Search results

By taking the theory of entrepreneurial legacy as the baseline, this study explores the various aspects of succession planning in indigenous family businesses especially the role of female family members in succession and conflicts in family businesses.

The study is qualitative in nature and adopts narrative inquiry to explore the aspects of succession planning. In doing so, the study utilizes an in-depth interviewing technique with nine participants who run their family-owned firms which are mostly in their second or third generation for analysis.

The findings are concurrent with the literature that indicates a lack of strategic succession planning although ordinary or natural succession does occur in some firms. The study also reports a lack of consideration for female members in succession, daughters in particular, for traditional family firms (FFs) in contrast to entrepreneurial FFs.

The study has many implications for family-owned firms in Pakistan as they need to align their family business with the theory of entrepreneurial legacy and its three strategic activities in order to ensure the longevity of their business.

Exploring how succession planning takes place in family indigenous family businesses and what is the role of female family members in succession and conflicts in family businesses are original contributions of this study.

The study aims to develop a construct to measure talent management (TM) in an organization.

The study adopts a fourfold approach to develop the construct. Data were collected through close-ended questionnaires by conducting surveys from human resource professionals. Exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis techniques were employed to analyze the data and develop the construct.

Results of the study indicate that TM practices are crucial in changing business dynamics. A final 26 items under 5 factors (identification of critical positions, talent acquisition, talent development, talent engagement, and talent retention) were found significant and integrated TM strategies in uncertain economic environments.

This research focuses on the entire process of the TM cycle and develops an integrated construct of TM; thus, the study will provide an in-depth understanding of TM strategies to practitioners and researchers, facilitate researchers for the effective conduct of empirical research work on TM, whereas, for practitioners, this work will support in designing of TM strategies leading to organizational performance.

This is the first research study that has been done in the context of South Asia. It will help build up TM strategies to the necessity of a business environment.

The main objective of this study is to test whether firms with a higher level of intellectual capital (IC) perform better in terms of their supply chain resilience compared to those with lower levels of IC. Likewise, the study also examines the impact of IC (characterized by human capital, relational capital and structural capital) on supply chain resilience directly and through supply chain learning.

Data were collected from the 159 processed-food sector firms using a close-ended questionnaire during the corona virus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM), partial least squares multigroup analysis (PLS-MGA) and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) were used to test a set of hypotheses emanating from a conceptual model of IC and supply chain resilience.

Empirical results revealed a significant influence of all dimension of IC on a firm's supply chain learning and supply chain resilience. Likewise, findings also exhibit a momentous role of supply chain learning in reinforcing the impact of IC on supply chain resilience. Cross-firm size comparison reveals that supply chain resilience of firms with a higher level of IC performed significantly better than those with lower levels of IC. Firms with a higher level of structural capital had a highly resilient supply chain.

Findings of the study imply that IC and supply chain learning should be considered as a strategic tool and should be strategically developed for uplifting a supply chain performance of a firm. The development of IC and supply chain learning (SCL) not only improves the supply chain resilience of a firm but also can help to integrate the internal and external knowledge for harnessing supply chain resilience.

This research study was conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic which provides a unique setting to examine resiliency and learning.

The purpose of the study is to ascertain the mediating role of meaning between servant leadership and work engagement. The study also explores the relationship between servant leadership and work engagement.

The data were collected from 704 service sector employees working in Pakistan through survey design. The data analysis was done through structural equation modeling using PLS-Smart and hierarchical regression using SPSS.

The results revealed that servant leadership was related to meaning and work engagement. Moreover, meaning was found to be related to work engagement. Finally, meaning was found to mediate the relationship between servant leadership and work engagement.

The research has ascertained the previously unexplored mediating role of meaning between servant leadership and work engagement.

This study examines the outsourcing criteria prevalent in the Hotel industry of Pakistan. In doing so, the study investigates the role of trust in the association between relationship marketing dimensions—communication, opportunistic behavior, reputation, satisfactory prior outcomes and specific investment—and third-party logistics provider’s (3PL) selection.

Using a close-ended questionnaire, data were collected from 97 hotels of various categories operating in Pakistan and involved in 3PL outsourcing. Partial Least Square–Structural Equation Modeling was employed to estimate the modeled relationships.

With a high predictive relevance of the model, communication, satisfactory prior outcome and reputation were found to have a significant effect on the trust, whereas the results showed a significant mediating role of trust in the association between communication, reputation and 3PL provider’s selection.

