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This paper aims to empirically investigate how small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have engaged with international network partners during COVID-19 and how the crisis has changed network relationships and resilience depending on pre-COVID relationship strength and, secondarily, on opportunity outlook in a market.

This paper draws on 14 qualitative interviews with managers of New Zealand SMEs from diverse industries and four with industry experts. Rather than generalization, the aim of this exploratory paper is to identify contingency factors, which, under duress, strengthen or break business relationships.

Four main patterns emerge from the data, with respect to how SMEs engaged with network partners depending on the nature of their prepandemic relationships and the extent to which their markets had been affected by the pandemic. During crisis, weak ties either break or remain weak, forcing firms to create new, potentially opportunistic, relationships. Strong ties increase resilience, even under a negative outlook, as network partners support each other, including through the development of new ties. Strong ties can also accelerate business model transformation.

Future large-scale research is needed to test the generalizability of the authors’ findings.

The findings of this paper indicate lessons for business continuation management and future preparedness for major disruptions. Specific insights may help stimulate managerial action to accelerate contingency planning and policy to support SMEs.

This paper is an early study on how weak and strong ties influence SME resilience during crisis.

The economic slump in the southern member states of the Eurozone has brought real estate market activity to a standstill and has raised questions about the future of these markets. Will they rebound and will they command a higher risk premium? This paper aims to assess the outlook for these markets as the crisis continues and analyses the conditions that are a prerequisite to restore investment activity and a healthy occupier market.

Within a portfolio allocation framework, the paper examines the conditions for the revival of investor interest in these markets and the uncertainties that should be resolved. Through the analysis of selected data, the paper assesses the emerging state of these markets.

The economic slump in peripheral Eurozone economies gives way to a period of slow growth and ongoing structural reforms. The latter are necessary to restore confidence in the respective economies and investment markets. Sentiment indicators contain the first signs of a rebound in business confidence. With confidence returning and mitigated macroeconomic risks investors will seek value in the markets of the southern region on a selective basis. Price corrections and yield differentials with core markets could prove attractive. It is, however, argued that a risk premium will remain to reflect progress with structural reforms that will make the economies more competitive and less prone to a similar crisis in the future. It is only when such reforms will firmly be put in place that pricing in the southern Eurozone markets will reflect cyclical risks and diversification contributions.

The article provides a structured approach to assess the outlook for peripheral markets. It identifies the key risks affecting investor confidence. The analysis proceeds to stress conditions that should be satisfied for a rebound in the investment market. Signals from selected data series are extracted to assess sentiment and adjustment in the market and assist in the assessment of real estate market prospects in these economies.

The paper examines conditions for investing in the hard hit markets of the Eurozone. It illustrates the path for the recovery in these markets and the conditions for the rebound in investment volumes. It contributes to the analysis of the growth potential and risk of these markets for investment purposes.

Considering the relationship between the central bank balance sheet and unconventional monetary policy after the 2008 financial crisis, it is crucial to see how the unconventional monetary policy, given near-zero interest rates, affects future stock market performance. This paper analyzes the impact of the Fed's balance sheet size on stock market performance.

To analyze the Fed's balance sheet size's long-term stock market implications, this paper uses the asset pricing framework of market return predictability such as Ordinary least squares (OLS) and Generalized method of moments (GMM) analysis.

Findings in this paper suggest that the Fed's balance sheet size, deflated by asset market wealth, presents evidence of return predictability during 1926–2015 that is robust against standard controls. These results can be explained through the redistribution of risk and the wealth channels of monetary policy transmission. The changing balance sheet size of a central bank (1) affects systemic risk, yields and expectations and (2) signals the future direction of monetary policy and thus economic outlook.

The main implication of these findings is that policymakers should avoid a severe imbalance between a central bank's balance sheet size and assets market wealth.

The empirical evidence in this paper documents a century-old relation between the Fed's balance sheet size and US stock market return using the Fed's balance sheet data for the last 100 years and stock market returns from the Center for research in security prices (CRSP) database.

Trading soft commodities has become increasingly challenging with less liquidity in the market, making it very risky and even more costly. Ongoing geopolitical instability, climate change, complex supply chain and fluctuation in demand and supply resulted in a continued price volatility and market uncertainty. Soft commodity trading businesses are under an increasing pressure to adapt to political, economic and social changes. Therefore, this study explores the relationship between brokers and their buyers in the Algerian soft commodities market, with a particular focus on cereals (wheat) products. This study is based on the analysis of secondary data collected from various sources and anecdotal evidences from brokers of soft commodities in Algeria. The overall strategy of Algeria is to limit its reliance on imports. However, political dysfunction coupled with economic instability appears to discourage domestic and foreign investment and inhibit the development of this soft commodities sector. The brokerage firms of soft commodities (wheat, oils, milk powder, rice, coffee, etc.) are operating in a niche market within an environment of intense competition and highly demanding buyers. The striking success of the brokerage function depends on a close relationship formed between the actors (broker, seller and buyer).

In a feast of differentiation, Tyson Foods slices up more than 57 varieties of chicken products for four different major markets. Instead of selling broilers at 69 cents a pound, Tyson is a Fortune star selling marinated fillets at more than six times as much.

