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Despite the recent increase in scholarly interest on organizational decline, the theoretical and empirical inquiry into this topic remains largely disintegrated. Therefore, leaders in corporate settings who are confronted with critical strategic management challenges are ill equipped for orchestrating successful turnaround attempts to secure the revival of their organizations. The purpose of this paper is to bridge this gap in the organizational decline literature.

In this paper, the authors undertake a systematic review of the specialized literature with the purpose of providing an updated account of the extant knowledge base and assisting top managers in their efforts of corporate recovery.

Drawing upon the insights from a number of prior literature reviews and the evidence provided in the sampled studies, this research framework offers an in-depth discussion of major antecedents, consequences and moderators of organizational decline.

The authors seek to make a discerned contribution to the field by advancing a multi-domain agenda for future research that may animate the continuous debate on the most effective strategies and leadership practices for surviving firm decline.

Literature reviews are essential tools for uncovering prevalent knowledge gaps, unifying fragmented bodies of scholarship, and taking stock of the cumulative evidence in a field of inquiry. Yet, successfully producing rigorous, coherent, thought-provoking, and practically relevant review articles represents an extremely complex and challenging endeavor. The purpose of this paper is to uncover the key requirements for expanding literature reviews’ reach within and across study domains and provide useful guidelines to prospective authors interested in generating this type of scientific output.

Drawing upon the authors’ own experience of producing literature reviews and a scrutiny of review papers in major management journals, the authors develop an end-to-end process of writing and publishing review articles of high potential impact.

The advanced process is broken down into two phases and seven sequential steps, each of them being described in terms of key actions, required skill sets, best practices, metrics of assessment and expected outcomes.

By tapping into the inherent complexity of review articles and demystifying the intricacies associated with pursuing this type of scientific research, the authors seek to inspire a wealth of new influential surveys of specialized literature.

To date, it remains unclear whether the experiences of large corporations with regard to knowledge transfer and process formalization can be successfully replicated in small companies. In this paper, the authors seek to contribute to the specialized literature on internal knowledge transfer processes and their degree of formalization in the context of small-sized innovative firms.

The authors adopt a multiple case study approach to perform an in-depth comparative analysis of processes deployed to transfer knowledge internally and their degree of formalization, relying on rich narratives shared by informants during the data gathering stage. This sample is composed of five small innovators operating in the software industry in Quebec and Ontario.

The authors identify seven knowledge transfer processes in our sample, namely communities of practice, within project teams, across project teams, non-project related meetings, in-house exchanges with clients, technological devices, and playful activities. Uncovering a high cross-case variation in terms of process formalization, the findings imply that the degree of formalization of intra-firm knowledge transfer processes has no direct bearing on the innovative success of small software companies.

The study sheds new light on the topic of heterogeneity of small organizations from the perspective of knowledge transfer endeavors and provides empirical evidence in support of equifinality for a subset of small-sized innovators from the software sector.

One of the most discernible initiatives of entrepreneurial universities constitutes the launch of innovation centers, where students and alumni can incubate their business ideas and collaborate on innovative projects with the purpose of converting them into start-up ventures. While incubators and accelerators are quintessential in Western academic contexts, educational institutions in emerging economies are lagging behind in the preparation of future-ready business leaders via the establishment of hubs that stimulate entrepreneurial intention and diffusion of innovation.

In this conceptual paper, the authors seek to contribute to the development of entrepreneurial education ecosystems in less advanced regions of the world through the activation of university-based centers of innovation. The authors rely on a general review of the specialized literature to identify best practice insights pertaining to curriculum design and draw on the combined expertise of the authors’ research team in delivering entrepreneurship and innovation (under)graduate courses and executive education programs in emerging countries.

The authors conceptualize the mission, vision and curriculum of an innovation hub that can be adopted by any institution of higher education from transitional and emerging market settings to build powerful entrepreneurial mindsets in the future generation of innovative leaders. The proposed innovation hub curriculum incorporates a number of practically relevant and learning boosting activities, including the “So, You Think You Can Innovate?” competition, networking events and guest speakers and training seminars and workshops.

To keep up with changing industry dynamics and secure the relevance of their programs, institutions of higher education in emerging economies need to embrace entrepreneurial models of instruction. They ought to allocate temporal, physical and mental spaces and infrastructure to students to facilitate the generation of innovative concepts and encourage them toward commercialization.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the literature by examining the generation of collective tacit knowledge (CTK) in organizations through social ludic activities (SLAs) as a specific form of playful micro-practice carried out by employees.

This paper builds upon socially distributed cognition (SDC) and transactive memory systems (TMS) to analyze SLAs’ contribution to CTK creation in the workplace. These theories provide conceptual underpinnings for comprehending how workers self-organize shared activities to store, retrieve and use each other’s tacit knowledge within the collective. An example is provided to illustrate SLAs’ manifestation in an agile-based software development firm.

SLAs may facilitate collective members’ knowing and learning whereby different solutions are sought and potential tactics to cope with work issues are attuned to changing conditions by the collective members at work. Four moderating factors, namely physical proximity, psychological safety, richness of communication pathways and intensity of interactions, are identified and propositions to conceptualize their role in CTK generation through SLAs are formulated.

