice, the two managerial value dimensions demonstrated differential effects on corporate social responsibility practice and only one of the organizational culture dimensions, hierarchical culture, played a moderation role in managerial value – corporate social responsibility practice link.

Originality/value

The model and this empirical test have not been previously verified.

Article
Publication date: 30 January 2024

Frank Ato Ghansah and Weisheng Lu

While the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the construction industry, it is still unclear from prior studies about adequately positioning the quality assurance (QA) for the…

Abstract

Purpose

While the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the construction industry, it is still unclear from prior studies about adequately positioning the quality assurance (QA) for the post-pandemic era and future pandemics, especially cross-border construction logistics and supply chain (Cb-CLSC). Thus, this study aims to develop a managerial framework to position the QA of Cb-CLSC during pandemics and post-pandemics by taking lessons from how COVID-19 has impacted the existing QA systems and has been managed successfully.

Design/methodology/approach

This is achieved pragmatically through an embedded mixed-method design involving a literature review, survey and interview from experts within the Hong Kong SAR–Mainland China links, typically known as the world’s factory. The design is further integrated with the partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) approach.

Findings

The study revealed 10 critical managerial practices (MPs) to position the QA to be adequate for the post-pandemic and during future pandemics, with the top three including “strict observance of government regulations (MP1)”, “planning ahead the period of quality assurance with the quarantine days in host countries (MP6)” and “modification of contract to cater for uncertainties (MP4)”. This attained a relatively good percentage agreement of 53% between the industry and academia. However, the top four MPs regarded as very effective include “implementing digital collaborative inspections with subcontractors and trades (MP8)”, “implementing a digital centralized document and issue management system (MP7)”, “strict observance to government regulations, including vaccination of workers, social distancing, use of prescribed nose masks, etc. (MP1)” and “planning ahead the period of quality assurance with the quarantine days in host countries (MP6)”. Two underlying components of the MPs were revealed as policy-process (PP)-related practices and people-technology-process (PTP)-related practices, and these can be modelled into a managerial framework capable of effectively positioning the QA to be adequate during pandemics through to the post-pandemic era.

Practical implications

The findings of this study depicted significant theoretical and practical contributions to the proactive management of QA activities during pandemics through to the post-pandemic era. It could empower organisations to pay attention to smartly and innovatively balancing people, processes, pandemic policy and technology to inform decisions to effectively position the QA for the post-pandemic era and survive the risks of future pandemics.

Originality/value

The study contributes to the body of knowledge in that it develops a managerial framework to position the QA of Cb-CLSC during pandemics and post-pandemics by taking lessons from how COVID-19 has impacted the existing QA systems and has been managed successfully. It is original research with invaluable primary data in the form of surveys and interviews from experts within the Hong Kong SAR–Mainland China links, typically known as the world’s factory.

Details

Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0969-9988

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 29 January 2024

Salifu Yusif and Abdul Hafeez-Baig

This study aims to explore the strategies corporations use in engaging stakeholders to sustain healthy corporate partnerships and create value for the corporate entity and the…

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to explore the strategies corporations use in engaging stakeholders to sustain healthy corporate partnerships and create value for the corporate entity and the society in which they operate and their influence on the corporate manager’s cognitive abilities and decision-making.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors used an interpretive research approach leveraging the strengths of qualitative method of content analysis and comparative and critical analyses to report the results. Interpretive methods incorporate social theories and standpoints that view reality as the social construction of understandable events in the context of organizational communication.

Findings

The findings of this study suggest that corporations are assumed to follow and execute the principles of engaging stakeholders to achieve corporate social responsibility (CSR) claiming to manage a sustainable and responsible business practices that recognize local cultures, human rights and protect the environment. However, little attention has been paid to the cognitive reasoning of the individuals responsible for CSR and corporate sustainability (CS) as opposed to the growing concerns about strategies corporations use in engaging stakeholders to sustain healthy corporate partnerships and create value – especially the processes that take place during engagement and decision-making including cognitive offloading.