The study uses static data from selected firms and cannot be used to analyze behavior over a period of time. Hence, a generalization of results should be made carefully.

Findings imply that for fully capitalizing on the benefits by virtue of their prospective relationship, the managers must streamline their processes and activities according to path directions that endorse a higher degree of trust in their service providers and establish an effective system of communications interconnecting their mutual goals and objectives.

The outcome of the research study illustrated the perceptions of the local businesses with regards to the 3PL service provider(s) selection via the establishment of trust.

Implementing sustainable practices in multi-tier supply chains (MTSCs) is a difficult task. This study aims to investigate why such endeavours fail and how MTSC partners can address them.

A single-case study of a global food retail company was used in this study. Semi-structured interviews with the case firm and its first- and second-tier suppliers were used to collect data, which were then qualitatively analysed using thematic analysis.

Major barriers impeding the implementation of sustainability in multi-tier food supply chains were revealed such as the cost of sustainability, knowledge gap, lack of infrastructure and supply chain complexity. Furthermore, the findings reveal five possible solutions such as multi-tier collaboration and partnership, diffusion of innovation along the chain, supply chain mapping, sustainability performance measurement and capacity building, all of which can aid in the improvement of sustainability practices.

Future research should investigate how specific barriers and drivers affect specific aspects of sustainability, pointing practitioners to specific links between the variables that can aid in tailoring sustainability oriented investment.

This research supports managerial comprehension of MTSC sustainability, pointing out ways to improve sustainability performance despite the complex multi-tier system of food supply chains.

The research on MTSC sustainability is still growing, and this research contributes to the debate about how MTSCs can become more sustainable from the perspective of the triple bottom line, particularly food supply chains which face significant sustainability challenges.

This study examines the influence of human capital, overall and by dimensions, on the export performance of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the manufacturing sector of Pakistan. The study also investigates the role of absorptive capacity in the relationship between human capital dimensions and export performance.

Data from 586 manufacturing sector SMEs were collected for analysis. The study applied covariance-based structural equation modeling (SEM) to estimate the hypothesized relationships.

As a whole, human capital was found to exert a direct and indirect impact on export performance, particularly for the medium-sized firms and for firms with medium to high levels of export intensities. Nevertheless, not all dimensions of human capital mattered for export performance. Education and training were found to pose the greatest influence on export performance of those firms.

The results suggest that when devising appropriate policies for SMEs, the impact of different dimensions of human capital need to be considered for addressing challenges related to the internationalization of firms. In short, developing the right human capital is essential for SMEs to compete at the international level.

Unlike previous studies, this study decomposed the influence of different dimensions of human capital on export performance and assessed the mediating role of absorptive capacity. The study is also among the pioneering studies in SMEs sector of Pakistan to analyze the role of absorptive capacity in the relationship between various dimensions of human capital and export performance.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-03-2019-0198

This study aims to examine the impact of stakeholder pressure on Islamic banks’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices and financial performance.

A close-ended questionnaire was collected from 282 Islamic bank’s branch managers. Partial least square structural equation modeling was used to test the hypothesized model. Both measurement and structural models were found to be fit for this research.

Results indicate that all components of stakeholder pressure (management, client, competitor, Sharia advisory board and community) have a significant positive impact on Islamic CSR. The findings of this study further revealed that Islamic CSR is a significant predictor of bank’s financial performance. Based on the present empirical results, this study suggests that Islamic bank managers should develop the best CSR practices to gain a competitive advantage and sustainable financial performance.

Overall, this study contributes significantly to the Islamic bank CSR literature. However, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, few studies have been conducted to establish a link between firm performance and CSR in Islamic banks using a comprehensive model of stakeholder pressure.

The purpose of the study is to ascertain the role of servant leadership in causing innovative work behavior. The study also examines the mediating role of job crafting and sequential mediating role of trust and job crafting between servant leadership and innovative work behavior.

The data were collected from 258 knowledge workers employed in software houses in Pakistan through survey design. The data analysis was done through structural equation modeling.

The results of the analysis of 258 respondents show that servant leadership is related with trust, job crafting and innovative work behavior. The mediation analysis revealed that job crafting mediates the relation between servant leadership and innovative work behavior. Finally, the relation between servant leadership and innovative work behavior was found to be sequentially mediated by trust and job crafting.

The current study contributes to delineating the linking mechanism between servant leadership and innovative work behavior. The main contributions of the study are exploring the mediating role of job crafting along with the sequential mediating role of trust and job crafting.