SLA players’ efforts to solve dysfunctionalities at work are not merely prompted by interdependencies among work-related tasks but also driven by high levels of social embeddedness and interaction among employees. Managers should become more supportive of collective playful activities in their organizations by building a propitious corporate climate for the mobilization of CTK in the workplace. Understanding SLAs as a soft group device where CTK resides, transits, is enacted and continuously metamorphosed represents an important complement to hard devices offered by information systems.

Relying on the notion of SLAs as a means to cope with work concerns, the authors integrate insights from organizational play, knowledge management, SDC and TMS literatures to advance the authors’ understanding of CTK creation through collective playful undertakings at work.

Extant crisis response literature focuses on the survival and adaptation efforts of organizations, leaving the opportunity of deploying more proactive market-shaping strategies unexplored. This paper aims to examine the early strategic responses deployed by air-travel services players for navigating through the COVID-19 pandemic.

Drawing on a qualitative case study and grounded theory methods, this research analyzes how DUBZ – a purposefully selected company operating in the air-travel services sector in the emirate of Dubai (UAE) – responded to the coronavirus disruption.

Using this unique case as a basis for grounded theorizing, a framework was developed for understanding how air-travel service providers can effectively navigate through the crisis – the guard-potentiate-shape model. The advanced model suggests that in times of disruption, industry players should adopt several strategies to: guard against failure; potentiate innovative change; and shape the future design of air-travel services. An outcome of forward-looking shaping strategies that may define the new post-pandemic normal in the air-travel services sector constitutes the idea of “scattered/diffused airports” with a modified design of airport services architecture.

The insights from the grounded theoretical framework contribute to both the empirical research on crisis management and the nascent literature on market-shaping strategies. Air-travel services organizations may learn how to increase their resilience and build new industry normalcy in the post-disruption period.

迈向后COVID-19时代航空旅游服务行业的常态：用于危机导航的GPS（超前部署）模型

先前的危机应对研究集中于组织的生存和适应性工作, 留下开发出部署更积极的市场塑造策略尚未探索的机会。本文的目的是研究空中旅游服务公司为应对COVID-19大流行而采取的早期战略应对措施。

利用定性的案例研究方法, 本研究分析了在迪拜酋长国（UAE）的航空旅游服务行业中特定的公司如何应对冠状病毒的破坏。

使用这个独特的案例作为理论基础, 开发了一个扎根的理论框架, 用于理解航空旅行服务业者如何有效地渡过危机-GPS（超前部署）模型。先进的模型表明, 在混乱时期, 业者应采取多种策略, 以（1）预防失败, （2）加强创新变革以及（3）塑造航空旅游服务的未来设计。前瞻性塑造策略的结果可能定义了航空旅游服务领域后疫情时代的新常态, 构成了“零散的机场”的概念, 并修改了机场服务体系结构的设计。

来自先进框架的见解有助于进行危机管理的实证研究以及有关战略市场塑造的新兴文献。更广泛地讲, 航空旅行服务组织可能会学习如何在灾后时期提高抵御力并建立新的行业常态。

La industria de los servicios de viajes aéreos posterior al COVID-19: El modelo GPS (Proteger-Potenciar-Modelar) para la navegación en situaciones de crisis

La investigación previa de respuesta a crisis se ha centrado en los esfuerzos de supervivencia y adaptación de las organizaciones, dejando sin explorar la oportunidad de implementar estrategias más proactivas para modelar el mercado. Este documento tiene como objetivo examinar las primeras respuestas estratégicas desplegadas por los actores de los servicios de viajes aéreos para navegar a través de la pandemia de COVID-19.

Basándose en una metodología de estudio de caso cualitativo, esta investigación analiza cómo una empresa seleccionada a propósito, que opera en el sector de servicios de viajes aéreos en el emirato de Dubai (EAU), respondió a la disrupción del coronavirus.

Utilizando este caso único como base para la teorización, se desarrolló un marco teórico fundamentado para comprender cómo los proveedores de servicios de viajes aéreos pueden navegar eficazmente a través de una crisis: el modelo GPS (Proteger-Potenciar-Modelar). El modelo avanzado sugiere que, en tiempos de disrupción, los actores de la industria deben adoptar una serie de estrategias para (1) protegerse contra fallas, (2) potenciar un cambio innovador y (3) modelar el diseño futuro de los servicios de viajes aéreos. Un resultado de las estrategias de formación prospectivas que pueden definir la nueva normalidad pos-pandémica en el sector de los servicios de viajes aéreos constituye la idea de "aeropuertos dispersos" con un diseño modificado de la arquitectura de los servicios aeroportuarios.

Los conocimientos del marco avanzado contribuyen tanto a la investigación empírica sobre la gestión de crisis como a la literatura incipiente sobre la modelación estratégica del mercado. En términos más generales, las organizaciones de servicios de viajes aéreos pueden aprender cómo aumentar su resiliencia y construir una nueva normalidad en la industria en el período posterior a la disrupción.

Innovative undertakings play a critical role in the economic value creation and wealth generation of a nation. This paper aims to contribute to the literature that positions innovation at the core of the tourism industry in the context of emerging markets.