Practical implications

Stakeholder engagement requires practical approaches that enable corporations and individuals charged with decision-making responsibilities to understand, respond and fulfill their CSRs. To achieve CSRs, corporations and managers responsible for relevant decision-making would need to involve stakeholders in social performance planning, as social reporting/auditing has long been advocating for preventing managerial biasness, groupthink and increased information dissemination via detailed reporting practices toward more collaborative stakeholder relationships. Thus, it is crucial for corporations to implement enhanced stakeholder and managerial decision-making strategies such as integrative approaches to achieve balance in the trio elements of sustainability as well as the growing use of paradox perspective to understand the nature of the tensions being sought to balance and, in the process, provide opportunity for a better evaluation of complex sustainability issues for innovative approach to resolving them. While cognitive decision-making is at play, in practice, managers tasked with making decisions must ensure the most effective stakeholder engagement strategies that are transparent and inclusive are used.

Originality/value

The main contribution of this study is its argument regarding the tools corporations use in engaging key stakeholders and the cognitive reasoning of the individuals responsible for CSR and CS. The study further contributes to interpreting the integrative approach to achieving balance in the trio elements of sustainability as well as the growing use of paradox perspective to understand the nature of the tensions being sought to balance and, in the process, provide an opportunity for a better evaluation of complex sustainability issues for an innovative approach to resolving them.

Details

Social Responsibility Journal, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1747-1117

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 19 September 2023

Lahcene Makhloufi, Farouk Djermani and Tang Meirun

Drawing upon the natural resource-based view (NRBV), green absorptive capacity (GAC) is the backbone of firm green dynamic capabilities. It converts the developed knowledge into…

Abstract

Purpose

Drawing upon the natural resource-based view (NRBV), green absorptive capacity (GAC) is the backbone of firm green dynamic capabilities. It converts the developed knowledge into knowledge application. Understanding how GAC could benefit corporation environmental performance (EP) is still ambiguous and debated. Hence, this study introduced three facilitator factors, namely, managerial environmental concern (MEC), green innovation performance (GIP) and green entrepreneurship orientation (GEO), in which GAC can improve EP. The study tested the moderation effect of GAC and GEO on the MEC-GEO and the MEC-EP relationships and predicted the mediation effect of MEC, GEO and GIP on the GAC-EP relationship.

Design/methodology/approach

The quantitative study used a self-administered survey and cross-sectional research design; the study collected data from top management employees working in Chinese manufacturing firms.

Findings

The results indicated that GAC positively influences MEC, GEO and GIP, and these last three constructs influence EP. While MEC positively affects GIP, the MEC-GEO relationship was insignificant. The study found that GAC moderates the MEC-GEO relationship, whereas GEO failed to do so between MEC and EP. The results confirm a partial mediation effect between GAC-EP through the three intermediary constructs.

Practical implications

To promote EP, firms GAC should prioritize developing MEC ad GIP. Firms' GEO can exploit eco-friendly opportunities enabled by GAC, a process that bridges the existing knowledge and skills gap between MEC and GEO. GAC is one of the leading green strategic capabilities that help GEO to achieve green business growth and better EP. MEC is the process of facilitating GIP to deliver eco-products and protect the external environment. When MEC failed to address GEO's green business agenda, GEO could not enhance EP.

Originality/value

The study highlights the necessity of GAC to develop firms' green dynamic capabilities to boost EP. The study confirms GAC's vital role in strengthening the manager's environmental awareness and bridging the knowledge gap between GEO and MEC. In addition, GIP can drive entrepreneurial green opportunities and enhance EP when GAC is involved and converts knowledge creation to knowledge applications. Strategically speaking, given the importance of the triple green pillars of the NRBV, GEO would not balance green business growth and EP unless GAC leveled up MEC to match GEO's green business agenda and drive EP.

Details

Management of Environmental Quality: An International Journal, vol. 35 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1477-7835

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 16 February 2024

Martin Leipziger, Dominik K. Kanbach and Sascha Kraus

Small businesses are facing evolving environments, with a resulting need to shift their traditional approaches toward new business models (BMs). Many face difficulties within this…

1086

Abstract

Purpose

Small businesses are facing evolving environments, with a resulting need to shift their traditional approaches toward new business models (BMs). Many face difficulties within this transition process due to their specific resource constraints. Based on this, incremental changes to the BM – business model transition (BMT) – are proposed as comprising a suitable framework for entrepreneurial small businesses.