This study aims to synthesize the current literature and present a definition of future smart banking services known as “metaverse banking” as well as to discuss its future potential.

This paper proposes a suitable definition for metaverse banking that includes the important elements of metaverse banking and sheds light on its impending potential from distinct aspects.

Metaverse banking is a banking channel actualized through the integration of metaverse and online banking services, enabled by a mix of numerous advanced technologies, that provides customers with synchronous banking services accompanied with 3D experiences in a virtual world. There is a high likelihood in the future that metaverse banking is able to be marketed intensively yet effectively, and incur progressive demands, as well as progress significantly in terms of development.

This study assists bank managers in understanding metaverse banking better and simultaneously makes them realize the metaverse banking’ growth opportunity which can be pursued.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper to establish a definition for metaverse banking and expound on the upcoming potential of metaverse banking. There is a lack of related literature because this concept is relatively new. This study assists in enriching the concept and providing future research directions.

The use of nostalgia in the marketing domain has been popular around the world. Nostalgia has been considered a complex yet ambivalent emotion, which has ignited curiosity among marketing researchers and practitioners alike. In response to calls from marketing practitioners and scholars to understand nostalgia formation among consumers, this study tracks the evolution of nostalgia concepts in the domains of marketing and, more generally, business management. This study aims to highlight the development of a theoretical framework to integrate existing concepts and offer implications based on understanding nostalgia as a phenomenon among consumers as a tool for marketing practice.

This study is descriptive and inductive in nature. The manuscript is designed and positioned as a conceptual study exploring nostalgia’s journey from the domain of psychology to business management. The study synthesizes concepts of nostalgia from psychology, sociology and business management.

The study reveals that nostalgia in the business-management domain is not perceived in the same way as in psychology studies. It has journeyed through different schools of thought and is now used as an impactful marketing practice. The manuscript offers relevant information to marketing practitioners to improve their nostalgia marketing strategies, such as advertising and promotions, retro-branding, crowd-sourcing and culturally oriented practice. Subsequently, the manuscript offers pointers for understanding consumers across the generations and exploring nostalgia and consumption patterns for future research.

The manuscript offers relevant information about nostalgia to marketing practitioners to improve their nostalgia marketing strategies and proposes avenues for future research to the domain scholars.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, there is no comprehensive paper tracking the journey of nostalgia in business practices and providing directions for future research. This study extends existing literature both by suggesting future research directions and by drawing marketing practitioners’ attention to a conceptual framework for understanding the processes of and relationships with consumer nostalgia, including ways to use consumer nostalgia within marketing practices.

The article aims to analyze the behavior of commercial real estate prices in Europe, with a focus on the post-coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic period. The authors use national and city-level data for the various commercial real estate sectors in ten countries, as well as listed real estate data, to assess any differences across property type and space.

The authors analyze the behavior of commercial real estate prices after the COVID-19 pandemic, emphasizing differences across property types. For that purpose, the authors use national and city-level direct real estate data for the ten largest countries in terms of market capitalization, as well as listed real estate data. The article then turns to discussing the likely trajectory of commercial real estate prices in the future.

The recent rise in interest rates and geopolitical instability have affected prices differently across sectors. Industrial properties benefited from the pandemic, although prices declined significantly in 2022. Residential properties continued their upward price trend and have been the best-performing property type during the last two decades. Retail real estate continued its downward price trajectory. Thus far, office markets do not appear to be significantly affected by structural changes in the sector. The data for listed real estate markets in Europe suggest that markets bottomed out in early 2023.

This paper provides for a better understanding of the behavior of commercial real estate prices in Europe since the COVID-19 pandemic. The authors assess whether the effects found during the COVID-19 crisis were temporary or long-lasting. Also, many economic and political uncertainties have emerged since the beginning of the Ukraine war in February 2022, and it is important to analyze the effects of such uncertainties on commercial real estate prices.

The paper aims to evaluate the real research and development (R&D) options value through the proposed model that can jointly consider the two types of risk management activities, i.e. hedging risks and making use of risks. Hedging is an important risk‐management tool that can diversify R&D risk internally since R&D organizations cannot transfer technological risks to another entity by conventional loss financing methods. Making use of risks means R&D organizations can benefit from proactively managing risks, and then can create management‐flexibility value from the real option reasoning viewpoint.

Using the real options pricing approach, the paper provides an applicable assessment method for R&D projects that can jointly consider the aforementioned two types of risk management activities. The paper also investigates the value‐enhancing effects of R&D risk management activities via interviews survey and secondary data analyses in the pharmaceutical industry of Taiwan.

Through numerical analyses, the results indicate that the hedging management can serve to be effective mechanisms of risk reduction as well as value enhancement for R&D projects. Additionally, the value‐enhancing effect of hedging management is more significant for those R&D projects with even higher risk‐level. The results of empirical study also are consistent with the model prediction.

To achieve great performance of R&D risk management, R&D organizations need to implement both the types of risk management activities. By this real‐options valuation approach incorporating together those risk management activities, R&D projects portfolio can be evaluated adequately.