The authors adopt a case study approach and draw on secondary sources of data to examine how the UAE is reaping the benefits of innovation to transform itself into a leading international leisure and entertainment hub.

The strategy of significant financial investment in complex mega-projects and major infrastructure development have offered the UAE a relative advantage over other industry giants worldwide. Nonetheless, the local government should continue tapping into the multiple and diverse opportunities that product/service and process innovation has to offer if the UAE ambitions to enhance its competitiveness and acquire the status of a global tourism hub.

While most research efforts to date focused on Western markets, this study contributes to the development of a knowledge base about the role of innovation in the tourism industry in emerging market settings.

Volume-based liquidity ratios suffer from potential measurement bias due to share restriction and may misrepresent actual liquidity. To address this issue, the authors develop two modified metrics, the free-float liquidity and the alternative free-float illiquidity ratios. These measures are well suited to estimate liquidity in the presence of trading constraints, as can be found in closely held/state-owned entities, IPOs/SEOs with lockup restrictions, dual-class share structures and family-owned businesses.

The authors modify the turnover illiquidity ratio, where the number of outstanding shares is scaled by the public free float, and use natural log transformation to normalize free-float liquidity. Our dataset is composed of daily observations for US stocks included in the S&P 500 index over the 2015–2018 period. To test the validity of free-float (il)liquidity ratios, the authors perform a correlation analysis for various liquidity metrics. To examine their empirical efficiency, the authors employ pooled OLS regression models for family firms as a subsample of liquidity-constrained entities, relying on five different identifiers of family-owned businesses.

The authors’ empirical testing indicates that the proposed free-float (il)liquidity ratios compare favorably with other volume-based methods, such as Amihud's ratio, liquidity ratio and turnover ratio. For the subsample of family organizations as a restricted-share setting, the authors report significant coefficients for our free-float measures across all the family firm identifiers used. In particular, as free-float decreases with progressive family influence, the advanced ratios capture an increase (decrease) in perceived liquidity (illiquidity) that is absent in the other benchmarks.

This study allows the authors to inform the ongoing debate on the management and governance of publicly listed companies with various impediments to trade. Traditional measures understate illiquidity (overstate liquidity) as the fraction of free trading shares is limited by design or circumstances. The authors’ proposed free-float metrics offer informational gains for family leaders to aid in their financing decisions and for non-family outsiders to guide their investment choice. As a constrained free float inhibits price discovery processes, the authors discuss how restricted stock issuers may alleviate the attendant negative effects on governance and information opacity.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss issues related to entrepreneurial undertakings of women in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) with the purpose of contributing to the development of context-dependent knowledge of entrepreneurship. Focussing on the life narratives of two expatriate female business-owners who created a common enterprise, the case permits to uncover and critically assess the different stages of the entrepreneurial process in a unique cultural setting.

The authors employed a narrative case study approach to allow for a rich contextual information to emerge from the detailed accounts of individual lives and entrepreneurial experiences of case protagonists. Data were gathered from multiple sources (e.g. interviews, e-mail exchanges, web sites) and subsequently analyzed and coded into prevalent themes by two researchers and one assistant independently, permitting to achieve both data and investigator triangulation.

This case elucidates the entrepreneurial journey of two female expatriates who launched their individual businesses and joined efforts in the establishment of Heels and Deals (H & D), a network that helps UAE-based women-entrepreneurs reach their professional aspirations within a patriarchal society. The cofounders are now at a cross-roads where they have to make a choice between running their own businesses to secure their sustainability and focussing on H & D to lead its international expansion. The narratives of the case protagonists allow contrasting the discovery and creation views of entrepreneurship and examining the role of leadership skills and personality characteristics in entrepreneurial success.

Despite an increasing number of businesswomen in the UAE, little is known about the way they approach the complex entrepreneurial process and deal with challenges and opportunities faced on the road. The case bridges this gap by offering the possibility to reflect on how expatriate female entrepreneurs in a Middle-Eastern context balance multiple trade-offs to succeed in their business-related endeavors.

The purpose of this paper is to seek to contribute to the field of workplace play by introducing the notion of social ludic activities (SLAs) as a specific form of play in organizations.

The conceptualization of SLAs is built upon insights from the practice and organizational play literatures.

SLAs can be deployed not only for productively engaging with work but also as an instrument to resist authority, boycott work or challenge firm contingencies. The particular enactments of SLAs may be influenced by how employees perceive and interpret the organizational climate (i.e. corporate culture, management style, job design and task complexity, and intra-firm interactions) in which they are embedded.

The recognition that emergent forms of play may be conducive to the generation of valuable outcomes without managerial intervention can save managers’ time and efforts required for dealing with potential employees’ resistance. Taking advantage from spontaneous manifestations of play implies understanding the logic of players and creating favorable corporate contexts for the emergence of SLAs rather than attempting to interfere in the natural experiences of flow.

SLAs are conceived as an alternative form of organizational play that is a priori unselfconscious and emergent, inherits autotelic and rational dimensions from prior views of play, draws upon practice insights, and represents the employee perspective.