Design/methodology/approach

This study conducts a systematic literature review (SLR) to cover a broad range of relevant literature within a final sample of 89 articles. The SLR method was chosen to integrate research in a systematic, transparent and reproducible way. For qualitative analysis and framework derivation, the study draws on a thematic ontological analysis.

Findings

The broad search criteria, focusing on BM, incremental BM changes and small businesses, pave the way for a comprehensive overview of multiple research streams of BM concepts (e.g. digital and sustainable BM). The main contribution of this work is the resulting holistic BMT framework, comprising the main parts BM innovation, external antecedents (transition of environment, entrepreneurial ecosystem), internal antecedents (dynamic capabilities, entrepreneurial orientation, resilience, strategy) and output (firm performance).

Practical implications

The framework provides guidance for entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial managers to implement and complete BMT in small businesses. Furthermore, the presented paper sets a future research agenda focusing on small businesses structured according to the derived framework.

Originality/value

This study provides the first SLR of existing BM concepts with a small-business specific perspective on BMI and a focus on various incremental BM changes.

Details

Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1462-6004

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 28 February 2023

Saphurah Kezaabu, Stephen Korutaro Nkundabanyanga, Juma Bananuka and Frank Kabuye

This study’s purpose is twofold: First, to investigate the relationship between managerial competences and Integrated Reporting (IR) practices; Second, to test whether all the…

Abstract

Purpose

This study’s purpose is twofold: First, to investigate the relationship between managerial competences and Integrated Reporting (IR) practices; Second, to test whether all the managerial competences attributes are significantly related to IR practices.

Design/methodology/approach

This study adopts a correlational research design, and is also cross-sectional. Data were collected using a questionnaire survey of 188 manufacturing firms in Uganda. Data were analyzed with the help of the Statistical Package for Social Sciences.

Findings

The study finds that significant associations between managerial competences of knowledge and experience exist with IR practices except for skills. However, experience is the most significant predictor of IR practices. This experience is manifest, among others, in the managers’ ability to get the word out to the public including why the public should be proud of what the company does and about what the company offers and works to make it better.

Research limitations/implications

This study did not control governance variables and yet governance and IR are inextricably associated. Future research should aim at testing the efficacy of investing in governance aspects potentially improving IR. This is because Environmental, Social and Governance investing is predicted to make capitalism work better and deal with the grave threat posed by climate change. The study also focuses on manufacturing firms, and these results may be only applicable to the manufacturing firms in Uganda. More research is therefore needed to further understand the effect of managerial competence attributes on IR in manufacturing firms in other contexts. Well, the results imply that more experienced managers are better placed to embrace IR practices than their less experienced counterparts.

Originality/value

The authors find that managerial experience explains IR practices more than competences and this makes intuitive sense since, for example, better experiential communication potentially minimizes the challenges such as lack of comparability, difficulty in communicating entity-specific information, information not available in a usable format and data errors normally encountered by IR (especially electronic) users. Hence, this study enhances our understanding of the role of managerial competences in the improvement of IR practices using perceptions of report preparers from a developing country where IR is voluntary and where the size of the stock market is small.

Details

Journal of Accounting in Emerging Economies, vol. 14 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2042-1168

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 25 March 2024

Morten Jakobsen

The purpose of this paper is to gain insight into how management accountants can become relevant business partners out of respect for existing locally developed accounts of…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to gain insight into how management accountants can become relevant business partners out of respect for existing locally developed accounts of economic performance for decision-making.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper is based on qualitative semi-structured interviews with local business actors, in this case, families from seven financially successful Danish dairy farms. The casework and the analysis have been informed by pragmatic constructivism.

Findings

The local business actors do not use the official accounting system for ongoing cost-management-related decision-making. Instead, they use several epistemic methods that include locally developed decision models, experiences, rules of thumb and intuition. The farmers use these vernacular accountings to compensate for the cost management illusion that the formal accounting system tends to create. What the study suggests is that when management accountants engage as business partners, they are likely to enter a space where accounting is already present.

