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This paper aimed to test a proposed framework highlighting strategic green marketing initiatives and how they drive new technology implementation towards green corporate performance, underpinned by institutional isomorphism.

The study used a quantitative method and convenience sampling approach in gathering data using adapted questionnaires to solicit first-hand information from 225 employees of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the tourism and hospitality sector underpinned by the theory of institutional isomorphism.

The study shows that green communication and green strategy alignment have significant predictive effects on new technology implementation. Cultural isomorphism significantly moderated the effects of implementing new technology (i.e. green communication and strategy alignment). In addition, “new technology implementation had a significant predictive effect on green corporate performance”. Meanwhile, the moderation effect of “green creative behaviour on the new technology-green corporate performance dyad was positive but insignificant.”

The study’s novel framework confirms how green communication strategy and green strategy alignment complement cultural isomorphism to explain the impact of new technology implementation on green corporate performance, underpinned by institutional isomorphism.

The purpose of this study is to ascertain the effects of place attachment on brand loyalty. This study further ascertains whether the effects of emotion-based attachment on brand loyalty are stronger for customers who have a positive experience with a restaurant brand. Additionally, the authors investigate whether emotion-based attachment mediates the relationships between identity-based attachments, place dependence and brand loyalty in the restaurant setting.

The authors administered the questionnaire to customers (diners) of restaurants in Ghana, and they were completed via a paper and pencil/pen approach. The authors tested their hypotheses using structural equation modeling.

The findings show that identity-based and emotion-based attachment enhances brand loyalty within a restaurant setting. The results also show that place dependence attachment promotes emotional bonding with restaurant brands. The study's findings also show that place dependence attachment does not have a direct and positive significant effect on brand loyalty except when an emotional response is produced.

Place attachment studies in a restaurant setting are rare. This study thus contributes to the place attachment literature in restaurants setting.

Because of the paucity of empirical research on firm-level capabilities of firms for effective customer involvement, the purpose of this study is to evaluate service firms’ capacity to coopt customers to enhance the innovativeness and firm performance relationship. This study conceptualizes involvement capabilities of service firms as a strategic driver that exploits their internal firm assets, which in turn facilitates the positive relationship between innovativeness and firm performance.

Data were collected from 344 managers of service firms across different sub-sectors in an emerging economy. The study first confirmed the constructs through confirmatory factor analysis before analyzing hypothesized relationships. Regression models were specified with robust standard errors to test the hypothesized relationships.

The study found that involvement capability of service firms helps them to exploit their relational assets and create and manage strong customer participation. Additionally, it was found that involvement capabilities enable service firms to capitalize on the competencies of customers, which in turn improves the outcomes of their innovativeness. The results showed that the interaction between involvement capability and innovativeness enhances firm performance significantly.

Service firms can enhance customer participation in the value creation process by increasing their involvement capabilities. The increase in such capabilities will enhance the innovativeness of service firms, thereby improving their financial and non-financial performance.

This study offers guidance on how a firm’s innovativeness and customer involvement work together within the service operation to enhance firm performance.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the nature and the extent of moderation effect of the regulatory regime and competition, on the innovativeness-performance relationship among financial services firms. Based on the absorptive capacity theory, this study argues that firms must gather adequate knowledge from the external environment (specifically on regulatory systems and competitive landscape) to assist in developing competitive innovation strategies, and to realize the needed performance benefits from such strategies.

Data were collected from the Ghana’s financial services sector with a focus on banking and insurance institutions. Structural equation modeling and regression models were specified to test both the direct effects of variables of interest, and the moderation effects of environmental factors on the independent and dependent variables.

The results of the study show that both process and product innovativeness enhance financial services firms’ performance. While competition was found to stifle innovativeness, regulatory regime was found to promote innovativeness in financial services. Regulatory regime was also found to positively moderate the relationship between process innovativeness and performance, while competition was found to positively moderate the relationship between product innovativeness and performance.

The firms sampled are from an emerging economy with a growing financial services sector, and as a result, the findings may not apply to contexts with different economic characteristics.

This study asserts that in enhancing innovativeness in the financial services markets, firms must recognize the value of new external information on regulatory regime and competition as key environmental factors. Financial service firms must assimilate, transform, and apply such new knowledge in their innovation efforts in order to improve performance. For firms to fully benefit from their innovation, process innovativeness must be aligned with regulatory systems while product innovation yields best returns in competitive periods.

While acknowledging the importance of innovation capability and its potential for creating competitive advantage for firms, the purpose of this paper is to further explain how firms can gain the most from this potential. In the face of the low success rate of innovations and innovation activities in the hospitality sector, this study explains – through the dynamic capability perspective – that building a flexible organization is instrumental in creating competitive advantage out of innovation capabilities.

The study uses data from hospitality firms operating in an emerging economy with a fast-growing hospitality sector. As this study uses survey and statistical methods, the possibility of common method bias is addressed by partial least squares structural equation modeling to test the hypothesized relationships.

The study finds that organizational flexibility (OF) is an important mediator in the relationship between innovation capabilities and competitive advantage. The study explains that building a flexible organization is instrumental in creating competitive advantage out of innovation capabilities in hospitality firms.

This study suggests that relying only on innovation capability offers hospitality firms just a fraction of what would be gained if such capabilities are properly aligned with OF. This is because such alignment generates better response power to changing needs as the firm becomes more mobile, responsive and agile to rapidly identify market trends, adjust internal operations and respond quickly to new market demand.