Originality/value

This paper argues that local business actors practice epistemic methods where they develop and use vernacular accountings to support their managerial practice, also in the absence of a professional management accountant. These vernacular accountings may lead the local actors into an illusion because the vernacular accountings do not necessarily have an inherent economic logic and theoretical reliability. The role of the management accountant in such a setting is hence to understand, support and advance local epistemic methods. Becoming a business partner requires a combination of management accounting analytical skills and a sense of empathy and sensitivity regarding what is already at play and how this can become an object of discussion without violating the values of the other.

Details

Qualitative Research in Accounting & Management, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1176-6093

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 April 2024

Chomsorn Tangdenchai and Asda Chintakananda

This study aims to examine the relationships among senior managers’ reports of bribery practices, ethical awareness and firm productivity in Thailand. Bribery pervasiveness is…

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to examine the relationships among senior managers’ reports of bribery practices, ethical awareness and firm productivity in Thailand. Bribery pervasiveness is examined as moderating the relationship between bribery practices and ethical awareness. Ethical awareness is examined as a mediating effect of bribery practices and managerial perceptions of firm productivity.

Design/methodology/approach

This study uses a mixed-method approach consisting of interviews with more than 20 senior managers and surveys collected from more than 200 senior managers in Thailand’s manufacturing and construction industries. Hierarchical regression is used to test the hypotheses.

Findings

Senior managers report that their firms are more likely to flout ethical principles when they perceive that their industries feature widespread bribery practices. However, the tests fail to support the hypothesis that the flouting of ethical principles leads to less productivity.

Originality/value

This study contributes to transaction cost economics theory by extending the concept of illegal transaction cost minimization to managerial perceptions of firm productivity. This study also integrates research on bribery rationalization by considering how managerial rationalization and justification of bribery practices impact managerial perceptions of firm productivity and ethical awareness. This research provides managers with an understanding of how attitudes toward ethical conduct and unethical actions impact perceptions of firm productivity.

Details

Society and Business Review, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1746-5680

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 13 December 2022

Ram Asra Khural, Shashi, Myriam Ertz and Roberto Cerchione

This study explores the relationships among sustainability implementation barriers (resource, managerial and regulatory barriers), sustainability practices (sustainable…

Abstract

Purpose

This study explores the relationships among sustainability implementation barriers (resource, managerial and regulatory barriers), sustainability practices (sustainable construction materials, sustainable construction design, modern construction methods and environmental provisions and reporting) and sustainability performance (environmental, economic and social) in hill road construction (HRC).

Design/methodology/approach

Primary data were collected from the 313 HRC practitioners with the help of a questionnaire, and research hypotheses were tested employing structural equation modeling.

Findings

The findings reveal a mixed effect of sustainability implementation barriers. Resource (managerial) barriers are negatively related to all practices except environmental provisions and reporting (sustainable construction materials), while regulatory barriers only negatively impact modern construction methods. On the other hand, all sustainability practices positively impact environmental performance, whereas economic (social) performance is positively influenced by all practices, except environmental provisions and reporting (modern construction methods), and positively affects economic performance.

Originality/value

In order to transform HRC toward sustainability, the barriers to sustainability implementation, sustainability practices and performance need to be understood by practitioners; however, the relationships have not previously been empirically assessed in extant literature. Besides, past research appears to be predominantly focused on the environmental aspect, thereby neglecting economic and social aspects. This study is a modest attempt to bridge these research gaps.

Details

Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, vol. 31 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0969-9988

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 5 April 2024

Mike G. Tsionas

In this chapter, we consider the possibility that a firm may use costly resources to improve its technical efficiency. Results from static analyses imply that technical efficiency…

Abstract

In this chapter, we consider the possibility that a firm may use costly resources to improve its technical efficiency. Results from static analyses imply that technical efficiency is determined by the configuration of factor prices. A dynamic model of the firm is developed under the assumption that managerial skill contributes to technical efficiency. Dynamic analysis shows that the firm can never be technically efficient if it maximizes profits, the steady state is always inefficient, and it is locally stable. In terms of empirical analysis, we show how likelihood-based methods can be used to uncover, in a semi-non-parametric manner, important features of the inefficiency-management relationship using a flexible functional form accounting for the endogeneity of inputs in a production function. Managerial compensation can also be identified and estimated using the new techniques. The new empirical methodology is applied in a data set previously analyzed by Bloom and van Reenen (2007) on managerial practices of manufacturing firms in the UK, US, France and Germany.

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